Every garden has a story. Here's ours.
We're Jennie and Jason. This is the true story behind the book, told plainly.
Before there was a seed
We went in with a lot of optimism. Seven years later, we had learned to run on hope, faith, and trust instead.
Two rounds of IVF. More transfers than we care to count. A few losses we still carry. Four gestational carriers, and it was the fourth who changed everything.
None of it would have happened without Jennie's determination, perseverance, and grit. That part isn't in the book, but it's on every page.
The gardener
We found her the way you find someone you're meant to: almost by accident, and then on purpose. An online match, a lot of conversations, and then her own pregnancy put things on pause. We kept going. When she was ready, she reached back out to us. No agency, just two families deciding to trust each other.
She had carried for another family before, and she knew exactly what she was doing. She is carrying our daughter now, due this October. She is part of our lives, and she always will be.
And to the one who gave us the seeds: thank you. You know who you are.
Why a picture book
Our daughter will grow up knowing how she came to be, and we wanted her to hear it the way children hear the best stories: with pictures, at bedtime, more than once.
We also wanted a book to hand to other families on this path, because we looked for one and couldn't find it. If it helps a small person understand that they were wanted so completely that the people who love them found a way, it has done its job.
A note on the narration
The "Read to me" voice was made with a text-to-speech program my father was building. He died this year, on Father's Day. This book carries a little of his work in it, which feels exactly right.