Book Blurb:
As a young mother with a toddler and a live-in boyfriend, Maggie Fisher’s job at a checkout counter in downtown Phoenix doesn’t afford her much financial flexibility. She dreams of going to college and becoming a teacher, options she squandered when she fled her family home as a teenager. When Maggie stumbles onto an ad offering thousands of dollars to women who are willing to gestate other people’s babies, she at first finds the concept laughable. Before long, however, she’s been seduced by all the ways the extra money could improve her life. Once she decides to go for it, it’s only a matter of months before she’s chosen as a gestational carrier by Chip and Donovan Rigsdale, a married couple from New York.
After delivering twin babies and proudly handing them off to the Rigsdales, Maggie finally gets her life on a positive trajectory: she earns her degree, lands a great job, and builds a family of her own. She can’t fathom why, ten years after the fact, the fertility clinic is calling to ask for a follow-up DNA test.
My Review: 4.5 stars
He Gets That from Me is an engrossing story about surrogacy, DNA, tough choices and love. From the first page I was sucked in and literally read this in two sittings. Even better, after I finished it, I was googling the circumstances in this book to see if any of it was possible. The answer is yes!
The story is told from two POVs, from Maggie and Donovan. Their stories jump back and forth in time, so we understand who they were growing up, and can better grasp who they are in the present.
When Maggie finds herself yearning to go to college to follow her dreams to teach, she knows her responsibilities to her son and her live-in baby daddy, make that impossible. So, when she sees an ad about surrogacy and the money to be made from it, she jumps on board. Chip and Donovan, a loving, married gay couple, can’t imagine finding a surrogate to carry their babies. Until they meet Maggie. Could it be possible they are both the answer to each other’s dreams?
All seems perfect until Chip and Donovan’s twins turn ten and Donovan decides to do a DNA test. Talk about a plot twist. This is not your typical DNA story. What they learn is rare and challenges Maggie to make incredibly tough decisions and leaves Chip and Donovan spiraling.
This book puts you in Maggie’s shoes and makes you ask, “What would I do?”
I was agonized by Maggie having to make such a life altering decision that would affect so many people. This story had me conflicted between what’s right and what’s wrong. There were so many great talking points within the pages: pregnancy, surrogacy, parenting, what makes a family, LBGTQ+, twins, Judaism, brothers, DNA testing, marriage and the legal system.
I’m not always a fan of an epilogue, but man, this was a good one! It gives the reader much needed closure!
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