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Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother
by Peggy Orenstein
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Synopses & Reviews Waiting for Daisy is about loss, love, anger and redemption. It's about doing all the things you swore you'd never do to get something you hadn't even been sure you wanted. It's about being a woman in a confusing, contradictory time. It's about testing the limits of a loving marriage. And it's about trying (and trying and trying) to have a baby.
Orenstein's story begins when she tells her new husband that she's not sure she ever wants to be a mother; it ends six years later after she's done almost everything humanly possible to achieve that goal, from "fertility sex" to escalating infertility treatments to New Age remedies to forays into international adoption. Her saga unfolds just as professional women are warned by the media to heed the ticking of their biological clocks, and just as fertility clinics have become a boom industry, with over two million women a year seeking them out. Buffeted by one jaw-dropping obstacle after another, Orenstein seeks answers both medical and spiritual in America and Asia, along the way visiting an old flame who's now the father of fifteen, and discovering in Japan a ritual of surprising solace. All the while she tries to hold onto a marriage threatened by cycles, appointments, procedures and disappointments.
Waiting for Daisy is an honest, wryly funny report from the front, an intimate page-turner that illuminates the ambivalence, obsession, and sacrifice that characterize so many modern women's lives. Review: "The author of Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap, Orenstein now offers a very personal account of her road to becoming a mother. Orenstein was a happily married 35-year-old when she decided she wanted to have a baby. While she knew it might not be easy (she had only one ovary and was heading into her late 30s), she had no idea of the troubles she'd face. First, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, fortunately treatable. After waiting the recommended recovery period, she miscarried with a dangerous 'partial molar pregnancy,' so she had to avoid becoming pregnant for at least six months. Soon she was riding the infertility roller coaster full-time, trying everything from acupuncture to IVF and egg donation. She endured depression and more miscarriages while spending untold thousands of dollars. Even her very understanding husband was beginning to lose patience, when, surprisingly, she got pregnant with her daughter, Daisy. While readers don't have to be fertility obsessed to enjoy this very witty memoir (with its ungainly subtitle), for the growing number of women struggling with infertility this book may become their new best friend." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review: "The book business loves a niche, especially a profitable one. So it's easy to understand the burgeoning category of what might be called Repro Lit, fueled perhaps by delayed parenthood or by the increased incidence — or is it heightened awareness? — of infertility. Some of the books in this category treat adoption, others miscarriage; some address gay parenthood, others single motherhood. And while ... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) some are serious investigative studies, many more are personal narratives. The real challenge, especially for the literary memoir writer, comes when she (or sometimes he) wants to transcend the obvious rubric and appeal to a wider audience. This, I suspect, is Peggy Orenstein's ambition for 'Waiting for Daisy,' and she succeeds in places. In spite of her book's histrionic subtitle — you can almost hear the agent or editor whispering in her ear, 'More! Worse! Farther! Bigger!' — she treats her efforts to become a mother with intelligent skepticism and a brazen sense of humor (a quality not often found in Repro Lit). It takes chutzpah to begin a chapter: 'I married a man who is far better looking than I. It's not that I'm a candidate for a dogfight, exactly, but no one's ever going to confuse me with Adriana Lima.' Unlike many women who have written about the experience of trying and failing to have a baby, Orenstein doesn't leave her feminism at the door. She writes frankly about her initial reluctance to become a mother and traces the complicated evolution of her feelings from 'no! never!' to single-minded passion. Once launched on the all-consuming path, she makes stops that will be familiar to many of her readers: joyless 'fertility sex'; miscarriage after miscarriage; fertility test after fertility test; expensive, uncaring reproductive-medicine specialists; adoption near-misses; attempts at the brave new universe of surrogacy. But her voice makes all the difference in the world. Far from the anguished, often reverential, super-serious tone of Internet discussion groups is this passage on her introduction to the world of fertility medicine: 'Clomid was my gateway drug; the one you take because, (BEG ITAL(Why not — everyone's doing it. Just five tiny pills. They'll give you a boost, maybe get you where you need to go. It's true, some women can stop there. For others, Clomid becomes infertility's version of 'Reefer Madness.' First you smoke a little grass, then you're selling your body on a street corner for crack. First you pop a little Clomid, suddenly you're taking out a second mortgage for another round of in vitro fertilization (IVF). You've become hope's bitch, willing to destroy your career, your marriage, your self-respect for another taste of its seductive high.' In addition to her slightly skewed stance, Orenstein engages in some interesting cultural peregrinations. Traveling to Tokyo on a research grant while pregnant, she visits a doctor who tells her that her fetus may have a chromosomal abnormality and then quickly adds that there is an 80 percent chance all will be well. But Orenstein doesn't buy the optimistic outlook: 'Japanese doctors lie to protect their patients' feelings. It's considered legitimate, for instance, to withhold a cancer diagnosis from a woman even after a mastectomy so that she won't fall into a suicidal funk. So I didn't believe Dr. Makabe.' And she was right not to. While still in Japan, she experiences both a miscarriage and a D&C (dilation and curettage). For solace, she turns to the practice of Jizo, in which women who have had miscarriages, stillbirths or abortions leave offerings at the feet of statues. She realizes that there is no American term for a fetus that doesn't become a child, whereas the Japanese have a word — 'mizuko,' water child. She explains that, historically, Japanese Buddhists thought that 'existence flowed into a being slowly, like liquid.' Children aren't considered completely in the human realm until they're 7, and a mizuko exists in 'that liminal space between life and death but belonging to neither.' Beautifully said. Although much has been written on many facets of the fertility quest — the medicines, the miscarriages, the adoption process — surrogacy is less discussed, still more veiled and verboten than other aspects of the experience. Orenstein does a great job with her chapter on 'Fish,' the young girl who began a correspondence with her after reading her book 'Schoolgirls' and who eventually became her surrogate. She wonderfully describes surrogacy as another stop on the slide down fertility's slippery slope — one of 'perpetually raised stakes and overly inflated expectations.' As she and Fish go through the surrogacy process together, Orenstein gives both of them a humanity that enables the reader to see why each would enter this not terribly well-charted territory. One of the best things about this book is that when she succeeds in her quest (the baby's name is Daisy), Orenstein refuses to take refuge in the smug pieties so prevalent in fertility discussions. When a friend tells her that everything happens for a reason, Orenstein bristles (bless her!): 'That's not something I believe, not when women I love die leaving babies behind, not when children are starving, when adults are tortured. Nor do I like its corollary: "God only gives you what you can handle." If so, God is a sadist. I refuse to view life through such a simplistic, superstitious lens, whether it's held up by religion or by New Age. ... My infertility was not a result of my ambivalence about motherhood.' As Daisy moves on through life, and her mother and father move with her through the parenting maze, it would be interesting to hear Orenstein's intelligent, skeptical voice ruminate on the next stages. For if any writer has the verve and tenacity to supersede the typecasting of Mommy Lit, it's Orenstein. Anne Glusker, a writer living in France, has written on fertility issues for The Washington Post and other publications." Reviewed by Bing WestKai BirdJennifer HowardTony HorwitzEdwin M. Yoder Jr.Christopher ByrdAnne Glusker, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)Review: "Intimate, funny/sad and remarkably self-revealing." Kirkus Reviews Review: "A gripping memoir of one woman's quest for a baby...honest, fascinating, and wholly enlightening." Cathi Hanauer, author of Sweet Ruin and editor of The Bitch in the House Review: "Moving and bittersweet, Waiting for Daisy is as funny, thoughtful, biting, reflective, as filled with fruitful self-doubt and cautious exuberance, as its author." Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & ClayReview: "An absolutely wonderful book. I couldn't put it down: it reads as easily and yet with as much texture as a novel." Anne Lamott, author of Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith and Operating Instructions: A Journal of my Son's First Year Review: "So remarkable is Orenstein's account that it seems likely to become the platinum standard for memoirs regarding couples struggling to become parents." Seattle Post-Intelligencer Review: "[B]ittersweet and born of some painful lessons. It will surely resonate with anyone who has been an expectant parent — especially those whose expectations have been challenged." Minneapolis Star Tribune Review: "Orenstein has written a memoir, a confession, a polemic and a love story all at once, describing the most frantic and confusing period of her life with clarity and candor." Los Angeles Times Synopsis: In this honest, wryly funny report, Orenstein pens an intimate page-turner that illuminates the ambivalence, obsession, and sacrifice that characterize so many modern womens lives as they strive to have a baby. About the Author Peggy Orenstein is the author of Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap, and Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids and Life in a Half-Changed World. A Contributing Writer to the New York Times Magazine, her work has also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Elle, Vogue, Discover, Mother Jones, Salon, and The New Yorker. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, Steven Okazaki, and their daughter, Daisy Tomoko.
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9781596910171
- Subtitle:
- A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and O
- Author:
- Orenstein, Peggy
- Publisher:
- Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Subject:
- Biography
- Subject:
- Women
- Subject:
- Fertilization in vitro, human
- Subject:
- Human reproductive technology
- Subject:
- Personal Memoirs
- Subject:
- BIO026000
- Edition Description:
- Us
- Publication Date:
- February 2007
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 228
- Dimensions:
- 8.22x6.24x.89 in. .87 lbs.
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