Waiting for Daisy

A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and One Woman’s Quest to Become a Mother

By Peggy Orenstein

Once upon a time, Peggy Orenstein was a successful writer with a happy marriage living in California. She felt ambivalent about having children, but always thought there would be time later, when it would be more convenient. Like many women, she put it off, often refusing to even discuss it with her husband, but one day at age thirty-five, she and her husband finally agree its time to try. Six weeks later, after the results of a baseline mammogram reveal an abnormality, Peg is diagnosed with breast cancer and the baby plans are put on hold again for six months. This is just the beginning of her inspiring and heartbreaking journey to becoming a mother, transforming her entire life, questioning her past decisions and jeopardizing her marriage. The more treatments Peg endures, including oral medication, injectibles, IUI, IVF, acupuncture, and surrogacy, the more obsessed she becomes with becoming pregnant. The best part is that Peg’s story has a very happy ending; six years, three miscarriages and thousands of dollars later, just as she and her husband begin the adoption process, Peg becomes pregnant against all odds at age 41 and delivers a perfect baby girl that they name Daisy.
Waiting for Daisy is very well written, and while it is painful to read at times, it is ultimately extremely hopeful. My heart goes out to anyone experiencing fertility problems after reading about her ordeal. Orenstein cautions readers experiencing infertility to remember that in many ways, they are consumers and must be alert to false promises and to the “allure of perpetual hope.” She also questions the definition of infertility as failure to conceive after just one year when a recent large scale study found that 90% of women in their late 30’s will get pregnant within two years of trying.
Orenstein walks a fine line, never allowing her story to become depressing or sappy, and I think that is mostly due to her talent as a writer and her honesty. I found many passages in this book to be both eloquently written and extremely moving.
“At one time, I would have told a woman like me that childlessness was not her problem; it was her inability to recognize the value in all that she had, in all that she’d built for herself. But I had become the woman I once pitied, the one who was too easily swayed by the gross oversimplifications that collapsed all of life’s complexities into the convenient box of ‘waited too long.’”

And near the end of the book:
“If life gave do-overs, I wouldn’t change my course, but I would choose to traverse it differently – with less craziness, more equanimity, more courage. I would tell myself, ‘This is your life, no matter what happens,’ rather than, ‘This is your life, only if you can make this one thing happen’…If you didn’t try it, you’d always have to wonder whether it would have worked. That’s how you lose sight of your real choices, because the ones you’re offered make you feel as if you have none.”

Finally, after a friend comments that, “Everything happens for a reason,” after Daisy’s birth:
“That’s not something I believe, not when women I love die, not when children are starving, when adults are tortured. Nor do I like its corollary: ’God only gives you what you can handle.’ If so, God is a sadist. I refuse to view life through such a simplistic, superstitious lens. I did not get cancer because I held in anger. My infertility was not a result of my ambivalence about motherhood…Adversity is a random, arbitrary thing, though one can still glean meaning from it, use its crucible to become a better, more compassionate person. My story, I’ve found, is not so unusual. Many women experience at least one of its twists- miscarriage, infertility, breast cancer – and fear at dark moments, that they caused their affliction. Most women ask themselves at one time or another what it means to mother- what the cost might be to their careers or marriages, how it reshapes the self. And all of us, male and female, encounter pain and loss; all of us reckon with dreams unfulfilled, with the limits our younger choices have placed on our lives. All of us have to figure out how to move beyond that regret… My pettiness is dwarfed by a sense of reverent, radiant gratitude that’s sweeter for having experienced its opposite, as love is sweeter for one’s scars. Mine is the luck of realizing that happiness may only be the respite between bouts of pain and so is to be savored, not taken as an entitlement…And although in many ways I’d give a lot not to have learned it, I’m grateful for the lesson.”
A beautifully written, and worthwhile book. My only real criticism (besides the fact that I felt the chapter on Peg's visit to an old friend with fifteen children was a bit long) was that I wish she had written a more about her life with Daisy. Maybe she will write a sequel! Recommended.

Still Summer: A Novel

By Jacquelyn Mitchard

After a bit of a slow start, this story of four women lost at sea is suspenseful and exciting. Tracy, Olivia, Holly and Janis have been life long friends, going way back to their days of Catholic school. Even back then, they were daring, fun loving girls. Twenty-five years after graduation, they are reuniting for the trip of a lifetime: sailing on a small yacht to various islands in the Caribbean. When Janis is forced to drop out at the last minute due to her husband’s emergency surgery, Tracy’s college student daughter Cammie takes her place.
At first, the trip is wonderful, the ladies are all enjoying each other’s company and Cammie is flirting with Michel, one of the two crewmen on board. Then, things start to go terribly wrong and the women end up alone in the boat with no power and little food or water as they endure bad weather, serious injuries, hungry sharks, and even drug smugglers. The difficult conditions bring out the worst and the best in each woman.
Although this isn’t exactly literary fiction, I still found it to be well written with interesting characters. I really enjoyed the adventurous aspects of the novel even though it might stretch the imagination a bit. There is one plot twist that is totally obvious but plays out in an interesting way. For Mitchard’s more serious side, I’d recommend The Breakdown Lane or Christmas, Present. An entertaining book that’s hard to put down, Still Summer would make a great movie!

Songs Without Words: A Novel

By Ann Packer

A story about friendship and motherhood from the author of The Dive From Clausen’s Pier, set in California's Bay area. Liz and Sarabeth have been as close as sisters ever since high school, when Sarabeth moved in with Liz’s family after her mother commit suicide. Now many years later, Liz has a family of her own. Her son Joe is cute and athletic, and while her daughter Lauren appears to be a normal teenager, she is deeply depressed and later slits her wrists and ingests all the pills in her medicine cabinet in a desperate cry for help.
Lauren’s suicide attempt crushes her family and makes Liz doubt her ability as a mother. For Sarabeth, it brings back much of pain surrounding her mother’s death. Instead of helping each other, Liz and Sarabeth quickly grow apart. Sarabeth feels abandoned by her only real friend and Liz realizes that she’s tired of Sarabeth’s neediness, although these women ultimately reconcile and Lauren’s mental condition slowly improves by the end of the book.
I found this book to be just okay. I found the story’s premise about friendship interesting, but Liz and Sarabeth both seemed a little boring to me. All the characters were slightly dull and for some reason, this book didn’t really make me feel anything, although I felt like it should. I think Lauren's depression was handled in a realistic way. In my opinion, this book is adequate, but not as engaging as Packer’s previous work.

The Rest of Her Life: A Novel

By Laura Moriarty

Despite a difficult childhood and adolescence, Leigh Churchill grew up to have a good life. She works at the local school as an English teacher, she has great husband, Gary who is a professor, and she has two good kids: Kara, a popular 18 year old about to graduate high school, and Justin, a sensitive, artistic boy with no friends.
Then, in an instant, everything changes, as often happens in novels and in life. The story begins a few days before Kara’s graduation when she accidentally runs a stop sign and her car hits her classmate, killing her. Kara is completely devastated and the accident affects the entire family, as well as their small town Kansas community. Leigh and Kara have always had a strained relationship despite Leigh’s best intentions, maybe a result of problems with her own mother, who moved to California for a new life, leaving Leigh to fend for herself at age fifteen.
I expected this book to focus on the legal ramifications of Kara’s action with an investigation and criminal or civil trial, like a Jodi Piccoult novel. However, Moriarty seems more interested in the moral issues. Kara’s heavy guilt makes her reluctant to accept the plea bargain offered by the prosecutors; she wants her punishment to be severe because of the horrible thing she has done. Readers will also sympathize with Leigh and her efforts to mend her distant relationship with Kara at this crucial and difficult moment. Although Leigh and Kara are not always likeable characters, I liked how this book focused on the complex relationships between mothers and daughters and families. An accident like Kara’s could happen to anyone and hurting an innocent bystander is any driver’s greatest fear, which makes this story easy to relate to. A worthwhile and absorbing book.

Summer Reading: A Novel

By Hilma Wolitzer

A book about three women in the Hamptons leading very different lives. Lissy is a shallow, rich snob who joins a book club to “change her life”, even though she is dyslexic and really only cares about gossip, shopping and parties. Michelle is Lissy’s maid and Angela is a retired English Lit professor hired to lead the group’s book discussions.
I kept waiting and waiting for this book to improve but it never really picks up. The Lissy character is utterly unlikable and I couldn’t really relate to Angela either. If the book had centered on Michelle more, it might have been okay but I found her life kind of depressing. The ending is horrible, especially for an animal lover like me, and it feels a bit rushed. Just not a good book for me. I have to agree with the reviewer on amazon.com who said, “Readable, if you have nothing else in the house.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

The Life You Longed For: A Novel

By Maribeth Fischer

Grace Connelly has always longed to be the perfect mother to her three children, especially her youngest son Jack, who suffers from a mitochrondrial disease that is both extremely rare and always fatal. But someone in Grace’s life doesn’t think she’s so perfect after all. In fact, someone believes that Grace’s unending devotion to and advocacy for her sick child in combination with her extensive medical knowledge make her a potential criminal. The crime: Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy (MSBP).
Grace is outraged that anyone could accuse her of harming sweet little Jack. Soon, an investigation reveals that Grace lied about her recent affair with her first love. Her deception combined with the accusations against her could ultimately cost her both her marriage and her children.
Some reviews compared Ms. Fischer to Anita Shreve but to me, that seems like a real stretch. While the plot is slightly interesting, it almost feels as if the author randomly picked a controversial topic and then threw in a little drama from 9/11/01 to create a big ending; the whole thing just felt forced, and in a way, like a big cop out. The author’s frequent comparisons between MSBP and the Salem Witch Trials felt ridiculous and seemed to imply that MSBP is just a witch hunt dreamt up to punish loving mothers everywhere. While I do not doubt that some mothers have been falsely accused, there have been substantiated, well known cases of MSBP.

I also found Grace’s statement about parents vs. non-parents to be both ridiculous and offensive:
“…she understood then that the world really was divided into two kinds of people, and it wasn’t rich and poor or educated versus uneducated or black against white, but something so much simpler, so much more important: those who were parents and those who weren’t.”
As if this realization could solve all the problems of the world. Seriously? Certainly, not all non-parents like myself are evil, unsympathetic monsters. I can hardly think of a more untrue or unfair statement.
This was an extremely disappointing book, a total waste of both paper and time. Maybe I should try reading a real book instead of trash like this.