First Comes Baby

by Janice Kay Johnson

Laurel Woodall dreams of having a baby. But she can't let herself fall in love and will never again let a man in her life.-- Without a husband or a lover Caleb Manes thinks Laurel is his future. When... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 037371405X
• ISBN13: 9780373714056
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Harlequin Special Releases
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

Loved this pregnancy romance...

Laurel Woodall dreams of having a baby. But she can't let herself fall in love and will never again let a man in her life.... Caleb Manes thinks Laurel is his future. When he hears she wants to have a baby on her own, he volunteers to be the father. Making a baby in this unconventional manner isn't the best way to further a relationship with Laurel, but it might lead to something more. Now he just has to convince her that this is what best friends are for.... Who doesn't love a good pregnancy romance? Janice Kay Johnson delivers (no pun intended!) another terrific read. Her stories are so well-written and captivating that it is almost impossible to put down. After you read FIRST COMES BABY, you should try HER SISTER'S BABY and THE MIRACLE BABY.

3.5 stars

FIRST COMES BABY by Janice Kay Johnson March 16, 2007 Rating *** ½ (3.5 Stars) In FIRST COMES BABY, Laurel Woodall and Caleb Manes have been best friends for years. Friends forever, they said. So when Laurel asks another friend, Matt, to donate his sperm so she can have a baby, Caleb is livid. Laurel felt safer with Matt, to whom she felt no attraction to and he was already married with two kids. Caleb was dangerous, because she DID feel something for him and was worried that he would want a permanent relationship with her if they had a baby together. She knew she was not capable of having an intimate relationship with any man. Because of a brutal rape that almost killed her, Laurel has lived in fear ever since, but she wanted a child so badly that she felt the only way to accomplish that would be by artificial insemination. When Caleb confronts Laurel and tells her HE should be the father of her child, Laurel says yes, worried but yet relieved that she didn't have to deal with Matt and his possibly jealous wife, although the wife had told Laurel that it was OK. With Caleb being the father of Laurel's baby, things felt "right", although she wasn't sure why. FIRST COMES BABY is the story of best friends who are now dealing with a planned pregnancy, with no intimacy involved. Laurel fights her feelings all the way, making it known that her independence is very important to her. However, she slowly caves in to Caleb's wish to help her out. The baby is born midway through the book, with Laurel and baby moving in with Caleb, the agreement being that Laurel and baby will move back home once Laurel was ready to return to work. There's a lot tension between the two of them throughout the story, as Caleb and Laurel fight and argue constantly over issues such as father's rights, Laurel's return to work, and whether Caleb would contribute toward child support. And all the while, the two are slowly learning that being a family is what they really want, but both think that the other only wants friendship, not love. Sharing equal importance in the plot is Laurel's struggle to overcome her brutal rape five years ago, in which she still has nightmares about, and deals regularly with a rape support group, all of whom have gone on to have healthy relationships with other men - all except Laurel. Laurel's difficulty in overcoming this traumatic event has caused her to withdraw into herself, cutting off nearly all her friends from her past life, hanging on only to friends she's met since the rape, those who did not know her from her previous life. The only friend that stuck with her was Caleb, a man she didn't realize had always loved her, a man who had figured the only way to remain in her life without being her lover was to do as she asked, to be the father of her baby. Unfortunately, Caleb realizes that this may be more difficult to deal with emotionally than simply walking away. Caleb's ultimate goal was to become a regular fixture in the baby's li