Finding the Rainbow is a nonfiction memoir written by Rachel McGrath. The author was a successful professional woman who enjoyed her single life and friends through her twenties and into her thirties. When she met the man who would become her best friend, lover and eventually her husband, she saw their relationship as a continuation of that single life. They were both successful and able to afford a lifestyle that included dinners in Michelin star restaurants and vacation trips to exotic locales while still having enough funds left over to put away for their dream house. A random meeting with another couple, who were dining at an adjacent table in a restaurant one evening, started Rachel considering the future and her long-held dream of becoming a mother. The woman was a bit older than Rachel and so far had been unable to conceive, even after several years of active attempts, monitoring and IVF treatments. The woman confronted Rachel directly and almost seemed to demand that she come to terms with her biological clock and diminishing time to start a family. While Rachel felt for the woman and her desperate plight, she found it hard to comprehend the intensity of the woman’s interest in Rachel’s own situation. But her words and predicament struck a chord deep in Rachel’s psyche.

Rachel McGrath’s nonfiction memoir, Finding the Rainbow, charts her and her husband’s efforts to have a child. She shares with the reader her initial ambivalence and realization that the lifestyle she and her husband enjoyed as a childless couple would be changed forever once they started a family. At the same time, she had to consider the dream she had as a child of having her own growing brood by her early twenties and began to wonder if her continued delay would jeopardize her chances of making the dream a reality. I was struck by her honesty and candor as she considered that childhood plan for her future through the eyes of her adult self. Her description of that awful Valentine’s Day dinner when she broached the subject to her husband, and was dismayed by his disinterest in having children, reveals clearly her feeling that childbearing was an imperative. McGrath skillfully weaves the story of their reaching out for the Rainbow Child into a most compelling true-life story. Finding the Rainbow is highly recommended.

Finding the Rainbow by Rachel McGrath is the story of the writer’s journey as she and her husband attempt to seal their union with a baby. This personal memoir details her early life into her mid-thirties and her reluctance to acknowledge her ticking body clock. When she and her husband finally agree that the time is right to enter the new phase of their relationship by starting a family, the road they find themselves travelling is one neither of them expected. This is not just the story of their personal heartache and pain, but examines the attitude of the medical profession, the responses of friends, the support of family, the undeniable love for one another, and the unrelenting determination of a woman who craves the love of her own child.

The author, Rachel McGrath, has written an emotive account of her experiences of infertility, loss, desire, emotional and physical pain, but most of all her inner strength shines through, which helps her to recover from every setback with a positive attitude. This account will touch a chord with anyone who has been through similar experiences and Rachel’s determination and bravery will be an encouragement and inspiration. Hopefully, it may be a wake-up call to some of the medical workers who, by the nature of the work, have perhaps lost some of their empathy for patients who undergo such life-changing and devastating losses. This story may not have the anticipated ending, but it is an alternative ending that shows that life is not always as we plan it but whatever way our journey takes us it can be one of joy and happiness.