Baby Rollercoaster: The Unspoken Secret Sorrow of Infertilityby Janice ColvenPublished by Wood Dragon BooksReview by Toby A. Welch $19.99 ISBN 9781989078587 Baby Rollercoaster is the true telling of one woman’s personal journey with infertility. It starts with her years as a child when she dreamt of being a mother and progresses to when her struggle to have a family ended. Colven now dedicates her life to sharing her infertility experience and finding a purposeful life beyond motherhood. I believe she has made tremendous strides in her mission with this powerful book. For anyone struggling with infertility – or anyone who knows someone that is struggling with it – Baby Rollercoaster is a must-read. Colven tackled this heartbreaking subject with a deep sensitivity. She was vulnerable in a way that couldn’t have always been easy. That realness came through in her words. For example, “You need an abundance of hope and resilience on this journey of hope. Sometimes I wasn’t strong enough to hope… Choose hope, even when things seem hopeless. Lean on the people around you to hope when you can’t seem to do it for yourself. Be brave.” Cue Kleenex. As she struggled with infertility, Colven saw numerous doctors. She…
Baby Rollercoaster: The Unspoken Secret Sorrow of Infertilityby Janice ColvenPublished by Wood Dragon BooksReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$19.99 ISBN 9-781989-078587 I’ve just had the pleasure of reading the well-written, beautifully designed, highly personal and informative book by teacher/ranch wife/writer Janice Colven about her lifelong yearning to be a mother and her seven-year journey on the rollercoaster that is infertility. Throughout the candid, 207-page story, Colven uses the extended metaphor of a rollercoaster to parallel the ups and downs she and her husband experienced during this painful time, and the book’s title—Baby Rollercoaster: The Unspoken Secret Sorrow of Infertility—reflects their hopeful highs and heart-breaking lows. Colven writes that she’s always dreamed of becoming a mother. As a child she “loved baby dolls and everything that went with them,” and her “loving and nurturing spirit” even extended to the prairie girl wrapping a dead gopher “in a soft, pink blanket” and strolling it as one would a baby. Later she practised her maternal skills on younger siblings. “We buy the map to motherhood and have the trip planned down to the smallest detail,” she writes. In her introduction Colven shares that she wrote this “for the women who are walking the same…