by Vivian Ward
“But how’d you get to the point where you’re paying a chick to have your baby?”
“A couple of years after she died, I started searching for a surrogate mother—a woman who could carry the baby that I would conceive with my wife.” His face twisted as he tried to follow the story. I can tell that he’s not getting it. In a lowered voice, I said, “They combined my sperm with my wife’s egg in a petri dish and inserted it into the woman who’s giving birth right now.”
“Dude! That’s insane!” His face was in complete awe; he didn’t know what to think. “What’s your name man?”
“Blake Adams,” I stuck my hand out to give him a handshake.
“Darnell Young,” he introduced himself. “Good to meet you.”
We took our sodas and made our way back over to the elevator. “Do you think your son will be born today?”
“I don’t know, man. The way she keeps having these fake contractions, I’m not sure. She’s pretty close, though. Her due date is February 19th.”
“I wish I was in your shoes. They’re taking my son early.”
“Why are they taking him?”
“The surrogate developed pre-eclampsia. She’s only 28 weeks along. They’ve had her in the hospital for the last week, pumping her full of steroids in hopes to develop the baby’s lungs faster so he has a better chance of survival once he’s born.”
“That’s scary as hell. Do they think he’ll be okay?”
“She’s had the best damned pre-natal care that money can buy and up until recently, she’s had a pretty normal pregnancy. We’re all hoping for the best.” We sat back down in the waiting area when I started to wonder why he wasn’t in the room with his wife. “How come you’re not in the room with your wife?”
“Aw man, she’s crazy. With her pregnancy hormones, I try to get away from her any chance I get. Besides, the nurse told me they’d call me in the room if she started to have the baby.”
“And she’s okay with that? If my wife were still around, she’d insist that I stay by her side.”
“Oh trust me, Katie thinks I should be there, but I’ve been working a lot. I told them I was tired and wanted to lay down to get some rest, and then I came out here.”
“I think you’re a lucky man, Darnell. If I were you, I’d take advantage of every pregnancy moment your wife had to offer. I wish it was my wife in that room and not some surrogate.”
“Yeah, but you—”
“Mr. Adams?” A tall brunette nurse interrupted our conversation. “Can you come with me, please?”
She was the same nurse that showed me to the waiting area when they started prepping Tasha for her C-section this morning. I nodded my head as I rose from my chair.
This is it! You’re finally going to meet your son!
My heart raced and thudded in my chest as my heartbeat echoed in my ears. Everything seemed so surreal. The moment all of this had been building up to was finally here. I followed her around the corner when she abruptly stopped, turning toward me.
“Mr. Adams, before we allow you to see your son, there’s something you should know—”
“I know. His lungs may be underdeveloped, and he might be hooked up to machines. Let’s get on with it. I want to meet my boy!” I nudged her forward. The anticipation was killing me. I wiped my sweaty palms on my pant leg as we headed to the nursery.
“You’ll need to put these on before you go in,” she handed me a blue hospital gown with a matching hairnet. “It’s to keep the germs down.”
Eager to see my baby boy, I yanked the get-up out of her hands and hurriedly tied the gown behind my neck and back before slipping on the cafeteria-style blue hairnet on the top of my head.
Walking into the nursery, there were only two babies: a tiny black boy swaddled in a blue blanket with tubes running into his bassinet and a baby girl wearing a small pink bow on her head.
Searching through all the bassinets, they were the only babies in the room. Puzzled, I turned to look at the nurse who had followed me in.
“Where’s my son? Are they running tests on him somewhere or something?”
“This is your son, Mr. Adams,” her finger pointed at the tiny black baby whose neck was craned to the right as he slept peacefully. “You can hold him if you would like.”
“What?” I was taken aback. What the hell does she mean this is my baby? My baby should be white—after all, my wife and I are both white. I didn’t make this baby with Tasha. She was only hosting the embryo that they had implanted in her. “This doesn’t make sense. This baby’s not white.”
“Is the mother’s name Natasha Williams?” she picked up the clipboard hanging on the back of the bassinet as she looked over the paperwork.
“Yes, but she’s not the mother. She’s the surrogate—the gestational surrogate. There’s got to be some sort of mix-up!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Adams, but this is the baby that we delivered this morning. Would you like to hold him?”
At a loss for words, I turned around and walked out of the nursery, ripping off the stupid hospital gown as I went. I stopped dead in my tracks before I made it all the way past the nurse’s station, “Where is she? Tasha?”
“She’s in recovery now, Mr. Adams, but you can talk to her shortly. Would you like me to come back to the waiting room to get you once we place her in a regular room?”
“Yes, please.”
What the hell just happened? How is my son black?
There’s no way that’s my baby in the nursery. No way. But how did they know the mother’s name if there was a mix-up?
Stunned, I flopped down in the chair by Darnell, trying to make some sense of what was going on. Staring at me, he finally asked, “So? Did you get to see him?”
“I don’t know.” The shock was beginning to set in.
If this was my baby—really my baby—how was I going to explain this to people?
Oh, my sister will have a field day with this when she finds out.
She kept warning me, telling me this was a bad idea.
“What do you mean you don’t know? Did you see him or not?”
“I’m not sure what the hell I just saw. I think—no, I don’t know.”
“Dude, I’m not following you. What are you talking about?”
“He’s…black,” I blurted out before I could think about what I said to him.
With him being black, I worried that I might have offended him, but what else was I supposed to say? I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth.
He started laughing.
“What you mean he’s black? I thought you said it was a test tube baby made from you and your wife?”
With my mind racing in a million different directions trying to put things together, I didn’t have time for his questions.
“I did,” I replied in an attempt to make him shut up so I could think. If that really was my baby sleeping in the nursery, how did he come out black? There could only be one explanation: she played me. My jaw tensed as my hands curled into fists.
If this is some fucking joke to her, I’ll kill her!
“Dude? What’s wrong? You look pissed.”
“She played me. Plain and simple, I got played.”
“What are you talking about? How’d she play you?”
“Darnell, you said you and your wife Katie are having a baby, right?”
“Yeah, a boy, if she ever hurries up and has him.”
“And what color will your baby be?”
“I don’t know, dude. Black? White? Mixed? It all depends on the genes bro; you know that.”
“Uh-huh. My point exactly! The only way a baby would be black is if it took dominant traits from one parent in an interracial pregnancy, or if both parents are black.”
“Right?”
It’s obvious he doesn’t get it. “Jesus! She must have already been pregnant! Either that or the pregnancy—my pregnancy—didn’t take and she was with another guy who knocked her up!
For fuck
’s sake.
Do you have any idea how much I’ve paid to have this baby? And she laughed all the way to the bank!” My head started pounding, I could feel my blood pressure rise with each tick of the enormous black and white clock on the wall.
“Dude? You think she got pregnant by a brother and said it was yours?”
His laughter pissed me off. “That’s exactly what I’m saying! Almost fifty-five thousand dollars, right down the toilet!”
His smirk disappeared, and his laughter halted. “Fifty-five grand?”
“Yeah! Having these babies aren’t cheap. By the time I paid her and pre-paid all the hospital expenses, it was close to fifty-five thousand dollars. For what? A black baby! One that’s not mine! The whole point of this was so that I could have my baby—with my wife! My dead wife!”
“Bro, I think you need a chill pill or something. You’re going to have a heart attack right here in the waiting room if you don’t settle down.”
“Settle down? She signed a contract! We both signed the same god damned contract. She was supposed to carry my baby and hand it over! Well, guess what?” Darnell looked at me in surprise and confusion. “That’s still my baby! I paid for it, and I’m taking it home whether she likes it or not! She might think she played me, but I’m going to win this game!”
“Can you do that? I thought once a chick has a baby, she gets to keep it no matter what. And then they’ll go after your ass for child support. That’s what happened to my homeboy Jamal. They went straight after him for child support and threw his ass in jail when he didn’t pay.”
“Child support is the last thing on my mind. This is all about custody. Damn it! I’m going to have my son one way or the other. I’m not into playing games, or whatever else she might have in store for me.”
“What are you going to do if she says it’s not your baby, and they say she can take it home since it’s hers? I mean, she’s the one that gave birth to it and all.”
“Darnell, I can promise you that I will not allow that to happen. As a matter of fact, I’m going to call my attorney right now and explain what’s going on. Someone’s going to get to the bottom of this!”
“Man, all you white dudes have a lawyer on speed dial, I swear.”
I shot him a look with fierce eyes. If we were in a different situation, I would deck him right where he stood.
“No, this is the attorney who has been overseeing everything about this pregnancy from the beginning. You have no idea how much legal stuff goes into something like this.”
My fist pounded the door open as I made my way to the elevator. This conversation is going to become very heated, and I don’t want everyone in the entire hospital to hear what’s going on. She’s not going to make me out to be some sort of fool.
Once I was out of the hospital’s main entrance, I continued marching on to my car so I can talk—or yell—to my lawyer. This last bit of charades was probably going to cost me an extra ten or fifteen grand, but it was worth it if it meant taking my son home.
The contract that we signed said nothing about whether or not the baby born was mine that I would get to keep it. It simply said the baby she was carrying was mine for the taking as soon as it was born and I fully intend to hold her to it.
Tasha
The nurses were following the doctor’s orders as they were getting me prepped for my C-section. Scared and nervous, I laid on my bed listening to them bark at each other to ensure they were following the checklist that each of them is required to do.
One nurse, in particular, Kathryn, is particularly nice to me. Ever since I got here, she’s made a big fuss over me. The other ones are less than personable.
Kathryn is the nurse who admitted me to the hospital a week ago when I first came in. I’m glad she’s here right now; she’s kept me calm and relaxed, which is a lot more than I can say about the other nurses.
“We’re almost done sweetie. The anesthesiologist will be here in a half hour to administer your epidural. Once we know you’re numb, we’ll start wheeling you back to the operating room. Are you feeling okay?”
I’m so ready to get this over. Are they sure the baby’s lungs are developed enough? He’s going to be all right, right?”
“With the amount of steroids you’ve been on, I think his lungs should be fine. You said you had a daughter already, right?” I nodded. “When he’s born, he’s going to be a lot smaller than a full-term baby, so you might need to prepare yourself for that before he’s born. He’ll be very tiny.”
“Is Blake here yet? He said he wanted to be here before they took me back for the C-section.”
“I’ll check in a minute,” she jiggled my IV, adjusting the dose of my meds. “That should do it. You try to lay back and get some rest. If you need anything, push your call button. I’ll be watching your room,” she added a wink. She knows that I don’t like the other nurses.
“Thanks, and will you let me know if he’s here?”
“Oh, yeah, sure thing. I’ll check now.”
This pregnancy is much harder than Nikki’s ever was. When I was pregnant with my baby girl, I didn’t have any problems. I couldn’t believe my ears when the doctors told me that I had developed pre-eclampsia.
At first they didn’t think it was a big deal that my hands and feet were swelling as bad as they were, but I knew something was wrong—but I didn’t think it was something this bad.
They finally figured things out when they checked my blood pressure and ran some testing on me. My doctor, Dr. Jackson, did everything in his power to keep me from having to deliver this baby so early, but he couldn’t stop my symptoms from progressing.
I’ve been in this hospital for almost a week now, on complete bed rest with IV fluids and crappy hospital food. I feel horrible that Nikki has had to stay with my mom for the last week. Ever since my mom had heart surgery, she hasn’t been able to help with my daughter as much as she used to.
When I originally agreed to become Blake’s surrogate for this baby, I only did it to help Nikki and myself—get us out of the ghetto and into a nicer place with better school districts.
I’m glad that her birthday was last month. She turned four. She would’ve had a terrible birthday if I had been in here then.
“Tasha?” Kathryn’s face appeared in the crack of my door. “Blake is in the waiting room. One of the nurses said he came in about an hour ago.”
“Good, thank you.”
Lost in my thoughts, I heard another knock on the door. “Come in.”
“Natasha Williams?”
“Yes?”
“I’m your anesthesiologist today, and I’ll be the one who will administer your epidural. I’ll need you to sit up, on the edge of your bed for this.” He started removing instruments from the tray. “Your nurse will come in in just a moment to help me. Can you hold this pillow in front of your belly?”
Taking the pillow off my bed, I rolled it up and put it in front of me. I’ve been through this before when I had Nikki. There was no way on God’s green earth that I was having a natural childbirth.
My grandmom has told me horror stories about childbirth ever since I started menstruating. She’s always said things like, “Back in my day, there were no drugs. You felt that baby ripping every piece of flesh as it tore its way out.” The latter statement scared me the most. Ever since she told me that, I knew drugs were the only way to go.
“You ready?” Kathryn asked the anesthesiologist as she walked in.
“Yep, just need you to help her get into position and hold her there while I do my job back here.” He walked behind me as he started feeling my spine.
“Okay, Tasha, lean forward and roll your shoulders like this,” she demonstrated how she wanted me.
Getting into position, the anesthesiologist started talking again as a cold swab ran over my back giving me goosebumps.
“I’m cleaning the area with an antiseptic, it’s to help prevent infection, and then you’ll feel a slight stinging on your back, but
I’ll need you to hold still.”
The cold swab left my back, which I was grateful for, but I knew what was coming next. Taking a deep breath as I braced myself, I exhaled as I felt the needle piercing my back.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!”
“You’re doing great Tasha, keep holding still. I’ve almost got it in place.”
Rolling my eyes, I remained frozen until he was finished. “Are you done yet?”
“Almost. I need to finish putting this tape over the area to hold the needle in its place, and then you can relax until it’s time for surgery.”
They left my room after helping me back onto my bed. I can’t wait to see what this baby looks like. Blake’s a good-looking man, but I don’t know what his wife looked like since I’ve never seen a picture.
I imagine it’ll have a fair complexion with dark hair, like him. He’s not too tall, about 5’10”, I would guess, and I remember him telling me that his wife was a petite woman with light brown hair. I bet this baby only comes out to be about 18-inches long. Looking down at my stomach, it seems about right.
Nikki was 19 1/2” long, and her daddy is tall. Troy, Nikki’s dad, and I were never really a thing. The three of us have never been what you would call a family. He was around, off and on until he went to prison. Ever since, I’ve been on my own with her but it’s probably better that way.
“Tasha,” Dr. Jackson called my name as he flipped through my chart. “How are you feeling? Pretty numb?” he poked around on my legs and belly.
“Can’t feel a thing.”
“Good, I’ll let your nurse know, and I’ll meet you down in the O.R.”
God, please let this baby be healthy.
Blake has wanted this baby for so long, and he would break into pieces if anything bad happens. When we first met, he was stunned that the agency had matched him up with me—a black woman.
