OK, this one is ridiculous good and timely.
I'm glad that more writers are putting work out about reproductive justice and health. It's about time someone talked about this stuff. The authors talk mostly about pregnancy loss, but I find this book to be engaging, passionate and full of well-done research. The tone is informative and gives us an interesting biology lesson, and the writing is also upfront about what you'll find in the book. What's more intriguing is that it takes all of the arguments against reproductive justice and distills it perfectly in the introduction and first chapters. The authors describe the state of American/Western policy and understanding and chalk it to a lexical gap. Language is always going to be finicky, There's so many complicated and emotional reasons and I enjoyed reading the authors present many different viewpoints, but ultimately it's a book about advocacy and breaking stigma while also providing ACCURATE INFORMATION!

A must read.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the DRC

I’m Sorry for My Loss: An Urgent Examination of Reproductive Care in America by Rebecca Little and Colleen Long is a powerful and necessary read that shines a light on the glaring disparities in reproductive care, particularly for Black women. What stood out to me most was how the authors wove together deeply personal stories and hard-hitting data to expose the systemic racism embedded in our healthcare system.

I appreciated how the book didn’t just stop at general critiques but delved into the unique struggles Black women face—showing how their experiences differ starkly from those of white women. The intersection of race and reproductive rights is so often overlooked in these discussions, and Little and Long handle it with the care and urgency it deserves.

The writing is accessible and empathetic, balancing heartbreaking narratives with a call to action that feels both grounded and inspiring. While I think some areas could have gone deeper, especially in proposing systemic solutions, this book still offers a vital perspective that we can’t afford to ignore. A must-read for anyone invested in justice and equity in reproductive care.

Christmas lights & reproductive rights....

I read this over my Christmas break and whew. I was not prepared for the level of fire that would be burning through me. This should ultimately be a textbook for anyone that wants to know anything about the state of women's health in America. I knew. But the level of detail, care, and amount of women's recounts of real life accounts is appalling, disturbing, and shameful. The fact that the strictest abortion laws also have the highest amount of stillbirth rates. When do we as a nation get loud enough to make people understand that the US is doing it wrong. Thank you to Rebecca and Colleen for being the mouthpiece for women who can't or just have not found the courage, YET. And for giving women of every walk of life a platform to be seen and for using names and the names of their children. This book evoked more emotion than any other book I've ever read.

Thank you to Netgalley and their publishing team for allowing me to read this book and give feedback. The only feedback I have is this was a lot of material and a lot of rehashing names and situations that had been addressed in previous sections of the book which in turn made it longer than it had to be. Otherwise. Nonfiction GOLD.

This book is really well thought out and well researched. I rated it five stars and I stand by it. It explores the millions of women every year affected by miscarriage, stillbirth, and medical terminations. It is such a difficult, heavy topic that the authors approach very graciously. They shine a light on how women are unable to make their own decisions and receive adequate medical care since the overturning of Roe vs Wade. They discuss their own heartbreaking stories as well as many others. They also prove that as a society, America has wrongfully considered the unborn more important than already living, breathing women. I think this is a must read for anyone looking for a more compassionate approach to this topic.

I have lost a child to stillbirth and have a deep appreciation for the authors and this magical and important book. Because of my own personal history, it was sometimes a bit rough-going for me, but the book is fabulous and I cannot recommend it -- and the authors, highly enough.

It's amazing today how conversations like these are still hard in certain environments and impossible in others. This book brings to light things that we should know and understand better and also be able to empathize with others in situations we ourselves may not ever be able to put ourselves in. Is it ok to keep an open mind and heart about something another goes through and experiences without ever going through it ourselves - the answer should always be yes!

The timing of this book is fabulous. The topic and the message is hard for some but necessary to all. We need to be more educated and keep listening even when it's something like this that we might have once had a hard time drawn about. I'm so glad I was offered the chance to read this book!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc!

I came for the political and legal exploration of the post-roe world but stayed for the insightful examination of how we as a society deal (or rather don’t) with loss, in the context of pregnancy loss. This is the sort of information that if more people knew it, and rather took the time to understand it and empathize with it, we may not be in the dire straits we are.

This is an extremely timely and important book. It is also interesting to see how it's being marketed. I have seen the subtitle as "An Urgent Examination of Reproductive Care in America", but I've also seen "Undoing our Cultural Ignorance Around Pregnancies that End Without a Baby". This book is very much both things. I was interested reading it from the political angle, looking at how recent political and legal events have affected reproductive health care in the United States. I did not think that the personal aspects around grief and mourning would be as interesting to me, I have never experienced pregnancy loss. However as a woman in mid life, I have so many close friends and family members who have, that I ended up really appreciating this aspect of the book. We are so bad at dealing with loss in our society that discussion of this is just as important as the terrible laws that have been put in place to limit women's health, choice, and in many cases life. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the politics of reproductive health, but I would also recommend it to anyone who has experienced pregnancy loss, and found that the world just did not listen to their grief or their experience. As always the personal is political and this book does a wonderful job of balancing that.

This is a timely book. At points very wordy (like the point could have been made without so much detail). I gained a lot from this book and something like this needs to exist so that women that go through these things can feel validated and seen.

4.5 stars ✨

I’m Sorry For My Loss is a deep exploration into reproductive healthcare and experiences in the US, written by childhood friends who both found themselves in a club no wants to be part of; people who have suffered pregnancy loss. This book examines the issues American women face during pregnancy in a reality after Roe V Wade has been overturned, and how abortion restrictions truly hurt everyone.

I was pleasantly surprised by two things when reading this book: the intersectional lens the authors write through and the sheer amount of research and interviews that were incorporated. The authors stress constantly throughout this book how women of colour overwhelmingly have negative experiences with the healthcare system in relation to pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period, and some of the factors contributing to the higher maternal morbidity and mortality rates. Like most white people (I hope), I am always working on being the best ally I can be and trying to de-centre myself in feminist issues, so I really appreciated the work the authors put in to sharing this perspective and including firsthand accounts from women of colour. Important discussions are also included about people who do not identify as women who experience pregnancy and how they are often erased from the conversation. These were just a sample of a huge stack of interviews that were conducted and weaved into this book, the authors spoke to so many people including other loss parents, medical professionals, abortion and pregnancy loss advocates, and operators of grief support services. I was impressed by how much I learned from this book as someone who already considered myself pretty knowledgeable on the topic.

I was expecting a purely contemporary dissection of abortion rights but I’m Sorry For My Loss has a huge scope spanning hundreds of years, all with the purpose of figuring out how attitudes around abortion and pregnancy loss formed in America. I found this history lesson, if you will, completely engrossing as we explore pregnancy experiences of enslaved women, how birth moved away from an all-female experience as healthcare became increasingly commodified, and the dawn of pharmaceutical contraception. As attitudes towards abortion evolved, so did the way people experienced miscarriages and stillbirths. I particularly liked how they talk about the role capitalism and consumerism has played on pregnancy and birth.

I enjoy a bit of well-placed humour as a respite when faced with confronting topics, but I felt like the authors tried a little too hard on that front. I completely see the vision but a lot of these lighthearted comments just didn’t land. The other thing I didn’t like was a couple of times this book actually plays into misogynistic stereotypes which will always rub me the wrong way, but ESPECIALLY in a book about a woman-centred issue. One I can remember off the top of my head was a snarky comment about women who give birth with a full face of make up… so what?

I have experienced pregnancy loss which is why I read this book and I absolutely connected with it as expected. There were plenty of weepy moments throughout, partly because it dragged up a lot of my own grief, but also because of the way this book talks about the community of families affected by pregnancy loss and how we are essentially tricked into thinking we’re alone in this when that couldn’t be further from the truth. I highly recommend I’m Sorry For My Loss to others who have faced these struggles and want to know more about that experience in the context of the world around us. The authors have done a phenomenal job of helping their community be heard and highlighting real issues in reproductive healthcare.

This should be required reading. It’s informative and heartbreaking and eye opening. You can’t have empathy if you don’t listen to people’s stories. This was a personal read for me but such an important one and I’m glad the voice was given towards this issue

I know a book is going to be good when it starts off with the way language limits or distorts our understanding of a subject. Recommended to absolutely anyone, with or without a uterus, with or without the intention to procreate. It’s ostensibly about pregnancy loss and miscarriage/stillbirth awareness, but that overlaps with many things—abortion, grief, medical misogyny, racial injustice, human rights. The authors treat a sensitive topic with care and respect, and fury when called for.

U.S. laws around women’s bodies, pregnancy, miscarriage, or abortions are rooted in a lack of understanding of how it all works, and it’s no coincidence that the women I know who are anti-abortion were raised with abstinence-only education. As the authors bluntly put it: “if you don’t even really understand how the fetus gets in there, you don’t sweat the details of how it gets out. Birth, miscarriage, abortion—it’s all a mystery.” Books like this go a long way toward rectifying that lack of understanding, and if we’re gonna stop the spiraling reproductive care crisis, it’s not a moment too soon.

How do you review something like this? Two women who are so honest and open about something that has become less and less a personal thing try to balance the fact that this is not something that should be shamed and hidden with the fact that reproductive rights are personal. A good read for anyone concerned with the post-Roe world that has been thrust upon us.

Thank you, NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS (non-fiction) | Sourcebooks books for this book for review. This was a beautiful and heart wrenching book about pregnancy loss in America, Post Wade and how it affects so many people and the choices or lack of choice they have. Pregnancy loss is difficult for anyone to deal with and then when you take away the ability for a person to get the care they need, like Post Wade, people are worse off. There is more shame, there is more loss, there is even the possibility of more death as women's lives are put in danger as we have seen Post Wade.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for an eARC in exchange for my honest review. This book is a dire, time-sensitive examination of post-Roe America. Little and Long walk the reader through an in-depth exploration of reproductive rights, starting with the language used, the history, and the persisting racial and political landscape. There are chapters that touch on legality, social disparities, misconceptions, and the all-out lies weaponized to delegate and dictate bodies. If you want to understand reproductive care in America, this is a one-stop shop.

As this is hitting shelves right before the 2024 election, this book captures a pivotal moment in time. Due to its extensive notes, interviews, and academic sources, I believe this has the makings of a powerhouse when examining reproductive history in the United States. I could easily see it being taught in schools. There are stories and personal accounts that humanize those affected. Despite the weight and grief imbued throughout this book, I sincerely enjoyed reading it. It is a fraught and terrible history. Yet, we persist, and look towards a collective future focused on autonomy and humanity. Beautiful stuff.

I want to also point out that the authors did an excellent job in trying to be inclusive when talking about reproductive rights, specifically from a trans and LGBTQ+ framework: “We respect the fluidity of gender and identity, and we try to allow for fluidity in our language as well. While a lot of these problems are as old as time, the language around gender and binaries is changing quickly. We want to draw attention to the inadequacies of the language while also doing our best to use what is most appropriate in each context.”

I'M SORRY FOR MY LOSS is a timely and necessary addition to the reproductive health conversation. If the authors' goal was to empathize and enrage the audience, then mission accomplished. There was a nice balance of research and personal narratives, punctuated by the gallows humor to break up the heartbreaking stories and data. I appreciated the candor in which the authors openly spoke about their privilege as white women, and the efforts made towards inclusivity with the selected narratives.

All in all, I would recommend this book to my coworkers and friends.

Such a great resource and guide to help fill a gap in women's health and reproductive care. I am absolutely here for more attention on women's issues.

The authors do such a great job connecting themselves to the content and why we should take their word for it. Also, this book does not pull any punches when it comes to current issues and could read as political, but I have always wondered why women's health has to be political?! Basically, just know this isn't completely touchy-feely and sunshine. They keep it real.

Truly enjoyed the genuine voice and feeling like someone was finally hearing me and listening.

The book you need on reproductive health that encompasses it all, with authenticity and companionship. The reproductive journey may not be what you thought it would be, and there is confusion, grief and possibly a lack of support from the medical community and beyond while we are on it. This book can be a helpful resource for women who have been confused, have felt lost or unsupported as they have struggled with their own journey. The authors give much history around the politics of the female body and reproductive health that at this time as really not served the health of the woman. It is honest and filled with compassion and I believe will help many.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

I’m Sorry for My Loss: An Urgent Examination of Reproductive Care in America by Rebecca Little and Colleen Long is a multi-faceted portrait of pregnancy loss. The authors write, “It’s about the hope that no one else ends up almost dead from a miscarriage before medicine will intervene or feels lost and isolated in a confusing knot of grief, or knows nothing of pregnancy loss until it happens to them.” Little and Long are journalists who met in fourth grade. Rebecca Little is a freelance writer and former contributing editor for Chicago Magazine who has written for the Chicago Tribune and other publications. Colleen Long is an Associated Press White House reporter and a former New York City police reporter.


In addition to their professional credentials, both women experienced pregnancy loss as they explain early in the book. “Rebecca has been pregnant six times. She is raising three boys and buried three others. She had a chemical pregnancy, a missed miscarriage at eight weeks, and following this a stillbirth experience in 2014. She would go on to have a medical termination at twenty-three weeks with identical twin boys who had a fatal heart condition in 2015. That delivery would go catastrophically wrong and end with a uterine rupture, a near-fatal hemorrhage, and an emergency hysterectomy.” Colleen, who was living in New York and was six months pregnant, went with her husband for a sonogram and “a doctor she didn’t know came in and told them the baby was dead and she should go see her own doctor. They were quickly shuttled into a taxi and up Manhattan’s West Side Highway, the goop still smeared on her abdomen.” She was told she could wait to go into labor or because she was still within the legal limit in New York State, she could go to an abortion clinic. “They chose the clinic mainly because Colleen felt like if she had to deliver a dead baby, she’d never be able to handle being pregnant again. Colleen’s two subsequent, successful pregnancies “were defined by anxious months of sadness and dread.”

“Different circumstances, different cities, and different women, but very similar emotional and traumatic side effects as we would soon discover.” Their research for the book began with text messages as they continually supported each other. The difference between these two women and other women dealing with such overwhelming loss was that these two were accomplished journalists who began using their skills to bring the sad state of pregnancy loss in America to light. Their research is impeccable, yet they write with humor that makes the book extraordinarily readable. They acknowledge this: “The Venn diagram of laughter, rage, and sorrow is our wheelhouse. We hope to meet you there.” At that, they are eminently successful. While their research, footnotes, stories of other women who experienced loss, and medical explanations fuel this book, it’s their accessibility and snarkiness that made the book most appealing to me. I felt like I was sitting in the room as my daughter and her friends, who had fertility issues, used gallows humor to survive despite their fears. While Little and Long offer their personal feelings, they also cite statistics, lots of statistics, that show why we need to learn about and address our unique problem. They note: “America is the only developed nation where maternal mortality rates are actually increasing. The U.S. has 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, the highest in the developed world. Maternal deaths across the U.S. more than doubled over the course of two decades.” And it’s getting worse.

They also talk about the terms we use and how they influence us. “Nobody throws a fetus shower. Fetus is a medical word devoid of any emotion. But baby? Now that’s evocative. But what’s considered a baby? An infant that’s emerged from the womb? A fetus past twenty weeks gestation? Whatever’s brewing up when the stick turns pink? Or that embryo you are rooting to make it to day five blastocyst at the IVF lab?” Yes, the words we use matter, and Little and Long give us the medical and historical information we need to understand what's at stake in our failing maternal healthcare culture.

Despite all their outstanding research and the numerous interviews they did with women, in the end, for me, it was their Appendix that broke my heart, made me chuckle, and helped me feel that there's hope. The Appendix has two sections of lists: One is titled “Did You Seriously Just Say That To Me?” The other is “Here’s What to Do and Say Instead.” This is where their humor makes us pay attention. One example is their advice on responding to someone saying, “You can always try again/have another baby. You don't know that's true. And whether it is or not is none of your business. Also, babies aren't mufflers; you don't swap one out for another.” I loved this book.

Summing it Up: Read I’m Sorry for My Loss for an intimate, yet fact-based exploration of the deteriorating state of reproductive care in America. Savor it for the way Colleen Long and Rebecca Little make you feel like they're bringing you into their real, wry, irreverent, and heartfelt conversations. This book is important and everyone should read it. Luckily, these women are outstanding writers so their words will capture your attention. You won’t be able to put it down. Select it for your book club and you'll talk for hours.

Rating: 5 Stars

Publication Date: September 24, 2024

Category: Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Nonfiction, Super Nutrition, Sushi with Green Tea Sorbet, Book Club

Author Website: https://www.alittlelong.com/

Interview: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2024/09/23/im-sorry-for-my-loss/

What Others are Saying:

National Public Radio (WBEZ): https://www.wbez.org/books/2024/09/26/pregnancy-loss-stillbirth-book-rebecca-little-colleen-long

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/rebecca-little/im-sorry-for-my-loss/

“Sobering and well researched, this book lays bare major fault lines in a maternal reproductive care system in dire need of radical transformation.... Necessary, thoughtful, and heartfelt." — Kirkus Reviews

Little and Long aim to open a much-needed conversation around pregnancy loss and reproductive health care in America; both survivors of loss themselves, they intend to give words to the experiences of as many other survivors as possible, while providing a historical perspective on how we got to this point, considering the many health and grief challenges faced by pregnant and/or grieving people, and, hopefully, help see a way forward. It's conversational, including inserted comments by one or the other of the authors, because what they want most is to get us all talking about our experiences, risk, grief, and fears. I particularly appreciated the many comments from other survivors and the opening chapter about the words we use to talk about pregnancy loss and the way they need to be dictated by the person experiencing the loss, but also how none of the currently available terms summon up the whole experience. The writers try hard to include everyone. I did feel like the historical sections tended to gloss over some situations and apply a current view to past mindsets, but overall, I think this is a timely book that will speak to many people.

Thanks to the authors, the publisher, and Netgalley for my free earc in return for an honest review. My opinions are all my own.