Book Nook: Miracle Baby - A Fertility Doctor’s Fight for Motherhood

Dr. Dorette Noorhasan offers a unique perspective on the fertility struggle women face in her book, Miracle Baby: A Fertility Doctor’s Fight for Motherhood. As a board-certified OB-GYN and fertility specialist, Noorhasan writes to educate, encourage, advise and support people who want to bring a new life into the world. Her own journey to motherhood was filled with many difficulties and unexpected turns that led to a role reversal.

“I have the unique opportunity of being both a fertility doctor and patient,” Noorhasan said. “I tell the story from both sides of the exam table.”

Miracle Baby is Noorhasan’s emotional and inspirational memoir, revealing her experiences of tragedy as a child, her journey from South America to the United States of America with her family, and the personal hardships she endured before her son was born via surrogacy. In this narrative, she opens wide the discussion of fertility complications from which one in eight women suffers. Her story offers comfort to women in similar situations and displays the power of hope, courage and determination in producing the miraculous.

Dr. Noorhasan has also developed The Fertility Manual: Reproductive Options for Your Family, which will be released in November 2019. It will serve as an accompanying guide for her readers to explore and understand fertility possibilities they may have never considered.

“The role of The Fertility Manual is to provide basic fertility terminology,” Noorhasan said. “The book will educate readers who might be seeking fertility treatment with the knowledge they need to ask their doctors the right questions as they pursue parenthood.”

Why did you write this book?
I am a private person and the thought of sharing my personal story was absolutely scary. We did in vitro fertilization with surrogacy to have our son. When my surrogate was a few months shy of her delivery due date, I had the opportunity to take some time off from work. I was essentially leaving private practice for about a year. At that time, many patients asked me why I was leaving practice. I started telling patients that we were expecting, but having no baby bump to show prompted inquisitive questions. As I began sharing details of my story with patients, the resounding response that I received was that I needed to make my story public. Women need to know that they are not alone and that others have stood in their shoes, that their doctor actually knows what they are going through. I took a big breath and poured my life story into the keyboard. The words came out faster than my fingers could keep up. Writing my story was easy, it was practically cathartic. However, once my book was accepted by the publisher, I had second thoughts. Do I really want my story public? How much do I share? I spent about a month soul searching, telling myself that my story will help others in their pursuit of parenthood.

Why is it important for women who are struggling with infertility to read the stories of other women’s experience?
I wrote this book for other women struggling with infertility, so that they can know that they are not alone in this process. One in eight couples struggle with fertility, it is more common than we think. So let us remove the taboo and start talking.

How do books about infertility help all women be more empathetic with each other?
Women should empower each other particularly in their time of need. We as women believe that fertility should be something easy, after all we are women born to keep the species going. We have the bodies to do this. However, infertility is not an easy diagnosis. We all have a sister, friend, daughter, or granddaughter who may battle infertility. At the end of the day, we are all humans trying to find our way through this thing called life.

What tips do you have for people who are struggling with infertility to find support?
Anyone struggling with infertility should seek support groups. There are many support groups online, local, and national chapters. Knowing that others are going through or have gone through the same struggle can make the struggle less difficult. In more severe cases, people struggling with infertility should seek the help of a counselor, therapist, psychologist or psychiatrist.

How can women support their friends and family that may be struggling with infertility?
The biggest thing that women can do to support their family and friends struggling with infertility is to just be there for them. They will need your love and support through both the highs and lows of the process until they can take their bundle of joy home. Then after that, they will need your help baby-sitting that little bundle of joy.