I recently purchased a Kobo eReader in an effort to reduce my exposure to the screen of my iPad, which meant browsing the Kobo store to find something to read. I stumbled upon the title My Girlfriend is Not the Father, and it intrigued me. The fact that it is a story about surrogacy put it even higher on my list.
For those of you that don’t know, my husband and I used a surrogate to conceive our twins. With my congenital heart defects, it was suggested that pregnancy and I would be incompatible. Our surrogate and I were extremely close throughout the entire process, but reading a story from the surrogate’s point of view felt like a great way to expand my understanding of what she had gone through for us.
Lucy is chronically single and has no intention of ever having kids of her own. However, her best friend and his husband want to be fathers. All they need is a uterus, which Lucy is willing to provide.
The story begins at one of the many doctor’s appointments necessary just to consider beginning a surrogacy journey. Lucy is asked repeatedly if she is single. While it may sound like an intrusive question, it’s a medically (and legally) necessary one for a surrogacy arrangement.
Of course, just when a character declares they are single, that’s when “the one” finds their way onto the page.
Lucy and Jade meet in a grocery store aisle the same day that Lucy has documented being single. However, when Jade finds out that Lucy plans to be pregnant with her best friends’ child, she runs for the hills. She already left her marriage because she didn’t want kids. She doesn’t need to start a new relationship with this kind of baggage.
Unsurprisingly, situations arise that bring the two women back together. Jade sticks by Lucy’s side through all of the ups and downs of pregnancy. Sounds perfect, right?
Which means it’s not. Rather than spoil anything, I’ll just say that communication is important. When anyone is not being honest about how they are feeling, things are going to come to a head, potentially blindsiding the other party.
At the two thirds point of the book I was certain I would be giving this book a solid four stars. I wasn’t fond of how the relationship between Lucy and Jade was going and felt like the author was painting a less than flattering picture of the relationships involved in surrogacy. However, by the end of the book, that fifth star popped back up as the characters had ah-ha moments regarding how their own behavior might be contributing to the tension.
Yes, I’m being vague. But I don’t want to give away too much. Go read the book for yourself.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn in the author’s note that Dana Hawkins was able to write about surrogacy so accurately because she was once a surrogate herself.
The eBook is available now, but the paperback version will be released later this year.
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