When 45-year-old Mari Sarkisian Wyatt, a freelance copy editor, decided to have a third child, she had no idea what she was getting into—except that a woman her age had a success rate of less than 5% without help. Mari wanted to take advantage of her state’s insurance mandate requiring HMO plans offered by large companies to cover infertility treatments. With an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a master’s degree from Stanford, she worked for two years as a grocery bagger for a large supermarket chain in order to receive this coverage. Meanwhile, she interviewed dozens of younger, sometimes desperate women willing to sell their eggs to pay their rent. Pregnant at last, she endured months, then years, of ill effects, risking her health and even her life. Along the way, she met othercouples who had suffered even worse heartache and unimaginable tragedies. After each setback, Mari was faced with one question: Was it worth risking the family she had for the one she wanted?Writing under a pseudonym, Mari is the author of four romances and the co-author (with her now adult son) of two self-help guides for the parents of special-needs children.
