‘Look at you,’ Jenn said, standing before me. ‘You look just lovely.’
‘Thank you.’ I took the compliment as I straightened up and pinched the bottom corners of my top, pulling it neatly over my belly again.
‘I’m off to talk about my book . . . again,’ Jenn laughed. ‘You enjoy your night with the boys and Baby JJ.’ She gathered up her bag and lanyard and went out the door.
I felt giddy and nervous, as if I was going on a first date. I was excited to see Jon and Justin, show them my belly, how it had popped out, indicative of the growth of their child. I wanted them to be as awed by their baby, by the miracle of life, as I was.
My phone beeped with a text message from the boys, informing me they were a few minutes away and would pick me up out the front. Quickly, I gathered up my bag, my black velvet jacket and the room key and wobbled to the door. It had been a long time between heels.
I made my way down to the lobby then stood out the front of the sliding glass doors, tapping my boot on the concrete and running my hands over my taut belly. It was bitterly cold, the middle of winter in Sydney, and I tensed all my muscles, trying to build up heat to keep me and Baby JJ warm. I glanced up at the stars, burning bright on the dark dome of night, then noticed the silver hatch pull into the circular driveway and my muscles constricted further. Inside the darkness of the car, a hand waved eagerly from the passenger seat. The car stopped and Justin leapt out, grinning, and gave me a big hug.
‘Hello!’ he cried, then pulled back to examine the bump. ‘Wow, it’s definitely grown in those three weeks, look at you.’ He opened the car door, gesturing me in.
Huffing with exertion as I stepped into the back seat, I smiled and nodded at Jon. The warmth in the car engulfed me, as did the ‘new car’ smell mixed with the scent of aftershave. We chatted as Jon drove us to Concord. Jon’s mother had told the boys about a beautiful Thai restaurant there called Chilli Jam.
As Jon searched for a park, the subject of baby Gammy came up.
‘Isn’t that dreadful,’ Justin said, spinning around in his seat to gauge my reaction.
‘I just can’t get my head around the idea that someone could do that – leave one child and take the other,’ I said. ‘But we don’t know the full story yet.’
‘Yeah, you’re right.’ Justin opened the car door. ‘But still, leaving a baby and taking the sibling – why would anyone do that?’
As we walked to the restaurant, the subject changed to dinner, and my stomach rumbled. Still, I couldn’t shake the unease I felt when I thought of baby Gammy and the spotlight the story shone on surrogacy not only in Thailand but in Australia, too. The comments on the internet still upset me when I thought of them, and I realised that the boys were involved in the surrogacy in an entirely different way from me. As ‘the surrogate’, I had offered to carry their child, and each and every one of those comments questioned my actions, integrity, understanding and intellect. But the people who made such comments didn’t know me, they hadn’t walked in my shoes, didn’t possess the heart and soul I did. They could only speak from their perspective – the road they had travelled to that point. Would their comments be the same if they were infertile or for some other reason unable to have a child?
I glanced at the boys as they walked together, chatting and smiling, hands tucked deep in jacket pockets, cheeks rosy from the cold. I felt so protected and loved in their presence, as if with family. It was true, they felt like family to me. I had chosen to be a surrogate not to gain the approval of any of those cynics on the internet, but for Jon and Justin, to give them the gift of a child. I felt as though I stood in the middle of a tunnel – looking one way, I peered towards the light, towards Jon and Justin, who exuded love and appreciation. If I faced the other end, all I saw was darkness, heard the judgements and misconceptions, shivered at the cold.
The chatter and buzz of the restaurant, and the mouth-watering smells of garlic, kaffir lime and ginger, brought me back to the present. As we sat down at our table and read the menu, a sudden wave of emotion thumped in my chest. I felt as though I might cry. It wasn’t sadness or pain that drew tears to my eyes but love, along with gratitude for where I was in my journey, who I was there with. The contrast of my situation with that of baby Gammy showed me how lucky I’d been, how well I was treated by Jon and Justin.
Over dinner we talked and laughed about life in general, how the sale of Sereena and Tymon’s house was going, how Jon’s mother, Annette was busying buying pink outfits for Baby JJ and Rick had started to talk about baby-proofing the boys’ home. They asked about my sister and how baby Sophie was doing and I told them little Aurora was almost one year old, Tenille planning her party. After we’d eaten, we moved on to discussing the birth, marvelling at how fast it was coming around. Justin was excited at the prospect of delivering Baby JJ, whereas Jon, with his aversion to needles, said he would be happy to step aside and watch when the moment came.
‘I’ll leave all that to Justin, I think. I don’t want to faint at such a critical moment.’ Jon laughed at himself. ‘Now, I had something to ask you – what was it? Ah, yes, the colostrum, how does all that work?’ He wriggled his fingers in the air anxiously, as if wanting to know but hoping I didn’t get too specific.
‘Honestly, I don’t know yet. It’s very important for Baby JJ to have the colostrum, it’ll be her first milk and will help to build her immune system, but I need to talk to a midwife about what I’m supposed to do and when.’ I figured I’d have to express some colostrum before the birth to have a store for when Baby JJ was born as she wouldn’t be put on the breast, but wasn’t quite sure on when to start or how much I was supposed to produce.
‘Now, Dr Wright said the twenty-week scan report was fine, didn’t he?’ said Justin. ‘You spoke to Jon about the results and I’ve forgotten what he said.’
‘Yes, everything looked good, no abnormalities detected, the heart rate and blood flow were perfect. The report did indicate that her size was measuring a week small, but there’s no cause for concern.’
‘Wonderful, everything’s just going so well.’
The boys drove me back to the hotel after dinner. It would be eight weeks before I’d see them again – eight weeks until the baby shower for their little girl.
‘We’ve invited around a hundred and fifty people. I hope you’ll be okay and it won’t be too overwhelming?’ Jon asked, glancing up at me in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Maybe we got carried away . . . but it’s a combination of family, friends, their kids, and also Justin’s horse-riding clients and my work colleagues.’
‘Wow, that’s a lot of people.’ I laughed. ‘I think I only had about ten at my baby shower and that included my mum and sister.’ Overwhelming was an understatement. There would be a hundred and fifty sets of eyes on me, and very few people I would know. I was sure it would be fun but also exhausting.
Jon pulled up outside the hotel entrance and we all got out of the car to say goodbye. I stood in front of them, my belly the spectacle between us. I sensed they were holding back, too polite to just reach out and touch me. ‘Are you going to have a rub?’ I asked, pointing my belly at Jon and then at Justin.
‘Oh, yes, I will.’ Justin extended his hand and gently touched my tummy. ‘Hello, Baby JJ. My little girl,’ he said softly, leaning in. My heart twinged with love.
Next it was Jon’s turn, and I smiled, proud and prominent as he cupped my belly in his large hands, sweeping them around its curves as if to caress his child inside. As they huddled around me, Jon and Justin’s eyes filled with love and wonder. The baby I carried, their little girl, was so wanted – contemplated, planned for and dreamed of.
I gave them both a hug. ‘I’ll see you in about two months,’ I said.
‘Eight weeks.’ Justin nodded, opening the car door, then stopped, placing his hand on the roof. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘We’re just so lucky to have you.’
Jon chimed in, agreeing.
‘And I, you.’ I blinked, my e
yes watery, and blew them a kiss.
The next day, Jenn and I attended the conference and had lunch with our good friend, the author Anna Romer. Later, the three of us made our way to the airport for a late afternoon flight. Anna’s second novel, Lyrebird Hill, was about to be released, and we chatted, excited by the news that her first, Thornwood House, had been acquired by publishers in Europe.
Thrilled for Anna and Jenn, I too dreamed of becoming a published author, but I had to bide my time. I hadn’t touched my novel since becoming pregnant; when I sat down at the computer to write, my thoughts wandered. I’d start imagining the birth, Jon and Justin holding their child, or focusing on something as minor as my next appointment with Dr Wright. The surrogacy occupied all of my mind. Being at the conference, surrounded by published authors living the dream, my dream, and attending workshops by famous writers from overseas, brewed an eagerness inside me that was hard to contain. I had to be happy in the knowledge that my time would come one day; it just wasn’t going to be right there and then. I’d have to put in the work when my mind was clear – first I had to see the surrogacy through to the end. Authors joked that publishing their novels was like giving birth, but I had a real birth to deal with first.
I arrived home around eight o’clock that night, and kissed my children’s foreheads as they lay asleep in their beds, cosy in their flannelette pyjamas, snug under woollen blankets. They always looked so peaceful, innocent, venturing off into their own personal dreamscapes, resting their growing bodies.
I unpacked my bag and sat down with Andrew on the couch. With a grunt I lifted my feet onto the coffee table, desperate to drain some of the fluid that had pooled around my ankles from sitting all day. I grabbed the remote, switched on the television and flicked through the channels, stumbling across an interview conducted by Tara Brown of 60 Minutes. She sat square on, confronting the parents of baby Gammy.
‘Shan, you shouldn’t watch this,’ Andrew said, taking the remote from my hand.
I reached out, snatching it back. ‘I’ll be fine. I just want to see why they left him there and only brought his sister back. I want to hear them say it.’
But Andrew was right, of course; as the interview went on, I became uneasy at the possibility they had left their son in Thailand with the surrogate.
‘Why do they call him “the little boy”?’ I said. ‘Why don’t they call him “our son”?’
‘Just turn it off, Shan. You don’t need to be watching it.’ Andrew shifted on the couch, uncomfortable.
‘I’m just curious. I wanna know what went on in their heads.’
‘But it’s making you angry. I can see that.’
I took a deep breath, straightened my back. ‘I’m fine. I am.’
At the end of the interview, Tara Brown wiped away her tears. I wondered what the ramifications of the story would be. My situation wasn’t exactly like that of the woman in Thailand – I wasn’t being paid, nor was I living in a third world country – yet it was very close to home in so many other ways.
In bed, lying as straight as a board, feeling the weight of Baby JJ resting on my spine, I promised myself I wouldn’t pay any more attention to bad publicity about surrogacy. I’d ignore it. The parents of baby Gammy were not Jon and Justin. They weren’t the people I had come to love, nor was I like the surrogate in the story. However, the scenario made me question what I would do if I were left with a child who had a disability. I pondered the impact on my life, on the lives of my husband and my kids. We’d take the child and love it as our own. The thought popped into my head, strong and clear. I’d do exactly as baby Gammy’s surrogate did, I’d take the child and offer love, support and help. Perhaps I wasn’t so different to the surrogate in Thailand after all.
Still, I couldn’t relax. Angry at myself, my mind was cluttered with junk. In a matter of twenty-four hours I’d gone from happy and content with Jon and Justin to anxious and conflicted, worried that people would judge me for being a surrogate. That perhaps, even though I’d gone into it with the best of intentions, it wasn’t the right thing to do.
Since the story broke, surrogacy had become a hot topic in the news; everyone was an expert or had an opinion, some louder than others. I knew there were good surrogacy arrangements that had taken place over the years, beautiful childless couples realising their dream of having a baby, connected with a loving surrogate, creating families and caring unions. I knew that was me, that was what I wanted. I tossed and turned in bed, my back cramping, stomach muscles weak, stretched. Why did I care what others thought?
The truth was I’d always cared what others thought of me, even as a young child. I don’t know how I came to be that way, but growing up I always wanted to please, fit in, look perfect. When I hit my thirties I started to realise that no matter how hard I tried, I would never gain approval from everyone. That’s when I gave myself a break and decided not to try to live up to anyone else’s expectations of me; I only had to prove my worth to myself. Slowly over the years I realised I was worth something – worth so much more than I’d given myself credit for.
Now I thought about the comments on the internet about surrogacy, how it was disgusting and only benefited the selfish parents, not the child. I realised that those people who sat at home hiding behind their computers had their own issues to deal with – they might have gone through something in their lives that gave them that perspective and the need to comment on it for all to see. But I wasn’t in the wrong. It wasn’t my fault they felt that way about surrogacy. Their judgements were not directed at me, nor should they be.
I would do anything for anyone as long as I believed they would benefit from it or that they were truly in need.
22
Cosmo, negativity and sickness
A week after my trip to Sydney I received a text message from Justin. One of his best friends, Bec, worked at Cosmopolitan magazine as features editor and wanted to write an article about the boys and their surrogacy journey. Time poor, I hadn’t read Cosmo for years, but in my early twenties I read the magazine every month. The article was important to the boys both for surrogacy and gay rights and I replied, agreeing to participate.
I set my phone down on the table and took a deep breath. Another article. I was nervous but excited. Like the article for Good Weekend magazine (I hadn’t yet heard from Dawn about a final publication date), this would give me a chance to show that surrogacy doesn’t have to be taboo in Australia. Both opportunities had come to me, dropped in my lap. Maybe it was important for me to showcase surrogacy to a wider audience? To show others that it wasn’t illegal or wrong, and that if both the surrogate and intending parents communicated and had enough love to give, something beautiful could be born from the experience in more ways than one.
A day later, Bec emailed and we arranged a time for a phone interview, just after the dreaded glucose tolerance test the following day.
That morning, I spent a few hours confined to a chair in pathology. They took my blood, tested my fasting glucose level first, and then I had to drink a bottle of sugar syrup, silky, thick and sweeter than boiled lollies. I screwed up my face, cheeks sucked to my aching teeth, saliva flooding my mouth in an attempt to dilute the syrup. Afterwards I had to sit in the waiting area, abstain from food and drink, read a book or magazine, and upon the hour for three hours they took my blood, monitoring my reaction to the liquid sugar to check for gestational diabetes.
I arrived home well after lunch, hungry and lightheaded. I threw together a chicken salad and as I began to eat it, my phone rang. I chewed a mouthful before answering the call.
‘Hi, Shannon? It’s Bec here from Cosmo,’ she said, her voice cheery. I had seen a picture of Bec among the boys’ commitment ceremony photos hanging on the wall at their home. She was one of Justin’s bridesmaids, and I remembered her smiling face and long, dark brown hair.
‘Hello, Bec, it’s lovely to hear from you.’
She ran through a series of questions about the surrogacy. In par
ticular, she asked how I felt about being pregnant with someone else’s child and why I wanted to do the surrogacy in the first place. I sat back on the couch, phone to my ear, and poured my heart out to her, pausing at times to re-evaluate my answers.
‘Thanks so much for doing this for Justin and Jon,’ Bec said, her tone shifting from bubbly to subdued. ‘I think it’s just incredible. I’ve always thought they’d make the best fathers.’
‘They certainly will make great fathers. I just feel blessed to have met them.’
‘Well, that’s it for now,’ she said. ‘I won’t take up any more of your time. I’ll email to let you know when the article’s coming out.’
‘That would be great. And I look forward to meeting you in person at the baby shower.’
‘Oh yes, I’ll be there, wouldn’t miss it for the world. I look forward to meeting you and the bump then.’
I ended the call, satisfied with the way I’d answered her questions. Now there were two articles sitting on editors’ crowded desks. I recalled the sensationalism surrounding the baby Gammy story, and a knot of worry started to tense in my stomach at the thought of how my contribution would feed into an article. But I knew I could trust Bec. She wasn’t out to write a negative story.
Twenty-six weeks pregnant, I had another appointment with Dr Wright. Andrew had a client meeting and was unable to look after Keira as he’d done for most of my appointments, so I had a little helper with me. In the car on the way I explained who we were going to see and why. Keira insisted on calling Dr Wright ‘Dr Brown Bear’, in tribute to the doctor on one of her favourite television shows, Peppa Pig.
Labour of Love Page 18
