Kim Bergman wrote her new children’s picture book about assisted reproduction based on “what I’ve been telling parents for 30 years to tell their kids. It’s what I told my own kids.”
Bergman is a licensed psychologist and senior partner at Growing Generations, the first surrogacy and egg donation agency dedicated to serving the LGBTQ community, but now serving clients of all identities. She and her spouse Natalie also used assisted reproduction to start their own family over 20 years ago. Bergman distilled this wealth of knowledge and experience to create You Began as a Wish
This picture book comes just a few months after the publication of her book for adults, Your Future Family: The Essential Guide to Assisted Reproduction
That titular assertion sets the tone. We then learn that every child comes from four things: an egg, a sperm, a womb, and a home. “Some bodies” have sperm, or eggs, or a womb—a phrasing inclusive of transgender and nonbinary identities—and while parents may provide those things, so may a sperm donor, egg donor, or surrogate. The book is also inclusive of a wide variety of family structures, including those with one, two, or more than two parents. Irit Pollak’s bright and blocky illustrations show joyous parents and children as well as simply drawn images of egg, sperm, and womb.
Bergman said that academic research tells us, “It’s pretty clear that kids want to know where they came from.” She added, “They have a right to know where they came from. If you build a foundation that says, ‘This is my family, this is how I created it,’ and you’re proud of that and you’re up front about it, there’s nothing to be secretive about. It’s still okay to be private, because it’s still your story and your child’s story, but it’s not a secret, and it’s really important that kids get to know where they came from, right from the beginning.”
In fact, she suggests that even when children are infants, parents should speak to them about their origins in very simple terms, such as, “Mommy and Mama wanted you so much and a nice man helped us have you, and here you are,” or “Daddy and Papa wanted you, and there were some parts we needed from some women, and a really nice woman gave us the egg (or the seed, or whatever language you’re comfortable with in the beginning), and then another wonderful woman carried you inside of her until you were big enough to come home to Daddy and Papa.” Parents can make this story part of “the fabric of who the child is, so there’s never a moment where the kid remembers you sat them down and told them where they came from. They always knew and it was no big deal.” As children get older, parents can “layer in” biological facts, genetics, and information about the donor. You Began as a Wish offers language and imagery to help in the process.
For LGBTQ parents first starting out on their assisted reproduction journey, her advice for finding a welcoming clinic is to “Trust your gut” and “Ask questions.” She explained, “You really want to be comfortable and happy and feel good. It’s an intimate relationship; it’s a long relationship,” that lasts through the first trimester.
“The whole thing is a big collaborative effort,” she added. “whether you’re using a surrogate, an egg donor, or a sperm donor; or a lawyer, psychologist, reproductive endocrinologist, insurance agent, or travel agent This is the ultimate experience of ‘It takes a village.’ You really want that village to be people you trust and who have your back.”
She added, “If anyone in that village doesn’t make you feel good, replace them. You’re paying for them. Your insurance probably isn’t. Make sure that you’re really happy.”
Overall, she said, the process of assisted reproduction is “definitely easier” than when she first started in the field. “There are tried-and-true systems and structures and also laws that protect people—protect parents, protect surrogates, and protect donors,” she observed.
There are also resources such as her own Your Future Family to inform and support not only prospective parents, but also their extended family and friends. “I wrote that book for everybody who’s touched by third-party assisted reproduction: to normalize it, to take the shame out of it, to take the mystery out of it, to take the fear out of it, and to make it something that seems accessible and doable and understandable,” she said.
“Less than 25 percent of U.S. families consist of biological, married, husband and wife and their mutual biological kids,” she added. “That’s just not the American family anymore, according to the 2010 Census.”
“Family is not the old definition of family that we think it is. Family can be so different from that and in so many different constellations, and they’re all wonderful and valid.” Her books will undoubtedly help many families wishing on those stars.
(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column.)