Molly's Reads

Molly's Reads

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SURROGACY

LEGAL/SOCIAL HISTORY
  • The Surrogate Mother by Noel P. Keane with Dennis L. Breo.

    • Published by Dodd Mead, 1981

    Amazon Link

    The wife could not conceive a child, but she could carry one. She wanted to know if there were any way that her husband’s sperm could be used to artificially fertilize another woman’s egg and then have that egg implanted in her uterus to carry to term. Just like Tom and Jane, this couple knew exactly what they wanted to do. The question to me was simple: Was it possible?

ANTHOLOGIES/MEMOIRS
  • A Surrogate Mother’s Story by Patricia Adair.

    • Published by Loiry Publishing House, 1987

    Amazon Link

    I’m going into this program knowing that when I do get pregnant, the child is going to be the child of another woman, because she cannot carry the baby herself. I feel that I am just the “carrier” for this little baby, and not his mother. The couple that chose me already decided they wanted this baby and only needed me to carry him full term to be born as their child.

  • Miracle Child: Genetic Mother, Surrogate Womb by Cheryl Saban.

    • Published by New Horizon Press, 1999

    Amazon Link

    As I stood near her, I was emotionally overwhelmed. Lori was lying there, forced to endure an almost unbearably hard labor…for me. She had selflessly offered to take my place in the hardest job a woman ever has to perform. The magnitude of it was very difficult for me to take.

  • The Sacred Thread: A True Story of Becoming a Mother and Finding a Family – Half a World Away by Adrienne Arieff with Beverly West.

    • Published by Crown, 2012

    Amazon Link

    Another tender mercy, sake during pregnancy. Of course, this time I’m not the pregnant one, but isn’t this still my pregnancy? We’d only been pregnant for one day and already things were starting to get a little confusing.

  • Bringing in Finn: An Extraordinary Surrogacy Story by Sara Connell.

    • Published by Seal Press, 2012

    Amazon Link

    “I was so sure this was an inspired vision, Sara,” she said. “It still could be,” I said. My first coaching mentor in England always reminded me that just because something is inspired doesn’t mean it comes easily.

  • Inconceivable: My Life-Altering, Eye-Opening Journey from Infertility to Motherhood by Alex Johnston.

    • Published by Sutherland House Books, 2021

    Amazon Link

    David and I used to say that no matter how many people suffer with you, at the end of the day they go home to their own families, to their own lives. When it is your child, it is your life. There is no going somewhere else. At first, I didn’t understand why it was so excruciatingly painful. I never actually knew Sam. But over time I understood that I was grieving everything that David and I would never have a chance to experience with her. Her death crushed us.

NOVELS
  • Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner.

    • Published by Atria Books, 2011

    Amazon Link

    I did all right in my English classes, and I’d always liked to read, but just for the story’s sake, for the chance books gave me to visit another world, where everyone was beautiful, where the sex was always amazing, and where, when the telephone rang, it was sometimes a handsome stranger and not the heroine’s mortgage company inquiring as to when they could expect that month’s check.

  • Dear Thing by Julie Cohen.

    • Published by Griffin, 2016

    Amazon Link

    Georgette had two children. Claire remembered when the youngest had been born; it was about the time Claire herself had gone through her third and final IVF treatment that had been allowed on the NHS, before they’d gone private. Claire had been given an invitation to the christening, but there was a little handwritten note in it: I’ll understand if you don’t want to be around babies. She hadn’t gone to the christening, not to avoid the babies but to avoid the understanding.

  • Every Kind of Wanting: A Novel by Gina Frangello.

    • Published by Counterpoint, 2016

    Amazon Link

    But when Emily has the flu or something, Nick never even thinks to get her a cup of tea. He says things like, “Don’t worry, you just rest, I’ll take care of the boys,” but “resting” ends up meaning that she is stuck in the bedroom alone, starving and dehydrated and uncomfortable and bored. In no one’s mind is Emily ever the one who needs taking care of – as though the epitome of any care they might offer is to alleviate her of the burden of caring for them.