Seventeen years ago, when Rebecca Thompson endured a string of life-threatening pregnancy losses and rare medical conditions, her training as a physician didn’t protect her from feeling isolated and overwhelmed. What she longed for was a community of women — or even one encouraging story — to reassure her that she wasn’t the only one finding the path to motherhood so complicated.

Deciding to create the community she couldn’t find in her own time of need, Dr. Thompson reached out to friends, patients, and medical colleagues and asked them to share the stories of their personal journeys to parenthood, as well as stories about how their families grew and changed and thrived as they faced challenges far beyond those early years. Held Together (HarperOne) explores the intersections of these brave, resilient women’s lives with Dr. Thompson’s own as they encounter a vast range of unexpected turns and obstacles, including fertility issues, adoption, fostering, surrogacy, multiples, stepparenthood, chronic disease, mental illness, the death of a child, the death of a spouse, and so many moments where grief may threaten to consume us — until joy sometimes surprises us.

The extraordinary stories of ordinary women reveal that, while our individual circumstances may be unique, our experiences are universal in so many ways: we are creating life, raising children, and sustaining families, even as we search for reassurance that we are not alone in our struggles. Held Together offers a place of healing that welcomes every kind of family, a refuge where we make meaning out of our stories and embrace the belief that life can be beautiful in spite of — and often because of — all its complexities and imperfections. Our foundations may not always be strong, but together, we are.

Dr. Thompson will be joined in conversation by Eileen Andersen, a Minneapolis local and Held Together collaborator, whose story recounts her experiences navigating in vitro fertilization, coping with loss, enduring medically-complex pregnancy management, and overcoming infertility — and ultimately reveals the love and persistence that led to the three healthy children that she has today.

Rebecca N. Thompson, MD, is a family medicine and public health physician who specializes in women’s and children’s health. Throughout her career, she has sought opportunities to use written and spoken words to make complex medical topics accessible to a wide range of audiences. HELD TOGETHER is the result of a decade-long collaboration with her patients, friends, and colleagues to share stories of the many ways that family life can take unexpected turns. She trained at Harvard, Stanford, and Oregon Health & Science University and now lives in Portland, Oregon, where she spends her free time wandering through green spaces, reading in cozy nooks, playing unreasonably complicated board games, repurposing found objects, and accompanying her husband and children on all-weather adventures near and far.

Eileen Andersen is a postpartum doula with Real Life Postpartum who relishes helping parents and families during the early days of parenthood—the less-appreciated “4th trimester” of pregnancy. With career experience in educational fundraising and many volunteer hours at her children’s schools, Eileen strives to be the kind of mother who welcomes noisy friends, messy baking projects, glitter-based crafts, and tracked-in mud in her home—and the kind who doesn’t let a day go by without being grateful for her family and their travels together. She lives outside Minneapolis with her husband, two sons, one daughter, and a rotating cast of pets (both permanent and foster), and keeps herself balanced by practicing yoga and spending as much time as possible outdoors.