Author comforting others by recounting her own miscarriages

In her debut memoir, ‘A Womb in the Shape of a Heart’, pediatric nurse Joanne Gallant captures the experience of infertility, pregnancy and the dreams of motherhood

HALIFAXtoday\ Steve Gow

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After several unsuccessful attempts to become pregnant, pediatric nurse Joanne Gallant finally discovered she had a rare anomaly that literally shows one’s uterus to be heart-shaped.

Without a cure or surgical procedure available for the condition, the Halifax native soon found herself trying to deal not only with the shock of miscarriage and its devastating loss, but the fact that motherhood would likely continue to be a dream unfulfilled.

As a way of coping, Gallant turned to writing.

“It was a way to control things that were uncontrollable,” explains the author of A Womb in the Shape of a Heart, her memoir about the experience. “It was a way to bring an element of control to a part of my life that was beyond my control (and) when you write things down and then you have to read them back, you are forced to face the truth a little bit more.”

Her debut book follows her and her partner’s struggles with infertility and her eventual surprising pregnancy, which resulted in the premature birth of the couple’s son. Dealing with everything from dreams of motherhood to severe post-partum depression, Gallant lays her journey out bare through joy and incredible pain.

“Probably the biggest misconception (is that) if you have a child, all of that pain would disappear and that there’s kind of a length of time when you stop grieving,” says Gallant about the misunderstandings that come with issues of infertility. “What I’ve learned from being in the space of it is that it just changes, it doesn’t ever go away (and) certainly my life is better because of my son but I still live in that space of grief somedays.”

Gallant’s intimate first-person portrayal in A Womb in the Shape of a Heart is certainly resonating with readers as well. Since the book was released, Gallant has received much critical praise and met many readers who have found comfort in her memoir.

“The best feedback that I have received is from people who I don’t know who have sent me messages about things that they’re going through,” adds Gallant. “Hearing from people and knowing that they feel safe in sharing parts of what they’ve gone through has been really incredible for me.”

Providing a bit of solace for women in similar situations has certainly been rewarding for Gallant but so too has the accomplishment of having her first book published. A graduate from Mount Allison University with a nursing degree from the University of Alberta, Gallant spent nearly a decade working at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax primarily at the pediatric intensive care unit.  As a health care professional, she admits she never had much ambition about becoming an author.

“I’d always kind of written but never really seriously,” says Gallant, adding that she became inspired only after reading books about motherhood and infant loss while going through her own experiences. “I thought if I found comfort from a lot of these other books, then maybe there will be one other person that looks like me or has a similar story as me that might be able to relate and find comfort as well.”

With A Womb in the Shape of a Heart now on shelves, Gallant is back at the keyboard, trying her hand at a sophomore novel. While hesitant to provide many details other than the forthcoming publication will be fiction, she notes that the writing experience early on has been liberating.

“I am finding a lot of freedom in being able to explore fiction because in writing a memoir and non-fiction, you really have to stick to the facts so I didn’t have as much wiggle-room if something doesn’t work,” notes Gallant, who adds that she began drafting her new book soon after completing A Womb in the Shape of a Heart as its own way of coping with the writing experience.

“It kind of helps in this limbo of after your book comes out and you’re waiting to hear from people and stuff so it’s actually kind of nice to live in another space than my memoir right now.”

For more information on A Womb in the Shape of a Heart, visit the book’s website.