IVF
Jodi Picoult as ebook
As you know I have an ambivalent relationship with Jodi Picoult‘s books. 
But I confess I had a bit of a revival of interest when I read House Rules (reviewed on this blog back in February). Super book about autism.
So, when I was deciding which books to sample on the Kindle – just to check whether I really really did want to leap into the twenty-first century – one of the first on my list was Sing you Home. I read it ages ago but it’s taken me till now to get around to posting my comments. Which probably says a lot about my rating of the book.
The story revolves around Zoe and Max Baxter whose marriage is on the rocks after a number of failed attempts to have a baby. (Yeah, yeah, I know. I do bang on about these issues.) Anyway, Zoe finds comfort in Vanessa whose work as a school counsellor overlaps with her own music therapy. They go on to ‘marry’ and decide they want children.
Zoe already has frozen embryos left over from her IVF with Max. Using them seems like a no-brainer. But Max is now a born-again religious zealot, vigorously opposed to same sex unions, and he fights Zoe’s claims through the courts.
OK, some of the issues are my territory but that doesn’t mean I’m bound to like books on these subjects. Indeed, I can be super critical of the way authors deal with medicine and ethics. So, what was my verdict on Sing you Home? Hmm.
It’s the usual Picoult formula:
Major social issues
Multiple voices speaking in the first person.
Lots of amateur psychology.
Big social issues.
A courtroom drama
It has one unique feature:
Accompanying songs, the lyrics of which were composed by Picoult herself. An interesting ‘gimmick’, entirely fitting with the story line about a music therapist who reaches troubled people through songs.
A few amusing/thoughtful quotes to make you smile/wonder:
Max on the effect of infertility on their marriage
‘Our sex life had become like Thanksgiving dinner with a dysfunctional family – something you have to show up for, even though you’re not really having a good time … want had become need and then obsession … There was no room in my marriage for me anymore, except as genetic material.’
Vanessa on society’s attitude to homosexuality
‘I remember my mother telling me that, when she was a little girl in Catholic school, the nuns used to hit her left hand every time she wrote with it. Nowadays, if a teacher did that, she’d probably be arrested for child abuse. The optimist in me wants to believe sexuality will eventually become like handwriting: there’s no right way and wrong way to do it. We’re all just wired differently.
It’s also worth noting that, when you meet someone, you never bother to ask if he’s right- or left-handed.
After all: Does it really matter to anyone other than the person holding the pen?’
Zoe’s on school canteen
‘It looks like every other school cafeteria I’ve ever seen – a life-size petri dish breeding social discontent, students sorting themselves into individual genuses: the Popular Kids, the Geeks, the Jocks, The Emos.’
Vanessa’s on court protocol
‘The clerk scrambles forward to make his announcement as Judge O’Neill strides off the bench, so that we all rise, too, like some magnetic after-effect of his anger.’
I liked:
The insights into what music therapy can achieve with the depressed, the dying, the dementing.
The sympathetic and empathetic principal female characters.
I disliked:
The stereotypical portrayal of bigoted right-wing Christianity.
The pseudo-psychology everybody seems to indulge in.
The occasional misuse of medical terms (or maybe it’s simply American shorthand).
The anomalies in the formatting that crept in during conversion.
So, a mixed bag. Not a patch on House Rules.
Oh, just before I go, if you’re weighed down by the stress of Christmas preparations, or feeling jaded by lack of daylight hours, or in anyway down in the dumps, I recommend you go to dovergreyreader‘s post for Saturday December 10. It’s called Security knitting alert …start casting on everyone and it’s sure to bring a smile to your face.
IVF – a luxury or a right?
It’s odd how when your mind is steeped in a particular subject you see related things everywhere, isn’t it?
As part of preparing for the publication of Saving Sebastian I’ve been thinking a lot about fertility treatments, the rights and wrongs, benefits and risks, should we-shouldn’t we? Because as well as working on the book itself, I’ve had to bend my mind to the assorted peripheral tasks that dog any writer – publicity and marketing, updating my website, events, that sort of thing. Not nearly as much fun as the creative writing but just as necessary, I’m afraid. Anyway, I was deep into drafting questions for bookclubs, and challenges for teachers and students of related subjects, when lo and behold, two articles jumped out at me.
One was a news item saying that a Brazilian fertility expert – the very one who helped the famous footballer, Pelé, become the father of twins – is suspected of having deceived patients at his Sao Paulo clinic into raising children who were not biologically their own by implanting other couples’ embryos to boost his success rates. Wow!
And why did this leap out and sock me between the eyes? Because in Saving Sebastian, a Nigerian couple have twins through IVF – one black, the other coffee coloured – and there’s a big old stooshie going on in the fertility centre to establish just what went wrong. Was it deliberate? Was it a genuine mistake? Is there something else lurking in the undergrowth? Too bad real life beat me to it, eh? If my publisher had stuck to the original publication date of 1 May my novel would have been out a fortnight before this Brazilian story broke. Heigh-ho.
The other sucker-punch was by Daily Telegraph columnist, Dr Max Pemberton (16 May). He starts by saying he thought long and hard before writing this particular article because he knew he’d attract condemnation. OK, I’m listening, Doc. The gist of his argument – please note his not necessarily mine (I want to keep my powder dry meantime!) is
- the NHS is strapped for cash
- hard decisions have to be made about how to use limited resources
- there is now an expectation that the NHS will provide fertility treatment on demand and the belief that everyone has a right to be a parent
- childlessness is not a disease but a grief based on people being unable to have what they want
- in these straightened times life-threatening and debilitating diseases should take precedence
- therefore, he concludes, ‘IVF is a luxury the NHS just cannot afford‘.
And the relevance of this piece? Well, in Saving Sebstian, Yasmeen and Karim Zair are fighting to have a baby by IVF who is the same tissue type as their son, Sebastian. The little lad has a rare blood disorder from which he will die if he doesn’t get stem cells from a saviour sibling. And already he’s having punishing treatment to keep him alive. At four years of age … imagine! Should they be allowed to have this treatment? There are plenty of people opposing them. What do you think?
Maybe reading the book will help to crystallise your own thinking so you can agree or disagree with Max Pemberton more logically. But in the meantime please do have your say on my blog if your dander is up, steam is exploding out of your ears, and you feel like adding to the debate right now! You can always publish an addendum or a retraction later. Remember …
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind (William Blake).
Congenital defects and moral dilemmas
I couldn’t have dreamed up a better precursor for my forthcoming book Saving Sebastian, due out on 1 July. But honestly, I hadn’t so much as whispered in the ear of the BBC.
The documentary, So What If My Baby Is Born Like Me?, went out at 9pm on 19 April on BBC Three, but the main players were also interviewed on various newsy programmes. The story featured Jono Lancaster, and was both poignant and challenging. Jono has Treacher Collins syndrome, which essentially involves deformities of the face and ears, but normal intelligence. And Jono’s intelligence certainly shone through, as well as his honesty, courage and thoughtfulness.
The thrust of the programme was whether or not he should father a child naturally with his girlfriend of four years, Laura. They both want children, but Treacher Collins is hereditary, and they run a 50/50 chance of having a baby with the same condition. But no one can predict how severely it would be affected. As well as the distinctive facial irregularities, some children require tracheostomies and tube feeding, some are profoundly deaf, some have cleft lips and palettes. In the course of considering their options, Jono and Laura met a little girl, Maisie, and saw firsthand what such anomalies mean to parents. And to the child.
And Jono knows only too well the reactions anybody with the condition will encounter. He’s even been vilified for daring to have a relationship with a pretty girl! And Laura is indeed very attractive, as you can see. Jono’s own biological parents were so appalled by his appearance that they rejected him from birth. He was taken in at two weeks of age by an amazing woman who’s fostered over twenty children. She admitted that Jono had occupied a very special place in her affections and she’d formally adopted him. Watching them together was a delight.
But before you condemn his natural mother, ask yourself, how would you react to being handed a baby looking so different from your expectations? Or walking down the street with a child whom everyone stares at? Take a look at these photos and imagine the scenario; ask yourself the questions, if you dare. I studied dozens of them and I confess I didn’t like the answers.
However even Jono’s adopted mum couldn’t help him with the quandary he was in now. As she wisely said, you might think you know what you’d do in these situations, but no one can say for certain what they would do in reality. You can’t know until it happens.
It’s a tribute to her love and acceptance and sound common sense that Jono’s instinctive preference was to adopt. Laura though, wants her own child. In an effort to work though the possibilities, they seek advice and counselling; they visit families who’ve faced some of the same dilemmas. One option they have is to go for IVF with PGD – essentially this involves creating an embryo using their own sperm and eggs, then testing it to see if it carries the defective gene. Jono seems initially to be labouring under the mistaken idea that the faulty gene would simply be removed. When he finds that the whole embryo would be destroyed, he’s morally outraged. For him this is ‘an insult’, ‘disrespectful’ to all people with a deformity or genetic disorder. The fact that he himself wouldn’t exist if this facility had been offered, gives his outrage special emphasis and extra weight.
Listening to this young couple grappling with the dilemma was peculiarly arresting even for battle-hardened me. Something so natural as having a child is for them a major issue with endless questions, doubts and fears attached. 
Jono’s ‘morally wrong’ argument is a massive stumbling block to progress, but in the end their conclusion is that, for them, it feels right to go for IVF with PGD, to have a child without the defect. ‘Morally wrong’ for Jono it might be, says Laura, but even so ‘it’s right’. ‘Definitely right’ for the child, Jono concedes.
The scenario in my novel is different, though many of the issues and questions are similar. Sebastian is four years old, and he has a rare blood disorder. But he’s stunningly beautiful to look at. His parents are considering having a baby by IVF with PGD to save Sebastian’s life. They too have reservations … But in this case, I’m not going to tell you the outcome!
`
