On page 20 of So Close, Tertia has a moment where she predicts that her journey to parenthood may be more difficult than she thought even though nothing has happened yet to point in that direction. Have you ever had a moment of premonition like that and if so, did it come true (this moment of premonition can be about fertility or any other aspect of life)?

A lot of people claim to have had premonitions like this about infertility. I had a premonition like this about my mother's breast cancer. Well, not about that precisely, I just felt a vague and impending sense of doom, and looking back, I think it was, and it wasn't, some sort of magical extrasensory perception. Magic, they say, is just something sufficiently complex that you can't quite fathom it out at the time.

The first factor to account for was that I had been on a pretty good streak for a couple of years, and I knew it was unlikely to last, based on brute statistics. That didn't mean my mother was about to get cancer - if I'd had a couple of bad marks on my school assignments I probably would have connected the two just as easily and moved on to better times. But as I looked around me and saw how lucky I was compared to others, I suspected that, since I wasn't actually charmed, sooner or later it would probably even itself out somehow. By the same token, I imagine a young and happy couple, married just long enough to have sorted through the initial adjustment, moved into their first little home, settled in their jobs, brimming with domestic bliss, feeling ready for a baby, and thinking somewhere, in the backs of their minds: how long will our good fortune last? Knowing, deep down, in a vaguely uneasy way, that this luck is not deserved, and that the troubles they see around them could as easily fall on their doorstep, too. So that was the first thing.

The second factor to note was that my mother discovered the lump some months before she let us know. There was an anxious time of deciding whether to go to the doctor or not, the going to the doctor, the tests, the results, the consultations with specialists, the formulation of a treatment plan... and finally, before it all swung into action, the telling of the children. You can't keep a secret from someone you live with and care for on a daily basis without them twigging that something is up. It will come through in your moods, your body language, the thoughtful little pauses you make when you think nobody is looking. At fourteen, I was too self-absorbed to figure it out fully, so what I got instead was a vague but intensified sense of impending doom. In the same way, I imagine the woman with undiagnosed endometriosis or PCOS, not knowing that something about her body isn't quite right in any way she can describe, but at the same time nevertheless knowing that something about her body isn't quite right. And perhaps it's sometimes the same for male factor infertility, too. Perhaps there was an incident in the past - an illness, say - which may have affected the system, which turns itself into a niggling worry long before any diagnosis is pursued. It wouldn't be the case every time, but there are often clues to be found in hindsight, and premonitions are surely how they trouble our foresight. So that was the second thing.

The third factor, I believe, was just garden-variety existential dread. It's a big thing, turning from a teenager into an adult - a major leap in one's life. Things will never be the same again, and you can't really be prepared for how they'll change. There will be responsibilities to handle, strange new problems to negotiate, and people depending on you, when you are used to being the carefree soul whose world revolves around herself. Under the circumstances, who wouldn't feel an impending sense of doom - one born out of nervousness alone? The leap into parenthood is similar in so many ways. It's a new transformation. So that's the third thing.

Afterwards, reflecting on my premonition, I had to admit one more factor - as proof, this time, rather than explanation. The truth was that some of the fourteen-year-olds I'd grown up with had experienced this impending sense of doom, and some of them hadn't. And some of them had hit hard times shortly thereafter, and some of them hadn't. And there seemed to be very little relationship between doom expected and doom eventuated - to a great extent it was a load of old bollocks. Later, on the journey to parenthood, I noticed the same thing. Some friends expected problems and some didn't. Some conceived easily and some didn't. There was relatively little connection between expecting problems and experiencing problems when it came to conceiving children. I began to see it as a mere conceit and then, later, after I'd lost a lot of my bitterness, as a simple reflection of personality. Some people respond to good fortune by growing uneasy. Some people read subtle signs more readily, or more pessimistically. Some people worry to a greater extent about what's to come.

I had an impending sense of doom before my mother's diagnosis of breast cancer. I also had one as we started trying to conceive. I think it was, and it wasn't, some sort of magical extrasensory perception. Magic, they say, is just something sufficiently complex that you can't quite fathom it out at the time.

Question(s) for anyone who manages to still read here and hence finds this:
Do you think ESP exists, and if so, is there a rational explanation for it? Also, have you read Blink, and if not, why not? Ditto So Close?

Learn more about Tertia's book shower at Stirrup Queens. (She has a book too, but it's still in the post.)

I was quite bothered that the Handmaids took on the names of their Commanders (Ofglen, Ofcharles, Offred). Seems so domineering, de-personalizing -- another tool in taking power away from women in Gilead. So archaic, even. Then I realized that we do the same in our culture, but with last names. Does this make it okay? Even women who keep their maiden name (no pun intended) after marriage tend to refer back to their father's name. Do our customs continue to de-power and de-identify women? What would a culture that values the matrilineal look like?

Several couples we know have chosen to combine their two surnames into a new family name, and I think that's ideal - symbolic not only of equality between husband and wife, but of the new family unit which is formed by marriage. Unfortunately, though we toyed with the idea ourselves, we couldn't put together a name that wouldn't have made all our wedding guests snort their toasting champagne out through their noses, so we had to let it go. I, like many of my married friends, am known as "Ms (My Surname)" or "Mrs (My Husband's Surname)", with the former being used 99% of the time*. Only a minority of my female friends go by their husband's surname in day to day life.

But even there lies a big difference between this society and Offred's. Feminism includes the right to submit. These friends of mine - like my mother - have freely chosen to take on that name, and they can choose to keep it. Moreover, all these women keep a name of their own - the first, or given name. Offred is named merely for her current usage, which is decided by the unseen Powers That Be. Not only does the name identify her work, instead of her unique self, but that identity is completely lost and changed each time she is reassigned, and her ability to choose her identity is virtually** removed. Becoming Mrs (Your First Name) (Your Husband's Surname Here), of your own free will, is a very different thing - especially since the role of "Mrs" is so flexible in the modern day.

There should be a passage here about the use of matrinymics in various cultural traditions around the world, and the effect of those traditions in the modern day (preferably with statistics about women's pay, domestic violence, and a comparative breakdown of the roles males and females play both inside and outside the home, etc etc) but I'm going to leave it there, because man, there are enough doctoral theses in that to keep a whole anthropology department going for decades.

*As an aside, I've only found this difficult in the UK. "Ms" wasn't on a lot of forms, and sometimes I didn't even have the option to write it in. Our bank, for example, could never think outside the Mrs/Mr dichotomy. I also found myself having the following conversation when giving details: "It is Miss or Mrs?" "It's Ms." [Wary Look] Whereas at home, or in Asia, I get asked, "Miss, Mrs or Ms?" without the blinking of an eye. It's particularly puzzling, because the Australian and Asian attitudes to marriage are, if anything, more conservative than the modern Brit's.

Most puzzling are the times a British person is heard to say how they want a certificate that legally recognises their relationship - and they describe, as points of inclusion, all the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage, including those which are permanent and ongoing - but they don't want to get married. I always ended up raising an eyebrow and saying, "Sounds like you do." There's probably some connection there with the culture's relative inability to recognise non-traditional name choices.

**She has a sort-of choice, but it's one horrible situation against another.

On pg. 112, during the birth day while Ofwarren is in labor, Offred is thinking about the baby that is about to be born. At this time she also talks about the unborn babies and the fact that they had no way of telling until birth what type of baby would be born. She states: There's no telling. They could tell once, with machines, but that is now outlawed. What would be the point of knowing, anyway? You can't have them taken out; whatever it is must be carried to term. While reading this, I found myself thinking back to my first pregnancy where I wound up with conjoined twins. Then and even now, I wonder if I would've been better off not knowing. I miscarried, so I did not have to make a choice, but in light of that, ignorance may very well have been bliss. How do you feel about the abundance of technology when it comes to reproduction and pregnancy? Do you think that sometimes not knowing so much can be a good thing?

People are fond of saying, "They didn't used to have all this back in the old days, and people got along just fine!" Actually, people did not get along just fine. Women and children died or became seriously, even permanently ill. It's true that much of the time there's nothing you can fix simply by knowing - a lethal defect is still lethal, no matter when you find it out, and a whole host of measurements fall under "wait and see and hope the odds go your way". Some of the people in these situations will be glad just to know, and some of them will regret their loss of ignorant bliss.

But. But. There are also tragedies which can be averted today. Averted because we know about them on time, and can act. So, much as it can be hard sometimes to deal with the overload of information available to us, I wouldn't trade the angst for a single mother or child who might be saved.

On pg. 70, Offred is discussing her past studies of psychology and at this time she mentions a study done on three pigeons trained to peck at buttons for grain. She states: Three groups of them: the first got one grain per peck, the second one grain every other peck, the third was random. When the man in charge cut off the grain, the first group gave up quite soon, the second group a little later. The third group never gave up. They'd peck themselves to death rather than quit. While reading these lines, I could not help but identify with the third group of pigeons. Sadly, I think I've come to a point where I will never give up, even if it means death before success. How about you? Do you identify with one of these groups? What do you think Atwood's intention was in including this bit of information?

This very much explains the way couples can get "trapped" into following a certain path for too long. If results were predictable, the point of moving on would be clear.

Intrigued by the idea of a book tour and want to read more about The Handmaid's Tale? Hop along to more stops on the Barren Bitches Book Brigade by visiting the master list at Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. Want to come along for the next tour? Sign up begins today for tour #9 (The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler with author participation!) and all are welcome to join along . All you need is a book and blog.

**Added alert commenter question here.

The Barren Bitches Book Tour is in some ways like a high school English assignment, so I'm using the same time-honoured technique I used back then. That's right - up past bedtime on the night before it's due, looking at the questions for the first time ever. And so many thoughtful questions have been provoked by Niffenegger's compelling tale, I hardly know where to start. Nevertheless, I will.

**Spoiler Warning - parts one and two contain spoilers in the question or answer - if you want you can skip to part three**

Henry's ability to time travel is both a blessing and a curse. What do you think Niffenegger was trying to say about human anomalies in general and how can Henry's ability to time travel relate to medical conditions such as deafness or infertility?

As a bleeding-heart, citified liberal, I prefer to think of human anomalies in terms of compassion and the triumph of human civilisation over the nasty, short, brutishness of nature. But there's a more utilitarian argument for pulling together and helping those whose problems don't, from society's viewpoint, seem worth solving. The idea crops up in several places - Cube, that high school biology lesson where you discussed sickle cell anaemia, and most recently "Survival of the Sickest" by Dr Sharon Moalem - a pop science look at the hidden benefits of human imperfection, and something I purchased today, far too late to be of benefit in answering this question.

During the story, Henry's condition saves his life, earns him a living, and causes his disability, infertility and death. Having found the answer to his infertility, it seems the only thing he lacked to swing the benefits firmly in his favour was control, and his daughter managed to achieve that in much greater degree. The message seems clear - don't be too hasty to condemn that which deviates from the ideal. Persist, overcome obstacles, hang on to the silver lining.

Due to his ability to time travel and jumps into the future, Henry knows that he is going to die. Yet in the beginning, he works hard to try to create a baby with his wife. This situation obviously benefits Henry in that he gets to parent Alba for a bit before he dies. This situation also benefits Clare since she wants to be a mother. Yet Alba grows up without her father yet with his extraordinary abilities - abilities that were a difficult adjustment for Henry growing up. Do you think he acted in the best interests of his child when he helped create her knowing that he would not be around to help her understand her ability to time travel? Do you think it is truly possible to take the feelings of a child in mind prior to creation as well as fulfill your own need to parent? If you had been in Henry's shoes, would you have created this child knowing she would be able to time travel and you would not be there to help her understand this anomaly?

Firstly, I think the question misrepresents the situation somewhat (whoever wrote it can beat me up in the comments!). Henry knows he has never been visited by a version of himself older than forty-three, but he also spends a great deal of the book seeking a cure for his "chrono-impairment", so although he and Clare are worried, there is no proof of his impending death until after the conception of their daughter (and in a certain sense, her birth - his daughter is the one who breaks the news to him). Forty-three could have been the age at which his doctor eventually gave him the magic solution. Couple this with his unusual ability to parent Alba after he dies, as well as before, the other people in Alba's life who understand the condition (her mother and doctor), and Henry's own history of getting by without these advantages, and the action of creating a child in his situation doesn't seem too irresponsible at all.

The fact is, in some sense, I am in Henry's position. I have a family history of breast cancer, and there is a chance I may pass a predisposition on to my children, and then die without first helping them come to terms with it. There was a point at which I wondered if it was responsible to bring a child into this world under the circumstances. But it's impossible to predict what obstacles we'll face and how things will turn out. I could use my genes, and everything could end up just fine, or I could opt not to use my genes, and in doing so create or uncover a whole new set of problems, perhaps worse than before.

Life is not about avoiding whatever risks you can see. Life is about managing risks. It's walking that fine line between responsibility and acceptance of fate. It's hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. It's realising we need to work as a community to give and take and share the burdens. I feel Henry, and I, made reasonable choices.

I love the references to music in this book. They are a convenient way for the author to clearly define the era the narrative is taking place in, but for those of us who can't time-travel, music and the times in which we listened to it play a powerful role in constructing memory. Which is to say, that it is almost impossible for me to think about our experience of infertility without thinking of "The Waters of March" as performed by Susanne McCorkle. Mel's written about this in the past. I also think about going with Mel to see Bruce Springsteen concert right when we started TTC and just being so certain that there was a child in-utero at the concert with us. There wasn't. Or not one that became a viable embryo. For that reason, I hardly ever listen to The Rising, which is the album Bruce was touring behind (The Seeger Sessions however is awesome and on regular rotation). That said, what are the songs you associate with your experience -- even if they have nothing to do with IF?

Less than a week ago I was in a taxi coming home from the appointment in which SOB confirmed our latest pregnancy was over. As we pulled into the traffic, a song came on the radio: "One Fine Day" by The Chiffons. You know how it goes. I've got a feeling if I ever want to feel again like I did that moment, all I'll have to do is get that playing on the stereo.

Finally, a question for the alert commenter. The book is about a couple and the life they build together despite difficulties including infertility. It's told from the viewpoints of both Henry and Clare. Yet it's called "The Time Traveler's Wife". Do you feel that reflects on the way infertility is handled within society? What would the story of your relationship/infertility be called?

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Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein.