A Dream Within A Dream: Not My Mother Blog Tour: Spotlight & Giveaway

Not My Mother: A Memoir
Author: Ashley Rae

Genre: Memoir/Non-Fiction
Release Date: July 13, 2012

Buy Links: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords

Description:

By the age of twelve, Ashley Rae had survived incest, child abuse, and the deaths of both her biological parents. Born to Baptists but raised by Buddhists, Rae found peace and healing on a Pagan spiritual path while obtaining her college degree and starting the career of her dreams. Rae thought the hardships in her life were over...until she lost her job, started a new relationship, and found out she was pregnant with another man's child all in the same week. Terrified of cesarean surgery, Rae vowed to give birth to her child at home – but first, she had to find one. Alternately haunting, humorous, and heart-warming, Not My Mother: A Memoir follows Rae over a nine-month quest to break her family's generational pattern of abuse and victimhood in order to become for her unborn child the mother she had always wanted for herself.

The humid night air, thick with the fragrance of the jasmine lining Gourmand's driveway, filled my little four door sedan as I pulled up with my windows down. He waited for me under the light on his front porch, my personal giant animated teddy bear – six feet tall and over three hundred pounds, with shoulder length dark blond hair, wearing jeans and a polo shirt a size too big. The moment I stepped out of my car, Gourmand asked, “What's wrong?”
I desperately needed a hug, but I couldn't look into his blue eyes as I answered his question with my own, carefully formulated and rehearsed earlier between bites of ice cream. “You know how you have a child from a previous relationship?”
“Yeah,” Gourmand said, drawing out the word to make it both answer and question.
“Well, I do too, and we'll get to meet her in eight months,” I said, attempting a cheeky grin as I finally made eye contact.
Gourmand looked at me for a minute.
“It's not yours!” I stumbled over the words in my hurry to assure him that I was not trying to dupe him or use him. “Two days isn't long enough to release enough hormones to test for pregnancy. I conceived on my birthday. You know, Mother's Day weekend, last month? And I haven't seen the guy since then.”
I paused, waiting for Gourmand to denounce me as a whore and tell me to leave his presence. Or walk back into the house and slam the door in my face. He did neither. He just stared at me, wordlessly, while I fidgeted with the hem of my shirt and chewed my lower lip.
“I actually was going to call him tonight. Well, I need to call him tonight. I just had to tell you first, because these last few days with you have been so wonderful, and I--” I choked back a sob.
Gourmand pulled me into his arms and rubbed my back while I fought tears. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “This doesn't affect our relationship. It's me and you, that's all that matters.”
I swallowed the urge to argue over whether my pregnancy and impending motherhood would affect our relationship, and instead locked onto his acceptance. “You're okay with this?” I asked, my voice an octave higher than normal.
“Yes,” he said with a nod. “I wish it were mine, but...”
I started sobbing then, relieved, scared, and overjoyed all at the same time.

I called “the sperm donor” as soon as I pulled myself back together, before Gourmand and I went inside. I wanted Gourmand to hear the conversation, to show him that he could trust me.
The phone rang for so long, I was prepared to leave a voice-mail message. When Peter answered at the last second, I barely let him finish saying “Hello” before my message tumbled out. “Hi. I've got a boyfriend so I can't see you anymore, and I'm pregnant, and it's yours. So, how are you?”
The silence went on. I checked my cell phone twice to see if our call was still connected before he finally responded, “What?”
“I just found out this morning, and you are most definitely the father,” I said.
After another long pause, he said, “I don't even know how to take care of myself right now.”
Sudden, overwhelming rage burned away my nervousness and uncertainty, and I quietly told him to take some time to think about all this, and call me when he had something worthwhile to say. My hand shook as I ended the call and slipped my phone back into my pocket. I looked over at Gourmand, who had taken a step back during my conversation, and who now looked at me with wide eyes. “Mood swings?” he asked.
I laughed so hard it turned into a coughing fit.

About the Author:

Ashley Rae has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida and resides with her precious 3 year old in gorgeous Sarasota, FL. She leads weekend retreats for psychics, kids, and writers, and teaches workshops on using writing as a self-healing tool, developing intuition, and about The Incredible Vagina, which is simply the best title anyone has ever come up with for any class, ever. She is presently working on her second memoir, tentatively titled “Sentence Interrupted: Memoir of a Moody Mama.” Also a professional psychic, energy healer, and a Love-Your-Life Coach, there is plenty to check out on her website at http://AuthorAshleyRae.com.