Archive for About Deanna’s Book
October 30, 2006 at 10:17 pm · Filed under About Deanna's Book, Miscarriage
As I begin the novel, I thought I’d introduce the first four characters you will meet ahead of time. You will get to know them well in the months to come. I already feel as though they sit beside me, looking over my shoulder, reading along, acquaintances sure to become my most intimate friends.
Melinda is 34 with no children, married to Jake, a lawyer who has two children from his first marriage. They are high society Houston although Melinda is still finding her way with the full-time volunteerism of the women in the River Oaks area of Houston where they live. She gave up her law practice when she married Jake because they did not need the money and because she wanted to focus on having a family. Jake’s ex-wife Sarah is haughty and mean to Melinda, treating her like a babysitter and ridiculing her efforts to fit into society. Melinda’s miscarriage will open the book.
Stella is 44 and has run the pregnancy loss group for ten years, since her second loss. She is Jewish, funny, boisterous, and opinionated. She has a horror story to outdo most any horror story, and she leads women through the group with a sensitive but firm hand. She experienced secondary infertility after her second miscarriage and did four rounds of IVF before giving up. She makes jewelry now, and owns a small shop where she sells her pieces, which are solely made from gentle purple amethyst and vivid green peridot, the colors of the would-have-been birthstones of her two babies. She has been married to Dane, a construction worker, for 20 years.
Dot is 29 and has five children with her truck driver husband Buster. He has dropped in and out of her life since they married when she was 17. After each departure, she tends to end up pregnant. He was only present for one of the kids’ births. She makes ends meet by running a little store in the trailer park where they live. Buster has been gone for an unprecedented 18 months when she meets Barry and falls desperately in love for the first time. When an accidental pregnancy with Barry ends in miscarriage, she feels God is punishing her and vows never to see him again, and to make amends with her philandering husband.
Tina is 17 and in high school. She and her boyfriend had finally gotten through the hard parts of telling their parents, rearranging their futures, and working out who they will be to each other when she goes into labor at 19 weeks. The death of their baby three hours after his premature birth alters her new life yet again–the boyfriend breaks away in relief, her parents insist she return to regular high school from her alternative school for pregnant teens, and in her desperation, she harms herself. She enters the pregnancy loss group as part of her therapy but resolves to get pregnant again as soon as possible to fill the emptiness.
Other women will come along as the story progresses until a serious twist to the story will take a controversial but necessary slant.
I will begin writing the novel at midnight tomorrow night as the clock switches to November. I plan to post the first scenes of the book by 4 a.m. Central Time, GMT -6.
I can’t wait!
October 27, 2006 at 3:10 pm · Filed under About Deanna's Book, Miscarriage, Research
To answer a few questions–
Yes, I will still be reading and thinking and using comments throughout the writing of the book, so still leave your stories! Women will be joining the fictional pregnancy loss group throughout the novel, and they will all need a history of some sort.
I have outlined the first five chapters or so and developed seven characters.
Yes, I will be putting scenes from the book here on the blog throughout November. The first bit will go up around 3 a.m. November 1! I can safely put up the entire first chapter and quite a few other scenes without harming my chances of publishing it later.
And no, I will not be looking for an agent until I am close to done. I have to make sure I know where the story is going for sure before I can write an accurate synopsis for a query letter. That is my plan for January. I should have the book at least half written by Dec. 1, then I will work on it more slowly in December and January, then seek representation for it. It will be important to keep the blog stats high, though, to show support for the book and a market for the initial print run. That’s where you guys help!
Can you believe that I’ve had 36,000 words posted here in the comments? I have compiled each and every one in a Word file for my reference. That’s incredible!
I love you ladies. I really truly do.
October 27, 2006 at 12:11 pm · Filed under About Deanna's Book, Book Excerpt, Deanna's Story, Miscarriage, Research
I’ve been told many amazing stories on this blog in this last month. I have made a database of the ideas, moments, and scenes that seem to fit with the direction the book is going. I may not use them all, and certainly as I build an entire scene with fictional characters in fictional situations, the details will change. In that process, you might see a seed of your story but it will certainly be altered to no longer sound like your story anymore.
However, this is your opportunity to email me and say–please don’t even use the idea I gave you.
I will honor it, although realize that some things in the novel might end up sounding like something that happened to you even if I totally made it up out of my head. But if it’s here in this list, and you would like to avoid seeing anything that triggers your past in my book, please say it here, now. You may do so via email rather than publicly, of course, as with any concern.
If there is an asterisk by the story, it is already in the first section of the novel outline, so it is likely to be used.
Aftermath
- Women gets call from a nurse months after lost baby to check on her pregnancy.
- *Went camping after loss and passed clots. Wasn’t sure what to do so burned it in a clump of sage brush.
- *Jumped in car after leaving hospital as if trying to outrun something.
Obsessions
- Feels like she can still see the spot on the floor where baby fell out and landed on tile.
- When a family member with five kids had her tubes tied, she had a party
- Read medical bills over and over.
- Opened Bible randomly to pages to see if God had a message for her.
- Thinks of baby as an adult and examines young men to see if they look as he might have.
- *Kept placenta in freezer for two years.
- Unable to even watch a movie with a baby in it without walking out.
Insensitivity
- When asked for progesterone, doctor told her flat out–baby is dead.
- Close friend named her living baby the name she had chosen for her angel.
- Minister came from vacation with a vial of gold and told her God was purifying her with pain like the gold, and that God had told him to tell her that.
Kindnesses
- Sister sent mother’s day card from two babies.
Scenes
- Incompetent cervix, when got to hospital, baby’s foot already descended into canal.
- Mother’s Day church is awkward when they call moms to stand or receive gifts. Wasn’t sure if she was considered a mother or not.
- Her friends got to choose the moment their baby died, as it had a genetic problem and was dying already. Heard the heartbeat until it stopped.
- A temporary worker came 5 months after loss and patted her belly and asked how the baby was. Thought her overweight was the baby.
- Had to go to abortion clinic for late term removal of Turner’s. Had a hard time getting into stirrups and doctor chose that moment to tell her she needed to get in shape as she was overweight.
- Lit a spiral of tea candles for her babies. They all went out one by one except for two, which burned longer than the other ones, but when they went out she cried and cried for her two babies.
- *Lost baby at friend’s house. Friend brought a grocery bag to put it in the garbage. A few days later, she became obsessed with the sac. Convinced it was not empty, but baby in there. In middle of night wanted to go garbage and dig it out even though it was summer.
- Took a bath to relieve cramps and baby came out and floated in the water. Saw spongy outer chorion and inside a curved pinkish baby.
Family
- *Ex wife cheated on husband and left, they had two kids. Ex wife treats her like a babysitter. Felt inferior after lost baby. Ex wife heartless bringing up topic of babies at kid activities. Became jealous and hateful toward husband because he had kids. Misplaced anger on stepdaughter, who is 6, saw evil mother in her, then realized little girl was hurting over loss of baby. They ended up making scrapbook together.
- *Felt bitter about stepdaughter, wondered if her baby would have looked as much like the father as this one did. People would say at least they had the stepdaughter.
- Husband felt his lack of religion caused the baby’s loss and decided to go to church more.
I appreciate so much the insight and information you have given me. In my next entry I will introduce the characters–especially the main ones Melinda, Dot, Stella, and Tina– and at midnight Halloween, as the date switches to November, I will start writing the novel. I am committed to writing the first 50,000 words, about 2/3 of the book, in the next 30 days.
Thank you for coming along for the ride!
October 7, 2006 at 2:57 pm · Filed under About Deanna's Book, Deanna's Story, Miscarriage, Ob/Gyn
Good news!
Yesterday, while having yet another cervical biopsy (yes, I’ve had cervical dysplasia since January, but it has not progressed very far and is nowhere near cancer yet) I told my OB/Gyn about the book. He has known about my miscarriage web site for a long time and often answers questions totally unrelated to my own health when I need information. He is very excited about the book and will read it for me! So I will have an MD on board! My own no less! I think it’s a great idea to have the other side of my own story right there. He’s a great doctor and has been voted best OB/Gyn in Austin for several years running. I’m thrilled! (Let’s all cross our fingers that when I ask him to write the preface he’ll also say yes!)
I was lucky to have a doctor who was proactive on testing when I needed it (although I could do without going in every two months right now, but he says, let’s be safe as cervical cancer can blossom so fast…sigh, okay.)
But after my first loss of Casey, despite vials of blood, scrapes of my cervix, and failed genetic testing on the baby, he couldn’t find anything wrong with me that would have caused a 20 week old baby to die in utero. I had to go into my next pregnancy without any answers. Blind faith.
After the Triple Screen (AFP) test was abnormal with Emily, however, we had to see a specialist. And once we did that Level II sonogram, things changed–I had a diagnosis!After she was born, I had the HSG test and more sonograms to map my misshapen uterus. During the surgery I had many incisions in my belly as well as scopes up through the cervix. I was lasered, cut, and scraped, trying to make my body more amenable to pregnancy. My miscarriage risk was reduced significantly, and hopefully the chance of late term losses were eliminated all together.
Some women get the run around, especially after an early first loss which is assumed to be genetic. No testing at all. Others test on and on and on, finally resorting to sending blood to some of the major clinics specializing in recurrent loss.
How did it happen for you? Did you get any testing done? If not, was it upsetting? If so, did it help you?
September 27, 2006 at 5:49 pm · Filed under About Deanna's Book, Miscarriage
Many times since my miscarriage website began, women have asked me, “Why don’t you write a book?”
My answer has pretty much always been the same, “Good books are already out there.” Medical books. Psychology books. Collections of women’s stories. Tons of them.
I didn’t see any need to compete with these other books. I merely read them and list the best on my site. Then, as I listened to people on the forums and read emails from grieving women, I began to see what was missing–the whole story. Not just facts and figures, self-help and psychology, but everything else.
What these other books don’t tell us is how do you get through each day? How do you go to work and face clueless coworkers who ask tactless questions and ply you with empty platitudes? What happens when your sister announces her own pregnancy over Thanksgiving Dinner? How do you maneuver through love with a partner, a relationship that is deteriorating over your differing styles of grieving, or your lack of interest in sex?
There is so much more to the miscarriage story than just the loss, but the re-engaging with the rest of the world, living the rest of your life when a jagged piece is missing.
So I decided to leave nonfiction behind. Forget statistics, pages of causes and preventions, chapters of advice and handholding. That was too limiting–it didn’t get to the heart of these women and their situations.
So I’ve decided to write a novel instead. I want to dig into the lives of several women and throw them together in a pregnancy loss support group where they are introduced, then follow them home, back to work, in their kitchens and bedrooms and closets and showers. We can watch them like voyeurs, using everything I’ve learned in eight years of talking to women, listening to their stories, and going through it myself to show others not necessarily the best or worst way to get through it–but how people just do.
Let’s feel it. And learn. And teach everyone else what it feels like to be us.
It will be a long hard journey. Not just for me, writing it, but you, recognizing your situation in these fictional ones, their darkest moments dredging up yours. But come along with me, advise me, make suggestions. I have a few secrets that even I’ve kept. There are things I will reveal along the way. Lessons I’ve learned without a net, nothing to cushion the fall. Moments when I thought I had heard everything after running the site–seen every situation–could handle anything–then some story would set me back to the day when my own blood filled my hands in a bathroom, my own terror and fear and despair overwhelming every aspect of my life.
I’ll start by planning the characters, determining what situations merit inclusion, then we’ll form the story, breathe life into the scenes, and watch these other lives unfold, as realistically as possible, with every scrap of knowledge I have about miscarriage and how to survive it coming into play.
Bookmark the blog, leave comments if you like. Help me think of what needs to be in there. Tell me what happened to you. Or just check in from time to time. But let’s get started on a book that will make a difference.
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