Heather Harpham: Life and Death, Love and Family.
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2018
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
She wanted a family, he didn't. What happened next, neither saw coming.
In this week's conversation, Heather Harpham takes us into her whirlwind romance with a writer that led to a seemingly endless series of unexpected turns. Heather always saw her life with children, but her then-boyfriend saw no room for a child. His life was devoted to his craft as a writer. Fate, however, brought them a daughter.
The idea of bringing a child into the world, alone, cultivated emotions ranging from joy to trauma, and eventually cut deep personal divides between the two. Harpham's life was turned upside-down. But, when their daughter was born with a near-fatal illness, the small semblance that was left of Harpham's handle on normalcy was tossed out the window.
In today's conversation, Heather shares her whirlwind romance turned harrowing story of life-and-death motherhood and evolving quest to redefine what family is and can be. This journey is also detailed in her memoir, Happiness: The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Poof! There was a little girl and she was beautiful. I went into that, you know, that inner |
| 0:10.7 | dance of joy, that indescribable euphoria that new parents go into. And that lasted a very |
| 0:18.6 | short time. Before we were interrupted with the news that they were worried about the |
| 0:25.2 | baby and she needed some tests. And it wasn't really more than an hour after they took her to do |
| 0:30.7 | testing that they came back and said she's really in trouble. Her red cells are falling apart. She |
| 0:36.6 | doesn't have enough. So imagine for a moment your young woman coming out of school on the West Coast, |
| 0:46.8 | moving to New York City to make it to build your career to study to go deeper into building a life |
| 0:53.8 | and somewhere along the way you fall in love with a guy. And it's a wonderful mad love affair, |
| 1:00.3 | except there's one really big difference in the way that you see what you want. You want a family |
| 1:06.4 | in kids and you see that as your future and he is deeply devoted to his craft and his career and |
| 1:13.2 | that includes no space for that. And then one day you get pregnant. And that sets in motion a whole |
| 1:22.4 | new story between you. Well, that's what happened to this week's guest Heather Hartman, who's also |
| 1:28.9 | the author of a new memoir called Happiness that details this powerful journey. What happened? |
| 1:34.8 | As she ended up moving back cross country and back home without him and then giving birth to a beautiful |
| 1:42.5 | baby girl and finding out shortly after that things were not okay. And that in fact things were |
| 1:48.7 | quite dire. What unfolds from that moment forward and how she and he dealt with it and how |
| 1:56.4 | eventually the family came to define themselves very differently in the world. That's where we go |
| 2:01.0 | in today's conversation. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project. |
| 2:06.2 | Fancy a fever tree and vodka. Yes, vodka, not gin because this is fever tree Mexican lime soda. |
| 2:22.2 | Yes, soda, not tonic. With Mexican lime and Japanese Yuzu for a zesty, refreshing lime |
| 2:29.9 | just sweet enough. Delicious with vodka or on its own. Fever tree Mexican lime soda mixed with the |
| 2:38.2 | best. Now that hits the spot. Towards the end of my second grad degree, which was in creative writing, |
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