Martha Beck and Me....

So I got an email today at work saying that Martha Beck would be speaking to one of the classes at our school. I couldn't believe it. She is one of Oprah's right hand writers. She writes articles in the Oprah magazine often. I read her book Expecting Adam, and absolutely loved it. She is now a life coach and will be giving some of our girls some advice on "How to follow their North Star". (Another book of hers). I am kind of excited to be able to see her speak, and I am secretly hoping that Oprah shows up with her to surprise us. I mean we are an at-risk girls school. That is right up Oprah's alley. The only bad part is that she is a Mormon hater. She was raised Mormon and then left the church after being molested by her father. She wrote a book called "Leaving the Saints" with a big Moroni on the cover. But she is pretty Big Time in the Oprah world. I'll let you know how it goes. I hope she doesn't beat up our principal who is Mormon and her garments are always showing. She will be a dead giveaway. Everyone should read "Expecting Adam" if you haven't already....

From the moment Martha and her husband, John, accidentally conceived their second child, all hell broke loose. They were a couple obsessed with success. After years of matching IQs and test scores with less driven peers, they had two Harvard degrees apiece and were gunning for more. They'd plotted out a future in the most vaunted ivory tower of academe. But the dream had begun to disintegrate. When their unborn son, Adam, was diagnosed with Down's Syndrome , doctors, advisers, and friends in the Harvard community warned them that if they decided to keep the baby, they would lose all hope of achieving their carefully crafted goals. Fortunately, that's exactly what happened. Expecting Adam is a poignant, challenging, and achingly funny chronicle of the extraordinary nine months of Martha's pregnancy. By the time Adam was born, Martha and John were propelled into a world in which they were forced to redefine everything of value to them, put all their faith in miracles, and trust that they could fly without a net. And it worked.