Josephine Moon on love and IVF in her new novel, The Jam Queens

Josephine Moon was born and raised in Brisbane, and had a false start in Environmental Science before completing a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and then a postgraduate degree in education. Twelve years and ten manuscripts later, her first novel The Tea Chest was picked up for publication and then shortlisted for an ABIA award. Her bestselling contemporary fiction is published internationally. Her books include The Tea Chest, The Chocolate Promise, The Beekeeper’s Secret, Three Gold Coins, The Gift of Life, The Cake Maker’s Wish and The Jam Queens.

Today, Josephine Moon is on the blog to share a little about the struggle at the heart of The Jam Queens: main character Aggie’s decision over whether or not to pursue IVF. Read on …

Josephine Moon (Photo by Anastasia Kariofyllidis).

Aggie’s dilemma: to try… or not to try

At the beginning of The Jam Queens, our main character Aggie receives a letter that shakes her world. One year ago, she split from her partner, Gideon, after they endured years of a fraught, taxing and ultimately devastating journey through IVF. Two years ago, they lost their baby girl to stillbirth, the subsequent grief and stress driving the couple apart. Now, the IVF clinic has informed them that they must decide what to do with their remaining frozen embryos. Without doubt, Aggie knows that this is absolutely their last chance.

Could they go back just one more time and try again?

In the early stages of writing this novel, at a time when I was still getting to know my characters, I listened to a deep dive interview with Mamamia’s The Quicky, which focused on this precise conundrum. How does a couple agree upon what to do with unused embryos? I was further gripped by the dilemma of how to reach this agreement if you’ve since separated with your partner. There was so much complexity in it that I wanted to work through the options via Aggie’s voice.

Personally, I’ve not been through IVF. The closest I ever came to that discussion was sometime in my early thirties, before I had my son, when I had a blood test that can identify the reserve of remaining eggs in a woman’s ovaries. As it turned out, I had a much smaller reserve than ‘normal’ and this result instantly excluded me from ever being able to use IVF if I needed it.

I think most of us will know at least one person who has been through IVF and will have some idea of the physical and mental stresses it places upon individuals and their relationships. I also carry around with me the empathy for so many women I personally know who have lost babies to miscarriage, late-term miscarriage, neo-natal death, stillbirth, premature birth and SIDS. I don’t claim to have an extensive friendship network so it is shocking to me to know so many women (and their partners) who have experienced this loss. I can only deduce that these sorts of terrible events happen far more often than we’re generally aware of and I feel as though talking about these events is still a little taboo, a bit like talking about post-natal depression, or endometriosis, or period poverty or ovarian issues. There is still a degree of judgement that these are ‘women’s issues’ to be dealt with quietly, by women, when of course they’re not. They are human issues, family issues, and in the case of the loss of a baby, it is also the fathers’ issues, which was one reason it was important for me to include Gideon in this story, to let him voice his struggle with this huge array of emotions and unresolved grief and fear.

To come to a decision, Aggie and Gideon need to talk. They need to talk about what they’ve been through, their pain, their fears to try again and their hopes that just one more round of IVF might bring them the fairy tale result they’d been hoping for. They must untangle the deeper reasons they separated after the loss of their baby. They must work out how much they’re willing to risk against the odds of ‘what might be’, whether they want to be together with or without a baby. To do so, they will either mend their hearts enough to come back together, or mend their hearts enough to let each other go with love.

—The Jam Queens by Josephine Moon (Penguin Books Australia) is out now. Signed copies are available while stocks last!

The Jam Queens

by Josephine Moon

Award-winning jam maker Aggie is determined to take her Barossa Valley cafe to new heights. She has put the pain of unsuccessful IVF treatments and a broken relationship behind her, and is focused on the many wonderful possibilities life still holds in store.

When an invitation to travel across Australia on the Ghan for her mother's seventieth birthday comes her way, she is at first apprehensive. But the trip offers a precious opportunity to spend some quality time with both her disgruntled mother, Valeria, and her distant daughter, Holly, as well as her...

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