Emma Pivato spent her formal career working as a psychologist in various settings and teaching in a graduate program at Athabasca University. She also did some writing along the way, first an edited work, Different Hopes, Different Dreams (1984, 1991), Alberta stories about families having children with developmental disabilities. Later she published some academic and literary articles dealing with topics ranging from philosophical to practical - the development of a specialized wheelchair, for example. In 2013 she published her first Claire Burke mystery novel, featuring individuals with disabilities and other characters with various personality quirks. The 8th volume in this series will be out soon and the 9th is underway. But in the last few years her focus has been on putting together the present memoir ...and along came Alexis, which describes the numerous joys and challenges that Alexis and her family have experienced together.