A Note on the Author
Jessica Hepburn is one of the UK’s leading voices on fertility, infertility and IVF. She is the author of the book The Pursuit of Motherhood and writes and speaks widely in the press and media on the subject of assisted conception and alternative routes to parenthood. In 2016, following her ten-year tenure as executive director of the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, she founded Fertility Fest, the world’s first arts festival dedicated to the science of making babies.
Also by the author
The Pursuit of Motherhood
Dear Reader,
The book you are holding came about in a rather different way to most others. It was funded directly by readers through a new website: Unbound. Unbound is the creation of three writers. We started the company because we believed there had to be a better deal for both writers and readers. On the Unbound website, authors share the ideas for the books they want to write directly with readers. If enough of you support the book by pledging for it in advance, we produce a beautifully bound special subscribers’ edition and distribute a regular edition and ebook wherever books are sold, in shops and online.
This new way of publishing is actually a very old idea (Samuel Johnson funded his dictionary this way). We’re just using the internet to build each writer a network of patrons. At the back of this book, you’ll find the names of all the people who made it happen.
Publishing in this way means readers are no longer just passive consumers of the books they buy, and authors are free to write the books they really want. They get a much fairer return too – half the profits their books generate, rather than a tiny percentage of the cover price.
If you’re not yet a subscriber, we hope that you’ll want to join our publishing revolution and have your name listed in one of our books in the future. To get you started, here is a £5 discount on your first pledge. Just visit unbound.com, make your pledge and type swimming5 in the promo code box when you check out.
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Dan, Justin and John
Founders, Unbound
‘To me the sea is like a person –
like a child that I’ve known a long time’
Gertrude Ederle,
the first woman to swim twenty-one miles
across the English Channel
A Note from the Author
The events and interviews in this book largely took place in 2014 and 2015. It felt important to remain true to the story as it unfolded so they are recorded as they happened in the knowledge that the world changes and people’s lives move on.
CONTENTS
Does Motherhood Make You Happy?
The Ray, the Jellyfish and the Macrobiotic Mother