Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner

          I finished reading Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner.  It took me a while because I never really got into it. I can’t say there is anything wrong with it. It just explores a topic that I’ve never really “gotten”. 

          The story revolves around four women:  A lovely, ivy-league student with an addict father, a military wife and mother of two struggling to make ends meet, a trophy wife with excess baggage and the daughter of the TW’s husband who harbors fantasies of her divorced parents reunion. 

          The student is approached one day by a representative of a fertility clinic.  He asks her to donate some of her eggs.  In return, she will be paid enough money to put her father into an excellent rehab center.

          The army wife discovers a means of improving her family’s financial situation.  She can become a surrogate.  In return for carrying another couple’s baby, she will be paid enough money to give them some security.

          The TW and her husband desire a child, but she is older than he believes and she is unable to conceive.  They choose to go the surrogate route to create their family. 

          The daughter, who still believes her parents can get back together, hires a PI to find out about the TW.  What they discover is disturbing.  The TW has totally recreated herself, from her face to her name.  But once the daughter acquires the information, she cannot disrupt her father’s happiness by telling him.

          As the first three women play their parts, a child is conceived using the student’s egg and being implanted in the army wife’s uterus, and the TW excitedly prepares for the arrival. 

          Due to an interesting twist in the story, which leaves both prospective parents unavailable when the baby is born, the daughter is shocked to find herself the legal guardian of her newborn half sister.  In her attempts to properly discharge her duty to the child, she makes contact with both the egg donor and the surrogate.  They, and their families, become active parts of the baby girl’s life.  Eventually, the TW returns to the fold, and the “village” of women raising baby is complete.

          As I mentioned earlier, I’ve never really “gotten” the need to have a baby.  Perhaps because my own daughter was born when I was twenty-two, I never heard my biological clock ticking. But I never had any desire to get pregnant again either, not even as my childbearing possibilities started to wane. So I fail to comprehend why anyone would jump through hoops in order to have a baby.  While I fully comprehend the primal need of all animals to propagate the species, it seems like humans should be smart enough to simply take over the care of orphaned and unwanted children as opposed to attempting fertility treatments.