With the laugh-out-loud humor and heartfelt wisdom that made Animal Husbandry a national bestseller, Laura Zigman's second novel introduces Ellen Franck, a successful single career woman whose one desire--a child of her own--throws her into the ever-growing ranks of the "reproductively challenged."

Ellen has a life many people dream about--a glamorous fashion industry job, an apartment in Greenwich Village, good friends--and yet Ellen feels herself at sixes and sevens, filled with a vague longing for...what? She can't say. Then the sight of her newborn niece, Nicole (a.k.a. "The Pickle"), makes her realize exactly what she's been missing: a child. But there's one problem. Malcolm, the man she loves, is too scarred by the long-ago death of his young son to ever consider fatherhood again.

Looking down the barrel of the dark side of thirty-five, Ellen knows that time is passing, and as it does, her desire to have a baby only increases--especially when her sister Lynn announces she's pregnant with her second child. Now Ellen must finally address the very real flaws in her relationship with Malcolm and examine her doubts and fears about the only option that seems to be available--single motherhood. And so begins nine months of reading, Internet surfing, and nonstop Zigmanesque observations about morning sickness, stretch marks, accelerated hair growth, digestion, amniocentesis (and that's just the beginning). And Ellen...well, Ellen finally makes a clear-eyed decision that will change her life.