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Waiting For Motherhood

Author Belle Boggs with her daughter. Boggs recently authored the book 'The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, And Motherhood'
Credit Courtesy of Belle Boggs
Author Belle Boggs with her daughter. Boggs recently authored the book 'The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, And Motherhood'

Note: This is a rebroadcast. This program originally aired September 6, 2016.  

Infertility affects one in eight couples in the United States, according to Resolve: The National Infertility Association. That statistic amounts to millions of Americans, but despite the high numbers, many keep their struggle private. For many years writer Belle Boggs was one of those individuals. She and her husband experienced a wide range of emotional and financial obstacles in the five years they spent trying to get pregnant, but it was not until Boggs wrote about it publicly in Orion Magazine that she realized how many of her friends and family were in the same boat. A conversation with Belle Boggs, a professor of English at North Carolina State University, about her book that explores fertility through a blend of memoir and cultural history.

This journey inspired her new book “The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, And Motherhood” (Graywolf Press/2016). Host Frank Stasio talks with Boggs, a professor of English at North Carolina State University, about her book that explores fertility through a blend of memoir and cultural history. Boggs launches her book at The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University tomorrow night at 6 p.m. ​

Copyright 2016 North Carolina Public Radio

Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.