Search icon

Fertility

14th Dec 2019

Normalising fertility issues: This mum just wrote a children’s book about IVF

Trine Jensen-Burke

I am very Ferris

Meet Ferris, a baby boy who has an amazing, real-life story about his entrance into the world.

When author Tess Kossow found herself at loss for how she would explain the story of how babies are made to her young son, conceived via IVF, she decided that she is clearly not the only parent in this boat, and so she took matters into her own hands and wrote a book about it.

I mean; we get it. The whole ‘where do babies come from’ question can be tricky enough to navigate, even without the added complexity of assisted reproductive technology, no?

Having started fertility treatment after trying to get pregnant for over a year, Kossow then suffered a miscarriage at first, before she later fell pregnant with her son, Ferris, who was born in 2018.

I'm very Ferris

There is a lot of talk about normalising things these days, and this book does just that about IVF and fertility issues – and as this is something more and more families face these days, we think this book will be of great help to so many parents.

“I wanted to go with something that would resonate [with little children] and get across the point of IVF,” Kossow recently told People. “It’s a rhyming book. The pictures speak a thousand words. I thought I would do this through a child telling the story, instead of having the mom or dad tell the story.”

As well as it being a book for children, explaining the concept of IVF and how the process work, Kossow admits she also wanted the book to be somewhat of a comfort for mums who have suffered miscarriages themselves.

“It’s not your fault. There’s nothing you could have done,” she says, according to People. “I’ve come to realize from firsthand experience just how in-depth pregnancy is. And how much it truly can be a miracle to carry a baby and to deliver a baby, and have a healthy baby.”

So join Ferris as he kicks off this refreshingly honest children’s series with an introduction to IVF and what his mama and dad experienced so that they, too, could have a baby of their very own!

You can buy I’m Very Ferris here.