Book Tour #4 Waiting for Daisy

To be very honest, I never got to finish the book. I know, I am a bad book club member. I don't know what I was thinking signing up at the very end of the school year. BUT I did read and skim through most of the book. It was interesting reading the journey of Peggy Orenstein. Our journeys are different but infertility is the bottom line. Here are my thoughts on some of the questions given.

I was really touched by the visit to the Jizo garden for Peggy to honor the baby she lost. What ritual helped you in the healing process after you experienced a loss?

This may sound crazy but right after my miscarriage the major part of my healing process was taking baths with 'crying' music. I needed an outlet to cry and grieve in private. I was so hurt and wasn't sure anyone could understand. I didn't want to be seen crying. I would weep in my bath.

I then began to take early morning walks to cry out before God or just flat out cry and be angry before I went to work. It was the only way I could get myself in the right frame of mind to be 'normal' at work. As the weeks went on I was able to turn that energy towards praying for all of my pregnant friends. It was like I was able to let go.

Finally I would talk to my little angel. I would talk to others who were going through it. I didn't want to just think, "Well I was pregnant once." I wanted to remember my little one and how I felt while I carried 'her'. I also would repeat the due date over and over again in my mind so that I would never forget 'her' day.

So my rituals were very different than Peggy's. I had all these grand plans of lighting candles or what not but I could only do what came natural to me. Ways of surviving.

Peggy Orenstein says, 'The descent into the world of infertility is incremental. Those early steps seem innocuous, even quaint; IUI was hardly more complex than a turkey baster. You're not aware of how subtly alienated you become from your body, how inured to its medicalization. You don't notice your motivation distorting, how conception rather than parenthood becomes the goal, how invested you become in its 'achievement'." Does this accurately describe your experience? Would you say you have become alienated from your body while struggling with infertility?

I don't see my journey like the way Peggy described it. I poured myself into researching and finding answers to my questions. I studied procedures, tests and medications. I wanted to be very aware of what would happen, what was happening, and what would happen in the end. I would visualize everything as it was taking place. It has never felt quaint. In fact, it has felt haunting. Almost as if I am standing over myself watching at times.

Now I do agree with Peggy about the distortion that takes place. I don't know how it can be any different if you have been on this long for a long time. You forget what you are doing. You just do what you have to do to receive your goal. I have tried to remind myself why I am here and doing all of these crazy things but after awhile it just becomes routine.

On p. 233, Orenstein describes what infertility cost her: "Becoming a parent can't give me back the time ... obliterated by obsession. It doesn't compensate for the inattention to my career, for my self-inflicted torment, for trashing my marriage." How is your experience with infertility and the toll it has taken on your life similar or different from Orenstein's?

I am not at the end of my journey. I don't know how I will be when I finally do end it with or without a child. BUT I do know that I will not let it ruin me or create bitterness. When I hear words like torment or trashing I think bitterness. I have to look at the time I have been on this journey as a growing period. I am tired of growing but yet I am still changing for the better. It has tested friendships and love. But part of purifying and growth is all about testing. Testing hurts. Because of my journey I can put myself into other's shoes and try to understand better where they are and where they have come from. Without my hardships I couldn't truly be compassionate and understand. YES I would much rather have a little one in my arms right now but truly I am thankful for what I have learned and gained. I never want to look back on this time as a loss.

Now that you read my thoughts on the book ... Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at http://stirrup-queens.blogspot.com/. You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: The Kid by Dan Savage.

Barren Bitches Book Tour 3: The Time Traveler's Wife

I read The Time Traveler's Wife last year before I had a miscarriage myself. It touched me to the core of my being. I fell in love with the characters and found myself pleading God for a different ending. After my own loss of an angel to heaven I began to think about this book again and again. It began to haunt me. I had an even more connection with it. This is a book that should be read over and over to be reminded of love and loss.

Take some time to read the questions and comment as they touch you. If you haven't read the book, do. You will never be the same.

Don't forget to hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at http://stirrup-queens.blogspot.com/. You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein.

Onto the questions!!!

Loss (and unrealized dreams) are a theme in this story -- Henry loses his mother, Clare loses Henry often and sometimes for long stretches, Clare's grandmother loses her brother and her husband, etc. At one point, her grandmother asks Clare, "do you ever miss him?" She replies, "every day, every minute. Every minute, yes that's the way, isn't it?" ... Self-pity floods me as though I've been injected with it. It's that way, isn't it? Isn't it?" How has your loss and/or unrealized dream changed you?

I have been talking and thinking about this very thought all week. Before my unrealized dream of having a family and the loss of my little one to heaven I was every one's cheerleader. I was full of hope and optimism. I never wavered in doubt or faith. I ALWAYS saw the silver lining. Now that I am still waiting while many others have moved on to their dreams I am changed. I don't see the world quite the same. I still have a positive attitude but it is very guarded. I still cheer others on but deep inside I have a little doubt that never was there before. I long for the old me sometimes. I am not sure I like how I am changed.

That is the ugly change that has happened. I keep that part a secret. It only comes out when I am low and blue. I believe that there has been good change. I value life more. I cherish my friendships to a greater regard. I work hard to find the little blessings that are in my life that before would have gone unnoticed. I have compassion and understanding because I have felt loss. I now know what it means for God to be my everything.

If someone told you with certainty that you will have a baby sometime in the near future, like Clare was told, how would that affect you? Would it change your approach to cycling?

My hope would be restored. I would have a new strength to push forward past the loss and pain and disappointment. Knowing that my dream would be coming true at some point would give me the reason not to stop. But I also believe that it would drive me crazy each month even more. I would wonder if this was the month. I also wonder if I would relax or do the opposite and work harder, which is funny since you can only do so much in order to conceive. I also wonder if I would question the person as time went on and my dream still hadn't come true.

Now if only we could find that person who could tell me my future. :)

For Henry, time travel is a heavy burden; because of this, he is very reluctant to pass down his gene mutation to his offspring - particularly when it results in multiple miscarriages. Do you think Clare is being irresponsible in pushing to have a biological child that is both a part of she and Henry? Or is it more than being a parent in which she covets?

I believe that Clare is going with her heart. She longs to hold onto a part of Henry, hoping that the part of Henry that would be in her child would never leave her. She has always had Henry throughout her life, something that many of us never have experienced. I am sure she knows that he won't be with her for forever. Always having someone and then never having them there with you for the rest of time could destroy a person. I believe she never gave up hope and stopped trying for her biological child because it would mean she would be letting go of Henry forever.

If you read the book without knowing about the pregnancy/miscarriage aspect of the storyline, how did you feel when you got to that part of the story? If you were unprepared for that aspect of the storyline, did you find it particularly jarring or upsetting? Or, if you read the book already knowing about this storyline, do you think that changed how you reacted to it? Did you find the pregnancy/miscarriage aspect made you relate to the characters more?

When I read this book I had no idea what to expect. I had yet to have had a pregnancy/miscarriage. When I got to the part of the story where Clare had had many miscarriages and then woke up covered in blood I was so upset for her. I knew the longing that she had for that cycle to work. I cried and cried for her feeling the pain and sadness. I felt so empty for her. So hopeless. I began to beg for it to end and for her to have her dream. When she finally was pregnant again I worried for her. I was waiting for something awful to happen. When it never did I was so relieved.

Having this be a major part of the storyline helped me to have an even deeper connection with the book. I became Clare. I became Henry. I felt their pain. I felt my own pain.