A Note from the Author
When I sat down to pen this novel, I knew I wanted to write a story that felt real—a story that could include hangry, neurotic women who actually get periods, and the men who love them (lol).
With infertility being a serious and prevalent issue, I felt like I had a responsibility to tell this not only compassionately, but also authentically. So for this I went to someone who lived it.
While Kristen’s love story with Josh is fiction, her infertility journey is inspired by real events.
Kristen’s character is based on my best friend, Lindsay, and her struggle with infertility. I talk about it now with her full permission, the same way I wrote about it.
Lindsay had a full hysterectomy at the age of just twenty-nine after dealing with debilitating reproductive issues for years. While she was able to conceive her two children naturally (and much like Kristen, without medical intervention and to her complete surprise), she dealt with secondary infertility due to severe uterine fibroids. She had all—if not more—of the physical and emotional challenges Kristen experiences in my novel. Much of what I wrote was verbatim, as Lindsay described it to me.
You may or may not have seen your own infertility journey in these pages. The thing I realized doing research for this book—and the truth you might already know if you’re going through this yourself—is that there is no universal story to tell. No two experiences are the same, and any measure of this challenging diagnosis is heartbreaking to endure.
What does unify these stories are the feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, guilt, and despair that come with this very common, but often not discussed, health issue. And so that is what I strove to tell in The Friend Zone.
Just one final note.
Kristen’s happy ending was never about getting pregnant. It was about her allowing herself to be loved, despite what she felt were shortcomings. It was about her recognizing that she wasn’t defined by her ability to have children, and that her worth went beyond the state of her uterus. That was her happily ever after.