Armed with a couple books on Buddhism and a fledgling meditation practice, when Cheryl Dumesnil embarks on project pregnancy, she has two goals in mind: parenthood and inner peace. She also has a couple obstacles in her way: she’s a recovering control freak with a wicked fear of failure, and she’s dependent on technology that affords her a five-percent chance at conceiving a baby.

Love Song for Baby X follows Cheryl and her unlawfully wedded wife through four odds-busting conceptions, three miscarriages, a temporarily legal wedding during San Francisco's Winter of Love in 2004, a stint as poster children for the marriage equality movement, and finally the arrival of their longed-for son—after twenty-five hours of labor. Along the way Dumesnil fails often (and comically) in her attempts to cultivate inner peace. Though she struggles mightily with the opposing forces of hope and fear, in the end, she finds the middle ground between them: acceptance.
 
Part baby-quest, part comedy-of-neuroses, part spirtual boot camp, this memoir will resonate with anyone who has wrestled with fate and lost, then gotten back up and asked, "What next?"