The Choices We Make (4 page)

8

HANNAH

October

“Are you seriously making popcorn?” Ben opened the fridge, pulling out a beer and an apple. He rubbed the apple on his jeans—his version of giving it a good wash—and, holding the glossy red fruit between his teeth, opened the beer with a quick twist. He held up the beer bottle with a questioning look, and I shook my head.

“No, thanks. I'm in the mood for something stronger tonight. And you love popcorn.” I turned the handle on the Whirley Pop popcorn maker, which was heating up on the stove. It had been a gift from my mom two Christmases ago, a “healthy snack” alternative to help me lose some weight. I had been a rower all through college and still wasn't used to my softer body, though I didn't like to admit that. Apparently one of Mom's bridge friends had a daughter who had a terrible time getting pregnant, until she took up running and lost twenty pounds, then poof, twins. My mom was quite certain if I got thin—like my sister Claire was, like Mom had been her whole life—I'd finally get pregnant. While I had wanted to tell her to take the Whirley Pop and shove it, I thanked her for the gift and then promptly hid it at the back of a kitchen cabinet behind a stack of old bakeware.

Tonight was the first time I'd used the Whirley Pop, and only because we had run out of microwave popcorn.

“Wrong. I love melted butter,” Ben said. “Popcorn is just a vehicle for the butter.”

I rolled my eyes and continued turning the handle, hearing the first kernel pop. “I want to make tonight fun, or at least tolerable, and popcorn is fun. We can pretend it's movie night...just without the movie.”

“Hannah, I love you. But popcorn isn't exactly ‘fun,' and looking through classifieds is nothing like movie night.” Ben took another bite of his apple, swishing it down with a sip of beer. I scowled, both at his attitude about what I had planned for our night and the whole beer and apple thing. While most people enjoyed salted peanuts or chips with a beer, Ben preferred fruit. He could eat whatever he wanted, blessed with his mom's height and his dad's metabolism, and that he chose an apple over nachos felt a little as if he was rubbing it in.

“I didn't say it was
like
movie night. I said I wanted to make it fun...like movie night.” Ben just shrugged, and with a sigh I dumped the hot popcorn in a large bowl. “Can you hit Start on the microwave? Butter's ready to go.”

“So how does this work?” Ben asked, taking a handful of popcorn and looking at the screen. I had already opened the site, having found it during my research mission earlier in the day.

“I think it's like any ad site, you search and see what pops up.” I typed a couple of words in the search box and hit Enter. I was playing naive, because I didn't want Ben to know I'd already done a pretty thorough search. I needed to know what to expect ahead of time, because Ben wasn't exactly on board with the idea of surrogacy.

Two pages of hits came up, and, taking my own handful of popcorn, I scanned the first page.

“Okay, this one looks good. ‘In search of a loving couple to take this incredible journey with,'” I read out loud.

Ben snorted. “Nope. That one sounds too high maintenance.”

“Stop it. Just humor me, okay?”

He took another handful of popcorn and leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “Fine,” he said, munching on the kernels. “Tell me more about this incredible-journey woman.”

“Thank you.” I shifted the laptop so Ben could see the screen better. “Thirty years old, mom of three. Good. We know her equipment works. Married—to the same man—for the past eight years, and she's asking...whoa. Holy shit.” I pointed to the dollar amount in the ad, leaving a buttery fingerprint on the screen.

Ben leaned in and squinted. He was supposed to be wearing his reading glasses, which he'd finally had to admit he needed, but he was having a hard time accepting that at thirty-five he was aging...or at least his eyes were. “Forty thousand dollars?”

“That seems a bit high. Thought it was around thirty thousand? Maybe because she's already had a successful surrogate pregnancy?”

“Go to the next one,” Ben said, taking a swill of his beer.

I sipped my gin and tonic and clicked on the next ad.

“So this one was a gestational surrogate before—that's when she carries the couple's embryo,” I explained.

“I know what a gestational surrogate is,” Ben said, getting up to grab another beer and a handful of grapes. “Need anything?”

I shook my head, reading on. “She didn't like the medications when she did the gestational gig—can't say I blame her,” I said, looking over at Ben. He nodded, settling back on the couch. We had briefly discussed trying to find an egg donor and maybe giving that a try using my own uterus. But the thought of paying for someone else's eggs, then turning them into embryos, then trusting my uterus to let them grow... It left me weak with anxiety and despair.

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.