Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos (Sig-din-us) is an author, blogger and infertility survivor.

In her first book, Silent Sorority, Pamela shares with naked candor, humor and poignancy the intense and, at times, absurd experience of living barren in an era of designer babies and helicopter parents. She wrote Silent Sorority to give those experiencing problems in the conception department -- and their family, friends and colleagues – an honest look at the often unpredictable and lasting impact that infertility (and the stigma associated with it) can have on once carefully laid life plans. She also explores the complex effects the experience can have on relationships and identity.

Pamela first dealt with the confusion and weirdness of infertility in isolation. This was a time not so long ago (pre-"Dr Google") when most information on the topic was available via the library, book store or the U.S. Postal Service. It was only after she and her husband decided they were done being human lab experiments that she began to realize that overcoming infertility is about much more than making a baby. It's about coming to terms, when nature and science find their limits, with a life different than one so often taken for granted.

At the same time she was writing Silent Sorority she started her blog Coming2Terms. Her international readership includes those who have never stepped foot in a fertility clinic, those pursuing fertility treatment, those who became mothers after treatment or adoption, and those, who like her, are building lives without once sought after children.

Pamela and her blog were profiled last year in The New York Times. Her writing is featured in a variety of online outlets including Fertility Authority, Open Salon, MORE magazine and BlogHer, just to name a few.

She earned a B.A. in English Literature at the University of Michigan and an M.A. in Organizational Communication at Wayne State University in Detroit. Pamela spent nearly a decade working in the auto industry before relocating to live and work in Silicon Valley. When she’s not writing she enjoys travel and discussing history, Indie films, documentaries, politics, current events and literature with her husband, family, and friends.

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Watch Pamela Tsigdinos' interview ABC affiliate KXTV's Sacramento & Company

Listen to Pamela Tsigdinos' interview with Dawn Davenport of Blog Talk radio's Creating a Family

Pamela's writing has been featured several times on Open Salon's cover and on More.com

Q:

Was it difficult to go public with your infertility? What was the catalyst for deciding to tell your story?

A:

Difficult hardly begins to describe it. For the first 40 years of my life I was a very private person. While I’m now easily searchable online as infertile, the very idea of going public with my experience at first made me nauseous. Even as evolved as we think we are in nearly 2010, there remains a stigma associated with infertility. Ask most people to characterize what causes infertility and they’ll chalk it up to some self-inflicted condition or decision or the much maligned career woman who ignored her biological clock. Like most of society I was completely ignorant of the variety of medical conditions that contribute to infertility – that is until I started hanging out in doctor’s offices trying to figure out why I couldn’t get pregnant, otherwise young and healthy starting at 29.  More than a decade later, I knew I couldn’t be the only one reconciling the losses associated with infertility. It was both cathartic and liberating to relive the experiences in Silent Sorority. There were many times when I had to put the manuscript away – reliving the pain was too much to bear. What kept me coming back to it, though, what drove me to go public with my story was the idea that I might be able to light a path for those coming after me. In my worst days after losing our much sought after children I wanted to know that women who had experienced the same sorrow had found strength and peace and joy once again.  

 

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