"Required reading" for today's smart writer.

"Required reading" for today's smart writer.
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Guest Post***The Roar Series**Pamela Ferdinand


For years, I had succeeded at work as a journalist for leading daily newspapers – The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Miami Herald. More importantly, I enjoyed it: the craft of writing, the adrenaline rush of covering deadline events from elections to hurricanes, and the hope of making a difference in someone’s life or the well-being of an entire community.

And yet, well into my 30s, I was a failure at love. Falling for men who either couldn’t commit or just couldn’t commit to me, I yearned for my soulmate even as girlfriends mocked me as a hopeless romantic. I also wanted a child and knew my time was running out. In each other’s down moments, my girlfriends and I reached into the Hat of Hopeful Stories—the coworker who met her husband on the commuter train, the neighbor who had her first child at 44. Finally, as I neared 40 and another relationship collapsed, I didn’t give up on love entirely but I decided to take motherhood into my own hands.

One of my friends, Carey, had already taken the bold step of buying donor sperm when she turned 40 and her own biological deadline for becoming a mother struck. What she found was not a father in a vial, but a sort of magic potion. She met a man, fell in love, and got pregnant the old-fashioned way. She passed the vials to our friend Beth, and it happened again. Beth met a man, fell in love, and got pregnant. Beth passed the vials to me. Magic struck again. There were setbacks and disappointments, but discovering love and becoming a mother ultimately meant for me that I had found happiness and success in my personal life as well as my work.

Not only that, but I had done it in my own way, on my own terms, and with the unyielding support and encouragement of women friends.
BIO
Pamela Ferdinand is a Chicago-based journalist, mother, and co-author with Carey Goldberg and Beth Jones of the triple memoir “Three Wishes: A True Story of Good Friends, Crushing Heartbreak, and Astonishing Luck on Our Way to Love and Motherhood,” published this April by Little, Brown & Co.
Links:
http://www.pamelaferdinand.com/blog/?cat_ID=4
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=100000531024929

Pen and Prosper welcomes(and encourages)your comments on this post.

5 comments:

  1. Do you still have that vial? I have a couple of friends who would love to take advantage of its powers.

    But, seriously, very fascinating and heartwarming story. Thank you.

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  2. Jennifer Brown BanksMarch 11, 2010 at 4:09 AM

    Missed Periods,

    I'm sure plenty of today's females would like to get their hands on that vial.:-)
    I appreciate your feedback and your time.

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  3. "To everything there is a season,and a time to every purpose, under Heaven." - The Bryds

    Thank you for sharing your journey.

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  4. Thank you for your kind messages! The vials were, in fact, passed on to another woman who used them. But we all agree there was some power in the moment when we decided to take matters in our own hands. Even if there are no guarantees, I think it always feels good to go after what we truly desire.

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  5. make that "into" our own hands!

    Thanks again for taking the time to leave comments.

    ReplyDelete