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Infertility Literature

As part of our focus on the UK’s National Mental Health Awareness Week we are looking at aspects of mental wellbeing associated with infertility.

For many couples infertility is a lonely and isolating experience. This is generally not helped by clichéd media portrayals of the situation in sitcoms and soap operas, where the stereotyped image of infertility is that of a middle-class, white, heterosexual woman in her mid-to-late 30’s, completing ignoring the experiences of ethnic, poor and LGBTQ communities.

Most of the books on the subject tend to be of the self-help variety, which is fine except that people suffering with infertility are looking for empathy as well as advice. This empathy is important because it counters the feelings of isolation and loneliness that can accompany a diagnosis of infertility.

So let’s take a look at a 4 titles that go beyond the clichés and stereotypes:

– The Argonauts (Maggie Wilson): Maggie Nelson, winner of the US National Book Critics Circle Award in 2015, has written this memoir in poetic prose that explores the challenges of starting a family with a fluid-gender partner in an era when the definitions of family and parenthood are rapidly changing. At its centre is romance, the story of Nelson’s relationship with her partner, the gender-translational artist Harry Dodge, and their journey together through her pregnancy and the complexities and joys of family making. With its frankness, including descriptions of anatomical and sexual issues, this book is for the open-minded reader who is prepared to look into non-conventional spaces.

– Becoming (Michelle Obama): Michelle Obama wrote her autobiography in 2008, and few realised how much she had struggled with infertility or that her daughters, Malia and Sasha, were born via IVF. In a sense this demonstrates how issues of black women’s infertility are missing from the mainstream media narrative. In fact, black women have higher rates of infertility than white women in the USA. Despite living a life filled with meaning and accomplishment serving as First Lady of the United States of America and establishing herself as a global advocate for women and girls, Michele Obama talks about the stigma of miscarriage, telling an interviewer, “I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were because we don’t talk about them. We sit in our own pain, thinking that somehow we’re broken. I think it is the worst thing that we do as women, sit around and not talk about our bodies.”

Told with intelligence and humour, Becoming is the story of a strong woman of soul and substance who has defied expectations and whose story inspires readers to do the same.

– Avalanche: A Love Story (Julia Leigh): At the age of 38, novelist Julia Leigh made her first foray into the world of infertility treatment, and started the long journey of physical examinations, tests, injections, blood tests, surgeries and rituals familiar to many women in the same predicament.

Unfortunately IVF was not successful for her and in Avalanche, Leigh lays bare her subjective experience of the highs of hope and the depths of disappointment, the grip of yearning and desire, the toll on her relationships, together with unexpected moments of grace and black humour.

At 140 pages it’s a short book, but an important one covering both physical and emotional aspects of IVF. It’s also important because empathy is not always borne of sugar coated optimism or fairytale endings, and with that in mind it is also an instructive book for family members and close friends of those undergoing treatment for infertility. One review said, “It is a story we can all relate to about the dreams we have, defeated or otherwise, for ourselves, our loves, and our relationships.”

The book has recently been scripted into a play starring Maxine Peake (Private Peaceful & The Theory Of Everything), which was has been shown to acclaim at the UK’s recent Fertility Fest in London, so the chances are that it will be available on the big screen going into the future.

– We’re Going To Need More Wine (Gabrielle Union): As you might guess from the title, this one is a little lighter in tone than the others on our list. However, that in no way detracts from its importance. A collection of essays in which Gabrielle Union (City Of Angels, Being Mary Jane), a black actress in white-centric Hollywood, reveals her ongoing battle with multiple miscarriages. Exploring love, family, trauma and racial identity as well as her infertility issues, this book is very readable, including good detail and conveyed gravity about her difficult experiences.

You’ll also be pleased know there IS indeed a happy ending with this one; she is now a new mother to a baby girl born via surrogacy.

The main point of all these books is that, by engendering a sense of empathy, they help to alleviate some of the isolation and loneliness that can go hand-in-hand with a diagnosis of and subsequent treatment for infertility, thus contributing to mental wellbeing. Give them a try and let us know what you think.

All titles are currently in print and available from Amazon and other book dealers in both print and electronic formats.