ANA Book Club?

[Raydean]

OK, I'll jump in. Sorry all, I found Sara's indifference to Anna and Jesse unsettling at best and probable neglectful.   There is also  the issue of what could be consider "conditional love".  As an example, after the suit is filed and underway, Sara is still bargaining with Anna for the kidney (page 273, 74 and 75).  Somewhere along the way Brian got it, but Sara never did, until it was to late.

What started out with good intentions  "cord blood" quickly escalated and lines were crossed.  Perhaps in part due to  viewing a child as a possession, rather then a separate individual.

Raydean

[leapyrtwins]

Raydean -

very interesting point; something I didn't really consider before, but I agree with what you're saying. 

I guess when it comes to Sara, I have mixed emotions.  Sometimes she showed her bad side, but sometimes you could see her good side.  She certainly was a different character than Brian, who always seemed to have a good side.  Like you said, he "got it".

Jan

[yardtick]

Okay now I'm stepping in.  Brian's character is different than Sara's, but he wasn't a strong fatherly type.  He too let Jessie and Anna down.  They needed him to defend them, protect them and to take the bull by the horns.  Sara overruled every aspect of their lives.  When Brian finally did step up to the plate it was too late for Jesse and Anna. 

I guess being married to a very strong man who steps up to the plate and is a strong father has clouded my judgement.  Let's hear from the men on this issue.

Anne Marie

[sgerrard]

Let's hear from the men on this issue.

Does that mean me? 

Brian is a classic work-aholic, who heads off to the fire house whenever things get rough, and jumps at the chance to go fight a fire or be a paramedic. He ducks out on most of the issues at home. He did get it eventually with both Anna and Jesse, but not before a lot of damage was done. It is no coincidence that it is Brian who is paged once more at the end to leave the family and go help out with a car crash, only to find that this time the victim is Anna.

As for Sara, I wonder if maybe the sinister Dr. Chance is to blame for pushing her along that path? When he said he would do a kidney transplant "only if it was from Anna", it seemed creepy to me...

Steve

[leapyrtwins]

Wow!  I'm really surprised on the comments about Brian.  And here I thought he was a pretty decent father.

Maybe my perspective is a little warped because when I was married my ex wasn't a strong man who stepped up to the plate and he sure as heck wasn't a strong father.  He was more like a third child in my household.  At this point in time, he hasn't seen our kids in almost 2 years 

Okay, enough about my personal life, what do the rest of you think about Brian? 

And Steve, I never gave a second thought to Dr. Chance.  Do you really think he was sinister & creepy?  That's very interesting.

Where is Kate?  I know she is officially Queen, but I'd love to hear her thoughts on both Sara & Brian.  She is allowed to participate, isn't she 

Jan

[sgerrard]

Don't get me wrong, I think Brian would be a great guy to hang out with. It is just common with men (mea culpa) to get a lot of satisfaction out of work, and neglect all that stressful family stuff. When things get too intense in the house, we often just want to go out to the garage and hammer some nails, so to speak. Or put out some fires. Or start one...

I guess I don't think Dr. Chance was really sinister or creepy, but he was somewhat of an "enabler", if that is the right term. As a medical professional, he had an opportunity to use a little judgment, but I think he was also too focused on Kate to see what the whole arrangement had turned into.

Steve

[Kaybo]

I think you hit the NAIL ON THE HEAD, Steve...OK, somebody had to sayit!!
K

[leapyrtwins]

Today while I was in the orthodontist's office with my kids, I read in one of the entertainment magazines that My Sister's Keeper is being made into a movie.  The only detail they gave was that Cameron Diaz will be starring in the role of Sara.

Jan

[Kaybo]

that is cool,but isn't she a little old for that??
so what is going on here??  what happened to our fearless leader?
K

[leapyrtwins]

K -

I guess we could move on, and I could pose a new question, but I thought I'd give OMG a chance to join in the discussion about Sara. 

I know she's been "away" for a few days, but I think I saw a couple of posts from her in other areas of the forum today. 

I also thought that Kate might weigh in on this topic a little more, but if she doesn't do so soon, I think we can move forward.

Jan

[sgerrard]

I'll ask a related question. That way we are still on topic, but have something more to talk about. 

So we have discussed Sara, and Brian, and found them somewhat lacking as parents. The question I have is this: what would you have done differently? In particular, would you have arranged for Anna to be a bone marrow donor at age seven? And of course, how would you have handled the kidney question?

There, that should get it going again. I'm not sure myself...

Steve

[leapyrtwins]

Good idea, Steve.

Very difficult questions. 
 
Off the top of my head, I'd say that I probably would have had a "designer" baby like Anna and used her cord blood in the hopes that it would save Kate.  That's almost a no-brainer IMO because it wasn't something that was invasive to Anna and it could have been a permanent life-saver for Kate.  Beyond that, I'm not really sure 

I'll have to think about the rest of the questions and get back to you.

What do others think?

Jan

[Kaybo]

Well, I had kind of thought about that while reading...I think (no, KNOW - just b/c that is how we are) that Dave & I would have ASK our girls if they wanted to help their sister - age appropriate, of course.  Such a simple thing and something that I don't remember them EVER doing.  Yes, you are the parent and you have to make the final decisions (& maybe "steer" them), but would Anna have felt different towards the end/lawsuit if she had felt that she had an OPINION or INCLUDED.  As my favorite line from Suessical the Musical & now Horton Hears a Who and what I explain to my kids over & over is, "A person's a person, no matter how small."  I think that can be applied to SO many areas in our lives...I agree w/ Jan in that I would have had another (of course, you are talking to the lady who would just keep on having babies (LOL)) especially when I think that most women (& men too) when after they have what they have thought they would, deep down, wonder what it would be like to have another...the intial cord blood would have been so inavasive (is that a word?) but certainly nothing to lose!
K

[Kate B]

The group is doing quite well...I have been at a conference until today and have had little access to the computer.

Sara's motivations were to have the all of her children alive...I don't believe her motives were sinister relative to Kate nor Anna. From the time a mom finds out she is pregnant, she is protective of that baby. She found a solution that  she believed would be a double blessing:  another child and a donor for Kate. As the book progressed and insight was given about Sara through her eyes, I found myself emphathizing with her and also as Steve has written, thought to myself: what would I do in that situation?   I honestly don't know. I believe I would try to do everything in my power to save a child. The key difference here is that she was needing her other daughter to accomplish this.

I think about us with our AN's and how differently we all handle them.I think about other families I know where there is one child with an illness that strikes a family. There is an inordinate amount of time and energy devoted to doctor visits and the like because that is their "Life". I loved the one comment in the book that we really don't own our children, we receive them for a short while (or something like that).  Brian and Sara were dealt a set of cards in which there are no parent manuals.    I believe Sara saw it as a "family" decision. As stated by Jesse in the book, they all played different roles in the family. I don't believe they knew how far out of range Jesse was and they had no clue relative to Anna's changing feelings as she got older. Quiite honestly, the surprise to me was that I do think Anna would have kept going, it was Kate that asked her not to. It was Kate that made her stop and consider the whole situation.   Anna found her own way to help her sister out by suing for medical emancipation. As a reader, we begin in chapter 1 after all of this has been thought through and only find out much later (toward the end) that Kate was the catalyst. 

 Interestingly at the conference this weekend, I saw Sidney Poitier as one of our keynote speakers.  He made an interesting comment:  Life brings everyone traumas. It is what you do with your time after you pick yourself up.  Unfortunately, the book ended with a new trauma and at the same time brought resolution to the original one.

I cried the first time I read the book and again as the book ended. Life has unanticipated consequences....

[OMG16]

First let me say I am sorry I have been missing in action as most of you now know I've been very ill.  I want to thank you for all of your prayers and kisses to my forehead.  They mean the world to me!  Please keep up all of the prayers and hopefully we can cure this soon.

Now as far as the book club goes I will do my best in attempting to give you my opinion.  Please be patient as I am on allot of medication and get myself confused so let me know if I do not make sense to you.  As far as Sara is concerned I believe she did the best she could while in the emotional state she was in.  At first I thought she was an absolute shelfish and immature Mother that needed a good slap to her face to wake her up.  Then as the book went on I started to think about the journey we have taken with our son and then started to have more compassion for her and Brian.  We were lucky enough to only have 1 child in our family so we did not have to deal with that aspect and I have often wondered how we would have handled it if we did.  We like the Family in the book were devasted when my son was diagnosed and it was hard to get through the feelings alone and not allot of help was offered for us emotionally and we did try to seek it out and found nothing other than the online support groups that were offered to us from some of his Drs.  We did not join due to the negative comments that were being left for some reaching out for help and even the administration people were very abusive in their posts and angry that people were not giving their money to further their research and online support forum.  I did not find this group until after my son had the tumor for 1.5 years and then did not know if I should join due to his tumor not being an AN.  We were also not supposed to talk about any of it due to his lawsuit which kept us in a very bad place for way to long.  What I am trying to get to is that if my son had not had the stroke and been admitted to the inpatient rehad dept at our local Childrens Hospital we could still be in an unhealty emotional state just like Sara, Brian and their children.  While he was an inpatient we were offered counseling with a very good Psychiatrist who helped our family work through all the negative emotions and how to live with a chronic medical condition with an unknown prognosis due to the tumor still being there.  I personally think that all families that have a sick child should be given this type of counseling for the entire family so that you can move through those very tough emotions and not get stuck like so many of us do in the diagnosis.  Parenting is the hardest job even "under normal conditions" and these sort of problems make it almost more than anyone can handle on their own.  I just keep thinking about how we would have handled this as a family and I can honestly say that I can not judge Sara as I may have made some of her same mistakes.  I do not think that I would have but I do not know for sure.  I also think this was a perfect book for our family situation and has made me even more aware of the mistakes I would like to avoid making with my son.  I made a mental note that Sara and her family never really communicated among themselves or with the Drs about their lives as they were with all of this and it had a devastating effect on all of them.  I am very grateful that our family has always had a very open way of communicating our thoughts and fears.  My son just about 6 weeks ago talked about if the tumor does start growing again that he may not want to treat it at all.  I have to accept this and support him in whatever he chooses and I think that Sara should have been more in tune with all of her family and understood just how much she was not meeting any of their needs including her own.  I believe as parents it is our job to help our children grow up to be well adjusted healthy adults and able to handle all that comes their ways.  Sara as a Mother lost sight of this and failed to do exactly what she held most valuable in her life that of being a Mother to her children.  She lost so many chances to just live and teach her children to enjoy everday that they had together.  I also think that she kept Kate in a "sick child state" all of the time due to her reactions when there was a pain or a bruise, thus robbing her of the time she had when she was not sick.  I also think that it was not a good choice to keep the death of her boyfriend from her.  Once again she missed a perfect life lesson that could have helped Kate to grow as a person.

Brian was a typical man turning to work to get away.  I think once again there should have been allot of communicating going on in this family.  I was very glad to see that he finally got it even if it was very late in the game.

Jesse I think just needed to feel as he was a part of the family and it broke my heart to see how he was over looked and even given up on. 

Dr Chance's job was to take care of Kate and I think he did the best he could under the circumstances as I say this I am not completely convinced IMO.  I do not believe that his choices were morally right after thinking about this a little longer.  Part of his oath is to do no harm and I believe that was exactly what he was doing to Anna and probably Kate also.  I think the Hospital had a huge responsibility to both girls and failed them in not taking this to the board to determine what the right thing was.  I do think that the laws have not caught up with the advances that have been made in medicine however you know that they were aware of the reason for Anna's conception and that should have thrown up red flags.

I'm afraid that Sara will continue to live in the past and not do what is right to help her family grow and become emotionally whole.  What are all of your opinions on this?