Questions for Love and Other Impossible Pursuits

These are the questions for Tour Six: Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman


Group A

1. Throughout the book my feelings towards Emilia were conflicted. If you felt that way too, why did you also feel that way?

2. Emilia's handling of grief changes during the book. In the beginning she mocks her friend, Mindy's wholehearted embrace of "the grief community" and rejects her offer to go on the Walk to Remember. She then changes her mind and does the Walk and comments that she envies "the ease of their grief" while wincing at the bad poetry read aloud at the pond. Do you find that your desire to openly express your grief has changed? Have the structures and practices in place helped you cope with your grief or do you wince like Emilia at things you find overly sentimental or just inappropriate for you?

3. In the end, Emilia acknowledges that perhaps the idea of bashert, a 'magical unit,' was just a "dream" a "kabalistic tale." That she had used this idea to justify ignoring her obligations to those she loved. Do you think your situation has led you to neglect your significant other (or other loved ones in your life)?

4. Emilia often describes the intense physical and emotional connection between she and Jack. She often refers to him as her bashert. But after the loss of Isabel, and Emilia's spiral into solitary despair, that connection is damaged. This alteration is noted by Emilia when Jack declines her first offer of physical intimacy since their daughter's death. She becomes "terrified that I have become like Carolyn, cold to sex, unmoved by my husband, uninterested in the passion that once meant everything to me." What sort of relationship do you have with your significant other? Do you feel he/she is your bashert? What effect has IF/loss had on your emotional and/or physical relationship?

5. Emilia has a difficult time relating to other women who have had losses in pregnancy, usually because she sees her situation as different and worse than those women who have had miscarriages. She is particularly hard on her friend Mindy. Do you feel like this attitude was justified on her part? Are mothers of SIDs victims much different and worse off than mothers of miscarriages? Or can we all belong to the same support group?

6. There seems to be a natural urge to rank our pain against that of others. Emilia separates herself from Mindy (p65) by saying, rather graphically, that a miscarriage loss is nothing compared to baby loss. Later at the Walk To Remember (p256), Emilia again feels disgusted to find that a woman has named her miscarried children. How did this strike you in light of your own situation? Do you (consciously or subconsciously) rank the pains of (a) not being able to conceive; (b) not being able to carry a baby to term; and (c) the death of a baby/child? Did you choose your own pain as the worst?

7. We all have had someone in our lives like William who innocently says the wrong thing more often then we would like. How has your infertility experience helped you respond better to those "innocent yet wrong" comments/questions?

8. For those of us who have suffered loss, the Walk to Remember maybe raises some feelings and issues. Emilia meets another woman who lost a child after birth. "It's a terrible way to lose them. However it happens is bad, but SIDS is the worst. I mean, of course I'd think that, but I know I'm right." Emilia feels out of place amongst the women mourning early losses "I realize, with a vertigo that almost knocks me off my feet, that this woman has named her miscarriages...I know it is unfair to feel disgust...I have no right to condemn her just because she has given her miscarriages middle names." Is there a hierarchy of loss? Do we share more than divides us? Can we get support and solace from others regardless of their exact experience... or do we seek out those whose experience most closely parallels our own?

9. This book was, I think, extremely profound to those of us who have suffered life and loss, and to those of us who are stepmothers. One particular theme that I really found very remarkable was the fact that Emilia had such an acute loss, which didn’t detract from her other role, which is as a stepmother. William’s comments that they should ebay the baby’s things were painful from that “from the mouth of babes” kind of space, but at the same time, I wondered myself why Emilia wasn’t going to try again, that her loss was horrific but there could, maybe, be another baby. But then I thought with the emotional turmoil of William and of grieving, maybe she wouldn’t be trying again. And then I thought perhaps she was not only needing to make her peace with her loss, but accepting that there would be no more chances in the future. Have you reached that stage yourself in your quest for a family, or could you envision such a time ahead? If you have stepkids, how much of a role do they play in that decision?

10. Emilia states her belief on page 332 that those who are powerless in the face of fate are also blameless. Do you agree with this belief—that if something is destined to happen and it does, that you are blameless for its damage?

11. Emilia tries to get the restaurant to begin carrying a pink cupcake for William, admitting, “He will be overcome by the bliss of a strawberry cupcake and he will forget the rage in his mother’s face when she looked at me. I wish there was a cupcake that delicious. What will it take for me to forget, I wonder?” Is that level of distraction only capable by children? What do you use to distract yourself when you’re trying to forget something painful?

Group B

1. It seems that Emilia straddles the fences between wanting to participate in the Walk to Remember. At first she talks of how silly it seems to walk around with other women mourning their losses, and later asks her own mother to attend. On the surface the walk itself seemed to be a failure for Emilia. She was frustrated with the appearance of her father, balked at the stars others wore, and felt distanced from the other walkers. But was there anything at the walk that could be considered a turning point for her?

2. On page 65, Waldman writes, “She (Mindy) think we are members of the same sorority of pain, that we are sisters in grief… But when I’m with Mindy I’m afraid every minute that I’ll that I will tell her she has no fucking idea that a curl of flesh and DNA floating in a toilet bowl full of blood is not a baby, and that the remnants of pregnancy running down your legs is nothing, nothing like holding your dead child in your arms…” React to this statement as a woman who has lost a baby through miscarriage. In addition, can a similar sentiment apply to women experiencing different levels of infertility? Is one person’s “pain” moot in comparison to another’s if one has only failed with IUI versus one who has failed with multiple IVFs?

3. Is the way Emilia quantifies loss similar or dissimilar to what we all tend to do? (i.e. her reactions to the miscarriages of a friend and the number of names on a heart of another participant at the walk) Why or why don't we do this?

4. Do you think Jack was tolerant of Emilia's behavior for too long or that he was giving her adequate time and space to grieve? What place do significant others and support persons have in this time of personal devastation?

5. How did you interpret Emilia's interactions with William? What did they say about her as a person, and in turn, her grief?

6. We learn later in the book that Emilia is convinced that through her carelessness she smothered her daughter and killed her. Under the same circumstances, do you think you would blame yourself and how would you cope with the situation? Do you think Emilia's sometimes irrational behavior since the death of her daughter stems solely from this feeling of guilt or do you think it is an extension of her 'normal' personality coupled with the stress of her family life and the death of her newborn daughter?

7. How did you feel about the walk to remember scenes in the book? Did you think it was healing for Emilia? If you have dealt with pregnancy loss, do you find that commemorating loss in community is helpful to you? If you are dealing with infertility do you feel that community has helped you deal with the struggle? In which ways?

8. Emilia obviously deals with some self-destructive tendencies. Can you relate to her feelings? Have you dealt with self-destructive feelings on your journey to parenthood?

9. Did you find it hard to relate to Emilia when she said a miscarriage was simply DNA floating around in a toilet bowl? Did it seem like she didn't give miscarriers the right to grieve when she was appalled by the women wearing stars with m/c dates and names?

10. As I watched the main character go through the pain of her baby's sudden and unexpected death, I wondered if she would be willing to get pregnant again in the future. It was hard enough for me to start trying again after my ectopic - I can't even imagine what I would do after a miscarriage or the loss of a 3 month old baby. What were your thoughts?

11. Do you think that Jack was supportive of Emilia's task for watching William on Wednesday? Should Emilia have to maintain the same demands/lifestyle standards has Carolyn placed upon William's nanny?

12. Throughout the novel, Emilia feels she was drawn to her husband, Jack, through the concept of bashert – that it was a magical connection or fate that had drawn them together. Do you believe in love at first sight? Do you believe there is one soul mate for each of us?

13. As Emilia is grieving over the loss of Isabel, she mentions that her friend Mindy’s miscarriage is not nearly the same as losing a child that you have held in your arms. How did this comment affect you? Did you agree that despite her efforts, Mindy is unable to relate to her and that the experiences are totally different?

14. Emilia describes in great detail her feelings of guilt regarding Isabel’s death. For those of you who have experienced loss, did you feel responsible in some way? How did you handle those feelings?

15. Emilia debates participating in the Walk to Remember and questions whether grief counseling or support groups really help when confronted with tragedy. What are your feelings about counseling and support groups? Do you feel that they have some merit?

Questions for The Kid

Questions for Book Tour Five: The Kid by Dan Savage

A

1. In the current political debate about gay marriage, one argument against gay marriage that is often trotted out is that marriage is for making babies. Straight sex, and with it heterosexual marriage, is privileged because it comes with the possibility of procreation. Dan addresses this, writing, "Babies make straight sex more important than gay sex…even when straights are having sex that couldn’t possibly make babies (oral, anal, phone, cyber), the fact that these people could make babies under other circumstances or in other positions legitimizes straight sex…[however] straight sex absent fertility has no larger significance… No babies means no miracles, no magic.” If you are straight (and my apologies for the heterosexual nature of this question) did finding out you weren’t fertile change your feelings about sex and marriage? Do you find that sex is different once the possibility of fecundity has been stripped away from it, and how did the realization that you and your partner are not fertile together affect your feelings about marriage in general and your marriage specifically?

2. I really enjoyed this book and the different tone it took from many of the other books on infertility that we are presented with, namely that it was mostly humorous and told from the perspective of a gay male couple. The author says in the chapter “Grieving Our Infertility” (page 25 in my book, but not sure if we all have the same printing) that “Heterosexual identity is all wrapped up in the ability of heterosexuals to make babies....Infertility did more than shatter their expectations; it undermined their sexual identities.” If you’re part of a heterosexual couple and in fertility treatment, did you feel the same way? Did you feel that you had lost your sexual identity once you started treatment, or had somehow “failed” as a partner in terms of what is expected of you as a woman?

3. Dan and Terry face opposition as a gay couple trying to adopt and are able to overcome that stigma with the help of an open-minded birthmother. In some international adoptions, their chances of adopting would have been slim to none due to their sexual orientation. How do you feel about the “rules” some countries have for parents looking to adopt from their country (Examples: sexual orientation, weight, age, mental health, marital status, or income)?

4. Savage states, "Fertile couples have complete autonomy". No one is checking their background before they can be a parent and no one is checking their reproductive parts for a number of possible candidates. How have you dealt with the loss of autonomy, whether through fertility testing or home study scrutiny?

5. Dan Savage comes to truly appreciate doing an open adoption, particularly at the moment that Melissa transfers the baby to him and Terry. He states that seeing her pain and feeling the pain of their separation "drove home the logic of open adoption, its absolute necessity" (pg. 216). How do you feel about open adoption? Did reading Savage's book influence your feelings?

6. How did you feel about a gay male explaining the emotions of infertility starting on p. 22? Were you offended or impressed? Do you think he got it right or was he far from the mark? Did you feel that he was correct when he said on p. 26, “I understood what they must have been going through”?

7. What would you have done if given only a few hours to decide whether or not to take someone like Melissa into your life in such a permanent way? Would you have avoided the situation altogether at the expense of becoming a parent or growing your family?

8. After being chosen by Melissa, the birth mother, Dan and Terry attend a support group meeting for adoptive parents who are still in the pool. A couple who has recently adopted a baby attends the meeting to share their story and to boost morale. Dan comments, "The yearning in the room was palpable. A newborn baby at an adoptive-parents support group is like a five-pound bag of heroin at Narcotics Anonymous. Everyone was staring at the couple carrying the smack out of the room, and there were a lot of brave faces slapped over a deep and nearly desperate desire to have what they had. Everyone wanted to be the couple with the smack, and some were losing hope that they'd ever get their hands on any." Later, fellow adoptive parents-in-waiting Carol and Jack tell Dan and Terry that an older couple at the support meeting had been in the pool for nearly 2 years without being chosen by a birth mother. "They've both been made a little crazy by the experience," Jack says. "Every meeting begins with someone dragging in a baby that could've been theirs." Does this scene reflect your experience with online or real-life infertility or adoption support groups? Is the addiction comparison accurate or is it offensive? Do you think that the presentation of the "success story" is truly morale-boosting—why or why not? What does the experience (only hinted at here) of the older waiting couple say about the so-called guaranteed nature of adoption -- is it just a matter of the adoptive parents "hanging in there"?

9. When I first read The Kid, one of the things that struck me was how different Dan and Terry's experiences were because they hadn't experienced infertility. They were coming to adoption from a different place than I am and it sensitized me to how much time we spent talking about infertility issues and losses in some of the adoption classes I've taken. How did that aspect of the book change how you think about adoption literature, classes, groups, etc or how you interact with people who are pursuing adoption?

10. For a work of non-fiction, the theme of signs and coincidences plays such a large role in The Kid. On page 152, Dan writes about three twists of fate that bring Terry and he and Melissa together: “...the Seattle conception, the likelihood that Melissa spare changed us on Broadway, and the fact that the kid would be born at OHSU.” Many other signs present themselves through the book such as the incident with Judy’s fortune cookies, and my favorite, the fact that Dan and Terry had their first encounter in a bathroom and that they found themselves in a bathroom together at the moment their son was being born. What role do signs and coincidences play in your life in relation to your infertility and treatment? Do you find that you actively look for signs (good or bad), and how much do you take them to heart?

B

1. If you were participating in an open adoption, what are the top three questions you would ask the birth mother?

2. On page 25, Dan Savage says about infertiles - "...your sex is all recreational, like gay sex, deligitimized and desanctified. Straight sex absent of fertility has no larger significance...No babies means no miracles, no magic. The sex you're having may still be pleasurable, but in a sex-hating ...culture, pleasure is not a good enough reason, otherwise gay and lesbian sex would never have been stigmatized." Do you agree with this? If you waited until you were married or are part of a religion that believes sex is for baby making and therefore birth control is not allowed, does this especially ring true to you? Has your sex life changed now that you know you have little to no chance of a baby being a result?

3. Savage refers to children in foster care as "damaged goods." How did you react to this? Did you find it offensive or an honest way of expressing why people choose to adopt a newborn rather than a waiting child?

4. Dan makes a point that straight infertile couples have something in common with a same sex couple who are, by definition, "functionally infertile" and draws an analogy between coming out as gay/lesbian and "coming out" as infertile. This got me thinking about the issues of donated gametes, and how this approach to building a family has long been accepted by lesbians, of course, while the huge growth in egg donation has now begun to make donated gametes quite mainstream. But while a lesbian or gay couple have no choice but to be open about the making of their family (as Dan points out, the child will eventually realise he wasn't born of two dads) it seems common for straight couples using donated eggs or sperm to keep it a secret. What's your take on all of this? If you have used donated gametes, do you see your family as non-conventional? Do you have an ongoing relationship with the donor? Do you plan to be open about the donation?

5. Do you believe that Dan's statement on p. 22, "And there were no ‘losses inherent in adoption’ for us, but only victory", is necessarily true? Do people that know they cannot have biological children from the beginning, i.e. a woman with a medical condition discovered in childhood, have an easier time coping than those who have spent a lot of time and resources trying to have biological children?

6. Dan mentions that while he wasn't put off by the concept of a home visit prior to adoption, but that for the straight couples it was another "insult on the pile of injuries and indignities of infertility” ( p.70). During your IF journey, what has been the experience that has left you feeling most exposed?

7. One thing that got to me in this book is how these guys didn't have to go through the initial questioning of there OWN fertility. Two men can't make a baby, so they just moved straight to adoption. My question is this: Do you think the reason that you've gone so far with your fertility treatments is because you are caught up in proving to yourself that you ARE fertile? How much are you willing to put your body through in your quest for a baby before you decide to move onto adoption (if that is even an option for you)?

8. On p. 164, Dan is terrified of bringing baby items into the house before the adoption is finalized. Will you (or did you) bring items into the house before a birth or an adoption?

9. What do you think DJ will think when he reads this book down the line?