Competitive Non-Fiction

If there was one book this year that changed my life, it was Taking Charge of your Fertility by Toni Weschler. Stay with me here because I promise, I’m not just being dramatic.

Earlier this year, I decided to include the books I read about conception, childbirth and pregnancy in my cannonball total but not to review them (hence me skipping over book #4: Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth). However, given that this book played an essential role in helping me to connect with my body and in turn to identify a serious problem, I want to both reflect on what it did for me and help others to find it.

For those of you who don’t already know, in early 2011, my husband and I started trying to have a baby.  This particular journey combined with a few confusing symptoms, led me to the realization that something was incredibly wrong with my body.  To make a long story short, I had a borderline ovarian tumor about the size of a football.  Now, I’m down one ovary and am recovering in a lot of different ways, but I don’t require any further treatment and am getting better every day.

This book certainly didn’t diagnose my tumour and it doesn’t contain any information on how to deal with my specific situation.  What this book did do for me is make me more aware of my cycles, and gave me more confidence in acting on my knowledge of my own body, which was essential in pushing to get a diagnosis. It’s helpful whether you’re trying to avoid pregnancy, trying to get pregnant, or going through menopause.

Think of it as an owner’s manual for your most confusing parts. Even if you don’t decide to practice natural family planning or monitor your fertility signs, this book is worth checking out just to gain a better understanding about your body.  It’s easy to jump to the chapters that matter most to you.

Perhaps the best part of this book is its accessibility. I studied biology in University, but stuck mostly with botany and ecology so human systems are still a mystery to me and I’d consider myself a full layperson in this area. Yet, I was able gain a basic understanding of the book’s concepts while still remaining engaged and entertained.

I did have to cross-check some assertions because parts of the book weren’t properly referenced. It really is best practice to reference any statement beginning with “science has shown…” However, any time I looked something up, I did find evidence in the general scientific literature to back up the author’s assertions.

My only other issue with the book is how negative it is about birth control. While the options that are out there are varied and have side effects, it’s not really fair to say on one hand that all women are different and on the other that birth control is bad for all women. Nor is it fair to condemn something that has given women significant freedom in their reproductive choices. However, this book does outline a valid birth control option for women who aren’t interested in hormonal birth control or IUDs, while also providing insight into how to maximize your chance of getting pregnant.

Right now, the preachy, obnoxious part of me is convinced that every woman needs to read this, but I’m pretty sure that long after that urge fades and I’m pushing some other book on my poor unsuspecting girlfriends, it’ll still have a place on my shelf. I suspect that I’ll continue to pull it out whenever I have a question and re-read sections as I need to and as my life changes.