The Match: Savior Siblings and One Family's Battle to Heal Their Daughter

My Sister’s Keeper in nonfiction: a family’s real-life struggle to cure their daughter by creating her genetic match   Katie Trebing was diagnosed at three months old with Diamond Blackfan anemia, a rare form of anemia that prevents bone marrow from producing red blood cells. Even with a lifetime of monthly blood transfusions, she faced a poor prognosis. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Beth Whitehouse follows the Trebings as they make the decision to create a genetically matched sibling using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and in vitro fertilization, and proceed with a risky bone-marrow transplant that could kill their daughter rather than save her. The Match is a timely and provocative look at urgent issues that can only become more complex and pressing as genetic and reproductive technologies advance.

Table of Contents:
Prelude 1 “Mind If I Take One Last Ski Run?” 2 “What Do You Think It Is?” 3 “Never in a Million Years” 4 “This Is a Beautiful Embryo” 5 “For Them, the Dice Are a Bit Loaded” 6 “This Is for Desperate Couples” 7 “We Have Incomplete Information” 8 “I Could Never Do That” 9 “Why Me? Why This?” 10 “I Wish We Hadn’t Done It” 11 “The Easter Bunny Would Be Jealous” 12 “Come On, Baby” 13 “Take an Additional Folic Acid, in Case It’s Twins” 14 “Things Look Really Good” 15 “So Much of Who We Are Happens at the Beginning” 16 “It’s Hard to Tell Parents, ‘Don’t Do This’ ” 17 “There’s No Black-and-White Answer” 18 “We’re Not Going to Stop the Future” 19 “It’s a Boy!” 20 “I Like This Place a Lot” 21 “Now It’s Crunch Time” 22 “You Conceived Your Son for This?” 23 “Will I Get Handcuffed with My Kids?” 24 “This Is Mind-Boggling” 25 “Being a Mom Is the Coolest Gift” 26 “It’s Now or Never” 27 “Bubba’s My Brother” 28 “Good Luck” 29 “Her Body Is Healing” 30 “Why Are You Taking the Lights Down?” 31 “Back Up and Bling-Bling” 32 “It Goes So Fast”

About the Author :
Beth Whitehouse is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for Newsday and an adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Review :
“This is a wonderful story. . . . If a disease was killing your child, would you have another baby to try to save that child’s life? And if you did, would you fear that the new child’s life might be in danger as well? These are some of the very difficult questions that Stacy and Steve Trebing asked themselves before Stacy gave birth to another child, a little boy, who helped their daughter who might otherwise have died. Their story is chronicled in The Match.”—Barbara Walters, The View   “The Match is a thought-provoking, extremely well-researched, and deeply personal account of one of the most controversial ethical dilemmas of our time. . . . A great story, and a remarkable work of journalism.”—Rachel Simon, author of Riding the Bus with My Sister   “The Match is a riveting, vividly written tale of what happens when two powerful forces—parental love and modern science—converge to try to help a very brave child through the deliberate conception of another.”—Liza Mundy, author of Everything Conceivable