Like many women, I forewent tradition for an education and a career and saw the man in my life as an equal partner, not an escape route. Coming from a large, Irish Catholic family, I believed my pregnancy was virtually guaranteed and never imagined it would take years to conceive. But in my thirties, the whirlwind began: invasive vaginal exams, injections, fertility lottery wins, and losses. I began to understand that fertility was at the core of many women’s identities. Everywhere I looked gorgeous, pregnant women graced the covers of the glossies, we were still being fed the fairytale version. In the waiting rooms, women were silent; I found no girl-gang to face my growing anxiety.
When decisions about fertility are at the core of every woman’s identity, why are we still fed this fairytale version?
Stunned by alienation, I looked for books to help me cope. Though one in four couples undergo fertility treatments and the global market for assisted reproductive health is projected to hit 37.8 billion by 2025*, I found precious little reading, save how-to narratives. What I needed was a hand to hold, an author who knew how to go beyond the womb; I wanted a book in the same vein as Elizabeth McCracken’s An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination or Dani Shapiro’s Devotion.
So began the process of writing this memoir. From frozen embryos to sperm deposits, Mystic Trinities debunks our pregnancy myths and leaves the reader with not only a hand to hold but also a strange and beautiful hope that the journey has at its end the promise of self. It’s the true story of how one of us moved through infertility, from prescribed sex and frazzled feelings on the exam tables to perseverance, failure, and finally what success has come to mean to those of us trying hard in this day and age to conceive.
The Pushcart Prize-nominated seed story for this memoir was published in Creative Nonfiction’s Dangerous Creations issue.
The essay was also shortlisted for the 49th Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction, the 2017 Arts and Letters Prize in Creative Nonfiction, the New South Prize, the Under the Gum Tree (dis) Empowered contest.
The Day I Took My Frozen Embryo for a Road Trip, another seed story from the book, was acquired by The Huffington Post and had over 8,000 hits in the first twenty-four hours. It was voted story of the day on Twitter @#Reprorights Daily and had an international readership in over half a dozen countries.
With the debate about women’s bodies on the forefront of the global political scene, the time has come for a truthful dialogue about female reproductive health.
A full manuscript is available upon request.
*https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/assisted-reproductive-technology-market.html
First published by Creative Nonfiction in spring 2018 in their Dangerous Creations Issue, Mystic Trinities was featured online at Creative Nonfiction in September 2021: https://creativenonfiction.org/writing/mystic-trinities/
https://www.creativenonfiction.org/issue/66