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It would be disingenuous - and an attack on the spirit of this book - were I not to reveal my own hand before considering it for review. Eight years ago, I had a single child followed by twins 15 months later. All three children were the result of ART (assisted reproductive technology). They were fertilized embryos, all from the same IVF cycle but defrosted at different times, and born after four years of failed treatments. Like so many women described in this book, I had everything from invasive surgery, injections in my stomach, hormone treatments, keyhole surgery, four cycles of artificial inseminations and a failed IVF attempt. It was, in hindsight, a multiple trauma which robbed me of my capacity to think. This is a book about thinking, in the broadest sense, and about how difficult it is to hold on to that capacity when in the grip of very powerful emotions.
All infertility treatment takes place in a climate of trauma, elation and persecutory loss. All couples walk into clinics not only with a history of bereavement, because the baby has not yet materialized, but also often with a manic optimism in the belief that if they are ‘positive’ then ‘it’ will work. And implicit in their hope that ‘it’ will ‘work’ is the persecutory idea that they themselves don't. When the intervention fails too, that shame can infect doctor and patients alike undermining their capacity to think - to consider whether perhaps it might be time to stop - and threatening the chance for healing and recovery.
Drawing on their own personal emotional investment in the world of infertility, the 16 different contributors to this book offer a highly creative, intelligent and innovative approach to a psychological crisis. The book is divided into four sections: the experience of infertility, the psychological aspects, changing patterns of kinship and the shadow. Each section considers the same issues but from the very different perspectives of the writers involved. It will, I hope, prove to be a te