Alan does a spin, then a dip.
“Alan, stop it, you’re going to make her more excited.” But Laurie can’t help herself from grinning at the sight of a grown man dancing with an infant.
“She’s having a great time. Maybe when she grows up, she’ll be a ballroom dancer.” He dips her again and the baby giggles. “We could be a team, father and daughter.”
“Good luck with that.” Laurie watches the two of them together. And baby Lee does seem as if she’s having a great time. Suddenly Laurie draws in her breath. “Did you see that?”
“What?”
“She smiled at you.”
“No, she didn’t,” Alan says. He looks at Lee. “She’s not old enough. Babies don’t smile for weeks and weeks. Not real smiles.”
“It’s been weeks and weeks. Spin her again. And watch.”
Alan holds the baby’s arm out as if they’re doing the tango. “A tango dancer, that’s what you’ll be. With a rose between your teeth. When you get teeth.” Baby Lee watches Alan closely—she seems very serious. And then her face breaks into a smile. A huge, genuine grin. Toothless. Wide-mouthed. And full of delight.
“Remarkable,” Laurie says.
“Awesome,” Alan says. He kisses baby Lee on the forehead, spins her again, and they continue to dance.
Reading Group Guide
1. Laurie and Alan’s relationship begins to change after the miscarriages. Fertility issues are a huge strain on a marriage. Laurie and Alan both secretly blame themselves, and each other. Is there anything they could have done differently?
2. As a pregnant woman, it’s easy for Laurie to accept being a mother. But it’s more complicated for Alan and Jack. When Alan finds out he’s not the biological father, he feels his parenting role slip away. Jack donated his sperm for financial reasons. What is the definition of a parent? Discuss how Alan and Jack struggle to define their roles as fathers.
3. When Laurie and Alan find out about the sperm switch, Dr. Julian mentions termination as an option. But is it a real consideration for Laurie? For Alan? As a moral choice, should termination ever be an option?
4. All our main characters deal with guilt at some point in the book. Laurie’s two miscarriages make her feel she’s failed as a woman. Alan feels guilty over his inability to bond with unborn baby Buddy and about his online flirtation with Nancy Futterman. Jack’s got guilt to spare—stealing money, two girlfriends, lying to his parents. Who in the book has the most to feel guilty about? Is there a difference between justified and unjustified guilt?
5. When Alan and Laurie find out their baby is only half genetically related to them, the news is devastating. What would you do in this situation? If you were Laurie? If you were Alan? If you were Jack?
6. Would men and women react differently than portrayed in this book? Would most men sympathize with Alan? Agree with his behavior? Want a do-over? Would women be comfortable with Laurie’s decision to have the baby? To insist on meeting Jack and making him part of her life?
7. Laurie meeting Jack makes Alan uncomfortable. Should she have respected his wishes and not met Jack? Was she right to allow Jack to move into the house, to take her to Lamaze? How much should Laurie allow Jack to be part of the baby’s life afterward? Will that be fair to Alan? And is it fair for Laurie to expect Jack to be involved with the baby?
8. After Laurie and Alan find out about the switched sperm, their relationship becomes more difficult. Alan shuts down and Laurie goes off on her own to track down donor 296. Suppose Laurie hadn’t contacted Jack. Would it be better (as Alan says) for them to know nothing about the sperm donor? Keep it a mystery? But what about medical issues? Shouldn’t Laurie and Alan know as much as possible about the donor to ensure the health of the baby?
9. Earlier in their marriage, Laurie and Alan talked about wanting to adopt a child. As Alan says, he doesn’t need to replicate himself—but when he finds out he isn’t the birth father, suddenly he’s very uncomfortable. What makes a child your child? Is an adopted child different from a birth child? When do you fall in love with that child? Is Alan’s fear a real one? Is it relatable?
10.There are various ways to have a baby when complications arise. Fertility treatments and adoption are two options. Discuss the difference between the time and expense of fertility treatments and adopting in a world filled with unwanted children in orphanages or foster care.
11.Which character changes the most? The least?
12.Discuss Alan’s statement: “Families are all kind of different these days.” Is that true?
13.What will happen with Laurie, Alan, and Jack after the baby comes home? Where will they be a year from now? Three years from now?
A Conversation with the Author
You’ve spent most of your career writing film and television. Why did you decide to write fiction?
I’ve always loved to tell stories in different ways—when I was in middle school, our class performed a play I’d written. For years I drew cartoons and made comic books because my goal was to be an artist and writer for MAD magazine. Go figure—I ended up writing film and TV.
A few years ago, I thought about trying fiction and signed up for an online UCLA Extension class.
And was it an easy transition?
No, it was misery. The act of filling up a page with prose—I was shocked at how hard it was. And this is coming from someone who makes a living writing 110-page screenplays or 55-page teleplays. But writing fiction was like learning a new language. I was lucky to have a fantastic teacher, Daniel Jaffe, who was very encouraging. Expecting was originally a short story I wrote for his class.
Why did you turn it into a novel?
I showed the short story to a fellow TV writer, and he suggested I expand it. I laughed at him. It took so much effort to write five thousand words, I couldn’t imagine writing something at least eighty thousand words. But then I thought—why not?
How was the process?
As hard as I thought it would be. I decided to write it as part of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, an Internet creative writing project where every year a group of people attempt to write fifty thousand words during the month of November. With the short story, I had the genesis of a novel, so on November first, I dove in. One of the great things about NaNo is because you’re writing so quickly, there’s no time to look back. Zoom, you just go. When you finally see what you’ve written in December, naturally some of it is horrible, but it’s always a surprise to find gems there as well.
The short story began with Laurie getting the phone call about the switched sperm and ended with her meeting Jack for the first time. Because the story was from Laurie’s perspective, there wasn’t much about Jack, only what Laurie had read in his donor application. Doing NaNo meant I had to give him a life. I didn’t do any other preparation for NaNo besides having the short story. No outline, nothing. That first day I thought—aha—it might be interesting to write the novel from three POVs: Laurie, Alan, and Jack. I had no idea Jack would juggle two girlfriends or struggle with finding a college major; it all sort of tumbled out. (NaNo people—I didn’t include the short story in my final page count.)
A science fiction novelist friend told me that when you’re writing a book, if you get to page seventy-five, you’ll be in love with what you’re writing, and suddenly you’ll be on page three hundred with no idea how you got there. I was dubious, but he turned out to be right.
How much of the story is from your real life?
No switched sperm, whew. But my husband and I did have fertility issues. Our first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Like Laurie’s, very early. But it was still devastating.
I remember the insensitivity of some people—one person said to me, “It’s just a miscarriage. It’s not as if it was a stillbirth.” Of course there’s a difference, but the loss of an imagined life is still a death. I was lucky to be on s
taff at thirtysomething at the time and was able to write an episode about the experience.
Our second pregnancy resulted in a son, and then we couldn’t get pregnant again and started seeing fertility doctors. We looked into adoption too, something we’d always wanted to do. At one point I was pregnant again and we had an infant daughter who would be arriving soon from India. But that pregnancy also ended in miscarriage.
I feel lucky and blessed to have both a birth child and an adopted child. And I would encourage anyone to explore adoption.
So where did the idea of switched sperm come from?
We got pregnant the second time through IUI, and my husband made a joke about how he hoped he was the father. I filed that away in the writer part of my brain—“But suppose he’s not?”
That’s one reason I love being a writer. Everything is “what if?” What if Atticus Finch hadn’t agreed to take Tom Robinson’s case? Suppose Captain Ahab said, “Enough with the whales. I’m going to open a sushi restaurant in Nantucket.”
I drove my husband insane writing the book because I wanted to make sure to capture the male perspective—how would a man react? “Honey, what would you do if somebody switched around your sperm?” I see Alan as sympathetic because he’s facing a terrible dilemma—his child isn’t his child; his wife is becoming friends with the sperm donor. What will be his role in the family once the baby is born?
Your favorite writers?
I love Edith Wharton and Charles Dickens and F. Scott Fitzgerald. John Irving and Kate Atkinson. Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin was so brilliant I couldn’t write anything for weeks after reading it. Nick Hornby and Douglas Coupland, Helen Fielding and Sophie Kinsella—I enjoy writers who make me laugh. I wish David Sedaris lived at my house. Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies were amazing, and I hope Hilary Mantel hurries up and finishes the third book in the series. And I read a lot of mysteries—Ruth Rendell, Ian Rankin, Henning Mankell, and Denise Mina are some of my favorites. Imogen Robertson writes a wonderful series of historical mysteries. I could go on and on.
Any advice to writers starting out?
I hear from a lot of people that they have great ideas for a novel or a screenplay. Ideas are great, but you’ve got to get it on paper. Then you’re a writer, not just somebody who has good ideas. Don’t be afraid. Pour it out there. And you’ll be surprised.
Acknowledgments
Writing a book feels like the most solitary thing in the world, but it would have been impossible to do by myself.
Thank you to teachers and early readers and people who offered research and encouragement. Barbara Aron, Megan Pratt, Joe Dougherty, Tom and Betsy Hamilton, Brian Wilson Schouweiler, Daniel Jaffe, Barrie Jo Kirby, Ruth Mohanram, Dan Pyne, Seema Malhotra, Christina Friar, Michael Cassutt, Racelle Rosett, Jeff Kline, Ann Kramer Brodsky, Carol Starr Schneider, and Rebecca Harvill.
A special thank-you to Jillian Medoff for her friendship and patience and her excellent advice—so sit down and write a novel already.
Rich Green is more than an agent—we’ve known each other for years and this book would not be possible without him. Dan Lazar, agent extraordinaire who talked me off many a ledge. Onward! Every first-time novelist should be lucky to have an editor like Shana Drehs and the wonderful team at Sourcebooks.
My children, Max and Lucy, who think the best part of the book is the dedication.
And to John, who wears deck shoes but doesn’t tell dumb jokes like Alan. (Most of the time.)
About the Author
Ann Lewis Hamilton has written for film and television. Her credits include Grey’s Anatomy, Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, and thirtysomething, among others. She lives in Los Angeles.
Expecting is her first novel. Visit her website at:
www.AnnLewisHamilton.com.
Expecting: A Novel Page 27