Women's Stories of Divorce at Childbirth: When the Baby Rocks the Cradle. Hilary Hoge. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Clinical Practice Press; 2002. 212 pp. ISBN 0-7890-1292-8.

As a society, we like to believe that love conquers all and, once the right person is found, everything will turn out happily ever after. Children may be a natural result of this happy union and will be welcomed by both parents with open arms. However, with approximately one of every two marriages ending in divorce, this fantasy of "happily ever after" is not a reality for many families, and the results can be quite devastating. This is especially true when, instead of eagerly greeting the addition of a child, one parent decides he or she can no longer be part of the family.

In her book, Hilary Hoge takes on the uncomfortable topic of divorces that occur either before or soon after the birth of a child. She interviewed 17 women who had gone through a divorce during this difficult period, and she uses their stories as the foundation for her conclusions about the nature of divorce, its' psychological and economic aftermath, and how clinicians can help clients heal. Although limited in scope by a lack of diversity in her sample--all were white heterosexual women, within the same age range, and most had college educations--Hoge's book is a first step in discussing a relatively unacknowledged phenomenon. The personal stories of her participants are quite disturbing in that, despite their middle class status and high level of education, the dissolution of their marriages left most of them impoverished and without many resources. Moreover, their desperate circumstances combined with the psychological damage of divorce served to limit their ability to parent their much-anticipated childr en. However, although the personal narratives are disconcerting, they are the strength of Hoge's book, and it is within these stories that the literature truly becomes alive.

For those unfamiliar with the research on the psychological and economic effects of divorce, the book provides an easily understandable presentation of some of the literature on this topic. Hoge does a good job of integrating the research into a coherent whole and then examining how it relates to the personal experiences of the participants in her study. Of particular merit is a discussion of how certain divorces are traumatic for one or both spouses. Much of the literature on divorce talks about the grief surrounding the ending of the marital union, but divorce as trauma is not as frequently mentioned. Consequently, discussion of this aspect of certain divorces is indeed welcome. In the book, Hoge makes a convincing case that divorces in which the decision to separate is unilateral, divorces that are highly conflictual, and divorces in which the reason for leaving is unclear to the partner being left, can all lead to trauma. When children are involved, this trauma can also affect them. Hoge presents evidence that, unlike children of parents who have an amicable or stress-relieving divorce, children who witness a traumatic divorce frequently exhibit long-term psychological damage.