The fertility monologues

2026-02-17 - 16:07

A new novel attracting a lot of attention—number five in the bestseller chart in its first week in the shops, a ton of publicity—has inspired readers to share intimate, sometimes harrowing stories of their experiences with fertility. Seed by former Shortland Street actor Elisabeth Easther (nasty nurse Carla Crozier) is an entertaining romp about women characters going to various lengths to have a baby. A free copy was offered in the most recent ReadingRoom giveaway contest. Readers were asked to share a personal story about wanting a baby in challenging circumstances. Anonymity was provided. The email subject line of the contest was IT TAKES A SEED TO RAISE A FAMILY. The replies were so powerful, that Easther was invited to act as judge of the contest, and provide commentary on the entries. There was a letter from X1, who wrote of a “barren marriage”. Her husband’s sperm count was “useless”. They emigrated from England to New Zealand, and he found work as a carpenter. He wasn’t used to the heat, especially on roofing jobs, and exchanged his denims for cotton rugby shorts. Soon she got pregnant. And then had a second baby, and third and a fourth. “How could this happen?” Her best guess: “The male family jewels like it cool and breezy. They want to hang loose so as not to cook the seed.” Hm. There was another happy ending in a message from X2, a published author, who wrote, “I had spent my thirties partying in London, and not the fun or glamorous kind. By the time I got home to NZ I was almost 40 and desperately needed to sort my life out. A mutual friend of me and my now husband had been saying for a couple of years that he and I really needed to meet one another as we’d be perfect for each other but I was far too cynical after disastrous Guardian Soulmates internet dating experiences in London. She kept on nagging us and in the end I gave in and met him for a coffee. We hit it off. It was a whirlwind romance and pretty soon we decided to try for a kid. But zero luck. Sex became clinical and high stakes. In desperation we went to the fertility clinic who told me I had a 15% chance at my age and was too old to qualify for funded IVF. I left that day in tears. A few weeks later we went to Bruce Springsteen in Auckland and then camping up North where we stayed in a caravan and read books and had lots of no expectation fun sex. We couldn’t believe it when we found out I was pregnant.” A male reader responded with a long memoir. The setting was Christchurch in the early 1990s. He fell in love but the relationship was stormy. “She broke my car windscreen because I didn’t want to leave a party. She threw an empty wine bottle at my head. Accurately. She fucked a good friend of mine. She once shouted ‘Rape’ when we argued drunkenly in Hereford street at 2AM one cold and loveless morning.” He told her it was over and booked a ticket to teach English in Japan. She farewelled him at the airport—and told him she was pregnant. “I said I’d stay. She said go.” He went to Japan. He arranged for the baby to be given to a couple who couldn’t conceive. He came home for the birth. “I held him and he appeared to look up at me and immediately stopped squawking, yawned, appeared to smile and fell asleep. It was the greatest moment of peace I’d ever experienced...I loved that little guy the moment I laid eyes on him.” But he was given up for adoption. “Decades later the boy and I are still in touch and maintain an awkward, respectful relationship. He has become a fine young man.” As for the birth mother: “I saw her once at the park covered in dog hair. We stopped and talked for a few minutes from across a Grand Canyon sized cultural gulf and walked off wondering just quite what the fuck we had ever seen in each other.” He concluded, “It takes more than a seed to raise a family.” Okay. Back to messages from women. This, from X3: “In the mid-seventies I was living in Cork, Ireland, and had been charmed into marriage by a handsome young man who wrote poetry and played the tin whistle.” Fantastic opening sentence! But the narrative descends into darkness. She gave birth to a daughter. “But she was not a vigorous child – jaundiced and seldom awake – and passed away in infancy of what was then called ‘cot death’. “There is no pain worse for a woman than the loss of a child. My only wish was to have another baby.” But she could not. “I can now acknowledge this was a good thing, as I was crazed and desperate. Sadly, my husband and I grieved separately, and became distant, and eventually parted. Apparently this is not uncommon following the death of a loved child.” And then the narrative buoys. She joined a sailing crew, met a man in Mexico, and they fished up in New Zealand. “I was far more afraid of having another child than I was of the ocean, but while spending New Year’s Eve 1986 at Port Fitzroy on Great Barrier Island, we talked about having a child, and in September 1987 our daughter was born in Suva, Fiji, during the Rabuka coup. This child lived.” And then another message arrived, from X4. It’s best published without editorial interference. “This subject strikes me where it hurts. 1969 I was 16 and on holiday in Auckland from Christchurch, I was feeling very sick. Dr declared I was pregnant and about 3 months on. Naive I went into denial. Returned home and said zilch to anyone but my brother in Auckland. Mother picked up somehow that I might be pregnant. Middle of the night, light goes on and father confronts me – ‘Your mother thinks you are pregnant’. No I declare. He goes on and I admit to it. He declares, ‘This man must marry you, it is the right thing to do, I did’. I Never understood that statement for many years until later I worked out the birth date of my oldest sibling. “I had finished my relationship with the father 3 months earlier due to his philandering with my girlfriend. I told him of my pregnancy. He asked me to visit him in a motel one night, where on my arrival he said I could get rid of the baby, to have some gins then a hot bath and poke a knitting needle up my vagina. I was repulsed and phoned for a taxi. As I was leaving for the taxi two attractive girls came walking down the footpath as I went asking if [the father’s name] was in there. “No way was I marrying the jerk who I was so infatuated with. Mother contacted the Salvation Army and organised my departure to the Dunedin home. “The group of girls at the home for ‘wayward girls’ were under the influence of one girl whose agenda was to upset anything the Army ladies asked us all to participate in. She was the daughter of a minister for heavens sake. I was so grateful the Army had taken me in and only wanted to please them. I cooked and cleaned and sewed enjoying it all. Thank goodness there was one other girl who felt like myself. We wanted to go flat together after the births, alas no support. “We were on the outer because of our adherence to cooperate. Things came to a head with the intolerant one, she had created so much strife the Army Captain was sending her on her way as they had discovered a multitude of stored sleeping pills in her locker (we were given a pill each night, she had been pinching them) but asked we two whether we agreed or could we forgive her. Against my mind at the time I said no to sending her away. “The atmosphere settled down. “The American astronauts landed on the Moon just days after my child was born. Born on a winters night where snow prevented the doctor attending the birth. “It came to pass in later years I was declared incapable of having children. Even six attempts at IVF couldn’t do the trick. However, after Jonathan Hunt’s adoption bill passed, which permitted contact after a child reached 20, I made contact with my daughter. I had submitted to the Bill expressing my concern that ‘we’ the birth mothers needed to know our children were safe and well in their homes. “This whole experience in my life was all excruciatingly challenging and scarred my soul for life.” And so to Elisabeth Easther, and her judging remarks. Revealingly, she had nothing to say about the guy who sent in his memoir. Her comments are confined to the four emails from women. She wrote, “Thank you to all the readers who shared their stories, from the harrowing to the hopeful. It never fails to amaze me how many versions of the fertility story there are. “Back when Seed was a play, after each show whenever I was there, people invariably wanted to share their stories.... and I was honoured they trusted me with their innermost thoughts. Frankly it never fails to amaze me that any of us are here at all, bearing in mind what a lottery it is, for any of us to draw our first breath. “Judging wasn’t easy, and I wish I could away give two copies or more. The easy-breezy family jewels story made me smile. And the tale from the lady sailor, that cute-as baby in a bucket. I also loved how Bruce Springsteen assisted at another conception. Having him seen him live at Crystal Palace I can well imagine how that came to pass. “But the story of the woman who was sent to the Salvation Army home when she was young and pregnant, and made to give her baby up just days before the first humans set foot on the moon, her story pierced my heart. Of course nothing can ever make up for all that woman has endured, but I want to honour her story by offering her this minute thing. A book, which is actually as comedic as it is sad, so please don’t think I’m undermining yours or any other person’s experiences by choosing you.” A free copy of Seed by Elisabeth Easther will be delivered to good old X4. Seed by Elisabeth Easther (Penguin Random House, $38) is available in bookstores nationwide. And a theatre performance of Seed is having a season in Titirangi, Auckland, in March. The author will be present for a Q&A after the Saturday matinee on March 21. Tickets are available online at Titirangi Theatre.