Book Giveaway: "What Makes a Baby?" - a Book for All Families

Book Giveaway: “What Makes a Baby?” — a Book for All Families

Monday, 13 May 2013

17 Comments

One of the most frequent questions I get from readers is “Do you know of any children’s books about reproduction that work for my family?” Now, no matter how you created your family, and no matter what your gender identity, I’m happy to say the answer is “Yes.” And I’m giving away signed copies.

What Makes a Baby, by Cory Silverberg, is a rare and wonderful book that works across multiple dimensions of inclusion. Whether you created your family through traditional reproduction, assisted reproduction, surrogacy, or adoption; whether you are parenting with a same-sex partner, a different-sex partner, or alone; whether you and your spouse/partner (if you have one) identify as male, female, or in-between; and no matter your racial identity, the book leaves room for us all, while also explaining the basics of human reproduction for children four to seven years old. I have a fuller review and interview with Silverberg in my newspaper column this week, which I’ll post here later; you can read it in the meantime over at Bay Windows. (Minor typo: The book is actually 36 pages long, not 32.)

The book began as a Kickstarter project, which I mentioned about a year ago; it’s now been picked up by Seven Stories Press and will be published by them starting May 21 (though you can pre-order now). At the bottom of this post is the video Silverberg created for Kickstarter, which explains more about the book and his approach—but first, the giveaway!

The Prize

A copy of What Makes a Baby, signed by Cory Silverberg. I’ll give away another later in the week, too, so stay tuned!

The Giveaway

Leave a comment below about either a) how you (or your parents) created your family; b) how you explained it or hope to explain it to your kid(s); or c) how your parent(s) or others explained your family creation to you. It doesn’t have to be long or detailed; the winner will be drawn randomly, not judged.

I will randomly select the winner from all comments received before 8:00 a.m. ET, May 14, 2013.

Additional Rules and Restrictions

U.S. residents only, please. One entry per person. Don’t worry if your comment is moderated; once I approve it, it will appear based on the time you submitted it. Spam comments, including off-topic or commercial comments, will not count. If you win any one of the drawings for this book, you cannot play again for this book. (You can leave a comment to participate in the discussion, but I won’t enter you in the drawing.) If you are or have been a paying advertiser (or an employee of a paying advertiser) on Mombian, you can’t play.

You must also leave a valid e-mail address with your comment. Don’t leave a postal address, though. If you win, I’ll contact you by e-mail about shipping. I will then share the winner’s name and postal address with the author, for the sole purpose of allowing him to mail you your prize directly.

I am a member of the Amazon Associates program, and get a small referral fee from all purchases made at Amazon.com via links on this site. You are under no obligation to purchase through them.

17 thoughts on “Book Giveaway: “What Makes a Baby?” — a Book for All Families”

Karen Mellott

We plan on telling our daughter that we could not have a baby all by ourselves, so her uncle helped us (he is the sperm donor).
May 13, 2013 at 8:20 am
J Badik

We used ART with a sperm donor- and kept the vials. She is only 2 but has already met one of her “halfsies” (half sibling from the same donor). Some day I will show her the vials and explain about how she, and her halfsies, were born.
May 13, 2013 at 8:58 am
Kate

We adopted our son at birth, and he is 18 months old now. He will always know about his adoption, and that his birthmother is my wife’s niece.
May 13, 2013 at 9:00 am
Heather

Our family is a very blended family. I have 3 children from a previous heterosexual marriage. Then I met an fell in love with my partner. She has been an incredible stepmother to them and treat them as her own. We have taught them that you make a family in your heart. In the spirit of this, we have unofficially “adopted” a transgendered youth and intend to officially adopt another child soon. The children are very open to all types of families and individuals.
May 13, 2013 at 9:02 am
Theresa

Like Karen, we’ll say that we wanted to have a baby together but needed help. Some men and women want to help other people have babies — one of these men, and some doctors, donated sperm cells to help Mummy get pregnant.
May 13, 2013 at 10:45 am
Stacy Dorian

I was single and decided that I was not going to wait any longer for a partner to create a family. So at 39 years of age, I went ahead and used an anonymous donor. As far as I knew, I did not have a fertility issue, just a sperm access issue. I got pregnant fairly quickly, had an uneventful pregnancy and my darling daughter is now 7 years old and thriving. I have never hidden anything about her creation. She knows she has a father somehwere, but she does not have a Daddy. I told her that I really wanted to have a baby, but needed something from a man to create one (she calls it “a sparkle” but I have no idea where she got that from!!), so a doctor helped me with that part. She has a half brother that she has meet several times and she knows he has the same father. She is unconcerned about the absence of a father in her life as she has her grandfather. All is well and we are a happy and healthy mother daughter team.
May 13, 2013 at 12:09 pm
Clio

Our daughter has never asked about HERSELF but she often asks how people get pregnant. We talk about a seed called sperm and another seed called egg and that together they can start a baby. Once she asked me if her donor gave me a special cookie to eat that started my belly making her!
May 13, 2013 at 12:19 pm
Katie

My wife and I chose an ID release but otherwise anonymous donor when we conceived our daughter. We liked the idea that our child would have the option of contacting her donor as an adult if she wants.
May 13, 2013 at 6:28 pm
Tracey

We are a two-mom family- and we created our family with the help of a sperm donor. Same donor for all three kids – although both my partner and I carried. We have told our kids you need boy parts and girl parts to make a baby- and since we are two women, a kind mind donated the boy parts to so we could have them. We use this as an example of service, and once a year go out and give ‘service’ to our community by volunteering.
May 13, 2013 at 11:33 pm
Shannon

We’ve just started talking with our two year old about the “helpful man” (our identity release donor) who gave Mama the sperm so that we could grow the baby in her belly. I can’t wait to see this book!
May 13, 2013 at 11:41 pm
Anne Hicks-Bleecker

My partner and I tried IUI three times and finally went the Foster/Adoption route. We have two amazing kids we got when they were two days old whom we have adopted. We would love this book.
May 14, 2013 at 12:48 am
Ananda

The old-fashioned way — that is, “unplanned.”
May 14, 2013 at 2:50 am
Miranda

My wife gave birth to our daughter with help from a known donor, and we’re planning one or more future pregnancies with the same donor. Our daughter knows he’s her “donor,” and we call him Uncle to emphasize that he’s part of our family, too.
May 14, 2013 at 1:26 pm
S

Dana, question for you: do you think this book would be appropriate for a family who did foster-to-adopt with toddlers? (I’m thinking of a friend’s family here, whose kids would be the perfect age for this book.) I peeked at your review on Bay Windows, and questions like “Who was waiting for you to be born” seem like they would be a little awkward for my friend’s family to answer. Are there accompanying pictures showing someone eagerly awaiting a new baby, or is it more neutral than that?

I had my son using an anonymous donor — very easy to explain, by comparison…
May 14, 2013 at 6:03 pm
Cory

Hi S.,
Dana pointed me to your question and asked if I would chime in. My short answer is that it could work for the family you’re describing, although since everyone is different it’s hard to know for sure if it will fit for them. I’ll share a bit about that last question which you were wondering about.

That last question “who was waiting for you to be born?” was added in large part with adopted parents in mind.

The truth is that for parents who foster and parents who adopt, they often go through a long process of deciding if it’s right for them, imagining what their lives will be like, and then navigating often unkind systems (particularly for LGBTQ folks, who in many states are not allowed to foster or adopt, and in others have to deal with homophobia and transphobia while trying to make a family).

I wanted to create a space where that kind of waiting and that kind of labor would be as acknowledged and valued as the labor that someone who is carrying a child and giving birth goes through.

The question let’s any parent say “I was waiting for you. I was waiting for you before I even knew you.”

You might want to take a look at the Reader’s Guide that I wrote to accompany the book. It’s free, and you can download it from my website (http://www.what-makes-a-baby.com/, then click on “Reader’s Guide”). It shares more about how the book is written and how parents can use it. I think that foster parents were not very well represented in the families that test read the book, and that’s something I’m going to watch with my next two books, but I do think the book could work for them. Although the book won’t feel right for everyone. Once it’s available it should make its way to public libraries, so another option is to ask at your local library and see if they can get it, and then you can see it too. And if you have any other questions, feel free to email me directly at cory@corysilverberg.com. Thanks for asking about this and for thinking of your friends! Cory
May 15, 2013 at 4:30 pm
S

Thanks Cory for your response (and thanks Dana for pointing Cory to the question.) The reader’s guide is fabulous, and actually did make it much clearer to see both pros and cons of how well it might fit my friends’ family. Their adopted son was born while they were still fostering and trying to adopt a completely different child, which makes the “waiting for you” bit rather sticky. (They were very fortunate that being a gay couple was not actually much of a stumbling block to either process. I totally see how this would be very different for other families.) On the other hand, the bit about the baby’s growth depending partly on the uterus it grows in might be a really good way for my friends to discuss the reason for some of the challenges their kids face. I’ll point my friends to the reader’s guide, and they can decide from there.

Thank you!
May 18, 2013 at 7:16 am
Lori

My wife and I are expecting our first child in December. (IVF). Telling them how they were created is a huge deal and of course like many we will be honest with the process of our journey.
September 12, 2013 at 11:11 am