What makes a family?

The ties that bind a family together can be complicated. People define family using genetics, legal commitments, physical and emotional connections, a combination of these, or something else entirely. A person’s family can expand, contract, and adapt over time. One of the most common changes in a family involves adding children. But exactly how those children become part of a family can be a journey full of twists and turns.

Roads to Family: All the Ways We Come to Be provides readers with a roadmap of the many routes prospective parents can take to bring children into their lives. Public health educator Rachel Ginocchio goes beyond the basics of human reproduction to break down how intended parents use insemination, in-vitro fertilization, donors, surrogacy, adoption, and more to grow their families. Accounts from real people with wide-ranging backgrounds and identities bring this compendium to life, highlighting the roadblocks and delights of their quest to build a family of their own. This informative and inclusive guide shines a spotlight on the beauty and complexity of what it means to be family.

"Roads to Family is a terrific book for humans of all ages to learn about the different ways families are created. By including stories from nearly every kind of family, this book expands the idea of family beyond typical clinical explanations and is a celebration of diversity."—Amy Lang, MA, speaker, author, podcaster and founder of Birds & Bees & Kids