Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
My parents instilled a love of storytelling and writing in me from a young age. I have since admired journalists and writers who could take complex ideas and experiences and make them come alive to others.

I began journal writing on stenographer pads as a young girl and later found quiet escapes to capture ideas and write. My intent was to make sense of puzzling encounters and transitions as I came of age. I picked up journal writing again to document and figure out confusing infertility diagnostics, surgeries, and more invasive fertility treatments. Hungry for a sense of validation and community I began an anonymous blog and published my first post to those surfing the Internet on a rainy cold February night in 2007.

My blog took on a life of its own as I struggled to make sense of what felt like deep and ever-present failure, emotional disconnect, social awkwardness and loss of self. My move away from pursuing motherhood was a long, slow often circuitous path. It was made harder because doctors scratched their heads with no clear explanation for the infertility that haunted my husband and me. What we did know was that as months and years passed, our hopes dampened further that we’d ever succeed at delivering and raising our much-desired child - a living, breathing personification of all that we loved about each other.

It took great effort into my earlier 40s to resist the siren song of the fertility industry’s latest advancements. I watched others become addicted to IVF and tie their entire sense of identity into becoming a parent. Strung-out and wondering how I would possibly cope with another monthly reminder of failure, I started to allow myself to imagine a life not driven by 28-day cycles and endless associated vigils. With the benefit of lots of exhaustive and exhausting conversations, and after consuming huge amounts of material on coping with infertility, my husband and I finally began to loosen the tight grip we had on our increasingly fragile dream.

I went back on birth control after a decade off it. Writing then turned into a sanity-saving outlet. It enabled me freedom to examine and express all my unwieldly emotions and grief.

 

2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B?
All the infertility memoirs and profiles I’d ever come across had one thing in common: the stories ended with the successful delivery of a baby. As much as I wanted to bury my trauma-inducing infertility experience and erase it from my memory, I found I couldn’t.

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My writing motivation morphed into broadening the infertility narrative with some truth-telling about what happens when conception and pregnancy prove elusive. I knew I could not be the only woman who had devoted years to deciphering an infertility mystery who came away without the successful pregnancy we (not just me but many women) had worked so hard to achieve. It was time “our” story was told.

 

With this new goal, I was literally driven to write. I woke up many mornings as early as 4:30am with passages in my head. I’d climb out of bed and write for several hours before going into the office. It was as though I didn’t have a choice. It was my destiny. It clicked one night when I heard Bob Dylan say on 60 Minutes, “Destiny was looking right at me and nobody else … I don’t know how I got to write those songs. Those early songs were almost magically written.” I’m no Bob Dylan, but that’s how I felt about Silent Sorority; at times it felt magically written.

 

I had two audiences in mind: 1) women who felt disenfranchised by the disproportionate share of voice given to mothers after infertility and 2) their immediate social circle – family and friends who were ignorant of the physical, emotional and societal challenges faced by those unable to successfully conceive and deliver a child. The catharsis that resulted from reliving and reflecting on my own nightmarish experience was purely a bonus.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?

I’m intellectually curious about history (the combination of happenings and decisions that delivered us here), sociology (the study of social life and social transformation), and how our actions - or inactions - will shape the future.

My inspiration derives from diving into long-form journalism that tackles some of the above. I’m also a cinephile and love losing myself in strong character-driven films and series. I wish I could say I read as many novels as I once did, but I’m drawn more today to narrative non-fiction and the news of the day. With the gutting of local media, I feel compelled to research and bring to light new articles and essays that showcase how power and money – if not checked – can bring about harmful consequences.
 

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?

There was a time when I could write just about anywhere; noisy, messy environments didn’t distract me. Today, my best work takes shape on a long quiet walk in nature. Ideas slowly take shape and percolate. I let my subconscious chew on them further and usually awaken in the morning with a clearer understanding of what I want to express. A first draft gets the raw material in place. Hours later I come back to fact-check and refine further. My essays, articles and blog posts are now much less frequent, but they are also much denser and focused.

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?

I’m not a chef, artist, scientist or an engineer, but I do share one thing in common with them. I love discovering ingredients, raw material, ideas, research, and problems. I’m energized by the act of analysing and putting them together in a new or different way to inform or enlighten.

In my garage I have boxes and crates of journals, newspaper articles and projects I’ve worked on over the years. Online, I have bookmarked and PDF’d other published work. It’s also out there for others to search and discover. From time to time, I go back and review my words and can hear and relive episodes or conversations that left a mark or shaped my thinking. I suppose, in a selfish way, I find it satisfying to see how my body of work has evolved over years. I hope that, much like a time capsule, someone will stumble across what I’ve written long after I’m gone. My words will live on. It makes me feel grounded and connected to those who came before me and those not yet here.

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?

There’s a special delight in seeing your name and work published by a respected newspaper, magazine or journal. I recall, vividly, the first time I saw my book on a library shelf and in a bookstore for sale. I still get a thrill when I see my ideas and words published. It’s validating to be sure.

Contrast that to 20 years ago when I felt unseen, unheard – an outcast or a fringe-dweller (a wonderfully descriptive word I picked up from an Australian). By stepping forward as a NoMo, I no longer feel diminished. I’ve not only found my voice, but I’m also fiercely proud of the myths and stigmas our NoMo community has torn down.

7. Tell us about the wider reception that you’ve had to sharing your story - has it changed how others have viewed you and your identity as a non-parent?
I was quite fearful years ago about dropping my anonymity. I felt quite naked the first time I told my story to a reporter from The New York Times. I treasure the huge file of emails and comments from readers over the years who have reached out to let me know my writing resonated with them, that they felt seen, valued, or learned something from my perspective.

It took some time to get comfortable as an early role model of sorts. I felt extra pressure to get it right – not just for me – but for others who had not yet stepped forward to own, publicly, their lived experience. Now I’m fearless and don’t flinch a bit about telling my story, or describing society’s disrespect toward women who are not mothers, or relating some of the pain I’ve worked through.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
We’re slowly getting to a more nuanced and fuller representation, but there’s a very long way to go. I’m a huge fan of Cristina Archetti and her huge body of work illuminating the under-representation or misrepresentation of those without children. I’m also grateful to Tamara Jenkins for getting her story out as a screenplay.

In short, I hope more women and men - both on the publishing and writing sides of the table - open up space to explore more about our complex lived experiences. The more the world sees the multi-dimensional positive impacts we have on society, the sooner that old stereotypes and stigmas will fall.

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?

Gosh, I could write an entire book about that topic alone. Let me sum it up with this way. Publishing world: there are tens of millions of us; we’re fertile (pun intended) territory for new books, screenplays, and books. What are you waiting for?

10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?

I wish I had a straightforward answer. After some 20 years of blogging, writing and research, I can’t help but feel I’ve explored just about everything I have to share about infertility, childlessness and IVF survivorship. Then something will develop in the news that draws me back to the keyboard.
Just this past month I had articles in The Boston Globe and Newsweek.

For years, I’ve thought it would be great fun to collaborate with other non-parents and write a dramatic, ironic new film or series that explores what life is like in an often clueless or dismissive pro-natal world. We’ll see where that goes.

Meanwhile, my writing of late has been laser focused on more mundane zoning issues amid evolving climate change. I’ve been using my research and voice to bring attention to the threats facing one of America’s most beautiful natural environments (the Lake Tahoe basin), a place I currently call home.