Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and Womanhood

‘Haunting, wild, and quiet at once. A shimmering look at motherhood, in all gothic pain and glory. I could not stop reading’ - Lisa Taddeo, bestselling author of Three Women

In 2017 Christa Parravani had recently moved her family from California to West Virginia and was surviving on a teacher’s salary and raising two young children with her husband, screenwriter Anthony Swofford.

Another pregnancy, a year after giving birth to her second child, came as a shock. Christa had a history of ectopic pregnancies, and worried that she wouldn’t be able to find adequate medical care. She immediately requested a termination, but her doctor refused to help. The only doctor who would perform an abortion made it clear that this would be illicit, not condoned by her colleagues or their community.

Christa Parravani has crafted, through her own harrowing experiences with healthcare in contemporary America, a brilliant and moving exploration of the choices women have.