Campaign for the American Reader: Pg. 69: "Waiting for Daisy"

Peggy Orenstein is the author, most recently, of the memoir, 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.

I invited Peggy to put her new book to the "page 69 test;" here is what she reported:

Of course, on getting your email I promptly looked at p. 69 of my book. Does it represent the book? Yes and no. The through-line of the book is my struggle to decide whether I want to be a mother and then my struggle to become one. On p. 69 I'm deep in the thicket of infertility treatments. So to that extent, it is representative. And that page has a dash of the humor that is, I think (hope), reflective of the book’s tone. On the other hand, I've gone to great lengths -- quite literally in the case of the book's subtitle -- to signal that this book isn't ONLY about infertility, that it's about many things, like my first true love, who, with his wife, now has fifteen kids (yes, fifteen, and yes, she gave birth to all of them). Or the so-called “parasite single women” whom I met in Tokyo. It's about the near-unraveling of a loving marriage and it's about a kind of obsession that can grip anyone: one in which you find yourself doing everything you never thought you'd do to get something you hadn't even realized you'd wanted. I'm not sure all that can be reflected in ANY one page of the book, but it's intriguing to try….

Here is p. 69. It begins and cuts off mid-sentence; the few extra words from pp. 68 and 70 are in brackets:

[Neither nun pee nor hamster ovaries came cheap:] three vials injected morning and evening plus another drug to suppress my natural cycle ran over $350 a day--the same as I’d spent in an entire month doing IUI with Risa. A girl could buy a lot of shoes with that kind of scratch.

In addition to the familiar side effects of Clomid, the injectable drugs bumped up the likelihood of twins or triplets to 30 percent. That gave us pause. On one hand, it would be a bargain: two for the price of one, an instant family. Steven, whose siblings were each about a year apart, kind of liked the idea of our kids being the same age. On the other hand, he also recalled seeing a friend about six months after becoming the father of twins: "They had extinguished the light from his eyes," Steven said. "He looked like a well-dressed character from Night of the Living Dead." In the end we convinced ourselves that while we would surely be in the 30 percent who succeeded in getting pregnant, we wouldn't be in the 30 percent of that group who had twins. Numbers, I was learning, are funny that way.

I had practiced giving injections on an orange. Let me tell you something; your thigh, cellulite aside, is nothing like an orange. For one thing, it feels pain. For another, it's yours. The first night I meticulously laid out my supplies: alcohol wipes, the vials of powdered medication, the sterile water to dilute them, and two syringes, one for each drug. I twisted a long, thick needle onto the first syringe, and, snapping the glass tops off the vials (using gauze to avoid cutting my fingers) I drew up some water, squirted it into the first vial of powder, and gently swirled until it dissolved. Drawing the mixture up, I repeated the process with the next vial and the next. I changed to another needle, about a half-inch long, tapping the syringe briskly until all the air bubbles [disappeared.]

Many thanks to Peggy for the input.

Read the prologue and "The Ticking Point," an adaptation from Waiting for Daisy.

Among the praise for the book:

"Intimate, funny/sad and remarkably self-revealing."
-- Kirkus (starred review)

“The story of author Peggy Orenstein’s struggle with infertility is riveting, but what really makes her memoir such a compelling read is her refreshing honesty about the complicated emotions many women face on the path to motherhood.”
-- Parenting Magazine

“Orenstein’s nakedly honest account of her decision at age 35 to have a baby and her ensuing struggle to do so reads like a detective thriller.”
-- Elle Magazine, winner of “Elle Lettres” readers’ prize, February 2007

"An absolutely wonderful book. I couldn't put it down: it reads as easily and yet with as much texture as a novel. As always, Orenstein, is both so smart and so human as she tells her story -- and ours, too -- about her marriage, career, indecision, breast cancer, and whether or not she can, and wants to, and ought to, get pregnant. Sometimes the writing is wrenching, sometimes very funny, but always profoundly honest and engaging."
-- Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions

"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, The Adventures of Kavelier and Clay

"Add to the best literature of motherhood Peggy Orenstein's searing account of her six-year quest to have a child. The story of what she put her body through is beautifully and movingly rendered, but it's her honesty in examining her own mind and heart that make Waiting for Daisy such a courageous and unforgettable book. I was enthralled."
-- Ann Packer, The Dive from Clausen's Pier