Humpty Dumpty

About the Book

When Molly Hogan was in college she sold a dozen of her eggs to a fertility clinic and used the money to pay student loans and start a business in Boston, designing clothing for toddlers. She has never told anyone about her visit to the clinic nor does she intend to ever mention it. Eight years after the transaction, she hears that a girl born of one of her eggs has been beaten to death by her birth mother, and Molly’s life is forever changed.

Molly’s story begins with an invitation to lunch from her former college roommate, Evie Dylan, a woman who left school abruptly and whom Molly has not seen since. Over lunch Molly learns that Evie sold eggs to the same clinic, and is now worried about health issues related to hormone therapy she received prior to the harvesting. Evie also confesses that she has a son and intends to have a part in the boy’s life.

Concerned about health problems of her own, Molly researches egg donors and finds no studies on the long-term affects of the intense hormone therapy. What she does find are alarming stories of donors who are struggling with systemic acne, who have lost limbs due to blood clots, who have suffered infection leading to infertility, and who deal with deep emotional problems stemming from selling their DNA to strangers. Seeds of fear and self-doubt have been sewn and the lost eggs take on new meaning.

Molly makes an appointment with a gynecologist who offers help for her never-ending menstrual periods, a problem dating to Molly’s harvesting. The doctor assures Molly she is in good health, but Molly, who was orphaned at nine and who wants a family one day, continues to worry about that she may have jeopardized that future. For the first she considers the possibility of tall, redheaded, freckled children about whom she knows nothing.

Before her harvesting, Molly signed a confidentiality contract with the clinic, relinquishing all rights to children born of her eggs, and promising never to search for such children. She seeks out Anne Beresford, a nurse with the clinic, who also has been harvested. In the course of their conversation, Molly becomes convinced that Anne knows the whereabouts of her “children”. She pressures Anne to go into the clinic’s files and find out where her eggs have gone. Anne refuses, then later calls Molly with a name: Regina Bianconi. She assures Molly that she will not like what she learns about Regina.

What Molly learns is that the little girl was brain damaged by her birth mother and is still alive, though institutionalized. This happened while Regina’s father was on a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. Molly also learns that the mother, incompetent to stand trial, is in a mental hospital.

Not completely convinced Regina is hers, Molly contacts the child’s father, Paul Bianconi, and explains that there is a possibility she is related to Regina. She asks to meet him and he invites her to his home and shows her pictures from the family album, as well as Regina’s room. Everything she sees tells her that Regina was loved by her parents, as well as by Paul large, extended family. However, she also learns that Carlotta, Regina’s mother, showed definite signs of mental illness before she was accepted into the donor program at the fertility clinic. Molly goes with Paul to visit Regina at the state hospital, still unconvinced that the child is hers. But she discovers similarities between herself and Regina that cannot be denied, and Molly’s life is forever changed.

Devastated by Regina’s tragedy and her part in it, she must assure herself that her other children are in loving, safe homes. She hires friend, lawyer, and would-be-lover, Conner Neuman, and explains what has happened and what she wants him to do, but she has underestimated the depth of Conner’s feelings for her. He is shocked and feels betrayed by her callous disposal of children he feels might have been th

About the Author

Donna McMillan and her husband have lived in Santa Cruz, California, for over forty years and have three grown children. Ms McMillan is a teacher and the author of several women’s studies, and has written five novels set in a fictional town in Maine and peopled by some of the same characters which appear in HUMPTY DUMPTY.