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But this book is by no means only for women struggling with infertility, no more than Moby-Dick is for budding whalers. Think of this more as a remarkable story of a perceptive writer's journey.
"So how was it, I wondered, that I had arrived at this point in my life: almost thirty-nine years old, no child?"
It's a question that calls Alden to reflect on her childhood in South Carolina in the 1950s, where her mother's traditional expectations of marriage and family drove her to California to escape and to become a writer. She is candid in telling of her experimentation with sex in the late '60s, mulling over the relationships good and bad which shape her understanding of commitment. By the time her future husband Jeff comes along, it's clear that she has found a true mate.
Not obvious to her is the notion of becoming a mother. She is hampered by her worry that women cannot be both writers and nurturing mothers (a belief she later rejects), that her freedom would be lost, that she would lose sight of her self.
The questions form an arc through her story: Should I have a child? Should I try to have a child? How hard should I try to have a child? When should I stop trying so hard to have a child? When should I stop altogether? What is it like not to have a child?
Alden is a superb writer, capturing all the excruciating hope and anxiety that accompany these questions. As she slogs through her crash course in reproductive chemistry (luteinizing hormone? hysterosalpingogram?), the reader's empathy is complete. When she comes upon the hard truth that their efforts at artificial insemination might fail, she writes: "It's hard to imagine now what the hope was even for. A baby. A pregnancy. At a certain point it all had become a bit abstract, almost meaningless. I was just engaged in trying. I hated to be defeated. I hated to say uncle. I squirmed like a piece of worm meat trying to get away from the hoe."
Resolution comes for Pauline Bates Alden, and it is a hopeful thing itself: "It came to me that it really was a choice between two good things -- having a child and not having a child. Our life without a child seemed good to me. I caught a glimpse that it was what was right for us, for the best. But who can say what is 'best'? Maybe it's possible to get to a place where what is best is simply what is."
Indeed.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.