Friends: A Love Story (37 page)

“Where is she? I'm leaving.” I think I drove around the corner when the phone rang again. Courtney.

“Wait!”

“Okay…”

I park again. Oh, I'm just sittin' there in the car and I'm twitchin' and nervous and I wanna cry. I'm so frustrated. I'm so excited. I'm so where I don't wanna be. I just wanna SCREAM! Meanwhile I remember that the baby shower is tomorrow and I have friends coming to town and stayin' at my house. I'm reachin' into my purse to get out my spare key when Mattie and her son drive up!

“Look, Jonathan,” I say as soon as her son hops out of the car. “Go put this key under the door because we've got company comin' and they have to get into the house.”

Then Mattie says, “What are you doing in
your
car?
I'm
driving.”

So I park my car, get in her car and we head toward the freeway. Well, Mattie is a conscientious driver. She drives the speed limit and obeys the traffic laws, and I'm thinking, “You gotta get out of this lane! Get over into that lane!” Then I'm tryin' to have a conversation, tryin' to talk about it a little bit, tryin' to talk about
anything
to get my mind off it. Tryin' to make the time go by. But you can't really have a conversation when you're in the middle of a situation like that!

Finally,
we get onto the freeway and into the carpool lane. But as soon as we get into the carpool lane the regular traffic starts flowin' faster. Mattie loosens up a bit. Now we're crossin' double yellow lines back into the regular lanes. When that tightens up, we jump back over into the carpool lane. We know we're not supposed to be crossin' double lines but here we go and do it anyway. We finally get to the hospital and Mattie drops me off. A one-hour ride had taken two hours, but that was better than three if I had tried to do it alone.

When I go in, everyone's waiting for me. Courtney had been there the longest. His mom and Tracy had arrived about twenty
minutes before me. So I went in and said hello to Stephanie and Kevin and their families, who were there with them, and saw that everything was, indeed, fine. The doctors and nurses told me how it was going to go in about twenty minutes. We washed up and stood in the hall—Kevin, Courtney and myself. Courtney—Mr. Shutterbug—was taking a couple of pictures. Then we went in and stood up there by Stephanie's head. There were two teams of doctors—one for each baby. So there were about a dozen people in the delivery room. A drape had been set up over her abdomen and the doctors were doing the prep work. At one point they told us we could go around the drape and look. “Oh, gosh! I'm not sure if I'm ready to look yet.” Then I got it together and came around and watched the whole procedure.

To see the human body opened like that! To watch them do their first incision and see all the various layers of muscle and tissue and sinew in the human body—it's just amazing!
We are fearfully
and
wonderfully made
(Psalms 139:14). And then the doctor reaches in and out comes this perfectly formed human baby—our son! He came out very calm. His body language was all curled up. I jumped and I think I said, “OOH! OOOOOH!” I just started crying and hyperventilating.

Everyone was asking, “Are you okay? You all right?”

“Yes, it's a baby!” Like it's a wonder—it's a wonder! “Wonderful, wonderful yet again,” as Shakespeare said. Wondrous. They had to work to get the second one out. By the time she came out, I had calmed down. I had seen it, so I wasn't crazy. “Wow, look at that!”

Courtney and I were just standing there holding each other. He had given the nurse his camera. Since she knew what would be coming next, she was taking all the pictures. We stood there in awe, watching this incredible woman having our babies and the doctors and nurses do their thing. The nurses and technicians were weighin' them and wipin'
them and cleanin' them. Then they let us hold them up close for a second. I felt like I was dreamin'—like I was in a dreamlike state and maybe I would wake up. You just don't believe you're holding them. You don't believe they're yours. It's kind of like: Really? Truly? Finally? Honestly? After all that? They're ours?

We would name our son Slater Josiah after my great-grandfather, Slater Samuel Stokes, and the most powerful king in the Bible. Our daughter is Bronwyn Golden, named after Ahren's sister who, coincidentally and unbeknownst to Courtney and me, we both had hired as our assistant at one point and loved, and my Auntie Golden, who had cared for and nurtured me when I was a little girl. Aunt Golden had been ill. But she stayed on this earth long enough to see her namesake arrive. She would pass away five days later, but stuck around long enough to make sure they got here safely.

But right now one of the doctors is lookin' at Bronwyn's nostrils flarin'. They're saying she's experiencing a little respiratory distress. They tell us not to worry about it. They're telling you it's not optimal, but it's not an emergency. As an actor I'm listening to the subtext, I'm listening intently, trying to ascertain just how serious this is. I'm trying to listen to the type of words they're using, I'm trying to listen between the words. I could almost take it in and get emotional, get distraught. But they're capable and they're giving us a lot of information—they're disclosing, they're not keeping us in the dark.

“They're twins,” they say. “This happens a lot to the second one coming out because they're in there longer. It's nothing out of the ordinary. It's just going to be a couple of days.”

“Oh, okay…”

“It's nothing that she won't be able to get over.”

But they have to get them to the neonatal unit, so they whisk them out of our hands. All of a sudden it's like, “What do we do?” They're taking the babies away. They're amazing. I want
to go with them, yet Stephanie's body is still open—and she's bleeding. To go with the babies is like abandoning her. I want to go with them but I'm torn. We're torn. I almost wished someone would just tell us what to do. It's just so intimate all the way around and such an interesting human-relational dynamic. But Courtney and I are thoughtful people so we think about it for a minute. We decide the babies are in the best possible hands. The doctors are doing their thing with them. We don't know if we can go down to the nursery with them anyhow. So we stay with Stephanie.

“Thank you!” we tell her. “We can't tell you how much we love you. We are just so grateful!”

Finally someone tells us what to do. They tell us to go with the babies because the doctors have to do some work on Stephanie. It isn't an emergency but they have to get on it.

“Thank you for helping us know what to do.” We head to the nursery.

When we get there the nurses are getting the babies hooked up to all these monitors—all tubed up. They're taking blood at the heels of their feet. They're getting poked and pricked. I am about to cry—I know how much I hate needles. But Slater isn't crying at all. He's a strong baby boy.

We learn we can't hold our babies yet so we just reach into the oxygen tent and touch their lips or something. Slater looks so small. He's very yellowish; he has my undertones. Bronwyn is getting some oxygen through a little tube into her nostrils. She's a little bit bigger than him. Her color is a little bit ruddier, like Courtney's. They are both very fair—a lot lighter than we are. We check their ears, around their fingernails for signs of color. We don't find any yet. Maybe it's too early. We watch and watch and watch them. We wait and wait for them to open their eyes. After a while Slater opens one of them for just a millisecond.

“HE OPENED 'EM! OH, MY GOSH!”

Just for that second I could see one black pupil, a glimpse of the eyes I'll soon stare into lovingly. Our amazing journey was about to begin!

I
n 2004, I was invited to film the pilot episode of a new drama called
Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
I'd never done a TV series before so I was tentative about it, and taking the job was a big deal because the series was being shot in New York. But Angela and I sat down and talked about it. We felt that, after all our struggles, our marriage was now on solid ground. The distance would be a big deal but we felt we could work with it. I had grown up seeing the model of my grandparents' long-distance relationship, and Angela wanted to give it a go. We knew it was doable as long as we both were committed. So we agreed that we would talk every night on the phone and not go more than three weeks without seeing each other. In the beginning, I traveled back and forth every two weeks between L.A. and New York. Eventually we rented an apartment. Between missing Angela, the apartment not feeling like home, traveling back and forth and trying to learn my lines, I found doing the series very difficult at first. In time she and I got into a rhythm and it just became our routine.

Although I was now working in New York and Angela and I were living in Los Angeles, emotionally we had finally gotten on the same page. We had begun to “secure the perimeter” lo
gistically and financially, so whenever we were together we started trying to have a baby. We bought books and talked to people and watched live births on the Discovery Channel. But the natural methods didn't work. We moved to fertility treatments and then to in vitro fertilization. These fertility treatments meant Angela was constantly getting shots, going to the doctor and getting poked and prodded. The procedures were very invasive and some of them had to hurt her. She toughed them out but I felt guilty. We had reached a very wonderful time in our marriage when we wanted to do things for and sacrifice for each other. As much as she wanted children, I knew she was going through all this for me because she knew how much I wanted kids. I dreamed of being a father. One night I dreamed we had twins!

In spite of the fertility treatments, we went through menstrual cycle after menstrual cycle with no results. We went through the hopefulness, the joy, the pain, the heartbreak and the questioning when we considered whether to start all over. But throughout the whole process of trying to conceive, I am very proud that we remained focused on loving each other. We did not implode and begin blaming each other. On my end, this was chiefly due to the Bible telling me to “love my wife.” I also recalled Angela's sister Lynn's advice to take care of our relationship. Lynn's encouragement also reinforced in my mind what Dr. Little kept telling me and I was reading in the Bible—that my wife is first and must remain so!

After much trying, praying and soul-searching, we let go of our dream of having our own biological children, and moved on to the next option—adoption. I was fine with the idea. I thought the idea of giving a child a loving home was a good idea. “My sister did it, we'll do it,” I figured. Angela thought so, too, and we began to research the process. Adoption was the plan until the day she came home and told me that one of her friends was about to have triplets through something called “surrogacy.”

“I really don't know what that is, honey,” I told her. “Talk to your friend and we'll do whatever you think is best.”

Angela started investigating. Her friend thought we should talk to the folks at the surrogacy place she used. So we sat down with the director for a couple of hours and thought it was very, very interesting.

“Someone else can carry our egg and our sperm?”

“These are pictures?”

“Wow!”

“People come from all over the world to California to do this?”

“Who knew?”

The meeting went well but I recognized right away that if we went on this journey it was going to be very emotional, expensive and fraught with all sorts of opportunities for disaster. I was almost obsessive about making sure we were working with an organization that knew the landscape very well and could protect us and guide us down this very tricky path. For me to feel comfortable that we would be protected, I thought we needed a company that was more corporately structured and organized than this one was—that could orchestrate the whole thing, act as intermediaries between us and the surrogate, manage all the finances and make sure that both we and our surrogate parents were legally protected. The last thing we wanted was to get in the middle of the situation and find out that it cost more than we'd planned and that they'd quoted us the bare minimum. Or end up with a surrogate who's pregnant with our babies but doesn't eat right and take care of herself. Or have some other kind of emotional disaster. I couldn't allow our family to be exposed to that. So we called some very good friends, who recommended a larger organization, where the process is much more formal and comprehensive. There, in addition to speaking with the director, we went to a day-long education process, met with people who walked us through all the financial aspects of surrogacy, and talked to the legal de
partment and people in the counseling department. The company assured us the surrogates are screened and tested emotionally for months so they can be matched with the right people. We were impressed. When we left, we understood everything. We decided we were going to do it and began to go through the process.

 

Before long, we met the woman (and her husband) who was considering being our surrogate family, we fell in love with them. They were a quiet, humble couple with a loving and servant spirit. Apparently, the woman had read something about surrogacy and decided she been blessed with beautiful babies and easy pregnancies, and wanted to share her gift with someone else. At first her husband asked, “What are you talking about? No!” But she explained her reasons and he told her, “Talk to me in six months.” Six months later, when she still wanted to do it, he agreed and got completely behind her. As they told us the story we were struck by the fact that after six years of marriage and two children they still made goo-goo eyes and held hands. They made me want to hold Angela's hand—and I did—that's how loving they were. Once we saw their spirit we knew they were the right people for us. You can't pay anyone enough to do something like this for you. There's no dollar value to set on it. We felt blessed that they wanted to share this gift and knew God had brought them to us. And as a man, I particularly appreciated the husband. I knew it took a lot for him to be on board—to have his wife carrying another couple's child. In fact, I was in tears over this man. Angela and I were just weeping.

 

That same spring of 2005, Angela and I agreed that our marriage was strong enough to try acting together for the very first time—people had been asking us about it for years. Over the previous summer I had reconnected with John Guare, the
writer of
Six Degrees of Separation,
when I traveled to Valdez, Alaska, to be a part of the Last Frontier Theater Festival. John and I taught a master class together, which reminded me how much I missed working with him. About six months later, John called me up with an offer to perform the leading role in
His Girl Friday
.

My agent at the time suggested that Angela might enjoy performing in the play because it had a great leading role for a woman.

“Do you think she'd do it?” John asked when I brought the idea up.

By now I'd learned not to try to think for Angela. “Her decision-making process is very different from mine,” I told John. “I'll give the play to her and we'll have to wait for her to read it.”

So I gave her the play and explained the opportunity. I hoped that she would do it but I knew to let it go and allow her to make her own decision. After a month John called. “What does she think, Court?”

“She has the script and she knows you're waiting to hear from her. She'll read it, but I've learned not to keep asking her.”

A few weeks later Angela had read the play but still hadn't decided what she wanted to do, so I suggested that we have lunch. That way Angela could meet John and the director, Joe Dowing, and learn more about the play. We met, and Angela fell in love with John and Joe. “Courtney, I've been wanting to do something new and exciting. I think this is it!” she told me.

When Angela decided to come on board it was a momentous occasion for me. I had been not been onstage in twelve years and had never done physical comedy. Angela had not been onstage in at least five years. But we knew the foundation of our relationship was strong enough for us to be able to work together. To top it off, shortly after we began rehearsals we began our surrogacy process. It was a
very
exciting, very full time!

 

In the end of May we headed to Minneapolis's famous Guthrie Theater, where the play was being staged. We fell in love with the city and were surprised to discover how beautiful and well developed a theater town it is. We stayed close to the theater in two separate apartments, across the hall from each other. When I first suggested getting two apartments, Angela thought it was a good idea: “Our guests will have a place to stay.” But I didn't want guests to come anywhere near that apartment; I intended to rehearse in it. That was the smartest thing I did. Angela and I have different rehearsal processes. Angela is a genius. She has a photographic memory. She can watch television at the same time she's learning her lines and blocking. Someone can change the script, and she can look at it once and say, “Yep. I got it. Okay, Court, what's for dinner?”

My process is much slower. It takes me longer to learn lines. While Angela can lie on the couch and learn her part, I need to physically walk through my blocking as I state my lines because I remember the lines based on what I'm doing and where I am on the stage. Walking through my performance causes it to drop down into my muscle memory. I need to do this as I learn new lines each day. Doing this would require my own space. The second apartment was going to be that space. Plus, I have my own process for building up my confidence to be onstage.
His Girl Friday
is a very complex play, and my role was very demanding. There was a lot of movement, and my actions and dialogue drove the whole play. Every member of the cast was reacting to my character. If I didn't know what I was doing the whole piece would fall apart.

I was used to having six weeks to rehearse, but this was a regional theater so we would only have four. I was very excited to be doing this play with my wife, but I was also very frightened. I kept my head in my script and notes. At the theater I picked dressing room 33, downstairs and as far from the stage as
possible. The theater staff said, “Are you sure you don't want to be next to Angela? She's up by the stage.”

“No, I'm fine. I need to be in a quiet, tucked-away area so I can begin the next phase of my process.”

Of course that didn't stop Angela from invading it. When I first walked into her dressing room, she had all sorts of nice stuff—great chairs, a rug.

“Where'd you get all this?”

“Down in dressing room 33.”

“That's my dressing room! You took my stuff?”

“Oh, that was your dressing room? Hee, hee, hee!”

“Angela, you are wrong!”

“Hee, hee, hee!”

“I don't believe you!”

Once we started rehearsing I had to trust that my old skills were all there. We had less time to rehearse than normal, a script that was twice as long, and it kept changing every day. I was scared out of my mind. My stomach stayed on edge. I lost my traditional ten pounds. Each morning I prayed and really leaned into my faith.

In the meantime, Angela could skim her script once and say, “Honey, let's run lines.”

“I'm not ready yet,” I'd tell her. “Please give me a little time.”

“You don't have to be perfect. We can just—”

“Honey, just give me a little time, please. We'll run lines. Believe me! I just need a little more time to walk my blocking.”

“Okaay…” She was very patient with me.

At the end of four weeks we began preview performances. I barely knew my lines and blocking. I was afraid that I'd completely lose my place in front of all of those people and the whole play would fall apart. I had to trust it was all in there. But I've done a lot of theater and after
Six Degrees,
when I had to go onstage after my dad's suicide and during my breakup with Ahren, my ability to focus is legendary among my peers. I
wasn't comfortable with my part, but God had placed me in a situation where I couldn't do anything but depend on him. Angela and I prayed together; we knew God would take over. During the previews I worked moment by moment by moment: Say this. Now go here. Say that. Now go there. God put everything in place. When I pulled off the first show, everyone was asking, “Where did that come from?” By opening night two weeks later, I had my part down, and the whole cast was flying!

 

Onstage each night I got more and more confident and my performances got stronger and stronger. Working with Angela was amazing. She is a
monster
onstage—she is
so
good! And she's not just a good actor, she's a good director. Of course, even though Joe Dowling directed the play, she couldn't resist telling me what to do. But she was right—and she's my wife!—so I did what she said and it was all good. We are proud that we worked lovingly and prayerfully with each other, our cast members and the Guthrie team. The people of Minneapolis really embraced Angela and me in a wonderful way.