Ann Lewis Hamilton | Translating Terrible Events

Years ago when I was a young writer working on the TV show thirtysomething, I had a miscarriage. When the executive producers called to express their sympathy, they talked about how even though when something bad happens, writers are lucky because we can write about the experience. Writing about something painful can be cathartic and healing – exactly what we need.

Later in the season it became necessary for one of the characters on the show to have a miscarriage. I was respectfully approached by the producers who asked if I would be interested in writing the episode. I jumped at the chance. Not that it was easy to do, but it helped my healing process. (And in an odd coincidence, months and months later, an hour after the miscarriage episode aired, my water broke and my son was born the next day.)

Expecting is about a young couple and their journey through miscarriages and infertility. After the birth of my son, we found ourselves unable to get pregnant again. Our infertility journey progressed as far as IUI (intrauterine insemination) where my husband joked how he hoped I’d end up with his baby and not a stranger’s.

Ah-ha. Miscarriages, potential switched sperm - the spark for a novel. Laurie and Alan, the couple in Expecting, go through IUI and when Laurie finds herself pregnant, everything seems perfect... until they find out a disgruntled fertility clinic employee has switched around sperm samples and Laurie isn’t carrying her husband’s child – she’s pregnant by an anonymous sperm donor. Should she track him down and get to know the biological father of her child (who turns out to be a slacker UCLA student who has been donating sperm samples to pay back money he’s stolen from his fraternity party fund)? How will her husband react to Laurie meeting the sperm donor? Will he be uncomfortable raising someone else’s child?

This, thank goodness, did not happen to us. I did get pregnant again, but had another miscarriage. Goodbye fertility clinics. Hello adoption and our beautiful daughter from India.

Even though a great deal of Expecting is funny, I had to revisit some bad memories along the way. Like waking up in the morning after one of the miscarriages and thinking, “Hooray, I’m pregnant,” only to realize that no, I wasn’t. Or walking into my OB/GYN’s office for a checkup after the first miscarriage and finding the waiting room filled with pregnant women – hugely pregnant woman. I remember sitting down with them and trying very hard not to cry.

I wish I’d never gone through miscarriages and infertility. But as those producers said years ago, being a writer helped me in an amazing way. I wouldn’t have been able to write Expecting without having that experience, not matter how painful it was.

Thank you for letting me post about my first novel. If you’d like, check out my website or Facebook page.