The Choices We Make

I couldn’t explain how, but I knew—I knew, deep inside—that my body would never carry a baby to term. And I couldn’t handle one more negative pregnancy test or chemical pregnancy. Sure, we could also get donor eggs, fertilize them with Ben’s sperm to make embryos and then find a gestational surrogate, but the cost to do that would be astronomical. And we’d already spent thousands of dollars to get to this point—surfing for surrogates on date night.

“So she’s only willing to be a traditional surrogate, which is perfect for us.” Ben nodded again, and I smiled at him before looking back at the screen. I was nervous, so much more invested in this than I cared to admit.

“Married, healthy, two kids, good BMI, no family disease, had a recent psychiatric evaluation...” At that Ben raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment. “Huh. Okay. Says she would prefer a Christian, traditional couple, and wants a relationship after the birth.” I chewed a stray cuticle, trying to decide how I felt about that. The Christian thing didn’t worry me, even though Ben and I were not religious, but a relationship after the baby was born?

“I guess that’s not so different from adoption,” Ben said, shrugging. “What do you think about that?” I knew he wasn’t keen on doing a surrogacy, but I loved him for appeasing my need to look at all the options.

“Let’s go to the next one,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. I was weeks off the fertility medications now, so I couldn’t blame the tears that sprang to my eyes on that anymore. What I wished I could say was that I loathed every second of this, no matter what I had said about the popcorn and fun. I wanted to have my own baby, not pay someone else to have one for us.

I hated that I’d dragged Ben into this sad mess, where we were spending our Saturday night reading surrogate classified ads and pretending it was something we wanted to do. I was worried that I couldn’t make myself talk to Ben about how much adoption scared me. How I preferred the idea of surrogacy because the baby would at least be genetically linked to one of us. But most of all, and the thing I hadn’t said aloud to anyone, ever?

I was deeply ashamed to be an infertile woman. I despised my body for failing me, failing Ben and our marriage, on the most basic of things.

Pushing that shame and sadness down, I read the next few ads out loud. They all sounded similar enough that by the end of the two pages it was hard to remember one from another. The popcorn sat heavily in my stomach, and I regretted putting so much butter on it. I shut the laptop forcefully and turned on the television.

Ben shifted so he faced me. “What are you doing?”

“I think you’re right. I don’t think this is a good idea.” I flicked through the channels. “What do you want to watch?”

He took the remote from my hand and turned the television off. “Maybe we should talk about option C.”

“What’s option C?” I asked.

Ben swallowed hard but kept his eyes on mine. “Not having kids.”

I stared at him, unsure what to say. We had talked briefly about the possibility of not having a family, but for me it was never a real option. But looking at his face I saw the concern, and worry, and realized all of this had taken as much out of him as it had me. So because I loved him more than I hated the idea of never having a child, I said, “Okay, let’s talk about option C.”

And the truth was option C had some decent stuff going for it. Travel. Financial freedom. Flexibility. The ability to be selfish. Saturday morning sleep-ins and late Sunday brunches. Glass coffee tables with supersharp corners, white couches and expensive throw pillows.

So while I brainstormed and wrote down the top ten places I’d like to travel with Ben, and he sketched out and calculated how much it might cost to design us a dream home overlooking the ocean, my heart wasn’t in it.

Option C meant there would never be a baby.

I hated option C.

* * *

Around three o’clock in the morning, unable to sleep, I crept out of our bedroom and went downstairs to the kitchen. Bowl of Cherry Garcia ice cream in one hand and my laptop in another, I sat at the kitchen table and fired up the computer. I left the lights off, eating the cherry-and-chocolate ice cream by the laptop’s glow, and went back through the ads Ben and I had browsed earlier.

I stopped at the one of the woman who preferred a Christian couple and wanted a relationship after the baby was born. Something about her had stuck with me, perhaps because she was one of the only ones to not romanticize the experience. There were no adjectives like wonderful or incredible peppered throughout, and I liked how up front she was about what she wanted out of the contract, money aside.

Tapping my spoon gently against the sides of my now-empty bowl, I tried to imagine what it would be like to have another woman carry a baby for me—a baby I had no genetic link to. My mind filled with a million questions and concerns, like how we would pay for it, and how our friends and family would react, and how I could be certain the surrogate wouldn’t change her mind in the end and fight us to keep the baby. And if I would love a baby that wasn’t mine as much as one I gave birth to.

Ben and I had agreed to put the surrogacy idea on the back burner. He preferred the idea of adoption, worried about the astronomical costs and complications—both emotional and logistical—that came with surrogacy, and as a last resort, option C. With a sigh I shut the laptop and took my bowl over to the sink. While I rinsed it I imagined rinsing out baby bottles after midnight feedings, and the pain in my belly was so intense I doubled over the sink, dropping the ice-cream bowl—the loud clang as it hit the stainless-steel tub echoing through the kitchen.

“Fuck it,” I said, drying my hands and opening the laptop again.

Scanning the ad I found the contact information, and before I could even think about what I was doing, I typed her an email. With my finger over the enter key, poised to hit Send, I realized I was shaking. I told myself I wasn’t committing to anything. It was just an email, and Ben didn’t even need to know about it because nothing would likely come of it.

I hit Return, saw the confirmation my email had been sent and then went back to bed.

9

KATE

My cell phone rang, the familiar bars of Michael Jackson’s “Pretty Young Thing” filling the silence of the kitchen. Hannah. I jumped, a hand to my chest, only then realizing I was still holding the butter knife I’d been spreading the peanut butter with.

“Shit,” I said, glancing down at my previously white shirt. There was a large peanut-butter stain right in the middle of my chest. Why did I even bother trying to wear clean shirts, and a white one at that? I ran my finger over the excess peanut butter and licked it off, answering my phone.

“Hey, you,” I said. “How goes it?” I tucked the phone in the crook of my neck and, glancing at the large clock on the wall, swore under my breath and quickly cut the crusts off the bread. My head was still pounding, despite the migraine medication I’d taken at four in the morning, but at least the tingling in my neck and arms was gone and my stomach had settled.

“Hey, are you going to be around for a bit after the girls go to school?” Hannah sounded weird. Out of breath. Like she had a secret she couldn’t wait to let burst out of her mouth.

“It’s a migraine morning, so David’s taking them. You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, good. Okay, I’ll be by in about forty minutes. Want a latte or maybe a tea for your head?”

“Coffee, definitely,” I replied. “I haven’t had a chance to make any yet. That’s probably why my head is still pounding.”

“For the last time, set your coffee timer. It will change your life, promise.”

“So you say.” I leaned into the knife as I pressed it against the sandwich, the soft bread squishing and some peanut butter and jam squeezing out the edges.

“I’ll get you a double shot. See you soon.”

“See you soon,” I said, hitting End with a peanut-butter-covered fingertip. “Shit!”

“Mom, you need to put a dollar in the jar.” Ava came into the kitchen and grabbed a triangle of the sandwich before I could stop her. “Is this peanut butter?” Ava asked, holding the sandwich up in the very tips of her fingers as though it were poisoned.

“Yes, it’s peanut butter. You love PB&J sammies. What’s the deal?”

Ava rolled her eyes. “First of all, stop calling them ‘sammies.’ You sound really lame.”

“Well, excuse me,” I replied, tucking the other triangles into Josie’s reusable sandwich bag, which was covered with bumblebees and tulips. “And I’m not lame. I’m your very cool, very hip mother.”

“Secondly,” Ava said, ignoring me, “you know you can’t send peanut butter to school. We need that soy nut butter crap.”

“Shit,” I said, quickly followed by, “Don’t say it. I know.” I pointed a finger at the jar on the windowsill, which was half-full of dollar bills. “I’ll put my money in today and after school you need to put a dollar in for using the word crap.” It had been my idea to do the swear jar, after watching some parenting show while I was at the dentist’s office trying to ignore the drilling in my mouth. But it had backfired, as I was responsible for at least 70 percent of the money in there. I reached into the pantry and grabbed two protein bars and two fruit cups. “There’s no time to make more sandwiches, so protein bars it is.”

“Fine,” Ava said, taking her lunch bag from me and putting it in her backpack. “I’m tired of sandwiches anyway.”

“Where’s your sister?”

“She’s changing again. Something about not feeling the color pink today.”

“Josie!” I shouted up the stairs, just as David started coming down. “Sorry, can you grab Josie? They’re going to be late.”

David turned and went back up the two stairs he had come down, shouting Josie’s name as he did.

I finished packing Josie’s lunch and tucked it into her backpack, mentally running over all the things I needed to do before they left for the day. My mind felt foggy, an irritating side effect of the medication I took to thwart the debilitating migraines that struck every month or so.

David and Josie came into the kitchen, looking as if they’d coordinated their outfits. Josie was dressed in black leggings and a tunic, and David wore his all-black paramedic uniform. “You look lovely.” I kissed Josie on top of her head. “Black is a great color on you.”

“Thank you, Momma,” she said, her chin tilting up and a smile coming across her freckled face at the compliment.

“Okay, get going or you’ll miss the morning bell.” I kissed the two of them on their cheeks, foreheads, noses and lips, just like I did every morning. Ava wiped her lips afterward, but Josie came back for a second kiss. I was grateful I had a few more years of kisses and snuggles and Josie thinking I walked on water before the hormones kicked in and I became her “lame,” forgetful, cussing mom instead of her hero.

David pecked me on the lips when I handed him his lunch, and I pulled him in for another kiss. “Have a great day,” I said.

“You, too.” He smiled at me, his gaze settling on me in a way that made me feel warm inside. “How’s the head?”

“Better,” I said. “Hannah’s bringing me a coffee, so I’ll be right as rain in no time.” David kissed me again, and then in a rush they were out the door, and suddenly all was quiet in the house again. With a sigh, I sat at the kitchen table and rubbed the back of my neck while I checked my inbox filled with spam offers and PTA to-dos, impatiently waiting for Hannah, her news and my double-shot latte.

10

HANNAH

We had an off-site photo shoot and I didn’t have to be at the restaurant we were featuring until ten. At nine o’clock I rang Kate’s doorbell, nervously tapping the toes on one foot as I mentally rehearsed how I was going to justify what I was planning to do.

I could tell she wasn’t feeling well when she opened the door, even though she was smiling. Her eyes were dull and her face pale.

“Thank God,” she said, kissing my cheek and taking the tray of coffees from my hands. “I really do need to set that timer. David usually makes the coffee, but he didn’t get a chance this morning.” She smelled like peanut butter and tea tree oil, which I knew she used on the girls’ hair every morning before school, claiming it had kept them lice-free even during the school’s inevitable outbreaks.

“How’s the migraine?” I asked, following her into the living room. I sat on the couch beside her and tucked my legs under me. She took a sip of the latte and closed her eyes. “So much better now. Thank you for this.” Then she opened her eyes and looked at me in a way that made me even more nervous, her deep brown eyes holding steady on my face. “Out with it, Hannah. What’s up?”

I cleared my throat, shifting to grab my own coffee. “So I’ve done something... Something I probably shouldn’t have. No, definitely shouldn’t have.”

“What have you done?” Kate asked slowly, as though she was giving both of us time to prepare for whatever it was.

It all came out in a rush. “I emailed a surrogate even though I told Ben I wouldn’t, and now she wants to meet, like tomorrow, and I said I’d meet her and I didn’t tell Ben and I’m not sure I want to because I know he’s going to lose it and she’s asking for forty grand to do this and she’s really religious and we’re not and she wants to have a relationship with the baby after it’s born but I really want to meet her. I think. I’m pretty sure—”

“Stop talking,” Kate said, and so I did. She casually took a long sip of her coffee and then got up. “This calls for chocolate.” A moment later she was back, a huge dark chocolate bar on the coffee table in front of us. Kate popped a piece of the chocolate in her mouth and sucked on it, melting it on her tongue. I didn’t bother reminding her chocolate was one of her headache triggers.

“First of all, I have to say I’m sort of impressed. I mean, going on a secret surrogate-hunting mission? That is a very un-Hannah-like move.”

I squirmed, knowing she was trying to make me laugh but feeling worse by the second. “I didn’t mean for it to be a secret, I just... I don’t know. I just did it before I could think too hard about what I was doing.”

Kate nodded, looking at me thoughtfully. “Who is this person?” she asked, snapping off another square of chocolate.

“Her name is Lyla. She’s a mom, married and healthy, and she wants to be a surrogate. My—our—surrogate.”

Kate narrowed her eyes. “How did you find her?”

“A classified ad.” I tried not to cringe, hearing how it sounded. I mean, you went to the classifieds to find a dining room table or tickets to a sold-out concert, not for a woman to carry a baby for you.

Kate paused, the chocolate square partway to her lips. “You’re kidding me.”

“Nope, not kidding.”

“And you’re sharing this with me instead of Ben because...?”

“Because I needed to tell someone who was going to be on my side,” I said, my voice dropping. The sweetness of the chocolate locked up my throat and I coughed hard a few times.

Kate rubbed my back. “Oh, honey. Ben is always on your side.”

I shook my head. “Not this time, Katie. Sure, he humored me and went through the ads with me, but I know he doesn’t want to do this. He thinks it’s... He wants to try adoption.”

Kate took my hands in hers and gently tugged on them until I looked at her. “And you don’t?”

“I’m not sure what I want anymore,” I replied. “No, that’s not true. I know exactly what I want.”

Kate squeezed my fingers. “You want a baby.”

I nodded. “A baby. And when I read through Lyla’s ad, something just... I don’t know, something just told me to email her. I didn’t even consider what I’d do if she responded back.”

“When are you going to tell Ben?”

“After I meet with her? I mean, maybe once I see her, talk to her, I’ll be sure it’s not the right thing to do.” I looked at Kate, then looked away quickly when I saw her face—she was right, of course. I had to tell Ben.

“Besides, you can’t go alone. What if she’s nuts? Has some kind of weird secret agenda, like pretending to be pregnant so she can get your money and then take off?” I didn’t want to admit that very thought had crossed my mind more than once.

“You’re right. This is a bad idea. Sorry, I just—”

“You just want to be a mom,” Kate said, holding my hands tighter. “Listen, I still think you should talk to Ben before you go meet any sort of potential baby mama, but if you really want to go through with this first, I’ll come with you. I don’t want you going by yourself.”

“Thank you. But... I should never have sent that email. I can’t shut Ben out of this, no matter how much easier it might be.” Kate gave me a small, sad smile. “I’m going to cancel.” My phone’s alarm went off. “Gotta run. I need to be at the restaurant by ten.”

I stood and hugged Kate tightly. “Thanks for talking me off the ledge.”

“Thanks for the latte. I needed it. You gonna be okay?”

I nodded. “Fine. You know me—I’m not a quitter.”

“No,” Kate said, shaking her head. “You are not.”

“Let me know if you need a hand with the girls after school, okay? You can put your feet up and I can make dinner.”

“Deal,” Kate said. A minute later I was waving at Kate as she stood in her doorway, heading toward the BART station. Fifteen minutes later while I waited for my train, I pulled out my phone and checked my messages. One from Ben, wanting to take me out for dinner tomorrow night; one from my mom, making sure I wouldn’t forget to call my uncle George after his gallbladder surgery; and another one from Lyla, confirming our meeting the next afternoon. Ignoring the messages from Ben and my mom for the moment, I hit Reply and told Lyla I’d see her there and was looking forward to it, then got on the train trying not to feel guilty about lying to everyone.

11

HANNAH

As I stood in the coffee line, secretly observing Lyla—who was engrossed in something on her phone—all I could think about was how tiny she was, her hips narrow and legs so short her feet only just grazed the floor when she was sitting down. I had good hips for pregnancy—wide and sturdy. I was also, at five-eight, on the tall side for a woman and so assumed that when Ben and I had a child he or she would probably end up tall—perhaps a volleyball player like Ben had been, or a rower like me.

I still hadn’t allowed myself to really consider what I was doing here—that this woman, waiting for her green tea latte and cinnamon coffee cake, was prepared to use her own eggs and body to carry a child for me, a complete stranger. Lyla looked up and smiled, and I smiled back, face flushing at being caught staring.

The guilt that swept through me was deep and swift, and I had the sudden urge to run back out through the coffee shop’s front door and pretend like I hadn’t agreed to this. Or better yet, I wished I could go back and erase that first email I’d sent Lyla, finish my ice cream and go back to bed instead of hitting Send. I should have told Ben—I had lied to him about something important exactly once in our relationship, back when we were still figuring out who we were to each other, and had promised him at the time I wouldn’t do it again. That was not who we were. My stomach knotted, and I felt sick.

“Fourteen seventy-five,” the young guy at the cash register said, and I had the feeling based on the tone of his voice that it wasn’t the first time he’d told me what I owed.

I mumbled an apology and fished a twenty out of my wallet, handing it to him with a smile. He gave me my change and the place card holder with my number, and I went back to our table.

Lyla looked up as I sat down and I noticed her eyes were brown, flecked with amber highlights that almost looked like there were tiny lights behind her irises. They were pretty. I had accepted that if we were to go the surrogate route, the baby would not look like me. Lyla was quite fair skinned, so at least Ben’s coloring would shine through. For some reason that mattered to me—that the baby looked like one of us—though I knew I should have let go of that ages ago.

“They’ll bring it out to us.” I placed the numbered card on the edge of our table.

“Thank you,” Lyla said, her voice exuberant and her smile wide. “So, Hannah, why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself?”

Her forwardness caught me off guard, until I remembered this wasn’t the first time she’d sat across from a woman she was considering carrying a baby for. I hated that I was the inexperienced one—the desperate one. The one who needed something and who had so much to lose.

“Well, let’s see,” I said, chewing one of my cuticles—a nervous habit I had been trying to break since I was a girl. You could always tell the state of my anxiety or stress based on the shape of my cuticles. “I’m thirty-five, grew up in Marin—Mill Valley, specifically. I’m a recipe developer at Femme magazine, which means I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, cooking and eating, so as you can imagine it’s a great job.”

“Oh, I love the recipes in Femme,” Lyla said. “I don’t know how you stay so thin, having to eat everything.”

I smiled at the compliment and wished I could record it for my mother. “Well, we have a little industry trick. We don’t swallow most of what we taste—we spit it out. It sounds gross I know, but it’s the only way to avoid buying a new wardrobe every year. I gained about ten pounds the first six months I was at the magazine until I learned the taste-and-spit trick.”

“Huh, I never even thought about that, but it makes sense. What about your family? Are they here in San Francisco?”

“My dad died when I was ten,” I said, then thanked her when she told me she was sorry to hear that. “My mom lives over in Pacific Heights with my sister and her husband.” I cleared my throat and looked over to the coffee bar, hoping our drinks were on their way. The nervousness in my belly was increasing with every word.

“Are ya’ll close?” Lyla asked. “You and your sister?”

I looked back at her. “Claire’s five years younger than me, but yeah, I guess we’re close? Or as close as you can be when you have that many years between you.” Claire was an associate partner at her husband Peter Todd’s law firm and expected to make full partner within the next year—which would make her the youngest partner at the firm. And it had nothing to do with nepotism. She worked hard; she got what she wanted. As for me, I liked my job—a lot most days. I got to work with food—my first love—and it was the sort of work that allowed room for motherhood, too. But careers and age difference aside, the truth was that Claire and I were different in every way we could be—she was ambitious and confident, petite and pretty, while I was less so in all areas.

Lyla nodded. “I get that. My two boys are quite close in age, but have very different personalities. Luke is the oldest, and a risk taker—he’s going to turn my hair gray soon. Jason, my husband, says we’re going to spend a lot of time in the ER with Luke.” She smiled. “And Johnny is only fifteen months younger, but he’s an old soul. He’s a very quiet and responsible boy.”

“Do you have a picture?” I asked.

“I do!” Lyla shifted her chair to come beside me. She smelled like lavender and mint, and I took a deep breath in, the scent pleasant and relaxing. “Here’s Luke last year in the school play.” I looked at the screen on her phone, seeing a boy—around six or seven I guessed—dressed in a brown sheet cinched at the waist with a belt and sandals, a huge smile on his face—Lyla’s smile. “He played Joseph.” I nodded and murmured how sweet he looked, glancing at the next picture she pulled up. “And this is Johnny, also last Christmas.” Johnny sat in front of a fully decorated Christmas tree. He wore glasses and smiled, though he showed no teeth.

“They’re very handsome,” I said. “And really look like you.”

Lyla looked at the photos, still smiling. “I get that a lot.”