The Baby Package

by Sarah J. Brooks

  The waiter interrupted us and poured our wine before taking our food orders and disappearing again. I’m sure he could sense the intensity of our conversation and he quickly made himself scarce.

  Julia and I were both leaning forward toward one another with our hands on the white linen table cloth. There was only a few inches separating the two of us, but it felt like a huge divide that I wasn’t sure Julia wanted me to cross for her.

  “Mike, if anything, I really consider you a friend. This is your area of expertise and I would like your opinion. Is there a certain sperm bank I shouldn’t use? Or something more specific I should be asking them? Don’t let me make a huge mistake with this if there’s something you know that would help me.”

  “Okay, I’ve been doing this a few years now and I have to say that many times mothers start worrying about not being able to have a real father they can introduce to their children. Even if that is just through pictures and stories, like a letter he writes to the child or some other information about who the father is. Many times women who find a friend to father their child seem to be much happier with the process in the long run.”

  “So they don’t like not knowing who the man is?”

  “Not all of them. I’m certain many of the women I’ve worked with were very happy with the anonymous donor process. You’re right. They don’t have legal issues or anyone else involved in the process. There are definite benefits to that process.”

  She looked confused as she sipped her wine, the sweet red nectar softly touching her lips before sliding into her mouth. I got hard just watching how her lips took the glass in and let the wine enter her. For a moment I imagined those delicious lips wrapped around my body and I had to look away. God she was amazingly beautiful.

  “So people ask their friends to do it? How does that work? I have a few gay guy friends that I’ve thought about asking.”

  “Yeah, something like that. People work out all sorts of arrangements that work for them. I even know a man who donates to women and then doesn’t have any involvement. But the women know who he is, they know they can get medical information if it is ever needed, he even puts a clause in the contract that he will meet the child when they are older if that is something the woman and child want. I don’t know, I think there isn’t a right or wrong way. But definitely something you should think about before making your decision.”

  “Thanks Mike, I appreciate your help. It’s weird, but I appreciate it.”

  “Of course, you can feel free to ask me anything about this stuff. I might not know the right answers but I’d be happy to help.”

  As our dinner arrived we sat quietly eating and drinking our wine. Where the heck were we supposed to take the conversation after we’d talked about sperm donors? Not exactly a normal first date at all.

  “How do you like working in this field?” Julia finally asked.

  “I love it. My patients are going through an exciting and scary time of their life. It’s an honor to be there to help them through it.”

  “Seems like a good field to be in. Everyone is always happy and having babies.”

  “Not everyone, unfortunately. Many couples come in and are trying desperately to have a baby and nothing we do seems to work. It can be heartbreaking at times.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said softly.

  “So how do you like your job? You look like a boss lady there at the hotel. Are you doing well there? Do you love it? How do you like that boss of yours? He seems like quite the guy.”

  “So many questions for a first date, geesh. Slow down, dude,” she laughed.

  Our dinner continued for over two hours with a combination of awkward first date questions and intermittent fertility questions. As much as I saw Julia as a sexually attractive woman and I wanted to take her to bed, I did feel her pushing me away into a friend zone the longer we talked. By the time dinner was over I’d been shoved right into the depths of friend zone.

  “Thank you for dinner and the talk, Mike. You’re going to be a great resource as I go through this. You’re a good friend,” Julia ended with a kiss on the cheek as I walked her to a cab out front.

  “Anytime. I’m more than happy to help and I promise next time you’re in the office to see Doctor Simon, you’ll love him. He’s got better bedside manner than I do,” I laughed.

  “Thanks again, I’ll talk to you soon. I’m sure I’ll have tons of questions throughout this process. Good night,” she said and waved to me as her cab drove away.

  Chapter 7

  Julia

  “How was your date with Mister Hottie McHotster?” Teddy asked the next morning when I showed up to work.

  “Date?”

  “Don’t play coy with me. That’s the guy from the club the other night. I’d remember those dreamy eyes anywhere. So you’ve got him chasing you. Girl, you are the boss!”

  “Teddy, it’s not like that. He’s an old friend. It’s a long story but we are just friends.”

  “No, I’m not buying that at all. Any man who looks at you like that isn’t thinking about a friendship with you. What did you do, Julia? Did you friend zone that hot man? Tell me it isn’t true?”

  “You know this isn’t appropriate work talk. What happened to you working on your boundaries of supervision?” I laughed as I handed him the Starbucks coffee I’d grabbed him on my way into work.

  “I can do better. How about you get your sales up or I’m firing your ass,” he joked.

  “That’s better.”

  “Seriously, Julia. What’s up? Give me the deets. You know I live vicariously through your heterosexual love life. My life is so full of head cases lately I can’t find a decent guy to save my life.”

  “You and me both,” I giggled and sipped my coffee. “But seriously, Mike is a friend of my brother’s and things just got super weird. It turns out he’s a fertility doctor and when my doctor didn’t show up for the appointment, Mike stepped in. Wow, what a mess that was and so embarrassing.”

  “Serious? That’s cool though. It would be nice to have someone you know helping in that process, right?”

  Teddy didn’t understand much about women and love, but I certainly wasn’t about to have the man I slept with become my fertility doctor. No way, no how. That wasn’t about to happen. Not to mention all the drama that would surely surround this process if I was constantly trying not to flirt with my doctor. Nope, I was going back to Doctor Simon as soon as I could and I’d deal with him for the rest of the process.

  One thing that Mike said had me thinking a lot though. Maybe I should consider a sperm donation from someone I actually knew? I could see his point about how I might want actual medical information in the future and my child would certainly be curious about who their father was and what he looked like. It would be nice to show them a picture and maybe even tell them about their father.

  “I’m going back to my original doctor as soon as he gets in, but there was something else that I was thinking about,” I paused to try and find the right words. “How would you feel about being my sperm donor, Teddy?”

  “No.”

  “What? Wow, that was really fast.”

  “I thought about it actually. When another friend of mine asked me. The thing is, I do want to be a father some day and I think I’d want to be really involved in my child’s life. I don’t think I could handle having a baby and not being involved. I’m sorry.”

  “Please, Teddy, don’t be sorry. I totally understand. I just thought it was worth asking.”

  “I could ask around to some of my friends and see if any of the guys might be interested for you, if you’d like?”

  “Yeah, maybe that would work. I’d be open to talking to them if someone was interested. It does seem like a pretty big deal and I wouldn’t want to force it on anyone. I might still go with the plan for an anonymous donor, but I’m going to look a little closer at the possibility of using someone I know.”

  “What about Ed from accounting? He’s had the hots for you
since you started. I’m sure he’d volunteer his soldiers for the cause,” Teddy laughed. “But I bet he’d want to give them to you the old fashion way.”

  “Eww no, Teddy! I’m not looking for someone who wants to have sex. That’s exactly the reason I asked you,” I laughed.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know you just wanted your child to have my sense of style,” he did a spin to show off his outrageous suit of the day.

  “My son or daughter would be lucky to have your style. I mean, they’d probably get beaten up a lot in school, but…”

  “Ha, ha, ha. Very funny. Why don’t you ask the hottie who was here to take you on the date? Maybe he’d do it?”

  I froze at the suggestion. Would he consider doing such a thing? We had moved past the first night and one night stand thing. I really did think we could be friends now, but would he be interested in donating his DNA to my cause? I didn’t think he would. Mike seemed like the sort of guy who wouldn’t consider being a sperm donor, but then again he was the one who had suggested I ask someone I know.

  “I don’t think he’d be into it. Plus, I still think he’s really hot. Probably wouldn’t be the best plan.”

  “That’s exactly why you should ask him. Your kids would be so friggin adorable! Plus, he’s obviously smart and you know him so that would help down the road if you wanted to get back in touch.”

  “No, I mean, I don’t even know how I’d ask him. I probably should have asked while we were at Giovanni’s yesterday, but now it would just be weird.”

  I couldn’t help thinking that Mike would be a good option though. He was drop dead gorgeous, he obviously knew how the process worked, and he did seem a little into himself, so he wouldn’t want to be involved in the child’s life. My heart pounded at the thought of Mike being the father to my child. I liked the idea. I liked that fact that I know him and I thought he was a relatively good guy. He just might be exactly what I was looking for.

  But thinking about asking Mike made me so nervous. Out interactions had already been way out of the realm of what I was use to having with someone. We’d had a one night stand, a horrible office visit, and then a romantic dinner. The polar opposite emotions during all of those encounters made me nervous to even consider another such encounter with Mike.

  “I’d just call him up and ask him. If this is his business he’s probably considered if he’d ever offer to do it. Just ask. It can’t hurt,” Teddy said as if I’d be asking Mike for a piece of chocolate and not his DNA to give life to a baby.

  “I don’t know...”

  “Or ask him on a date. Maybe not something as romantic as Giovanni’s if you’re not trying to have a relationship though,” he rolled his eyes at my choice of restaurants.

  “Okay, yeah, maybe bowling or something that friends would do?”

  “Sure.”

  “Um, yeah, I think that might work. I’ll think about it and call him later this week,” I lied. There was no way I was getting the courage up to call Mike and ask him. I already knew I wasn’t going to be able to do it.

  “What’s his name again?” Teddy asked as he grabbed my phone off my desk.

  “It’s Mike Cooper, why? I don’t have any pictures of him on there. You can look at his Facebook page…”

  “Okay, you’re calling him,” Teddy said as he thrust the phone back into my face.

  I could see the call being dialed and then connecting. I froze out of utter and total fear. I couldn’t just talk to him like that. I needed to prepare what I was going to say. There had to be some time between when I wrote down my notes and when I actually called, if I actually called. No, I couldn’t do this.

  “Hello?” I heard him say as Teddy held the phone near my face. “Hello, Julia? Are you there?”

  “Um, hi,” I managed to bumble.

  “How are you? It’s nice to hear from you,” he replied and then waited in awkward silence as I didn’t answer him.

  All the blood had drained out of my head and I felt like I would pass out at any moment. Why the heck was I so damned nervous just to talk to him? I hadn’t felt this way before? I’d already slept with the man! He’d been inside me! Yet I could barely manage to think as I considered asking him to father my baby.

  “We should go bowling,” I blurted out in a much louder voice than I had intended.

  “What’s up with your phone?” Mike laughed. “I couldn’t hear you before and now it sounds like you’re yelling.”

  “Um, I don’t know. Probably just because I’m inside. Well, I get if you’re busy and stuff. I don’t want to intrude, I was…”

  “I’d love to go bowling with you, Julia,” he said softly. “How about Friday night?

  “Yep, come pick me up at seven,” I said and then hung up the phone.

  “Julia, that was rude.” Teddy laughed and put the phone back on my desk.

  “He probably thinks I’m some sort of maniac! Oh, my God, I can’t breathe. I’m really going to do this. I’m really going to ask him to be the father. Am I doing it? Oh I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you are. He seems like a good guy and if you’re going to have a baby it should be with a good guy. But, maybe you could just have the baby the old fashion way with him? You like him, right?”

  “No, no, I don’t want that. We just got together for fun. It’s not serious and I’m certainly not going to offer a relationship and ask for a baby, that’s crazy. We are friends, I’ll sell it like that. We are friends and I just want his sperm and I don’t want his money or anything like that. Just his sperm so I can have a cute baby.”

  Teddy shook his head in agreement and we both sat back down sipping our coffee in silence. If Mike would agree to be my sperm donor that was going to be the best possible outcome. The more I thought about this plan the more I liked it.

  The problem was going to be getting up my nerve to ask him. But once I got the nerve to ask him everything would work out, I just knew it.

  “So how are you going to deal with your sexual attraction to him and his to you?” Teddy asked as I’d finally calmed down.

  “What? No, there’s no sexual attraction. We are friends now, it’s decided.”

  “Yeah, I don’t buy that for a second. But you keep telling yourself that lie,” he snickered at me.

  ***

  Friday night seemed to take forever to arrive. I was a ruminating mess throughout the week contemplating how I was going to ask Mike. The idea that I would actually be able to say what I wanted to say without it sounding crazy was all I could think of. Surely I wouldn’t be able to find the right words and I’d mess the whole thing up, I was sure of it.

  When Mike buzzed from the lobby of the apartment complex I looked at Kendra as if I was a deer caught in headlights.

  “Answer it,” she said and pushed me toward the intercom.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, it’s Mike. Buzz me up and I’ll come to your door and get you.”

  Did I want him to come to my door? That was more like an official date sort of thing and I wanted this to just be friends. I should just go down and see him in the lobby.

  Buzz.

  Kendra pressed the button to let Mike into the building. “What are you doing?” I yelled in a panic.

  “Letting him up. Stop being so weird about this.”

  “I’m not being weird. This is just me,” I shrugged.

  “Yeah, well stop over thinking everything and just go have fun. If the topic comes up then ask him. If there’s a love connection then maybe you should go for that instead of worrying about this whole baby thing. Maybe he’s the one?”

  “He’s not the one,” I rolled my eyes at Kendra. “I’ve already established he’s not the one. Do you remember me telling you how he acted at his clinic? No, we are going to be friends.”

  “Okay, Julia.”

  She was patronizing me, I saw it in how she pressed her lips together and gave me a slight look from the corner of her eyes. It didn’t matter if she believed me or not. Mike was going to
be my friend and nothing more. I’d already done all the work to decide on this baby and Mike was helpful in giving me the idea of using someone I know. Certainly hearing that from him made me think about it much more than I had before. But we were just friends.

  I opened the door right away when he knocked and pushed myself out into the hallway before Kendra could talk with Mike. The last thing I needed was for her to start in with her questioning and innuendo about what she knew. Nope, she wasn’t getting near him.

  “Hey,” I said as I held onto the door so Kendra couldn’t come out. “Should we get going?”

  “I could come in and say hi to your roommate, if you want me to?”

  “No, no, we better get going. Kendra hasn’t been feeling well,” I grabbed Mike’s hand and pulled him down the hallway as I heard Kendra open the door behind us.

  “Have fun you two love birds,” she yelled just as we got to the elevator.

  I shook my head back and forth as Mike smiled at the outburst. I couldn’t even bring myself to respond to her though and instead just stepped onto the elevator in silence.

  Mike looked so handsome in his dark washed jeans and funky t-shirt. His effortless look probably took him two minutes to put together while I had agonized over which jeans and t-shirt I should wear for over an hour. Then I tortured myself over how to wear my hair and how much makeup to put on. It was a whole afternoon process for me and I still wasn’t sure I’d made the right choices. Finally, I settled on my loose-fitting boyfriend cut jeans with my favorite Kansas City Royals t-shirt. My hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail and I’d only put on some mascara and blush for makeup.

  This wasn’t a date, this was my chance to get to know Mike and see if he really would be a good option for my donor. If things felt right I was going to ask him that night… Well, if I managed to get myself together enough and muster the courage. But it definitely wasn’t a date.

  “Thanks for asking me out on this date,” Mike said as I froze solid in place. “I was worried you wouldn’t want to get together anymore after all that happened. I’m glad you called.”