For some of us, the great desire to have children may be coupled with the disappointment of failed pregnancies and expensive but unsuccessful fertility treatments. Sara Connell and her husband, Bill, know this painful struggle well, as she recounts in the memoir Bringing in Finn.
After seeing multiple doctors, Sara and Bill are eventually referred to a reproductive endocrinologist/fertility specialist. They try several cycles of follicle stimulation without success and move on to in vitro fertilization (IVF). This does result in a pregnancy, but Sara's twin fetuses are stillborn several months before their due date. More rounds of IVF follow with no further success.
Sara, while wrestling with both the emotional and physical burdens of fertility treatments, finds new comfort in the company of her 60-year-old mother, Kristine. Then, as Sara and Bill realize they have few options left that will allow them to become biological parents, Kristine makes an extraordinary offer to act as a surrogate for her daughter and son-in-law. Connell shares the details of the implantation of a fertilized egg into Kristine's uterus, the carefully monitored pregnancy that occurs on the second implantation attempt and, ultimately, the birth of Finnean Lee Connell in 2011. This is no spoiler; how Bringing In Finn ends is of less significance than the portrait of the struggle, the hope and the love the Connell family shares over the course of this amazing story. --Roni K. Devlin, owner, Literary Life Bookstore