美国国家公共电台 NPR 'The Art Of Waiting' Stands As Part Memoir, Part Cultural History Of Infertility

'The Art Of Waiting' Stands As Part Memoir¹, Part Cultural History Of Infertility² 

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0007:33repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser³ to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: 

There is a special kind of loneliness in infertility. Belle⁴ Boggs and her husband, Richard, knew this feeling well throughout five years of trying to become parents. They waited. And friends and family celebrated⁵ milestones⁶ and birthday parties. They waited and went to doctors and weighed their varying rates of success for different methods.

Belle Boggs' new memoir is called "The Art Of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, And Motherhood." It's a memoir and a kind of cultural study about her experience and the experience of so many, which is defined in many ways by our own expectations.

BELLE BOGGS: For many years, I was a K-12 teacher. And one of the things that I noticed was how early this starts for so many of us. We think about the families that we will have. Many of us do.

The families that we imagine are very often families like our own or families like the families we read about in books - families we've idealized somewhere along the way. And so I became more conscious of it as a teacher.

MARTIN: What kind of misconceptions about infertility did you have before finding yourself in that place?

BOGGS: You know, like a lot of people, I suppose I probably misunderstood it as more of a woman's problem than a man's problem when, in fact, if you look at infertile⁷ couples, it's just as likely to be a male problem as a female problem. And it's very often a couple's problem together.

MARTIN: You mean biologically?

BOGGS: Exactly. And I also probably had in my mind a stereotypical⁸ fertility patient - you know, maybe an older woman who's just delayed and delayed childbearing. So one of the things that I did when I was thinking about that, when I was thinking about my teaching and thinking about the books I read with my students - I thought about my own book, which is a collection of stories.

And I thought about the way that a couple of the characters reinforce these stereotypical ideas. I have a younger woman in one of my stories who is seen through the eyes of her mother. And she's receiving IVF treatment.

And I really - Rachel, I will admit that I got a lot of the details wrong. And so I wrote in the book that, you know, if I had the opportunity to go back and write that one character over, I would.

MARTIN: You looked to great works of literature as resources when you were putting this book together. Can you talk about some of the examples that you found of important characters in literature who have dealt with infertility?

BOGGS: Sure. One of the writers I admire most is Virginia Woolf. And I also very much admire Tillie Olsen and her book "Silences," which is a book about women writers and the silences in writing and in literature and in the canon.

And she writes really beautifully about Virginia Woolf's diaries and how in those diaries, you can see Virginia Woolf struggling with her own feelings of jealousy⁹ and insecurity and self-doubt over the fact that she did not have children.

And then later, after she'd had, you know, some wonderful experience sitting at her desk and writing - writing in those same diaries - that, in fact, children are nothing to this. And I found that so consoling and beautiful.

At the point that I was reading that and thinking about her experience, I thought that I might not be a mother, that I would also console myself with my writing, that I would find other ways to be generative and expressive¹⁰.

I also write about the play "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?" by Edward Albee. And I thought so much about the imaginary child that George and Martha share. And I thought about how so many of us who struggle with infertility have somewhere in our minds these imaginary children.

MARTIN: Which gets to, really, a central tension in your book. You're waiting and waiting and waiting. But you're also forced to make choices. How do you balance that emotionally, with trying to disengage and just say, it'll just happen?

I've got to release. I'm going to stop thinking about the imaginary children. But at the same time, you have to keep hoping because that's what gets you to the doctor's office to get the next treatment.

BOGGS: We stopped treatment for a while. And I have to say that it was a relief. We didn't know what we were going to do next. We wanted to explore the option of adoption¹¹, which is a beautiful option for so many people but is also very complicated.

We wanted to think about living child-free. And I also wanted a break from the medications that I'd been taking. And when we finally began our IVF treatment in 2013, we were very lucky. And I got pregnant the first try. So that's not the case for many people.

I want to mention that IVF and many kinds of assisted reproduction are not often covered by insurance. Only 15 states mandate¹² any kind of infertility treatment. My state, North Carolina, does not. So we didn't have any insurance coverage¹³. So we had to pay for this ourselves.

MARTIN: It's the kind of thing that a lot of people feel free to weigh in on. Did you experience that?

BOGGS: You know, infertility is hard to talk about. And then on top of that, you don't want to hear the well-meaning but sometimes really unhelpful advice that most of us who've been infertile have heard. You know, well, you should just drink more whole milk. Or you should just go on vacation. Or you need to eat meat. And...

MARTIN: Did people really say those things to you? Drink whole milk (laughter)?

BOGGS: Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of stuff that, you know, people want to tell you. And it - maybe it helps some people. It didn't help me. So sometimes, being aware that those suggestions are out there, too, can make it even harder to tell somebody what you're going through.

MARTIN: You and your husband were very lucky. And it worked. And you have a beautiful baby daughter now. That is not the case for many couples who go through the same process. What do you want those couples to take away from your book - people who are earlier on in the process or who went through it and were not able to conceive?

BOGGS: I do know people who were not successful. Me, personally - I wouldn't - I don't - I didn't want to start the process of IVF unless I knew that I would've been OK if it hadn't worked. And I did come to that point. I knew that I would be OK. I would find other ways to be happy and to be generative.

So that was what comforted me as I started my process. And I hope that people who are lucky and don't have to go through that experience - I hope that maybe they'll think a little bit about who they might know who's going through this and struggling and not talking about it.

MARTIN: Belle Boggs - her new book is called "The Art Of Waiting." Thanks so much for talking with us.

BOGGS: Thank you so much for having me, Rachel.

1 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

2 infertility   

n.不肥沃，不毛；不育

参考例句：

• It is the Geneva, Switzerland-based Biotech Company's second recombinant infertility drug. 它是瑞士生物技术公司在日内瓦的公司生产的第二种重组治疗不孕症的药。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术制药疫苗
• Endometritis is a cause of infertility. 子宫内膜炎是不育的原子。 来自辞典例句

3 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

4 belle   

n.靓女

参考例句：

• She was the belle of her Sunday School class.在主日学校她是她们班的班花。
• She was the belle of the ball.她是那个舞会中的美女。

5 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

6 milestones   

n.重要事件( milestone的名词复数 )；重要阶段；转折点；里程碑

参考例句：

• Several important milestones in foreign policy have been passed by this Congress and they can be chalked up as major accomplishments. 这次代表大会通过了对外政策中几起划时代的事件，并且它们可作为主要成就记录下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dale: I really envy your milestones over the last few years, Don. 我真的很羡慕你在过去几年中所建立的丰功伟绩。 来自互联网

7 infertile   

adj.不孕的；不肥沃的，贫瘠的

参考例句：

• Plants can't grow well in the infertile land.在贫瘠的土地上庄稼长不好。
• Nobody is willing to till this infertile land.这块薄田没有人愿意耕种。

8 stereotypical   

n.常规

参考例句：

• Personas should be typical and believable, but not stereotypical. 人物角色应该是典型和可信赖的，但不是一成不变的。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Anything could be stereotypical, so I guess it could be criticism. 任何东西都可以变的老套，所以我猜那就是一种批评。 来自互联网

9 jealousy   

n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌

参考例句：

• Some women have a disposition to jealousy.有些女人生性爱妒忌。
• I can't support your jealousy any longer.我再也无法忍受你的嫉妒了。

10 expressive   

adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的

参考例句：

• Black English can be more expressive than standard English.黑人所使用的英语可能比正式英语更有表现力。
• He had a mobile,expressive,animated face.他有一张多变的，富于表情的，生动活泼的脸。

11 adoption   

n.采用，采纳，通过；收养

参考例句：

• An adoption agency had sent the boys to two different families.一个收养机构把他们送给两个不同的家庭。
• The adoption of this policy would relieve them of a tremendous burden.采取这一政策会给他们解除一个巨大的负担。

12 mandate   

n.托管地；命令，指示

参考例句：

• The President had a clear mandate to end the war.总统得到明确的授权结束那场战争。
• The General Election gave him no such mandate.大选并未授予他这种权力。

13 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。