Book Review: Roads to Family – All the ways we come to be

Roads to Family: All the Ways We Come to Be
By Rachel HS Ginocchio
Published by ‎Lerner Publishing Group
ASIN: B0CPM3W5JP, ISBN-13: 979-8765643327
Buy this book from Amazon UK

Roads to Family: All the Ways We Come to Be is a roadmap guiding prospective parents along the many alternative routes to building a family.

Author Rachel Ginocchio combines interviews from families who have used insemination, IVF, surrogacy, fostering or adoption with her expertise in public health to answer the question 'Where do babies come from?' The book explores basic reproductive biology from the development of egg and sperm right up to birth, as well as the scientific and medical advances that have redefined and shaped how families are formed.

Each chapter introduces a different path to creating a family followed by real life stories, allowing Ginocchio to weave practical advice and terminology into real human experiences. Through the voices of parents from different backgrounds and identities, she describes the persistent, lengthy and often costly procedures that are sometimes endured on the road to parenthood.

The journey begins with Elle, a single woman who meets George and his boyfriend Finn on a life-changing holiday in Australia. George dreams of having a child but at the time doesn't feel German culture is accepting of LGBTQIA+ families. Elle also wants a child but hasn't met anyone she wants to have a family with. George offers to be Elle's sperm donor and following one successful 'DIY insemination', Elle gives birth to David.

We also hear the story of Makhail and Adar. A gay couple who first adopt Adar's sister's baby and then decide to grow their family through egg donation, a gestational surrogate and IVF. Through their voices we get some sense of the additional complexities that same-sex couples and single people can face, but these are not always explored in the depth needed to connect fully with these stories.

What Ginocchio is able to achieve more successfully through these accounts is to educate the reader about the practicalities – from laws, regulation and financial costs to how gamete and embryo donation work. She also includes the perspectives of a surrogate and an egg donor, offering some much-needed reassurance to prospective parents.

Stephanie and Steve's IVF story provides a more emotional account of infertility and the daily business of IVF, describing the gruelling rounds of injections, blood tests and scans, and the physical aches and depletion that result. Through the voices of Shawn and Jermaine, Ginocchio explains the many hurdles that adoptive parents must overcome, in order to prove that they are fit to care for a child. The greater the detail and complexity, the easier it is empathise with these people, sharing in both their disappointments and their eventual happiness.

Threading through the book is a clear message about the importance of transparency and honesty, and each chapter ends by explaining how the relevant child learned their conception story. The experiences described are generally positive, and the children are grateful to know about their origins from an early age. However, they also describe some the frustrations that can arise from trying to share their story with other children and feeling different. Here, Ginocchio takes the opportunity to give examples of language and resources that parents and children can use, to help them navigate these challenging conversations and social situations.

Ginocchio also explores these themes further in the penultimate chapter, where three donor-conceived children share their experience of only discovering not only that they are related to one another, but also that they are related to 74 other children via a shared (but initially unknown) donor. They discuss unique insights, attitudes, struggles, and joys in relation to being donor-conceived, finally meeting their donor, and how their experiences shaped them and their understanding of family.

The textbook format and simple language make this an easy read, which is refreshing for an educational book that touches upon the topics of science, medicine, policy and law. The design is also playful, using bold fluorescent colours to grab the reader's attention and highlight extra anecdotes, images and advice that might otherwise take away from the main narrative.

While this book surely serves as a useful resource for many couples at the very early stages of their journey (particularly in the USA), it does at times suffer from so much being crammed into a relatively short book. However, the diverse range of voices included helps to make the book feel more outward-facing, and representative of the many people Ginocchio has encountered through her work. There is a sense of reassurance throughout, leaving the reader with an overwhelming feeling of optimism in the face of difficulty.

Buy Roads to Family: All the Ways We Come to Be from Amazon UK.