Crybaby

October 3, 2022
Columnist and PW contributor Klein delivers a frank memoir of her infertility and subsequent diagnosis of and treatment for breast cancer. She recounts navigating the complicated process of open adoption, agreeing to a temporary separation from her wife, as well as the “full-body chemical aftertaste of chemo.” She also delves into her conflicted feelings about mortality: “The life impulse and the death impulse are both relentless, and daily.” Klein is incisive, and her account is often heartbreaking in its sincerity (“I imagine that this is how a trans woman might feel after being sentenced to a women’s prison,” she writes of needing an abortion to complete a miscarriage), though its impact is somewhat blunted by a sometimes circuitous narrative (she repeatedly watches couples have children while she unsuccessfully navigates the adoption process). When Klein and her wife are finally able to adopt a baby boy, the narrative zips through the event disappointingly quickly. It’s uneven, but the raw emotionality lands like a gut punch. Readers who have dealt with infertility or the adoption process will find this hits very close to home.