Customer Reviews

Silent Sorority: A Barren Woman Gets Busy, Angry, Lost and Found

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Hiding out in public bathrooms? You're not alone.
Subjected to celebratory baby bump chatter around the water cooler? Not alone.
Feeling left out of experiencing one of life's biggest milestones? Not alone.
Struggling to make peace with never getting to be a bio parent? Not alone.
Grappling with the overall ignorance and indifference towards infertility? Not alone.
Learning to embrace the next stage without having to save up for a college fund? Not alone.

Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos represents a side of infertility that has been insultingly overlooked in the literary world: her story doesn't end with a bouncing baby, instead it's delves into the heart and mind of an involuntarily childless woman.

Those just starting down the fun infertility rabbit hole may find her outcome scary because she ended up on the other side of hope... until she found new dreams for which to hope. She shares a truth about advanced reproductive technologies (ART)--sometimes they just don't work. Actually, make that oftentimes they don't work. And adoption isn't just the simple panacea the general public seems to believe will soothe the Infertile's broken heart.

Those of us who have suffered silently through the trials of infertility due to its still-present public stigma, viscerally crave our plight to be understood. And it's no easy task to convey what it's like to struggle with infertility in a world where today's "news" involves glaring headlines about the latest celebutante who, oopsie, managed to get knocked up by her boyfriend of several months--yet convey she does.

Not only will "Infertiles" find comforting validation reading and relating to this author's (decade-long!) struggle with trying to conceive, but hopefully "Fertiles" will be enlightened about the pain their sisters in the IF (infertility) world must face. Mrs. Tsigdinos delivers her message with a resonant voice that clearly depicts for the public at large what it's like to ride the IF roller coaster while reassuring us "Infertiles" that we are not alone.

In truth, having recently joined her in the same "involuntarily childless" boat, it was a bittersweet experience to hunker down with her book. Let's face it; I'm a tad raw regarding this subject matter. However, I was so grateful to read a kindred-spirit's insights while I shed many cathartic tears. As she intimately and honestly chronicled her heart wrenching path going from failure to conceive, to hopeful for a different kind of future than she ever designed, she gave me a newfound hope as I struggle to cross the threshold into the next stage of our lives.

This book is an important read for every single person out there--in the infertile world or otherwise (despite the potential discomfort one may feel reading about the infertility travails she endured). Because guess what? You may not know it, but the likelihood is great that you DO know someone who is silently suffering through the pain of a childless empty nest. Just as we should be sensitive to apparent medical conditions, so should we too regarding infertility. Mrs. Tsigdinos does a stellar job leading the troops in raising infertility awareness and understanding with her forthright, brave, and humorous voice.

I'm so glad someone wrote this book! While the publishing industry spews out dozens, if not hundreds of titles a year that wind up with Baby and Happily Ever After, there's nothing for the large minority -- or maybe it's a majority? -- of people the fertility industry failed. This book tells the whole story, the peaks and valleys -- of that journey. Can a book that ends without a baby have a happy ending? A resounding yes.

Like the author, I also wound up without children, though due to different circumstances. Dealing with that private loss is one thing, dealing with the social stigma is ten times worse.

I hope that this book is the beginning of a sea change in a baby-frenzied culture. Octomom brought home to the wider world that being a Mom isn't necessarily a thing to be admired in itself.

This book does a great job addressing the invisibility of non-Moms -- the author identifies as Infertile -- but women who wound up without for other reasons will also relate. Why is 70% of all public conversation kid chatter? Where did manners go?

I hope this book brings some awareness to wider society that there's a pretty large group of people out there who aren't just being marginalized, but often maligned simply because they couldn't/didn't reproduce.

This book is incredibly well-written, snappy, funny irreverent as well as moving. The author takes us through the steps of shock, grief, hope, anger, denial and acceptance. The denial part really hit home with me -- you kind of have to park yourself there for a while, it takes some time to accept your fate.

What this book doesn't do is tell you "six easy steps" -- or how to "fix your attitude" to your childless state. Thank God! For me it was much better to hear the inside thoughts of someone who's gone through the same, or similar trials I have, and how she's found a way to be in the world. Bravo!

There aren't many resources out there for those of us who opt to leave the infertility treatment path and live without children (as opposed to those who are childfree by choice in the first place).

There are a few Internet sites and message boards, and a few (very few) books devoted specifically to this subject -- most of them written in the 1980s & early 1990s. And a lot has changed since those books were written. Whereas once upon a time, the choice for infertile couples was stark & clear -- adopt or remain childless/free -- the options available to them have multiplied almost exponentially.

Thanks to birth control, it's now easier for women who don't want to have children to remain childfree -- and an increasing number of them are doing so -- sometimes quite vocally. At the same time, the public's seemingly endless cult-like fascination with the pregnant bellies and all things mommy, pregnancy and baby-related has, if anything, only intensified -- as has the growing outspokeness of those who are childfree by choice. No wonder it sometimes feels as though the voices of women (like me) who are living without children after infertility are getting lost in the cacaphony, struggling to be heard above the din.

That's why I was so happy to recently receive & read my copy of Silent Sorority. For me, finding Pamela's blog on the Internet a few years ago was like stumbling into an oasis in the middle of a desert, and her book continues the good work of her blog. Silent Sorority describes Pamela's personal journey, from girlhood to the present, the influences that shaped her life choices, her valiant 11-year struggle to have a family, her painful decision to remain childfree, her resolve to create a new kind of meaningful life for herself and her husband as a family of two, and her sharp-eyed, sometimes hilarious observations about what it's like to be infertile in a world gone mad for babies & pregnant women.

The hard truth is, not all infertility stories end with a baby. But that doesn't mean there isn't a happy ending. Maybe it's just a different kind of happy ending than we've all been programmed to expect. While this book will bring great hope & comfort to women like Pamela & me, who have found themselves involuntarily childless at the end of their infertility journey (however long or short it may have been), or those contemplating such a future for themselves, it deserves a much broader audience. Anyone who has ever struggled with infertility, past or present, will recognize themselves in the pages of this book, no matter how they choose to resolve their situation. Fertile people also have a great deal to learn from Pamela's story.

I am deeply greatful to the author for writing this book. My stomach turned when I read some of the stupid comments made to encourage and give hope, the insensitive things said in ignorance or impatience, because I was guilty of saying them myself to my own daughter. I have a much better understanding of what she is experiencing. I have felt puzzled and helpless when I have seen her lose it with pregnant friends and family members, but knowing that every blasted 28 days she receives another reminder of loss and failure really brings it into focus. This is a cross no one should have to bear. It is more pain than anyone should have to endure. I now notice all the constant reminders that are all around us every day, all the time. A ceaseless reminder of the one thing she desires so much being behond her reach. But the hope that Pam gives for finding her way out of the pain is beautiful. There is no recovery from this. How can one recover? It isn't possible. I am going to send a copy to a family member who has been especially insensitive. She should have to go through the Twilight Zone.

Everyone can benefit from Pamela's brave, honest and (somehow) humorous book because everyone knows somebody trying to conceive---even if they don't know it. This book reminds us to be compassionate and thoughtful and grateful, especially if we are parents. It reminded me to savor the miracles that eventually arrived in my life after several years of trying to conceive---which I often forget in the midst of daily schedules, dramas and general household madness. Plus, I hadn't really thought about my journey since I was sure my twin girls were out and healthy. Life got very crazy (and I was post-partum and peri-menopausal at the same time---my poor husband!). Pamela's book inspired me to take the time to remember my struggle and be grateful for the outcome.

Silent Sorority also is an important, essential addition to a market mostly filled with success stories, which sometimes gave me hope, but more often made me feel hopeless and even more like a failure. It provides a needed balance that I wish had been available to me.

It takes a lot of courage to decide to stop treatments---most of us were taught from a very young age that you never stop trying. Pamela's book gave thousands of couples who are struggling with infertility a voice, permission to "give up" and a path of hope.

When I recently asked a woman in her 30's if she had children, I could tell by the sadness in her eyes as she said "no--just us," I had just asked a thoughtless question, and I know better. Pamela's book reminded me not to ask those questions----ever.

"Silent Sorority" is an important contribution to the infertility and childlessness bookshelves. It is the strongest, most candid infertility memoir that I have read; most books in this genre are written by women and men who are in their early 30s and thus tend to rely heavily on the platitudes of hope and determination to achieve parenthood at any personal cost. Tsigdinos instead bravely chronicles life on the other, starker side of the statistics: Most IVF cycles do not result in a live birth; adoption is not the easy solution that so many fertile people claim it to be, especially because many adoption agencies and birth parents discriminate against couples older than age 40; and the fertile majority's ignorance and thoughtlessness often is displayed most cruelly. Tsigdinos incorporates material from her excellent blog as well as many deeply personal details to give the reader insight into her decision making and continuing advocacy for the infertility community and especially for those women and men who are involuntarily childless.

Books and books have been written on the happy endings (a beautiful bouncing baby!) of infertility treatment. But that doesn't happen for everyone. Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos has written a book that poignantly relates her personal journey from childhood, to failed infertility treatments, to her decision to remain childfree.

Pam has a gift for writing - I laughed, I cried, I was angry, I got new insights as I read the book. It's not just her story. She seamlessly weaves in the voices of her husband, family and friends. Most touching for me was an interaction with her mother. When the book draft is in she asks her mother to read it. With the words on paper, Pam is finally able to discuss the impact of her infertility with her mother in a way that had never happened before. To hear her mother talk about the grace she'd seen Pam display was moving.

The book does have a happy ending. It may not be the happy ending we were all told to expect but the peace and acceptance that Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos experiences at the end of her journey brings hope to all of us.

Jean Vanier wrote "Stories seem to awaken new energies of love; they tell us great truths in simple, personal terms and make us long for light. Stories have a strange power of attraction. When we tell stories, we touch hearts..."

Consider buying a few copies for your "Fertile" friends. This book will touch their hearts too.

Catherine Corp
IPOFA
[...]

Silent Sorority is not only a "great read"....it is a very enlightening book.
I read the entire book in a few hours and found it very compelling. Written with honesty, grace and humor, Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos tackles the very sensitive topic of infertility in a straightforward and factual way. The author has a very readable and enjoyable writing style that engages the reader even when the topic is of a more medical nature. This is a book about a woman who has faced a tremendous challenge -- and emerged on "the other side" with a renewed, refocused and reinvigorated outlook on life. It is about the resilience of the human spirit. So often, in books about infertility, we read only about the tremendous strain put upon the marriage by the years of disappointment and treatment. The author shows us that not all marriages deteriorate with stress. Her marriage is one of great support, care and love between the two partners. I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever faced an obstacle (who hasn't) and wondered "why me?"

I read Silent Sorority in one sitting and came away feeling that it's about much more than coping with infertility: It addresses how one goes about coming to terms with any life-changing loss. The author approaches her painful topic with humor and an occasional dash of acerbic wit.

She also has a wonderful website on the same topic:
coming2terms.com

When I came to the end of my five year battle( and it was a big and epic battle, the kind that Homer wrote about) to have children and I failed to get pregnant, the first place I went to was the bookstore. I wanted to find a book that would make me feel less alone in my CNBC( childless not by choice status). I couldn't find such a book. There were hundreds of books available on Trying to Conceive. But where were the books on what happens when you have spent five years and $100,000 on TTC and you have nothing but receipts, half used containers of Follistim, sadness and emptiness. No such book was at my Barnes and Noble.
Then one day I read Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos' piece in the New York Times( that day I received that article emailed to me from five other friends) I knew I wasn't alone. I was a member of a Silent Sorority. In finding Pamela's book, blog and person----I felt I had found a sister. She had been through what I had been though. She knew my pain. In her pages I found my experience mirrored and I felt less alone.
Shortly after finding Pamela I began to write my blog La Belette Rouge( [...]). It was Pamela's courageous voice, I think, that helped inspire me to be so honest about my own struggles with infertility and how to live a life of childlessness. I know that I am not the only one who has been emboldened by Pamela's story. See for yourself. Buy her book, read it and go to her blog and see for yourself the power of being part of this Silent Sorority. We are not alone. Thank you, Pamela, for this reminder.