I look at the scan again because I had not picked up on the solo baby the first time.
“Yes there is only one, I see it now,” I confirm to Jayson. The graph, I realise now, is the foetal heartbeat of one baby.
A tear wells in my eye. I see traces of our child’s existence. There is a child growing inside Porn. Our little genetic model is slowly taking shape.
10 WEEKS
“Ten weeks today.” I read the report with such excitement.
“Porn has morning sickness. But she eats and sleeps well,” the report from Kay confirms. She doesn’t look as well in the picture today. Poor thing. She looks pale, probably because of the nausea.
“Always after eating in the morning, she does not feel well,” Kay adds in the email.
“Don’t worry, you two, she will get better during the second trimester. Dr Pisit will give her some progesterone (a kind of steroid, I believe) and Pluton to kill the morning sickness.” I laugh at the word “kill”. Kay does a fine job communicating in English, but inevitably some nuances die in translation.
“Kay, can you please send her a hamper today? I will reimburse you later,” I ask Kay as a favour. I want her to eat enough for both our baby and her.
“The Jewish in you, eat, eat, eat and all will be well,” Jayson says, remembering how I always try to force-feed him when he doesn’t feel well.
“I worry she may not be getting enough sleep, as well. Did you see her? She looks sickly.”
“Well, what do you expect? She is with child. And enough with the damn worry! You will never stop worrying for the rest of your life. Every day you will find new reasons to worry about your child.”
But I am richer with happiness today, richer for having an offspring on the way. Another four weeks and I can relax a bit more because it will be the end of the first trimester. I count the days.
Later that week, Kay emails to say Porn thanked us for the hampers. “She is well and eating so you don’t worry about sending food hampers because she eats enough for two. She does not want to go out. Stays home, very careful and not much housework.”
I smile when I read it. She is looking after our baby, I think.
12 WEEKS
I am over the moon with happiness. The end of the first trimester. What an achievement on Porn’s part. She looks amazing in the picture Kay sent. There are no tell-tale signs of her pregnancy. I notice she is wearing some makeup, and she looks glowing with a big smile. She has put on some weight, two kilos to be exact, since her pregnancy. The tests show a healthy pregnancy. We are excited!
“Your baby’s heartbeat is stronger than average,” Kay translates the medical report. “Porn is in very good spirits and no more morning sickness. Every day, she rubs her belly and talks to your baby. She tells stories about two daddies in Australia and how much they love it. She says your baby knows you are not talking because you are far away from them.”
I am reduced to tears. This beautiful thing Porn does for us.
The report shows our baby is about two inches longer, crown-to-rump length, about the size of a golfball. It weighs about fourteen grams. Tiny! I google and the net says at this stage it flexes its muscles and its reflexes are becoming more honed. It will squirm if Porn prods her belly though Porn can’t really feel it moving around yet.
The ultrasound report says the foetal heartbeat is normal and our baby is mighty fine. We were in “not so safe” pregnancy zone during the first trimester. Now that it’s over, I feel a weight off my chest. It dawns on me why most women choose not to tell anyone about their pregnancy until the first trimester is over. The second trimester is always more promising. It’s the time when you recognise the pregnancy insecurities are over and this daily fear of losing the foetus is more at bay. We hope the second trimester is as much of a breeze.
I arrive in Singapore to spend a couple of days with my parents before heading to London for work.
All hell breaks loose when I receive a disturbing email from Kay. The subject bar reads “Positive Down Syndrome”.
“Aaron, problem, Porn tested positive for Down syndrome.”
At first, without the facts, the words hit me like a tornado. I am stunned. I stand still at the internet cafe near my parents’ home, almost bursting into tears. The doctor’s report is so frightening at a glance, especially the word “POSITIVE” highlighted in capital letters.
“You have 1 in 190 chances that your baby has Down syndrome,” Kay reports, to my relief, and 1 in 276 was the ratio I read later.
We have a good chance our baby does not have Down syndrome but the positive test gives me another thing to worry about.
Down syndrome is a naturally occurring part of the human condition and affects about 1 in 800 live births. It causes varying degrees of intellectual and physical differences, and parenting a Down syndrome child can be a difficult lifetime task. The child will need special care, school and attention, and I have looked in admiration at the parents and the strength they demonstrate in the upbringing of their Down syndrome child, although it’s clear that their child can bring as much if not more joy to them as any other child would. There is nothing wrong with a Down syndrome baby – the problem is in our culture, which doesn’t make enough room for something outside a perceived norm. This is what makes it tough for the parents, not the baby itself.
I ring Kay, who can explain what the statistics mean. Unfortunately I can’t get hold of her so I do some research myself. I type the words “my baby tested positive for Down syndrome”.
The first blog that flashes up on Chrome is mybabycentre.com. Hundreds of posted blogs and comments shoot up everywhere. Most are from expecting mothers, some with Down syndrome babies already. They share their plight, pain and struggles with the condition. I get an insight into the world of a Down syndrome baby and their family.
Reading through the blogs, I realise we have a higher than 95 per cent chance that our baby will not be affected. Most of the mothers on the blogs say “not to worry”, “your baby will be fine”. One woman says she had a 1 in 4 chance but delivered a typical baby.
“I worried myself sick by crying constantly for weeks on end. I couldn’t function after receiving the positive results. It affected my pregnancy, resulting in a depression for several weeks. Then I delivered my child and it was healthy. I was upset at myself for allowing the number to beat me up during my pregnancy.”
Out of the 100 blog postings I read, only one mother had delivered a Down syndrome baby and she elaborated on her experience, writing, “I am glad I didn’t abort the pregnancy because my baby is indeed the cutest and I am crazy about her. It doesn’t matter to me anymore.”
A few suggest avoiding any further tests to determine the findings. The ones like the amino tests increase the chance of miscarrying, with odds being something like 1 in 1,000 for those who do the test. But everyone recommends we do a second ultrasound because at this stage most people find the ratio increases.
“My first result was 1 in 137, but subsequent tests showed it was 1 in 376,” one wrote.
There is a lot of advice to enjoy the pregnancy and not let the news bog you down. It is just a statistic! These tests are mostly inconclusive.
Some parents chose not to do any further tests, deciding they would love and accept their child regardless.
“Down syndrome is not a death sentence and it is certainly not the end of the world for your child.”
“It will be difficult, but at the end of the day it is your own flesh and blood so you will learn to manage.”
It is helpful but still worrying. I breathe a sigh of relief before ringing Jayson. He has been googling all morning as well. He doesn’t seem worried but is calm and collected.
“It is our child so we will accept it for what it is. Down syndrome or not, it is ours,” he says. But the reality is that it is another challenge our baby is bringing us.
Kay’s report worries me significantly. I read it thoroughly once again and notice at the bottom of the pa
ge, “Most expecting parents will proceed to deliver healthy babies.”
After a few hours of research at the internet cafe, I ring Kay again and get through.
“Don’t worry because another client of mine, the surrogate mother had one in fifty-two chances and just delivered a healthy baby boy.” She recommends we conduct a NIFTY test for more certainty.
“In case the results come back positive, you can prepare yourselves for the next steps, including proper care and understanding of your baby’s condition,” Kay says.
The NIFTY test, according to Kay, is a simple, non-invasive blood test which detects Down syndrome and other genetic conditions without any risk to the foetus or Porn. From blood samples, DNA from the baby is analysed in order to examine the baby’s chromosomes. Typically, our cells each contain twenty-three pairs of chromosomes but with Down syndrome people have an extra chromosome in their cells – forty-seven in all, instead of forty-six.
“We can also identify the baby’s gender,” she tells me of the offer.
“Yes, let’s do a NIFTY,” I say.
With our approval, the NIFTY test is orchestrated. It takes three weeks to get the results and it is one of the longest periods of our lives. Besides this, more dramas eventuate, and this time it is nothing anyone could have ever predicted.
Many parents-to-be choose not to know the baby’s gender but we are not one of those parents. We are realists! Meticulous planning people, as I have mentioned. “There must be no surprise at birth.”
We want to know the gender so we can shop for appropriate clothes at the beautiful kids’ stores in Paris on our upcoming trip. We have plans to design and decorate the nursery to our liking when we return from Europe. And we dislike yellow, the colour most parents opt for when they do not want to know their baby’s gender.
“I want a boy,” Jayson tells me. “It will be easier to manage because we are of the same sex.”
“I want a girl so we can dress her in pretty frocks from the Parisian children’s boutiques, the ones I see at the Left Bank,” I reply. Truth is, I dream about tying her hair in cute ponytails with beautiful silk pastel gingham ribbons. I am a closet hairdresser.
But whatever the gender, we will be most grateful to have a healthy baby.
I email Kay, telling her that as soon as she knows the gender, she must tell us.
“OK, maybe we can tell in next ultrasound in two days’ time. Depends on the baby’s position on the day. Sometimes Doctor cannot see,” she explains. “But we will try for you.”
We await the news in sincere anticipation.
It is the crack of dawn in Singapore, 7am, and I am still asleep at my parents’ home when the phone rings. My mum wakes me up.
“It’s Jayson on the phone, it sounds urgent.”
Half-asleep, I pick up the phone.
“Hello.”
“It’s a boy.” His first audible words on the phone.
We received an email overnight from Kay confirming our baby’s gender.
“It’s a boy! It’s a boy! A grandson!” I scream out loud to the Elias clan whose eyes are all on me, wondering at the reason for Jayson’s early call.
“We are going to have a son, a little Brunsdon Junior with blue eyes like Jayson and olive skin like me,” I say. The little treasure is truly on his way.
23
“Surrogacy is Dead in the Water”
We are looking forward to our holiday in Spain, or the “babymoon” as our friends call it. I am in London. London is bustling, and it’s surprisingly sunny. I stay with my cousin Raphael, who has recovered from his recent illness, the tropical virus he contracted a few months ago. He is a new person. Seeing him well has brought some hope and faith back into my life. We spend the days talking, reminiscing about when we were growing up. Neither of us believes how our lives have changed, from such humble beginnings to him being a father of five living in London.
Jayson will meet me here in a couple of weeks and together we will travel to Paris, Milan, Lake Como and Mallorca, Spain for ten days to celebrate both our birthdays. Within a week, Jayson is turning fifty and I am turning forty-two. You can imagine the excitement. It will be the last holiday until our son is old enough to travel with us – something we intend to do a lot in the future.
In London, I develop an addiction for baby’s clothes. Now that we know he is a boy, I am busy shopping for clothes in the trendy kids stores in Chelsea and Mayfair. I go crazy in Notting Hill for handmade knitted or crocheted blankets for him. Everything I’ve bought so far is white or baby blue. I love saying “him” and I haven’t stopped referring to “him” in my daily conversations. It is fun to indulge in my other favourite hobby – shopping! I won’t stop shopping for him. He will have the best of everything, I promise myself.
Porn, I have been told, is adjusting to changes in her body as bubba grows inside her. Our little boy is flexing some serious muscles. He is kicking and playing acrobatic havoc in Porn’s tummy. The monthly report arrived today. Everything is going to plan, but my sixth sense has been telling me bad news is on the way. I don’t know why, but this feeling of trepidation is causing some panic during my shopping expedition in London.
Once again my intuition is right, because days later bad news breaks of Down syndrome baby Gammy, the catalyst that put surrogacy to an end in Thailand.
“Unable to function normally because of injury or chronic pain” is the meaning of “gammy” in the English Dictionary. However, in the northern hemisphere spring of 2014, Gammy is a surrogate baby born with Down syndrome and critically ill with a congenital heart disorder. He lands in our daily newspapers and blitzes all international media and news channels around the world including BBC, CNN and ABC for weeks, touching millions of people worldwide. He is the cause célèbre which forces the hands of the Thai junta to accelerate the crackdown on surrogacy in Thailand.
According to media reports at the time, Gammy’s intended parents abandoned him at birth and took his healthy twin, leaving him with the destitute surrogate mother Januba, a street food seller who reportedly got paid more than $15,000 to carry the child for the Western Australian couple, Frank and Wendy Farnell. Januba was struggling with debts and needed the funds badly.
In a routine pregnancy test on the fourth month, it was discovered that Januba was carrying twins – one (Gammy) with Down syndrome. But, it was reported, no one had the decency to tell the poor woman anything about the boy’s condition. According to the media at the time, when the Australian couple learned of Gammy’s condition, they said they wouldn’t accept the baby. They asked the unscrupulous agent to instruct Januba to have an abortion. The agent, worried about the dent in her pocket, did not pass the instructions to Januba until the seventh month, at which time Januba refused to abort, primarily due to her religious Buddhist beliefs. It would also have been a recipe for disaster for her to do so.
Newpapers alleged that the couple would not pay her and, worried Gammy would be placed into an institution, Januba lied to officials of the Australian Embassy in Bangkok about the circumstances of the births, protecting Gammy’s future with her at the same time. This allowed Frank and Wendy to escape with the healthy twin, Pipah, back home.
Now left in Bangkok broke with the critically ill baby, Januba reached out for help from several Thai charities. It all escalated from there. Gammy’s abandonment spread across the world, raising more than $300,000 for his medical bills. It also came with a big outpouring of anger from the general public, honourable but misinformed people from all over the world, angered by the couple’s alleged actions.
In April 2016, an Australian court ruled that David and Wendy Farnell did not abandon baby Gammy but had wanted to keep him. The surrogate mother had refused to part with Gammy. But since when has the truth got in the way of a good story? And you must never believe everything you read. The story went into overdrive.
“Heartless individuals who left a broken toy behind, like the way they picked the one they wanted and ripped aw
ay the baby from its twin,” I read online somewhere. I watch the story unfold on the BBC and CNN while in London. Seeing Januba cry while holding the innocent baby Gammy, I burst out into tears myself. They seem helpless, and I am moved by Januba’s desperate plea.
“I can’t leave him behind. Because I carry him nine months in my stomach. He has no one in this world because his real parents don’t want him,” she cries in an interview.
“I am a mother myself and will do what it takes to keep my Gammy alive and well,” she says later. It is endless.
“How cruel for anyone to behave like this, especially to a sick child,” is my first response towards the Farnells. We didn’t know the full circumstances of that case or that an Australian court would exonerate the Farnells from abandoning their baby and show that our conclusions and thoughts were untrue.
I am now worried about our child’s NIFTY test results. I promise myself that if the results come back positive for Down syndrome, I will still fight for my son and love him the same. I will never abandon him.
“He is mine, after all.”
Two days later, conflicting reports emerge. The couple are reported to have said they had a daughter of similar age to Gammy, born through surrogacy, but what twin? No such thing. He is a mystery. They describe their experience with the surrogacy agency as “traumatising”. Januba says the couple stayed in Thailand for a month when the twins were born. This blame game goes on and on, fuelling a media circus for the international press.
Around the same time, I receive an email from Sam about Thailand’s new military junta government. It had announced a review of twelve IVF clinics in Thailand, including our clinic, All IVF.
“Surrogacy has been conducted discreetly with a no questions asked policy,” says a government spokesperson in the article Sam attached. It goes on to say some operators in the industry have crossed the line by offering gender selection to their clients. “This is something the new Thai government will not condone,” it states.
I didn’t know gender selection was popular in Thailand and supposed it was due to growing Chinese demand (one child policy, I guess, and it better be a boy so he can carry the family’s name). But for a lot of people (including myself) and Thailand’s Buddhist culture, this was an abomination. They had no choice but to act swiftly. I don’t blame them. Bloody outrageous, don’t you think? You’re not in a petshop, with the liberty to choose your dog’s sex.
Designer Baby Page 18
