Q&A: Kylie Ladd, Author of The Mix-Up

Briefly tell us about your book  

What would you do if you found out you’d been raising another couple’s child – and they’ve been raising yours? The Mix-Up is the all-too-possible story of a terrible IVF error, and the devastating repercussions on those involved. Fourteen years ago, Kelsey and Raf Maccioni left hospital with their newborn daughter, Ammy. Days later, Shona and Nathan James welcomed the birth of their son, Zac. Fast forward to April 2024. Ammy has grown into a rebellious young woman, and Zac is a kind but introverted teenager. The two families are strangers to each other… until Ammy takes a DNA test for a school project. At first the results are puzzling. Then disturbing. Then earth-shattering, when the IVF clinic where both children were conceived admits a terrible mistake… 

What inspired the idea behind the book?

The Mix-Up originated- as many of my books do- from a newspaper article I stumbled across a few years ago, just as I was finishing my previous novel: California women give birth to each other’s babies after IVF mix-up. (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/09/california-women-gave-birth-to-each-others-babies-after-ivf-mix-up ) I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Half an hour of research showed me that, sadly, this wasn’t a one-off, or even a particularly isolated incident. There have been numerous cases of such bungles, mostly in the US, but a handful in South Africa and Europe as well- that we know of, anyway. Some were discovered when the babies that were born were of a notably different appearance, even race, to their parents; others were revealed accidentally, often through DNA testing. Nobody, unsurprisingly, took it well. All of the mix-ups I read about were detected while the children in question were still infants, sometimes just a few weeks old, one or two years of age at most. That was heart-wrenching enough, I found myself musing, but imagine if the children were older, were teenagers, were well and truly settled in their families, in their beliefs about themselves. Could you simply swap them back, as usually happens in the real-life cases? But would you have already have made them a member of the ‘wrong’ family, simply by dint of raising them there? I’m a psychologist of over 30 years experience- I know about nature vs nurture, I know how our parents shape so much of our essence, our personalities, our lives. But I also have a medical background, and I know that genes matter too. Such an unbearable situation, but it can happen, has happened. I couldn’t wait to start writing. 

What was the research process like for the book? 

Fascinating! I love doing research… it’s a totally valid way to put off the terrifying business of actual writing. On top of that, and possibly because of my psychology background, I have always been fascinated by families, and the myriad ways they are made, function, and evolve. Such themes, I can now see, have kept turning up in my work: A woman adopted at birth searching resentfully for her biological mother in my second novel, Last Summer. A brother and sister, donated embryos, who fall victim to the clinically-recognised syndrome of Genetic Sexual Attraction in my third, Into My Arms. A younger sister acting as a gestational surrogate for an older in my 2023 novel, I’ll Leave You With This. As for those, The Mix-Up involved searching through medical journals and newspaper articles, as well as talking to professionals working in the field of reproductive technology, all of which was riveting… but it also involved trying to think my way into the heads of my six main characters, the four parents and the two children whose lives have been turned upside down by the mistake,  and that’s when things got really interesting. 

What’s the easiest and most difficult parts of your job as a writer?

Easiest: Doing research. Endlessly. Much more than I need. Scrolling Instagram (for networking and supporting other writers OF COURSE). Remembering that the washing needs to be hung out as soon as I sit down to write. Talking about being a writer. Plotting in such detail that my notes have been known to end up longer than the finished book. Playing spot the people I know in the acknowledgements of every new novel that comes out. 

Most difficult: Everything else. Getting ideas, applying bum to chair, typing coherent sentences. Writing is HARD, at least for me, and though I’ve written ten novels now (seven published) it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier… yet the moment I decide that’s it, I’m giving it up, it’s too much, I miss it- crave it- about half an hour later. Go figure. 

Are you able to switch off at the end of a day of writing? If so, how?

For all my complaints about how hard I find writing (see above), I do also find that once I’m finally into a session it’s hard to let go. Not so much to stop (which I usually do after around a thousand words), but to switch off, get my brain back into neutral. Exercise is absolutely imperative to me- for my physical health, to stretch out my back and shoulders and just breathe properly again after a day hunched anxiously over a keyboard, but for my mental health too. I am a hopeless runner, but running cleanses me. It washes away the work (who can be angsting over plot problems when there’s still three k to go and I’m convinced I’m going to die?), it resets me, wipes the slate clean. Ditto swimming, or walking my poorly-trained dachshund, or mucking around with my daughter and her horse. Reading is also a favourite way to relax, as is checking out what people have to say about my work on GoodReads (HA HA NO).

Buy a copy of The Mix-Up here.