I’m excited to be participating in my first WOW! Women On Writing Blog Tour by interviewing first-time author Sharon Simons, whose memoir, Mom at Last, hits shelves August 1. Here, I ask her a few questions about her long journey to motherhood and the even-more-challenging task of penning her first book. In addition to making time for an interview, the busy mom has also offered to give away a copy of Mom at Last. The winner will be randomly selected from readers who comment on the interview below:
SS: I hear that all the time. It catches up with you fast, doesn’t it? I was married the first time and I just knew it wasn’t right. Thankfully, we got divorced before having children. I dated someone else for a couple of years, and I realized he wasn’t the right one. And, as I said it the book, you wake up at 39 and ask, ‘How did I get here?’ It just goes so fast. I’m busy. I’m working, and sometimes dating these not so great men takes up a lot of valuable time because you want it to be right so badly that you kind of look past some of the faults. I just wanted so desperately to have a family. All my girlfriends had kids. I have three godchildren. I think I just wanted to find that someone who was good enough to be the father of my children. It was when I least expected it that I met my husband, Rick.
CO: Because you were so upfront about wanting a family, you and Rick started the process of trying to have children through in-vitro fertilization pretty quickly after getting together. What advice would you give to others considering IVF?
SS: You don’t know what to expect and I personally didn’t know anyone who had gone through in vitro. It’s really a scary world. I didn’t realize the emotional toll it takes because I am not that emotional. But giving myself all these hormones made me different. It made me cry. It made me gain weight. I remember being itchy after giving myself the shots. But I think there’s a lot more support now than there was then [in 2005]. Now, it’s something that you can almost talk about at the dinner table because everyone knows someone who has gone through IVF. That’s one reason I wanted to write this book. I wanted to tell the good, the bad and the ugly.
CO: Though some couples have great success with IVF, your experience was ugly, which is what made you investigate adoption. In your book, you call it a gift. What changed your thinking?
SS: Knowing what I know now, I would have never gone through IVF, but I didn’t really understand the adoption world. And you hear horror stories, but I am definitely an adoption advocate. I also understand that people want to have their own children, but these two children that I have — they are my own. But you don’t get that at the time. Now, I always ask, ‘What makes your DNA so important?’ If I was younger, I’d definitely adopt more children, but I don’t want to kill my husband because he needs to retire at some point. But I hope reading my story and seeing my family might inspire someone else to go that route.
CO: Your sons are from Russia. Late last year, Russia banned all U.S. adoptions and most say the ban is a response to an American law barring Russian human rights violators from U.S. soil. What are your thoughts on the recent change?
