Jennifer Berney

between 4.5 and 5 stars. this was beautifully written and thought out. she balances giving us just the right amount of information about her family and herself with a history of pertinent things like sperm banks and adoption, while perfectly incorporating and weaving in queer culture and the ways that being queer may present different obstacles or experiences through every step of her process to becoming a parent. (it was frankly kind of shocking that that level of othering was still happening then, and in a supposedly very liberal area. we had such a different and easier experience with our adoption just a few years later, a hundred miles south.)

this is so well done and so touching and i loved it. (also the narrator - xe sands - is excellent.)… (meer)

Author Jennifer Berney gives us an honest, tender, and powerful account of her often fraught road to motherhood as a queer woman. Jennifer and her wife Kellie want to start a family, and they soon learn that sadly, much of the medical community isn’t equipped for a queer couple. Jennifer is misdiagnosed, often dismissed, and at one point during a visit to a fertility clinic, Kellie is listed as having “experiencing male infertility”. Treatments such as IVF are no doubt difficult for any couple, but it’s made even harder through what Jennifer and Kellie experience. Jennifer also explores motherhood as a whole, tracing its historical roots and what it really means to be a family, unconventional means of bringing a baby into the world, and how often straight women are favored as a whole in society. ⁣
My heart often broke hearing Jennifer’s story, and my blood would boil too each time a doctor treated her unfairly. I have read many memoirs about motherhood and I loved how unflinchingly honest and tender this one was. It really opened my eyes to a different type of experience.… (meer)