“There You Are”
First, I met with a counselor and an independent attorney to understand what I was considering.
The plan was gestational surrogacy: an embryo created using Graham’s sperm and a donor egg.
The counselor asked whether anyone was pressuring me.
“No,” I said.
Adam had promised to support any decision.
I believed him, even though every conversation about refusing ended with him sitting silently at our kitchen table, surrounded by bills.
Eventually, I agreed.
Sophie knew I was going to try to carry a baby for someone else.
We explained that the baby wouldn’t be her brother or sister, and that another parent would raise it.
She asked whether babies could hear jokes.
“Eventually, they can,” I told her.
“Then I’ll tell it my best ones,” she said.
It felt ordinary.
Safe.
The first embryo transfer didn’t work.
The second did.
Adam cried when we got the news.
Then he became the attentive husband I’d been missing, and I mistook his sudden kindness for a change of heart.
He carried groceries.
Came to appointments.
Remembered when I needed to rest.
Once, while we watched television, the baby kicked beneath his palm.
Adam smiled in a way I hadn’t seen in years.
I covered his hand with mine.
“There you are,” I whispered.
I thought he was coming back to me.
That night, Sophie asked him to read an extra chapter before bed.
Usually, he said he had emails.
This time he stayed until she fell asleep.
I thanked him afterward.
May you like
“Things are changing,” he said.
I believed that, too.
