I’m taking this weekend off
Jul 25, 2006 Book work
No internet for Friday, Saturday or Sunday because I’m determined to work on my sample chapter. Problem is, I have no interest in my sample chapter and will have to scare some up. I’m hoping that looking at my notes will get me back in the subject groove.
Sometimes people ask me why I’m not trying to sell a book on adoption but I don’t really think I want to. It’s one thing to write for this blog (when the mood strikes) but what would I say in a book? Besides who would read it? I wouldn’t write a memoir (I’m not interested in writing a memoir). And I wouldn’t want to write a “how-to” adoption book. So no memoir, no “how to adopt,” which leaves … nothing.
If I had scads of time I’d love to explore the idea of doing an “adoption in America” book that would look at the impact our growing ideas about openness is having on adoption. I’d love to look at “old schoolers” who still believe that a child begins the moment he’s placed in his adoptive parents’ arms and examine where this idea comes from and why it’s perpetuated (in the industry, in the hearts of adoptive parents) and I’d like to contrast that with newer research and talk to families — both by birth and adoption — who are challenging that. And I’d like to look at women who placed in the past and women who place today and how both generations challenge and/or fulfill stereotypes. I’d like to look at the transracial abductee activists and the antiadoption activists and see the ways they impact adoption reform. And I’d like to look at how the changing face of American adoption is also impacting international adoptions done by Americans.
Now that I would love to do but it’s really big and it makes me tired to even think that hard about it.
I have another adoption article idea that I dearly want to explore and if I get childcare (got two leads at writing group last night) I think I’m going to sit down and try to hammer out an outline. (It’s not in any way related to our adoption — it’s about international adoption.)
Anyway, those are my thoughts as my small daughter is sleeping and her brother is playing with his robots and I’m ignoring the dishes sitting in the kitchen sink.
Obviously, at this very moment I find adoption more interesting than secondary infertility but I know that earlier this summer I was all hep to secondary infertility so I just have to get there again. I hope I figure out how to get there or this weekend will be very frustrating.
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Tags: adoption reform, anti-adoption, Erica, Infertility, secondary infertility, transracial
New topic over at AnotherChild.com
Jun 23, 2006 Infertility
If secondary infertility is statistically more common than primary (it looks to happen to about 20% of couples, according to one source, versus 10% on the primary end) then why don’t we hear about it more? I’ve got my thoughts. Come on over and let me hear yours.
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Tags: Infertility, secondary infertility
AnotherChild.com
Jun 9, 2006 Book work, Infertility
So what’s the point of AnotherChild.com beyond the interesting aspect of a group blog about a specific subject? And how does it relate to my book project? Two-fold: Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: essay, Infertility, secondary infertility
God bless the internets!
Jun 7, 2006 Book work
And LBZ and Eve for offering the services of others to help me with the survey!!!! I told LBZ that I’d try to straighten out my questions for her husband to look at this week.
I was thinking about this while I stared at Brett ranting and raving across the breakfast table (the guys who put in our new fence kinda made a mistake about something and Brett, being Brett, is blaming himself for not explaining it well even though it’s not his fault and he did a great job of getting this together). I think that what I’ll do is focus on hard-core info and then hit up some of my best interview subjects to help me illuminate the findings with narrative. Like DD, who gives GREAT interview.
I think (counting on my fat little fingers) that I can come up with five terrific interview people without trying too hard. And all have a variety of stories — from trying for fourteen months to trying for 5+ years (she’s still trying) and a variety of pregnancy loss experiences. Those five women were honest, thoughtful, funny and great storytellers. That’s a good start. Hopefully as I do more outreach for the surveys, I’ll find more people. But I guess it’s unreasonable to try to squeeze every single respondent for all I can get.
[tags]writing, secondary infertility[/tags]
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Tags: Brett, Infertility, secondary infertility
Giving up (some of) the goods
May 30, 2006 Book work, Infertility
First some parental discussion and then some thoughts about where I am with my book.
We switched doctors (to one we used to see when Noah was a pup) for a couple of reasons but the most relevent one for this blog entry is that it’s close enough to walk there. Walking five blocks for a check-up is much nicer than driving cross-town. We’re making a concentrated effort to drive a lot less this summer. This is also one reason that Noah doesn’t have a lot going on activity-wise. (The other reason is that we all deserve a break. Remember when summers were meant for relaxing?)
So Madison had her 2-year old check-up today and she is 34.5 pounds, 36.5 inches. She’s a big, tall, healthy girl. She was charming the other patients in the waiting room by chatting about the magazine she was reading. “Dat guy is sunny [funny]! See him?” Then she segues to the next most important thing on her mind. (Remember that in Madison language the f’s sound like s and the l’s sound like y.) “I go in the jogging stroller with Daddy and he goes SAST! And the race car comes [there's a guy in our neighborhood who does drag racing] and it is YOUD and I cry. I don’t YIKE the race car. [pause] Yes I do!” Chitter-chatter away. Between her height and her talking, she’s usually mistaken for three.
Right now the kids are playing in the wading pools. Noah has created a water park — 2 wading pools (one with a slide), her water table and her rocking boat. They are screeching and splashing and generally having an awfully good time.
Work-wise I need to get back on the query train. Book-wise, I found a history expert whose interests/research includes fertility issues who said she’d be happy to talk to me about secondary infertility. I can’t find much about it.
I figured out the paradigm that would underlie my book but I can’t find any specific research to support it. So what I’m going to do is go across disciplines and try to build a case. And as I work on my survey questions, I’m going to try to come up with more effective ones to address this theory. I have some anecdotal stories but they’re not really strong because I didn’t know what I was looking for.
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Tags: Infertility, Madison, Noah, secondary infertility