Brownstein: Former CTV anchor’s memoir reveals struggle for motherhood


In heart-wrenching, painstaking detail, Tarah Schwartz chronicles her orders with miscarriages, fertility treatments and adoption.

Article content

It was a little more than three years ago when Tarah Schwartz announced she would be leaving her plum gig as a weekend news anchor and reporter at CTV Montreal — without having another job in place. She said she simply wanted to spend weekend time with her husband, Enrico Caouette, and their son, Sam.

advertisement 2

Article content

Regardless, many were left puzzled by her decision, considering she had spent 18 years working her way up at CTV, won a host of awards for her reporting and was certainly on the fast track at the network. But what very few knew was the rationale behind her choice of her, even though Schwartz had written a poignant yet abbreviated piece for the Montreal Gazette in 2014 that offered some insights.

Schwartz reveals her reasoning and much more in her newly released memoir, Can’t Help Falling: A Long Road to Motherhood. Her decision to leave CTV had almost everything to do with the great lengths she and Caouette had gone to in trying to have a baby and, later, in trying to adopt one.

In heart-wrenching, painstaking detail, Schwartz chronicles her ordeals with miscarriages, fertility treatments and adoption, which she grappled with all while maintaining professionalism on the job and not giving viewers any indication of the anguish she had been going through.

advertisement 3

Article content

The good news is Schwartz and Caouette were finally able to adopt their son, Sam, in South Korea. So no big surprise she would then want to spend quality time with him and her husband de ella after all they had been through.

Schwartz’s memoir begins on a most sombre note about how she lost the baby who had lived inside her for almost five months: “One moment, his tiny heart was beating, and the next, that gentle pulsing ceased to exist. It wasn’t just my son that I mourned, but an entire life I had built up inside my head. I had to bury that as well.”

Fighter that she is, Schwartz refused to give up, even after enduring two more miscarriages and failed fertility treatments. But all the same, a feeling of helplessness permeated her entire being de ella, and it would persist for years to come.

advertisement 4

Article content

For events that took place more than a decade ago, Schwartz is able to vividly recount all the specifics, largely painful yet also euphoric in spots. She is able to intertwine her intense drama with that of people she was covering on the news and for whom she showed even deeper empathy than before as a result. She brings an impressive lyricism in describing visits to Italy, South Korea and Thailand and jaunts through Montreal. There are even elements of whimsy, such as the relief she felt when seeing hockey star Sidney Crosby on the same flight as her. She assumed a plane carrying Crosby couldn’t possibly crash.

Even after it seems like nothing else could possibly go wrong, the tension never ceases until the very end.

advertisement 5

Article content

Women who have been on a similar path will have no difficulty relating to Schwartz’s odyssey. It should be a real eye-opener for many men.

“When you live something so powerfully, the details stay with you because you re-live them over and over again,” Schwartz said in an interview. “I had started with that Gazette article years ago, but I soon realized how much I had left out. Then after I finished it, I just kept writing and writing. It was a compulsion. I had so much inside of me, and then I thought that maybe this was something that could help other women feel less alone.

“I had started looking for literature that I could relate to when I was going through these events, but there wasn’t anything there. When I went through this 10 years ago, nobody really talked about infertility. It was something we carried around, almost like a shameful secret that you kept to yourself. I was embarrassed. I could do so many things in my life, but I couldn’t do this. It was a very lonely place to be.

advertisement 6

Article content

“So I mean this truly, if it helps even one woman feel less alone after reading this book and understand that there are other roads to motherhood, then it’s been worth it. And if it helps even one person who loves those people understand the heartbreak of wanting a baby when no baby comes, then again it’s all worth it.”

Her story does have a happy ending. Sam, now 10, has adjusted well to life here. And Schwartz is back at work — but not on weekends — as director of communications for the MUHC Foundation.

“There aren’t always happy endings,” Schwartz said. “I don’t want to ever imply that there are. But I had one. So if it helps someone hold on to hope, then I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.”

[email protected]

twitter.com/billbrownstein

AT A GLANCE

Can’t Help Falling: A Long Road to Motherhood (Linda Leith Publishing), a memoir by Tarah Schwartz, is available at bookstores now. 170 pages; $21.95.

advertisement 1

Comments

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user follows comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your e-mail settings.



Leave a Comment