Disembark here for the blogosphere book tour, the Barren Bitches Book Brigade. We’ve been reading Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein.
1. Peggy struggles with questions of heritage, genes, and religion. How important is it for you to have a child that is biologically yours and why? What feelings go into that decision/choice for you if you are still trying to have a child?
We took a different route than many on this book tour. We turned right at ICSI and ended up in Adoption Land.
At one time, it WAS important to have Roger’s brilliant blue eyes, my long legs, our musicality and our love of books. But ultimately we came to the conclusion that our dreams had more to do with becoming parents than with becoming pregnant.
In Adoption School (part of our agency’s process), we had to write a good-bye letter to the biological child we’d never have — in order to make way for the child we WOULD have. What a tear-jerker of a day THAT was.
It can seem that adoption is a second choice. And that may be true until it actually happens. Even if I could go back and wave a magic pregnancy wand, I wouldn’t. My children were meant for me all along — I just didn’t know it at the time. I hope they one day feel the same.
And, by the way, we are passing on our love of books.
2. Peggy’s husband, Steven, says things to the effect of “Get over it,” and expresses the wish to return their marriage from the uni-dimensional land of Infertility. How typical were Steven’s responses to your own partner’s?
It was definitely easier for Roger to “get over it.” Biologically, men are more removed from the ebb and flow of fertility, the monthly reminders of failure. I liked Steven’s sensible yet sensitive approach with Peggy — it reminded me of Roger’s ability to empathize with me but not drown with me.
3. Orenstein struggles with the feeling that she “waited too long to start trying to conceive”. How does this compare to your feelings about the timing of your journey to parenthood?
Not an issue. I didn’t meet Roger until I was 31, and we married a year later. We wasted no time trying to begin a family, and after a year we moved overseas (a third world country) for two years. Coincidentally, we lived in the same apartment complex as a Lebanese, German-trained “embryologist.” Hence our pitstop in ICSI.
So no wasted time, unless you count the years it took to meet Roger. And I definitely don’t count those years as wasted.
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Hope you will come back for a visit! I serve cyber-Mojitos every Friday. And cyber-Advils every Saturday.
Want to check out more Waiting for Daisy questions? Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at Stirrup Queens. You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: The Kid by Dan Savage.
