Customer Reviews

Sweet Grapes: How to Stop Being Infertile and Start Living Again

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A wonderful book on infertility, written with courage and grace. This OB-GYN and her husband have shown that you can make it through the pain and heartache of infertility without ending up with "sour grapes".

One thing I really appreciated was the way the book helped me to examine and understand all the emotions involved with infertility, and even why I wanted to have children in the first place. There is a good portion of the book devoted to the option of living childfree (the choice the authors have made). As a result, my husband and I know that if we choose to live childfree we do not need to feel guilty and are not less a part of the human race or child haters. Likewise, if we do adopt it will be because we truely want to raise that child (or children) and not use the child as a way to fix infertility or fill a void. At last, we are no longer "victims" of infertiliy! We are getting on with our life, and our identity is no longer bound on ! whether we have children or not.

The authors have also included sorces/resources that have been helpful to them and I look forward to investigating them as well. I highly recommend this book to anyone going through infertility, their family, and to doctors and therapists that have infertle patients.

This book is surprisingly helpful, supportive, optimistic and is written for both men and women. I am a 40-year-old woman who doesn't have children because of illness. This book is applicable to unwanted childlessness from all causes--not just infertility. An alternate title could be "Sweet Grapes: How to Stop Feeling Miserable About Not Having Children and Start Living Again." With some effort, the whole book can be generalized from the specific case of infertility to childlessness for other reasons.

The authors make the case that a person who is not fertile can actively choose either infertility or childfree living. Their unusual definitions of childfree versus infertile and childless actually made sense after I read their detailed explanations. They write, "It is choice that makes the difference between voluntary and involuntary childlessness. Childfree means turning involuntary childlessness into voluntary childlessness. And we would rather live our lives in the achievement of a major life goal than in the constant reminder of the frustration of one." Childfree does not mean disliking children.

This book does a good job of explaining exactly what childfree living is and how it has worked for them. Luckily, they are not pushing this option on readers.
Key points are:
1. Happiness after infertility is much more likely if one makes active choices about how to spend the rest of one's life than if one drifts.
2. Every loss such as infertility or childlessness also contains the potential for gain and personal growth.
3. Building effective communication skills between partners is important.
4. Decision-making processes and skills can be learned. Decisions addressed are how much infertility treatment to undergo, how to spend the rest of one's life if biological children are not possible and whether to live childfree.
Be sure to read the revised 1998 edition because it includes an Epilogue. Bibliography but no index included.

I highly recommend Linda Hunt Anton's 1992 "Never To Be A Mother: A Guide For All Women Who Didn't--Or Couldn't--Have Children." Written by an infertile, childless, social-worker-therapist, it is the best self-help book I've found on dealing with emotional aspects of childlessness. Readers benefit from her non-threatening writing style, professional training and years of experience in infertility and childlessness counseling.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! An amazing book to help you survive infertility. After 7 IVF's, several miscarriages and a medical conclusion that what felt impossible, was impossible, this book changed my life. After reading it, I felt as though there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I took control of my life and realized that I could have a rewarding, happy life...I just needed to make the active choice to BE HAPPY! If you feel "stuck", read this book...it will change your perspective on life!

This book, along with "Adopting After Infertility" are two of the most helpful books my husband and I have read on infertility. We're undergoing our third and last IVF in the fall, so we're getting ready to close the door on the possibility of a child who is biologically ours. We credit both of these books for helping to keep us emotionally grounded during the process -- there IS life after infertility!

The Carters have written a warm, honest, personal, heartfelt and non-judgmental book. They acknowledge that Childfree is not for everyone, but openly share how it has worked for them and the decision process they employed to get there. The tone of the book is never pushy or self-righteous, which sadly cannot be said of all infertility books and forums.

We still have not decided whether or not adoption is for us, but we feel better equiped to make that decision thanks to both of these books.

I found this book extremely helpful after our 4 failed IVF attempts along with 2 miscarriages. It helped me get out of the hole that I had dug for my husband and myself and get on with life!

I felt immeasurably relieved after reading it.

This book is one of the few books I have found that focuses on the absolutely wonderful options open to couples who have battled infertility. It has helped me tremendously--now I have some tools to help me rebuild my life away from the ever-present goal of making a baby. The book deals honestly with the intense pain of infertility, then embraces the life choice of living without children in a very open and empowering way. The authors have really filled a void--I applaud their self-actualized lifestyle and hope to achieve it again myself.

This book presents rules that worked for the authors, but may not work for everyone. They certainly don't work for me.

This is meant to be a comforting, positive book for those who lost out in the fertility sweepstakes. It is often Pollyanna-ish -- the authors suggest "helping" careers such as social work and teaching, pets, gardening and hobbies as substitutes for having children, which seems rather bizarre. I don't experience these things as remotely comparable.

They fail to address the knotty issues, the real reasons why people couldn't try to have children until it was too late. While the authors seem to assume that all parents and in-laws want grandchildren, my husband and I were hesitant because we grew up in stressed-out families, both of which (especially his, who disapproved of our interfaith marriage)discouraged us from having children. They don't address the common scenario of boyfriends dragging their feet to the altar, and husbands wanting to put off and put off having children until the wives are too old, and so the infertility heartbreak begins.

The authors made their childfree decision in their early thirties -- which seems ludicrously early to give up hope. I don't buy their recommendation that it's bad to "drift" -- leave things up to fate. They started using birth control again, instead of leaving it to chance that they might be blessed with a late, surprise baby. I know one couple who did the fertility treatment route, resigned themselves fairly happily to childlessness, and then the wife got accidentally pregnant at 45, and they are the happiest parents in the world.

I tried to embrace "childfree" in my late thirties, after fertility treatments dramatically worsened a chronic illness, which brought additional money worries into the picture. The authors don't cover a situation like mine -- where adoption turns out not to be an option. I really had no choice, so why should I say I chose child free? The authors only define three scenarios -- biological children, adoptive children, and happily child free. Those who experience themselves as childless, they say, are doing something wrong.

These authors have a very close marriage, and happy, fulfilling careers. Not everyone is so lucky to have that strong bond to fill the void of childlessness.

The authors oversimplify a complex situation that is subject to each person's experience. I can't agree that all their recommendations will lead to resolution. Life is never fully resolved. Despite my efforts to embrace "child free" the hand fate has dealt me periodically casts a shadow over my life. Some days my life is so challenging that I thank God I'm not subjecting innocent children to it. But most days it's society that makes me feel child-less. Other times, I genuinely experience life that way. It's wrong of the authors to deny my or anyone else their truth. There are no absolutes in life, no one size fits all formulas.Some things you never get over.

I bought and read this book shortly after my husband and I decided to remain childfree. The authors show great sensitivity to the pain I have felt while also promoting hope for a happy life. They address concerns I have had and helped me understand that I am not alone.

Some of the information wasn't quite relevant to us because we had already tried to adopt but were unsuccessful. The authors never really discuss that possibility.

What was most empowering about this book was its emphasis on choice. I believe that I am choosing to be childfree even though certain involuntary experiences led me to it. Thus, I appreciate the authors' approach to the topic and the control that can come back into our lives as we affirm childlessness and embrace a happy life.

I have read widely about infertility and this continues to be my favorite book. Their strength and wisdom in the face of infertility is simply inspiring and uplifting. Far from being a book only about living childfree, it is about dealing with loss, and then making positive, active choices in your life. My husband and I will likely pursue adoption or IVF with egg donation, but from this book I realized that the decision to pursue those family building options is separate from the process of accepting and mourning loss of fertility. And I gained a new appreciation for the active decision to live childfree, an option I now think every infertile couple should seriously consider as part of their process of growing, accepting, and taking control of their lives. It is optimistic and is a welcome antidote to the feelings of bitterness that can fester in the hearts of those with infertility.

A must read for anyone coming to terms with their infertility.