A Book Club That Didn't Include Drunken Gossiping

I joined Mel's book club because I love books to a degree that's possibly unhealthy, and am always happy to read a good book.  We recently read Peggy Orenstein's Waiting for Daisy which I was surprised to find I really enjoy - I say surprised because generally I don't really like IF stories (Ben Elton's Inconceivable was, I thought, utter rubbish.) 

Anyhow, we've been asked to share our thoughts on some questions, so here goes mine.

1) When I read how if one had asked the author 10 years earlier, she would have said that she didn't even want children, I felt better. I guess deep down I always knew that I wanted children, but having had a severely mentally and physically handicapped sister, I was scared. It was comforting to read about another woman's ambivalence and feelings of guilt. When I found out that I was losing ovarian function I could not believe that there was a strong possibility that I would never have a biological child. That spurred in me a determination I had not had in many years.  Have you ever felt ambivalence towards parenthood prior to receiving your diagnosis?

Oh my Lord, yes.  When I was a kid I didn't want kids.  When I was a teenager, being raised under the banner of the bitter divore slogan of "women don't need men for anything except opening the pickle jar, and even that can be achieved with a bit of violence", I loaded up my feminist rhetoric and decided that children = enslavement to the establishment and its ongoing suppression of women (seriously, I went through a very, very hardcore period of time known best as "Man-hating extreme".  I'm absolutely not saying that feminism is the equal to man-hating, but I am saying that I certainly was in both camps.)  Let's just say this-in my feminist studies class, which was led by a bitter divorcee as well, I did my thesis on how I thought all men should be rounded up and put into the state of Nevada, where they would get one hour of air conditioning for every hour they satisfied a woman, as women would be ruling the world.  I got an A. 

As a young adult I took major steps to insure I would never have a biological child, so my infertile diagnosis was never a mystery to me.  I never wanted to have my own child as I honestly truly felt removing myself from the gene pool was the best bet for all involved.  I was going to adopt one child, and as a former man-hater I was convinced I would spend my life alone.  All I wanted to do was be the toughtest, most killer businesswoman known to mankind.  I was going to rule a company, and I was going to prove that a single woman alone could do it.

Then I started to look at babies.

By my mid-twenties, I was ready to accept that having one someday would be ok.

By the time I went through my first IVF-cycle (my ex wouldn't adopt as he said he "simply wouldn't love the child", and we had many a blazing row about that) I was a new person.  I did a complete 180 and realized that I wanted to be a mother.  I didn't care if it was my own child or an adopted child, I just wanted to be a mother.  Years of therapy taught me that I can be an ok person, and I didn't have to run from wanting a child just because the person I used to be was so broken.  I do worry a great deal about a lot of what Aidan says-in my life, I tend to just adapt.  Lots of things in my life have been truly and profoundly awful, and I've learnt to just bend and take things.  He worries that we will lose a lot of our lives in having children, but I see it as simply bending and taking them on with the rest of our lives.  We'll see how it all pans out.

So when Peggy said she put having children off, was ambivalent, thought it wasn't for her, didn't see the point as she had a career and travel, etc., I nodded my head.  I did that, too.  And when she one day realized how badly she wanted to be a mother, I nodded my head again.  I realized that one day, too.

2) In the epilogue, Orenstein struggles with what might be called the mythology of infertility: the messages and assumptions that it's all worth it in the end; that it's a matter of luck (the chapter's title is "Meditations on Luck"); that everything has worked out for the best; that adoption might be an emotional/spiritual cure for infertility; that some couples may be too quick to seek medical assistance; that she may have waited too long to begin trying to conceive; and, as another woman told her earlier in her journey, that "the pain goes away." Her husband warns her to not become a revisionist, but she acknowledges that becoming a mother has been a "surprisingly redemptive" experience and seems to not entirely reject the above messages. Describe how you feel about the presence of this mythology, both in Orenstein's epilogue and in your own life. How has it affected the way you tell your story, on your blog or elsewhere, and how you interpret others' stories? To what extent have you revised or even rewritten your own story of infertility? Is it inevitable, perhaps even necessary, to do so?

I am one of the fatalist crowd, I have to say.  I personally am one of those frustrating types that thinks that for me everything that's supposed to happen, happens, and everything happens for a reason, it just may be that I don't understand the reason in the short term.  But this is my view for myself-I don't think that way about others.  I tend to keep my views to myself because it makes people want to punch me, but I think that the outcome of treatment is what is supposed to happen to me individually, even if it's bad (which it often was).  Did I deserve a miscarriage?  Hopefully not, but I did learn alot about myself from it, as shitty as the experience was.  It doesn't make it any easier to bear at all, and I'm not trying to be dismissive.  I may not be religious but I do believe that things happen (to me) for a reason, even if that reason is a most painful journey to get there.

This blog was started as an outlet to talk about my treatments.  My other blog gets a stunning amount of assvice and shitty emails from people advising me to do such things as walk in circles under the moon or else advise something along the lines of yanking a random child off the streets of Guatemala and trying to give them a better life than they currently have (I love it when people assign values to other cultures.)  I write here because I wanted to avoid that kind of crap as well as keep my treatments private from my family (too late).  Is the way my story is told on my blog affected by my private life and my personal views?  Absolutely, how could it not be? 

Have I rewritten my infertility story?  No, I don't think so.  I can't have babies on my own.  I am currently knocked up.   Should something happen to the babies, I  would still be unable to have babies on my own.  The end result for me is the same-everything that's supposed to happen happens. 

Go ahead and take a swing at me.

3) "I felt like the luckiest unlucky woman in the world" (p. 57).  This quote really struck me.  Do we naturally grasp for the silver lining in things?  Do we always have to convince ourselves that something makes us lucky in order to keep going through the difficulties of life?

I'm going to have to take this one from my personal viewpoint, because I honestly am not sure how others operate here.  I don't know that I grasp for silver linings and I don't think I have to convince myself that something makes us lucky.  I think luck happens.  And once again, in my slightly crunchy granola Buddhisty slant, I believe that I get good and I get bad (take them both and there you have the Facts of Life!  The Facts of Life!  Sorry, I get easily sidetracked by 80's television.)  I will say that I currently have a life that makes me happier than I not only ever have been before, but a life that I could never have imagined I would be lucky enough to have, and when I say "my life" I'm not counting the recent IVF success.  I'm talking about my state of mind, my emotional and physical wellbeing, my security and love.  I don't think it's luck that brought me that-I think it's good coming in after bad.

I think in many ways I believe in karma-good happens if I'm good.  Bad happens if I'm bad, only others may not be around to see the bad as proof that bad gets what it deserves.  Life is difficult, there's no way around that one.  There are no silver linings and there are no options for convincing ourselves otherwise.  Life is hard, but it's pockmarked by moments that we don't expect or demand, and those moments make it all worthwhile.

My God, reading this I want to smack myself too. 

I swear I don't run around lighting incense and chanting mantras.

I haven't had an easy life, not by any stretch of the imagination.  Maybe my views on it-and on IF-are a reflection of where I've been and where I continue to work to.  If I don't try to accept that life is going to be what it wants to be, I will break myself against it in trying to control it.  My life has sucked at various points.  If I just accept that it sucked and it may suck again, it will keep me sane.  Maybe I come across as very high and mighty or que sera sera, but I promise I don't mean to.  It's just the way I have adapted to surivive.

And that's enough with the zen for one day, I think, don't you?

Read more about the book club - and sign up for tour #5 - here.

Comments

[Bea]

Yeesss... well since you invited, I'm going to take a swing at you for a couple of those answers, but I'll pull my punch slightly since it wasn't directed at me specifically. Deal?

In seriousness, though, I see what you're saying. You'll go crazy if you don't learn to roll with it, one way or another.

Bea

[Vanessa]

I promise that's all I was trying to say, in my long-windy kind of way. I'm not saying people get the bad news because they deserve it, just that if I don't try to roll with it, I'll fall off my own cliff.

[BeachGirl]

Smack. Some things that happen are just not supposed to happen and don't fit in with that whole karma thing. Lots of them, actually. In my opionion, not that you actually asked.

[BeachGirl]

Smack. Some things that happen are just not supposed to happen and don't fit in with that whole karma thing. Lots of them, actually. In my opionion, not that you actually asked.

[BeachGirl]

Ok, so I jumped the gun (twice) on my comments, I guess. Still: smack (I'm grumpy this morning).

[Vanessa]

I promise I'm not judging your life, Beach Girl (I think you know I'd never do that to you.) I'm saying this is my philosophy for myself. I don't pretend to speculate how it should work for others because I honestly don't know what's the right way to view things and because life is one seriously confusing bitch. My view is what I do to try to not go mad, because I'm the type that will sit in a corner and rage against the universe for years if I don't try to spin it in another way.

*backs away carefully*

[BeachGirl]

Fair enough.

On the "life is one seriously confusing bitch" I will wholeheartedly agree.

I'll take a deep breath and be back tomorrow. Didn't mean to make a Monday more difficult than it needed to be.

[MsPrufrock]

I hate the word "lucky" when used in connection with infertility and ART. I've blogged about the fact that fertile people have told me how very "lucky" I was that my first IVF worked. I don't see that "luck", as I'm too busy looking at the four years of other treatments that didn't work. I'm rather a miserable bitch though, so it's very difficult for me to ever see a silver lining.

Morose hand-wringing complete. A great post, thanks for making me think, a rare occasion these days.

[Kelly]

Thank you for sharing. I had not heard of the book in question.

[Mel]

I absolutely loved this thought: "when I say "my life" I'm not counting the recent IVF success. I'm talking about my state of mind, my emotional and physical wellbeing, my security and love." Love it.

And I had no urge to smack you. I really liked your illumination of how ambivalence can change into strong desire.

[KD]

"Did I deserve a miscarriage? Hopefully not, but I did learn alot about myself from it, as shitty as the experience was."

That's exactly how I feel about my loss, too. It was the worst time of my life and I hope I NEVER have to go through it again. However, I learned so much about myself, my husband, my friends and my family that it has made me mosre aware of the wonderful resources in my life. So something very good came from the very bad.

[Stacie]

I'm here for the book club but got sidetracked by your horrifying thesis. It's not so horrifying that you wrote it - you describe the person you were then as "broken" and certainly you were young - but that it got an A?! Oh. My. God.

[Sunny]

"I personally am one of those frustrating types that thinks that for me everything that's supposed to happen, happens, and everything happens for a reason, it just may be that I don't understand the reason in the short term." This is also me. I believe that there is a time and purpose for things. I don't think my miscarriage happened to teach me something but through it I could learn and grow.

Very insighful!!!

[Jackie]

I respect your view that for yourself, you believe that things happen for a reason. I don't really share that view so much...for me it seems that things happen and I don't need to feel that there is a reason for it to deal with it. To address it and hopefully find a way to move on, move past or roll with it. I just don't see any reason for these challenges, but that's just me. And I do tend to feel anger towards those who try to insinuate that idea upon me, but usually just nod and then go to my blog and bitch about it. 8)

[Ellen K.]

No smacking urges here either. I agree with you in that I try to make sense of my own life, but I also recoil when others try to do it for me. And that is an especially lousy part of dealing with infertility, if it is known to others -- having to listen to others' interpretations and revisionist perspectives. I have gained something from infertility, but it has to be my own interpretation.

[BestLight]

No urge to smack. Who ever really knows WHY? My biggest obstacle in dealing with IF was releasing the need to know WHY.

Once I let go of it, though, my life opened up. I finally had (metaphoric) room for our children, who came to us in a different way than I thought they would). But first I needed to clear out the need to know WHY.

Let's just say I had a good and patient therapist. And husband.

[millie]

I found your answers interesting but I'm not a big believer in 'things happen for a reason'. Too many bad things happen to too many good people. (I'm a big fan of a certain book by a certain rabbi). That doesn't mean we can't learn from what happens and move on but that does mean we don't need to blame the victims, which is all to easy in the whole good begets good, bad begets bad view.

[statia]

I want to punch people in the face when they say that. But that said, it's because I do believe that things do happen for a reason and I don't like to think about it when I'm in the bad times. I mean, I absolutely hated California, but I don't regret moving there. I think it had to happen that way. For many reasons.