"At age twenty-eight, Mira Ptacin discovered she was pregnant. Though it was unplanned, she soon embraced the pregnancy and became engaged to Andrew, the father. But five months later, an ultrasound revealed birth defects that would give the child no chance of survival outside the womb. Mira was given three options: terminate her pregnancy, induce early delivery, or wait and inevitably miscarry. Her story is woven together with the story of Mira's mother, who immigrated from Poland (also at the age of twenty-eight) and adopted a son, Julian. Julian would die tragically, bringing her a similar, unimaginable grief. A memoir about loss and self-preservation, grief and recovery, mothers and daughters, and the bewildering layover between youth and adulthood, Poor Your Soul is a beautiful rumination on our understanding and acceptance of family, human sexuality, and free will."
