The Story Behind The Story

Tender Hearts

Available Again December 1, 2009

Instead of just providing you with a blurb and excerpt for Tender Hearts, I'd rather tell you why I wrote it.

Of course, none of my explanations will make sense unless you know what the book is about. So, here's the blurb:

What was the song the kids sang in school? First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage.

Not quite. First comes three amazing days in Maui, then comes the surprise baby, then comes... love? Yeah. The kind of love that sneaks up on you like a sudden rainstorm. You don't know it's coming until you're soaked to the skin.

What will it take for Billy and Erin to take the chance and admit their love? Admit that what they have is about more than the baby they will soon share? When tragedy strikes... they have to find strength in each other... for the love of their child.

Now... why I wrote it.

This book served as a cheap yet cathartic form of therapy for me. And before anyone assumes otherwise, NO, I didn't have a hot three-day affair in Maui that resulted in a love child. Not even close.

In Tender Hearts, Billy and Erin come together to plan a future for their baby and along the way realize that the attraction they felt in Maui wasn't just physical --- there is the potential for a great and wonderful love --- a great and wonderful life --- if they open themselves to it. But it can never be that easy.

Just as they turn down the right path, Erin's pregnancy takes a bad turn on its own and their daughter is born nearly three months premature. And herein lies my therapy.

My son, Patrick Michael - who is now 11 1/2 years old - was born three months premature due to the sudden and sever onset of clympsia. I skipped right over the Toxemia stage, right past the 'pre'-clympsia, into a full blown condition that had my blood pressure at a whopping 215/120. At one point, there was a serious concern I might have a stroke or suffer permanent neurological damage. And so, my son was brought into the world far too early.

I thank the Lord daily for my boy, because even though it wasn't easy, we could have faced far worse problems than we did with him. He weighed 2 lbs 15 oz and was 18 inches long. Yeah, 18 inches long and he still had 3 months to go. The doctors said then he'd probably clear 6 feet by the time he stopped growing - and looking at him now - I have no doubt. He looks eye to eye with his 17 year old sister. ;-)

He was in the hospital for 6 weeks. But, for me those six weeks were little more than a single, recurring day. I woke in the morning and called the NICU to check on how his night went. Then I took my daughter to school and headed for the hospital. I would spend hours there, just holding him. Sometimes I sang, sometimes I talked, sometimes I just read to myself and kept him close. My husband would come at lunch time and sit for the hour. Some time in the afternoon, I would go home to be with our daughter. He would go to the hospital after work and eventually join us at home. Before bed, we would call the NICU. How much did he eat? What does he weight? Did he have any apnea spells? Did he suffer any bradycardia?

I remember it now much more clearly than I did in the year or so after he was born. That time was spent just getting through. Just processing. And when he turned a year old, I decided I needed to work it all through somehow.

I'm a writer... so, how else would I deal with it but to write? :-) From that hard, hard year came Tender Hearts. Even now, nearly 12 years after Patrick's birth, I can't read some of the scenes in this book without openly weeping because so many memories come flooding back to me. The fear was the most raw, but I look at him now, and would live through it all again in a heartbeat.

Some writers say they have a "Book of the Heart", and I guess on many levels Tender Hearts is that book for me. It helped me heal my heart.

I hope you might find the joy in the story that grew out of all the sadness and fear. Because the greatest joys come at a price.

Purchase HERE on December 1

Gail R. Delaney