About the Author
I love telling stories. I am a life-long storyteller, but Adventures in Baby-making is the first one I have ever tried to publish. In my career as a marketer, I have had the opportunity to craft meaningful brand stories for various audiences but had really missed authoring my own.
​
I wrote this book from my personal experiences, a nearly two-decades-long battle with infertility. Hopefully it won't be my last published book!
My current story: I love the outdoors – hiking, canoeing, white water rafting, playing sports, etc. I am a huge movie buff but also enjoy reading, board games, cooking, and baking. I live in Minnesota with my husband, Patrick; my son, Christopher; and (depending on when this book is published) my ancient dog, Cocoa.
I owe, in part, my love of writing to my third-grade teacher, Ms. Lynch. She was amazing, young, and fun. She put her blood, sweat, and tears into teaching my class. She inspired us to not only love reading stories, but to also create them. These stories lived not just in our imaginations; she would “publish” them.
Bound in contact paper-covered cardboard, our books were masterpieces…at least to third graders. Ms. Lynch would personally sew in all the hand-typed pages (on a typewriter) of each student’s book into the covered cardboard. And it wasn’t just one book, all of her students published many books. That is dedication. It wasn’t until looking up at them on my bookshelf today while writing this that I realized how much work that really must have been – likely over one hundred books were published in her class each year.
My desire to write my stories continued to build inside me as I learned how to “properly” tell them. This is where my dad was influential, he tells a great story. He knows how to draw in the audience, build suspense, and bring in humor and an extra side of drama…often reenacting pivotable moments in character.
I was fortunate to learn (subconsciously) to tell stories like my dad-ish…well close. It will perhaps be my greatest inheritance from him.
My husband, Patrick, says that I embellish, but that’s not quite right. I tell stories honestly as I remember them but given I can be a little of a spaz at times, it is possible the same experiences may come off a little more dramatically from my point of view than from his.
Many sections of my book, Adventures in Baby-making, were first delivered orally. It was only upon relating these experiences and receiving encouraging feedback that a certain story could help someone’s sister, daughter, aunt, friend, cousin, that I decided to
document them in written form.
So, I put on my big girl panties, harnessed my inner Wayne (my dad), and started writing.