Mother Talk: Lost and Found
Just in time for mid-summer vacations: a beach read with bite. Carolyn Parkhurst’s novel, Lost and Found, is a behind-the-scenes look at a reality television show (oh my G-d: it’s Bobby Flay’s Infertility Throwdown all over again) with the added bonus of hearing the internal monologue happening inside the mind of each contestant.
Why is it a beach read with bite? Because unlike the books you generally open while lying on the beach towel, this one will actually give you something to muse about as you apply another layer of sunscreen. At its most basic level, it brings to light the irreality of a reality television show–the script, the tweaking, the editing, the coaxing. As well as what contestants feel having the camera trained on them 24 hours a day.
But there are deeper bites to consider as well. Each chapter is written from the point-of-view of a contestant (which is also somewhat the downfall of the book’s structure: you know long before the end who is going to win the game. If a character hasn’t gotten his own chapter by page 198, you’ve got to assume he isn’t making it over the finish line). Since I was given a heads up about the main storyline in the book, I will pass it along to you as well (especially since this secret is revealed by the fourth page–I don’t think this is a true spoiler). The mother and daughter team are there following the birth and subsequent adoption of a baby. If you go into the book knowing this information rather than having it thrown on the infertile reader like cold water, you will enjoy watching the story unfold and even be grateful to view adoption through the eyes of the birth mother.
For me, the largest bite that took up a lot of my staring-at-the-sky-while-daydreaming minutes came on page 146 when Cassie, the teenage birth mother, admits why she chose her adoption plan. It is a question of playing with fate and imagining the numerous possibilities for her child. Of how one chooses the birth parents who will raise the child. And lastly, how one knows that another person could do a better job than you could ever do.
In the end, do people who choose a family to raise their child play a greater hand in guiding a child’s fate (Cassie looks at the pictures and asks herself, “right there in front of me were twenty different possible lives for my baby, and what if I chose the wrong one? What if the couple that loves gardening and goes to the theater all the time is going to get divorced in two years? What if the computer programmer with the acne scars is going to drown in his swimming pool next summer, and my baby will be raised alone by his wife…“) than any parent–adoptive or non-adoptive–who make daily choices that affect the life of their child? Is this responsibility more profound than what every parent grapples with on a daily basis without even considering the consequences of their simple choices as deeply as Cassie considers for her child?
Aaaah…so that’s what I mean when I say that it’s a beach read with a bite.
July 20, 2007 Comments Off on Mother Talk: Lost and Found
Throwdown
I was going to blog about LK’s Baby Race (which you knew had to be on the Great Reality Television horizon at some point) mostly because who doesn’t love a news opening like this: “…where three couples are testing different fertility treatments – who has been the first to conceive? One couple has undertaken IVF, one couple acupuncture and the other couple have attempted to reach their ‘peak’ nutritionally. But which ones have got pregnant? Sam and Nev are the lucky couple and they have done it purely through diet.” IVF? Apparently not as helpful as eating whole grains. ICSI? Not as effective as more fruits and vegetables!
The fact that the first couple to conceive was seeing a nutritionist rather than an RE only means that you will now be bombarded with advice from people who have watched this television program. Advice such as, “you don’t really need fertility treatments! You just need to eat more oily fish!” or “my next door neighbour’s daughter’s friend’s cousin tried that diet and she got pregnant the next month.”
In the great tradition of Americans ripping off UK television programs, this is how I envision the Great Baby Race as played out around America’s favourite grill–Throwdown With Bobby Flay.
Pages 1–3
Assistant with Blond Hair: [opening the door to the waiting room] You ready for a Pak Attack, Bobby?
Bobby: [laughing to self. Enters Pak Chung’s office. Chung looks up from some paperwork in surprise]. Hey, Pak–I’ve heard you have great success at getting a bun in the oven. While I don’t have a strong background in baking, I’d like to challenge you to a little throwdown.
Pak Chung: I think you’re mistaken. I’m a reproductive endocrinologist. I help people conceive and maintain a pregnancy–I’m not a chef.
Bobby: Well, fertility is totally tied to what you eat. That’s why some people can’t get pregnant. They’re not eating the right foods.
Pak Chung: No, no, it’s much more complex than that. Though diet can play a role in hormone production, treating infertility is not as simple as…
Bobby: You say to-mah-to and I say to-may-to, right, Pak?
Bobby (voice over): [setting: Bobby’s kitchen] Everyone knows that while real hot crossed buns are made with milk and flour, getting a bun in the oven takes a low-carb, high-antioxidant diet. I’m planning on wowing the judges with some grilled fish topped with my famous mango salsa, a sweet cucumber relish, and low-sugar blueberry tarts for dessert to help balance glucose production for optimal fertility.
Bobby to assistants: I was going to go with a series of Mediterranean spreads: you know–spreads on breads and spread your legs–but I really think the grilled fish is going to knock the socks off the judges. Let’s get to work!
Pak: [setting: trying to close the door to an examination room. In the background, a woman is clearly in the stirrups] I’m going to have to ask you to leave. This is ridiculous. A chef can’t get a woman pregnant.
Bobby (voice over): [setting: cooking in test kitchen] Except when that chef is preparing the perfect blend of fresh fruits and vegetables in order to protect genetic material through antioxidants.
[Setting: long shot of Angela Ashtonberry walking through an empty field holding a single flower. Switch to a close shot of Ashtonberry sitting on the porch outside her home]
Angela: It’s been really hard. We’ve been trying for three months now. Each time I get my period…(Angela pauses and tries to collect herself). I haven’t tried stuff like charting my temperature or ovulation predictor kits or examining cervical mucous because I’ve heard that those things are a waste of time. Good fertility is tied to what you eat. I try to limit the amount of alcohol and caffeine I consume, but it’s really hard.
Angela (continued): I wouldn’t try things like IVF or one of those weird test tube things because I don’t think they really work either. I mean, those tubes are really small and I don’t think they can really fit a baby inside. My friend tried it once and it cost like half a million dollars and she didn’t actually have a baby until she started eating more strawberries and carrots.
Pak Chung: I’m not participating in this. It’s a mockery of the medical reality of infertility. It’s like saying that you can cure cancer by drinking grape juice.
Bobby (calling over his shoulder to blond assistant): Write that one down for a future throwdown.
Allison Cohen: I’m going to have to go with Bobby’s grilled fish. It’s high in essential oils which you can also intake through our GNC Salmon Oil 1000–it’s 180 soft gel capsules for the low price of $12.99 at GNC.
Jack Bender: I thought Pak Chung was going to be the clear winner based on his high live birth rate. But now that I’ve tasted Bobby’s cucumber relish, I really have to rethink my vote.
Bobby (voice over): And the real success? Allison Ashtonberry is now pregnant after eating a diet low in carbs and high in B vitamins. She is expecting her first child this upcoming spring.
Allison: Right in time for English peas to be coming into season. Thank you, Bobby. I feel so blessed to have been chosen for this throwdown. I can’t believe we’re finally pregnant after all of those months–three long months–of trying to conceive.
Pak Chung: She wasn’t even infertile! Does your production staff understand the multitude of factors determining infertility?
Bobby (voice over): So to all you cooks and reproductive endocrinologists out there, keep doing what you do. But ask yourself this, are you ready for a throwdown?
July 18, 2007 Comments Off on Throwdown
Read Along: Barren Bitches Book Tour #5–Group B
New List:
Welcome to the fifth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade–a book club from the comfort of your own living room. Grab a cup of coffee and start clicking away at the links below.
Just to explain, this book club is entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way.
Book: The Kid
Author: Dan Savage
Start Date: June 7th
Post Dates: July 17th and 18th
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours.)
Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (click on any of the links below to take you to a stop on this book tour. Jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on The Kid. This list is the second of two groups).
Group B:
Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters (Melissa)–my post is below this post.
Making Twiglet (Diana)
Kicking You From the Inside (Kate)
Baggage That Goes With Mine (Baggage)
Looking for Two Lines (LJ)
Child Bearing Hips (Cece)
Beaten But Not Bowed (Drowned Girl)
Waiting… (Sandra)
Weebles Wobblog (Lori)
It Could Take Three Months (Ms. C)
Even if you haven’t read The Kid, you can still add your own thoughts on the blog tour or react to someone else’s critique.
Like the idea of being in a book club without leaving your living room? The next book for book tour #6 is Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman. The author, Ayelet Waldman, will be reading along too for this tour and it will be possible to ask her questions about the book.
The Details: Tour #6 will start July 19th. Participants will read Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman. On Thursday, August 23rd, everyone will send one question based on the book (to get a sense of questions, click here to see the questions sent for book tour #2) to thetowncriers@gmail.com. I will compile the questions into lists that will be emailed out to you on August 24th. Everyone will choose 3 questions from the list and answer them on their own blog some time between August 28th–3oth (we will break up into three smaller groups and you can choose which day works best for you when the date gets closer). Each day of the tour, I’ll also post a master list and people can jump from blog to blog, reading and commenting on the book tour.
If you would like to sign up to participate in book tour #6, leave a comment below or send me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. I need the title and a link to your blog as well as an email address where you’d like the two or three book club emails sent. If a spouse wants to participate too and he/she doesn’t have their own blog, have them set up a blog solely for book tours (as we did with the Annex) and send me a link to that blog. And if you’re a reader without a blog, now is a great time to set up a space for yourself on Blogger. People will be able to find brand-spanking-new blogs because they will be on the book tour’s participant list. Want to participate but live overseas and want to order many books at once in order to save on shipping? The next few tours are always listed on my side bar under the book icon. Happy reading.
July 17, 2007 1 Comment
Book Tour #5: The Kid
Intrigued by the idea of a book tour and want to read more about The Kid? Hop along to more stops on the Barren Bitches Book Tour by visiting the master list in the post above. Want to come along for the next tour? Sign up begins today for tour #6 (Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman) and all are welcome to join along (see the post above to sign up). All you need is a book and blog.
This was my second time reading the book. I love Dan Savage’s column, Savage Love, and I’ve always enjoyed his essays and contributions to This American Life. I laughed a lot more the first time around–not sure if it was a matter of remembering the lines or whether I’m in a different place in life. But overall, it’s a fantastic book about his experience with adoption.
Dan Savage comes to truly appreciate doing an open adoption, particularly at the moment that Melissa transfers the baby to him and Terry. He states that seeing her pain and feeling the pain of their separation “drove home the logic of open adoption, its absolute necessity” (pg. 216). How do you feel about open adoption? Did reading Savage’s book influence your feelings?
I have mixed feelings about open adoption, and many of them have to do with a lack of true understanding about the day-to-day realities of open adoption. I have many assumptions about the arrangement, but I know they’re just assumptions based on my own fears, beliefs, and stories I’ve read. It’s difficult to sort out my feelings while standing outside the situation. Plus, I’ve only observed closed or semi-open adoption situations. It’s really a matter of the semi-known vs. the complete unknown. I reserve judgment on which form of adoption is best for me and my family until I’m deeper in the process. How is that for vague and noncommittal?
I am always wary of any statements of “this is the best way.” I don’t think there is a best way–there is simply the path that is most right for you and your family and for the birth parents (because I’m not sure a single path can be everyone’s best choice in this complex decision-making process, but I think you can choose the one that is best for the most people). I like the honesty that comes with open adoption, but like everything in life, there are also many drawbacks that need to be taken into consideration when making your choice.
How did you feel about a gay male explaining the emotions of infertility starting on p. 22? Were you offended or impressed? Do you think he got it right or was he far from the mark? Did you feel that he was correct when he said on p. 26, “I understood what they must have been going through”?
There were a few times when I thought Dan got the emotions of infertility correct, but they weren’t necessarily the times when he was explaining the emotions of infertility. I marked a passage on page 29 that begins “This was my first personal experience with lesbian deep-process, and I can’t say I cared for it.” The powerlessness and lack of control felt more like infertility to me.
I thought his line “I understood what they must have been going through” was a tad condescending. Does the opposite hold true too? I understand the experience of being a gay male because I’m infertile? I never felt like Dan got his thoughts about infertility right, though he grasped aspects of infertility such as the powerlessness, anxiety, and frustration. But I also didn’t need Dan to get the feelings right. His book wasn’t about explaining infertility, it was about telling his own adoption story. And for that, he did a damn fine job.
When I first read The Kid, one of the things that struck me was how different Dan and Terry’s experiences were because they hadn’t experienced infertility. They were coming to adoption from a different place than I am and it sensitized me to how much time we spent talking about infertility issues and losses in some of the adoption classes I’ve taken. How did that aspect of the book change how you think about adoption literature, classes, groups, etc or how you interact with people who are pursuing adoption?
I think–like in so many places in life–adoption literature as well as fertility clinic literature is heterocentric. I think all pamphlets and materials are written with the majority in mind and I think only those who are in a minority notice the telling language choices. Not being represented rarely bothers me unless I’ve already raised the point. If I’ve mentioned the nature of the word choice and it is repeated again or my feelings are dismissed, I’m no longer as forgiving over the gaff.
We’re all a product of our own experience. I think we can train ourselves to be sensitive and thoughtful. I think we can think before we speak. But, at the end of the day, we are a product of what we know. I think we often don’t even know that we’re not being sensitive because our word choice feels so natural to ourselves. Plus, there’s a big difference in the level of sensitivity I can extend to a person one-on-one vs. the sensitivity I can extend to a wide audience. I’m sure I have inadvertently offended someone with my thoughts by writing widely like this rather than having a conversation one-on-one with another person. Adoption is also a very sensitive subject where the feelings of numerous people have to be considered at once. I don’t envy the people who have to write these pamphlets.
July 17, 2007 Comments Off on Book Tour #5: The Kid
Read Along: Barren Bitches Book Tour #5–Group A
Welcome to the fifth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade–a book club from the comfort of your own living room. Grab a cup of coffee and start clicking away at the links below.
Just to explain, this book club is entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way.
Book: The Kid
Author: Dan Savage
Start Date: June 7th
Post Dates: July 17th and 18th
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours.)
Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (click on any of the links below to take you to a stop on this book tour. Jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on The Kid. We’ve broken down the current tour into two groups. A new list will be posted tomorrow).
Group A:
The Annex (Josh)
The Twinkies (Stacie)
Karaoke Diva (KD)
Twisted Ovaries (Vanessa)
Southern Infertility (Samantha)
All Things Deb (Deb)
Miss E’s Musings (Ellen)
Out, Damned Egg! Out I Say! (Millie)
Even if you haven’t read The Kid, you can still add your own thoughts on the blog tour or react to someone else’s critique.
Like the idea of being in a book club without leaving your living room? The next book for book tour #6 is Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman. The author, Ayelet Waldman, will be reading along too for this tour and it will be possible to ask her questions about the book.
The Details: Tour #6 will start July 19th. Participants will read Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman. On Thursday, August 23rd, everyone will send one question based on the book (to get a sense of questions, click here to see the questions sent for book tour #2) to thetowncriers@gmail.com. I will compile the questions into lists that will be emailed out to you on August 24th. Everyone will choose 3 questions from the list and answer them on their own blog some time between August 28th–3oth (we will break up into three smaller groups and you can choose which day works best for you when the date gets closer). Each day of the tour, I’ll also post a master list and people can jump from blog to blog, reading and commenting on the book tour.
If you would like to sign up to participate in book tour #6, leave a comment below or send me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. I need the title and a link to your blog as well as an email address where you’d like the two or three book club emails sent. If a spouse wants to participate too and he/she doesn’t have their own blog, have them set up a blog solely for book tours (as we did with the Annex) and send me a link to that blog. And if you’re a reader without a blog, now is a great time to set up a space for yourself on Blogger. People will be able to find brand-spanking-new blogs because they will be on the book tour’s participant list. Want to participate but live overseas and want to order many books at once in order to save on shipping? The next few tours are always listed on my side bar under the book icon. Happy reading.
July 16, 2007 Comments Off on Read Along: Barren Bitches Book Tour #5–Group A
