Monday, April 6, 2009

Mommy, did I grow in your tummy? : Where some babies come from

612.6
PZ7.G67 Mo62
Mommy, did I grow in your tummy? : Where some babies come from
by Elaine R Gordon
illus. by Kathy Clo 
Language: English 
Santa Monica, Calif. : EM Greenberg Press, 1992. 
28 p. : col. ill. ; 22 x 25 cm.
ISBN: 0963456105; 9780963456106
My annotation: A little girl asks her mommy, “Did I grow in your tummy?” and the mommy tells her that she’s asked a very important question and takes that as a good time to read her little girl a story. It is the story of Sandy and Bob who really wanted a baby. They “read all the books on how to make a baby, but no matter how hard they tried, no baby was made.” So they visit a doctor who tells them that there are “all kinds of reasons why” some people can’t make babies, but that there are other ways and that Sandy and Bob have to pick the best way for them. Terms and what they mean are all explained in a way that a child could understand them. For egg donation for example, “A mom might not have an egg to join with the dad’s sperm. But she can still grow a baby in her body. When this happens, another woman, called an egg donor, can help by donating or giving her egg to meet and join with the dad’s sperm.” The book does not say however, how sperm and egg would get together under normal circumstances. All the methods, sperm donation, egg donation, surrogacy, and adoption, are introduced and explained in simple terms like these except for gamete intra-fallopian transfer (GIFT) and zygote intra-fallopian transfer (ZIFT), two terms introduced but not explained at all, one reason being that "fallopian tubes" had not been previously mentioned. At the end of the story, Sandy and Bob have a baby (the book doesn’t say by what method), but adds, “but it really doesn't matter because they ended up with their dream - a wonderful, wonderful baby.” This was one of the first five books ever published for children on the subject of assisted reproduction and was updated in 2011.The book takes a family-building approach and a child-conception approach and employs the “all families are made differently” and “the helper” scripts. There are full color illustrations and it is recommended for children ages 3-5.
Available: http://www.elainegordon.com/Elaine_R._Gordon,_Ph.D./Books.html

No comments:

Post a Comment