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Flesh & Blood: Reflections on Infertility, Family, and Creating a Bountiful Life: A Memoir
Honest, warm, and witty, this memoir reads like a chat with a dear friend sharing her insight and taking us along as she heals. Complete with family stories over cocktails and a praying mantis named Claude. “I drive and say to myself, if I am dying, if this is how I die, then this is how I die.” When N. West Moss finds herself bleeding uncontrollably in the middle of a writing class, she manages to drive herself to the nearest hospital. Doctors are baffled, but eventually a diagnosis—uterine hemangioma—is rendered and a hysterectomy is scheduled. In prose both lyrical and unsparing, Moss takes us along through illness, relapse, and recovery. And as her thoughts turn to her previous struggles with infertility, she reflects on kin and kinship and on what it means to leave a legacy. Moss’s wise, droll voice and limitless curiosity lift this narrative beyond any narrow focus. Among her yellow fever, good cocktails, the history of New Orleans, and, always, the natural world, including the praying mantis in her sunroom whom she names Claude. And we learn about the inspiring women in Moss’s family—her mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother—as she sorts out her feelings that this line will end with her. But Moss discovers that there are ways besides having children to make a mark, and that grief is not a stopping place but a companion that travels along with us through everything, even happiness. A remarkably honest memoir about heartache and healing, Flesh & Blood opens up a conversation with the millions of women who live with infertility and loss.
- GenresMemoirNonfiction
318 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 12, 2021
9 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 17, 2021
Both horrifying and comforting, N. West Moss’s memoir Flesh and Blood speaks for the millions of silent women who have made the decision to remove their uterus.
I am one of those women. I was in my late 60s and had recurring bleeding. I first had an in-office procedure that was the most painful I have every experienced, resulting in my walking out shaking, doubled over, and bleeding for days. When the bleeding reoccurred a year later, I insisted on being anesthetized for a D&C. I had a choice to undergo regular D&Cs, or to just have the organ removed. My childbearing days were nearly twenty years over. It was an easy decision for me.
But Moss was in her early forties when she experienced increasing, non-stop bleeding. She and her husband had experienced serial miscarriages. This was a decision that marked the end of any hope of ever having a child.
The memoir follows her experience and existential struggles, from the unexpected and baffling symptoms, the diagnosis, preparing for the operation, the surgery, recovery, relapse, and, finally, reembracing an active life. She courageously writes about the miscarriages that blasted the hope for a child, and the hemorrhaging that ruined her health and quality of life.
I thought not only about my own experience of undergoing a hysterectomy, the bleeding that limited my daily activities, but of my mother’s two miscarriages, resulting in two children when she had hoped for four. And my aunt’s miscarriage. And, my dad’s long illness with a bleeding ulcer in his colon that limited his ability to enjoy his early retirement. I recalled women who hid their hysterectomy, how I didn’t understand their reluctance. Why are we ashamed?
But there is also joy and comfort in the memoir. A Praying Mantis named misnamed Claude takes residence in Moss’s sick room, later laying her eggs to be found in the spring. The abbey monks who live down the road gladly invite Moss to walk their property. Friends send cut outs of their hands in support. And, her mother comes to stay and care for Moss when she is so anemic she can no longer care for herself, and stays during surgery and through her recovery. And, there is her patient and supportive partner Craig, a quiet hero in his own right.
The surgery has forced me to ask for help, also leading me to new friends, to a new place to walk, to new adventures, however circumscribed they might be.
from Flesh & Blood by N. West Moss
Perhaps the most poignant aspect of Moss’s turmoil, for me, is her accepting the reality that her mother’s and grandmother’s stories of endurance will not be passed down to another generation. How can such people be forgotten? It is something that I struggle with while waiting to know if our one child will decide to have a child. I am a genealogist, daughter of parents who loved to tell their stories. I am the oldest grandchild on one side, and the second oldest on another. Who will remember them–us–if there is no future generation?
Moss has told their stories in this book. I have written blog posts and filled my family tree on Ancestry.com. Is it enough?
Since I don’t have a child to hold these stories, here….I hand them to you. I stand with a crowd of ghosts at my back.
from Flesh & Blood by N. West Moss
Women will understand this book. But, Moss hopes that this book will not be read only by women, for men are also affected by miscarriages and childlessness.
I received a free book from the publisher through Amazon Vine. My review is fair and unbiased.
I am one of those women. I was in my late 60s and had recurring bleeding. I first had an in-office procedure that was the most painful I have every experienced, resulting in my walking out shaking, doubled over, and bleeding for days. When the bleeding reoccurred a year later, I insisted on being anesthetized for a D&C. I had a choice to undergo regular D&Cs, or to just have the organ removed. My childbearing days were nearly twenty years over. It was an easy decision for me.
But Moss was in her early forties when she experienced increasing, non-stop bleeding. She and her husband had experienced serial miscarriages. This was a decision that marked the end of any hope of ever having a child.
The memoir follows her experience and existential struggles, from the unexpected and baffling symptoms, the diagnosis, preparing for the operation, the surgery, recovery, relapse, and, finally, reembracing an active life. She courageously writes about the miscarriages that blasted the hope for a child, and the hemorrhaging that ruined her health and quality of life.
I thought not only about my own experience of undergoing a hysterectomy, the bleeding that limited my daily activities, but of my mother’s two miscarriages, resulting in two children when she had hoped for four. And my aunt’s miscarriage. And, my dad’s long illness with a bleeding ulcer in his colon that limited his ability to enjoy his early retirement. I recalled women who hid their hysterectomy, how I didn’t understand their reluctance. Why are we ashamed?
But there is also joy and comfort in the memoir. A Praying Mantis named misnamed Claude takes residence in Moss’s sick room, later laying her eggs to be found in the spring. The abbey monks who live down the road gladly invite Moss to walk their property. Friends send cut outs of their hands in support. And, her mother comes to stay and care for Moss when she is so anemic she can no longer care for herself, and stays during surgery and through her recovery. And, there is her patient and supportive partner Craig, a quiet hero in his own right.
The surgery has forced me to ask for help, also leading me to new friends, to a new place to walk, to new adventures, however circumscribed they might be.
from Flesh & Blood by N. West Moss
Perhaps the most poignant aspect of Moss’s turmoil, for me, is her accepting the reality that her mother’s and grandmother’s stories of endurance will not be passed down to another generation. How can such people be forgotten? It is something that I struggle with while waiting to know if our one child will decide to have a child. I am a genealogist, daughter of parents who loved to tell their stories. I am the oldest grandchild on one side, and the second oldest on another. Who will remember them–us–if there is no future generation?
Moss has told their stories in this book. I have written blog posts and filled my family tree on Ancestry.com. Is it enough?
Since I don’t have a child to hold these stories, here….I hand them to you. I stand with a crowd of ghosts at my back.
from Flesh & Blood by N. West Moss
Women will understand this book. But, Moss hopes that this book will not be read only by women, for men are also affected by miscarriages and childlessness.
I received a free book from the publisher through Amazon Vine. My review is fair and unbiased.
November 16, 2021
At turns heartbreaking and uplifting, tragic and hopeful, I found this memoir to be profoundly honest and truthful. What the author describes, in vivid detail, left me feeling as if I'd went through everything right alongside her. Thank you, Ms. Moss, for sharing your trials, grief, and ultimately your acceptance with us.
November 8, 2021
Reflections on immortality
What does it take to move a reader to tears, to laughter, to thought beyond the words on the page? West knows the answer and knows how to lead us to it.
What does it take to move a reader to tears, to laughter, to thought beyond the words on the page? West knows the answer and knows how to lead us to it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews