About the Author
Finally Heard: A Silent Sorority Finds Its Voice is an intentionally short ebook designed in the Kindle Singles model. It incorporates wisdom from ‘Generation IVF’ designed to spark discussion about infertility and the little discussed aftermath of fertility treatments.
Behind the Writing
My life changed after emerging as a reluctant spokeswoman on infertility in 2008. The transformation started when a health reporter from The New York Times asked if I’d be willing to openly discuss my infertility experience. I described the stubborn persistence of the condition and the lack of a cultural framework to process the losses. An accompanying health feature story produced astonishment and relief that someone was candidly addressing the trauma and legacy of infertility.
Soon thereafter I wrote what became an award-winning book called Silent Sorority. In the first memoir on infertility not authored by a mother, my writing explored the complicated, disenfranchised grief and identity issues following prolonged failed attempts to conceive. Now 10 years outside of the grief I once felt so viscerally comes Finally Heard: The Silent Sorority Finds Its Voice (May 1, 2015).
Finally Heard moves beyond the personal to examine the complex inter-relationship of the psychological, social and cultural implications of ‘Generation IVF.’ Today’s cultural preoccupation with parenting and the growing commercial focus of the for-profit fertility industry has birthed a fear-driven patient/consumer population and society ill-equipped to process reproductive failure. Finally Heard makes clear that the disproportionate emphasis on ‘magical thinking’ has bred an expectation of parenthood that makes pushing forward in a different direction seem like giving up rather than succeeding at something truly remarkable: reinvention.
In this interview learn more about what led to writing Finally Heard and whether the fertility industry is doing more harm than good.
Read early reviews on the links below as well as here.
FINALLY HEARD REVIEWS
Finally Heard – The Road Less Traveled
Finally Heard – Podcast Interview
Breaking the Silence and Finally Heard – Life Without Baby
The Stories That Change Us – Searching For Our Silver Lining
Finally Heard – No Kidding in NZ
Finally Heard: A Silent Sorority Finds Its Voice – The Next 15,000 Days
April Reading – Bent Not Broken
Can We Define A New Tribe? – Ever Upward
Finalement Entendues – (French review)
Holy smokes, Andrea…the things your friend wrote were so painful. Reading the list made me cringe. Thanks for sharing your story by the way. I really love this part: \”When we didn’t share our stories, why were we seen as well-rounded, intelligent, multi-faceted, people with interesting lives and when we did speak, why were seen as defining our lives by being childless not by choice?\” as well as the lines that Mali copied.