The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood
by Belle Boggs
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When Belle Boggs' "The Art of Waiting" was published in Orion in 2012, it went viral, leading to republication in Harper's Magazine and an interview on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show. In that heartbreaking essay, Boggs eloquently recounts her realization that she might never be able to conceive. She searches the apparently fertile world around her-the emergence of thirteen-year cicadas, the birth of eaglets near her rural home, and an unusual gorilla pregnancy at a local zoo-for signs that she is show more not alone. Boggs also explores other aspects of fertility and infertility: the way longing for a child plays out in the classic Coen brothers film Raising Arizona; the depiction of childlessness in literature, from Macbeth to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; the financial and legal complications that accompany alternative means of family making; the private and public expressions of iconic writers grappling with motherhood and fertility. She reports, with great empathy, complex stories of couples who adopted domestically and from overseas, LGBT couples considering assisted reproduction and surrogacy, and women and men reflecting on childless or child-free lives. show lessTags
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Read from August 01 to September 11, 2016
An insightful exploration of the author's experiences with fertility that makes connections to literature, film, medicine, politics, health insurance, etc. It is definitely educational. My assumptions about infertility, the process and struggle associated with it, were demolished. I knew it was difficult and expensive, but I didn't realize the many different methods of assisted reproduction. It is far beyond take a pill or go through in vitro fertilization. I also had NO idea what IVF really was. Boggs also discusses adoption, health care disparities, LGBT rights, and discusses how infertility is viewed in film and literature.
An insightful exploration of the author's experiences with fertility that makes connections to literature, film, medicine, politics, health insurance, etc. It is definitely educational. My assumptions about infertility, the process and struggle associated with it, were demolished. I knew it was difficult and expensive, but I didn't realize the many different methods of assisted reproduction. It is far beyond take a pill or go through in vitro fertilization. I also had NO idea what IVF really was. Boggs also discusses adoption, health care disparities, LGBT rights, and discusses how infertility is viewed in film and literature.
I am a woman going through fertility testing. I read this book interested in connection and insights. I got none. This book felt pointless to me. Perhaps it was cathartic for her to write somehow, but there was so little by way of insight. I got nothing out of it. She wrote this but shared nearly nothing. Really too bad.
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- Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 362.1981 — Society, government, & culture Social problems and social services Social Welfare People with physical illnesses Services to people with specific conditions Gynecology and Pediatrics
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- RG201 .B554 — Medicine Gynecology and Obstetrics Gynecology and obstetrics Functional and systemic disorders. Endocrine gynecology
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