Not Trying: Infertility, Childlessness, and Ambivalence

Acknowledgments

( vii ) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My name is on this book and any errors inside are my own. But many people helped me complete it. If it were a movie, the credits would roll on and on. I first have to thank the women willing to take the time to share their thoughts and feelings with me. Without them there would be no book. My mentor and dear friend, Wendy Simonds, guided and supported me from beginning to end. I extend deep appreciation to my editor, Michael Ames, for his thoughtful feedback and patient tutelage. Thank you very much to the anonymous reviewers, to Ralph LaRossa, and to Elisabeth Burgess for their comments, which helped me improve the manuscript. My home institutions, Cabrillo College and Georgia State University, provided material support. Seline Szkupinski-Quiroga, another scholar working on this topic, kindly provided some key early advice about participant recruitment. Scholars from the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California–Santa Cruz welcomed me into their writing group and read some of the chapters, providing useful insights. At the beginning of this project, I was fully immersed in fertility treatment. My then partner and I eventually gave up and pursued adoption. After a year-long training and home-study period, we took home a baby boy through the California fostadopt program. Thirteen months later, his birth mother relinquished another newborn, our son’s brother. Evan and Leo are now six and five, respectively, and I have been working on this book their entire lives. This was made possible by the nurturing childcare provided by Adriana Castillo and the staff of Casa de ( viii ) Aprendizaje, by Ashley George of Honalee Children’s Center, and by Lupe Cortes, Heather Elrick-Forbes, and all the staff at Cabrillo Children’s Center. Many friends, family, and colleagues provided emotional support, but I especially want to thank Mary Arterburn, Anthony Garcia, Paul Conte, Meredith Marine, Allison Gonzalez, Rebecca Green, Meadow Gibbons, Karinn Pearson, Melissa Workman, Jackie Logg, Raneta Pomroy, Chuck Smith, the “Cruzmoms,” and Mom and Dad. NOT TRYING NOT TRYING ...