You Got Anything Stronger?

by Gabrielle Union

  The closest I could get was Natalie. I reached down from the air to fasten myself to her with a loose knot. I started conversations about books we’d read, sharing experiences I could still keep at a slight distance. Things that were safe.

  Over the passage of weeks and books, the bed rest seemed to be working. The embryo’s heartbeat remained strong, and the issue with Natalie’s cervix mended itself. Near the end of the first trimester, we all returned to Dr. Baek’s office, this time with Dwyane, for the first 4-D ultrasound. Two couples crowded into a room built for one, awkward in our affection for each other, yet still feeling like strangers. This was the first time Dwyane had even met Natalie and her husband in person, and our hugs were those of people who did not know each other but had survived something as a unit. She was showing me her stomach, turning to the side, cupping the weight of my own maternal ineptitude. This growing bump that everyone thought I wanted to see was now a visual manifestation of my failure. I smiled, wanting to show I—we—were so happy and grateful. Absolutely there was that genuine feeling. But part of me felt more worthless. My pinch hitter was knocking it out of the park. I couldn’t hit a ball and not only was she hitting every curveball, but when they changed pitchers in the middle of the count, she was still hitting ’em. A regular Babe Ruth, calling her shot.

  And I was the statistician, taking notes on weight and BPMs. It’s like Ring Night, when you’re looking at the twelfth guy on the championship team like, “Are you really gonna wear that ring? You didn’t do shit. You didn’t even play.”

  Natalie lay down for Dr. Baek to pass the ultrasound wand over the bump. “There she is,” she said.

  And she was. There. Here. This very clear little baby in there. Her big-ass head, her spine, her little heart pumping, pumping, pumping. Determined to live. It was suddenly incredibly real. Dwyane took my hand, and there was so much happiness on his face, I lost it. My cry was a choke stopped up in my throat, tears streaming down.

  It was grief. I’d had nine miscarriages. I say the following with the caveat that I am steadfast in being pro-choice. I was on a fertility journey at forty-four. The smallest cell was weighted with the expectation of life. A zygote was a baby, just on potential alone. When one of my eggs was examined, that was a baby. When Dwyane got a sperm analysis, that was a baby. Every swimmer was our baby. But when I miscarried in the first trimester, I never thought I had lost a baby baby. I had never let it count. Looking at the screen, I understood how many potential babies I had lost. That’s why I was crying. A floodgate of grief and sorrow overcame me, threatened to drown me.

  I saw my husband so happy, and I was not a part of it. I felt a chasm widening between us. I was embarrassed to be crying so much, but everyone was looking at me with smiles and nods. They thought these were tears of gratitude. The awe of witnessing the start of life. I was reliving death. Of course I was grateful, it would be impossible not to be. But what I was grateful for was that this life might be spared. That that heartbeat might continue, beat strong for decades, long after my own stopped. So many had stopped inside me. “Nope, I’m making it,” this heartbeat said. “It was just you, bitch. Just you.”

  I allowed the misreading of my tears. Crying conveyed my gratitude and showed that I was a good mom. My first performance in competitive mothering. Nailed it.

  We told the kids soon after, at the beginning of the second trimester. We wanted them to feel part of the surrogacy journey, but made them pledge not to tell anyone. We’d had a celebrity friend whose surrogate was hunted by photographers. We didn’t want that for Natalie.

  “And anything can happen,” I added.

  I said it quickly, as an aside. A shadow fell on their faces, swift, like a cloud blocking out the sun for just a second. They already knew that.

  * * *

  I was on the other side of the world from my daughter when I began to let myself look forward to her arrival. We were in Beijing on business for Dwyane, who is insanely popular in China. We brought friends with us. It was the end of July, the five-month mark we had never made it to. Dwyane’s sureness was something to behold and envy. He was so certain she was going to make it that we told our friends. After my first miscarriage, I had never ever told people when we were expecting. Even this felt dangerous. The words were out of my mouth to my friends and I thought, What the fuck did I just do?

  Dwyane broke out whiskey and cigars, and he announced that he wanted to get a tattoo of her name on his shoulders. By then we had added a second “a” to her name—Kaavia—because we were convinced people would pronounce her name with the long a of “cave” if we kept it with one. There was something about her that told me she needed two names, so we called her Kaavia James, after my uncle and godfather, James Glass. My uncle is one of the freest spirits I have known. Funny, intelligent, and unapologetically Black.

  Dwyane wanted to get the tattoo that night, her name on both shoulders, written where his Heat jersey would cover it. I was terrified of the permanency. As he sat before me with his shirt off, I placed my hands where her name would be, and kissed the top of his head. I thought of something he would sometimes say to himself and to others: “My belief is stronger than your doubt.” He usually said this when he was counted out after an injury, or walking away from a deal everyone thought he was crazy to turn away. But this was different. I didn’t know if his belief was strong enough for both of us.

  It would have to be. My fear continued to make me dissociate from reality. When we came home to L.A., I devoured every parenting podcast, book, and blog. I am someone who overprepares for everything. I rehearse ordering a pizza. All of it stuck, but I couldn’t imagine putting it into practice. I was studying for a test I never thought I would be able to take.

  I realized I was ready to parent well, but not to mother. I’d made sure Kaavia James got the very best womb with a hip surrogacy family who played the Earth, Wind & Fire, Hall & Oates, and Luther Vandross I requested. But I kept her at arm’s length, because she could still be snatched away. She didn’t feel part of me, the emotional thing that a lot of women have told me they felt while they were carrying. That grounding connection that I physically did not have, and that I wasn’t allowing myself to have emotionally.

  I wanted to talk about it with my mom, but I was never that daughter. I had been parented well, and I was mothered well, but I rejected much of that. I felt a natural allergy to being “smother-mothered,” as I call it, and needed my independence. Growing up, I was always clear with my mom that I was not the kid who needed to be rocked to sleep. I didn’t want the huggy, hovery kind of mom, and my mom had always seemed to understand that mothering is not one-size-fits-all. My two sisters and my three adoptive young siblings—two teens and a preteen who my mom adopted at birth as a single-parent senior—all needed different things.

  And yet, when I have been at my darkest, when I wanted to be comforted or soothed, I heard a mantra. I want my mom. I just want my mom. I want my mom. That’s what I said in my head, but I never called on her. Not once.

  When I called to tell her about Kaavia James, I surprised myself by asking for her. “Mom, she’s due at Thanksgiving,” I said, trying to sound casual but landing on awkward. “Are you cool to be able to, you know, come in for that . . . ?” I trailed off. I didn’t want her to be there, like, holding me. I just needed to know that she was there supporting me in this next thing in my life. And frankly, I think I was still holding on to this idea of what childbirth is supposed to look like. A woman is supposed to have her husband and her mother there.

  “Oh yeah, yeah,” she said quickly. “I’ll find someone to watch the kids. I’ll be there, no problem.”

  If she was surprised, she didn’t let on. When I hung up, I wondered if she’d always been ready to be there, waiting my whole life while I kept her just out of reach. Motherhood as a standing army. Not always active duty, but ready when called.

  I decided to tell my dad when we flew out for the Nebraska Cornhuskers home opener. Before th
at, we told my uncle James outside a bar the night before the game. He was so happy for us. “We wanted to name her after somebody that means the world to me,” I said. “So, our daughter, Kaavia James—”

  “Oh, wow,” he said, overcome. Dwyane pulled the collar of his shirt aside to show the new tats of her name. “Oh, wow,” he said again, starting to cry. I’d never seen my uncle cry. He was the guy who saw sadness and switched up the music, poured a drink, and knew how to make everyone forget their troubles. Through tears, in so many words, he told me he knew how much we wanted this miracle child, and was touched that I thought so highly of him that we wanted to honor him this way.

  I was excited to tell my dad and wanted it to be part of a huge night we had planned. We’d flown him out from Arizona for the game, his first home opener. His first Cornhusker game, period. My dad was seventy-four, born and raised in Nebraska as the biggest Cornhusker fan, but had never been to a game. The thing is that pretty much everyone in Nebraska—every ethnicity—is a massive Cornhusker fan, but when you physically go to the game, other than the Black people on the field, there aren’t many others in the stadium watching the games. A lot of people have willed their tickets to the next generation, so the crowd remains white.

  So, this night would be extra special. I planned on telling him at Memorial Stadium after the game. Or maybe during, I wasn’t sure. Whenever the moment felt perfect. We got there early, and noticed the skies were threatening as we spent about thirty minutes taking pictures with fans. Dwyane was in a Cornhuskers jersey the university gave him, custom-made with his number. He was in a euphoric mood, taking selfies with anyone who asked. My dad was beaming, turning his head around to take in being so close to the field. I loved being on the edge of knowing I was about to tell him this wonderful news.

  But ten minutes into the game, lightning flashed over Lincoln, and they announced a rain delay. We went to the airport hangar to wait out the rain. I was so nervous, pacing around, that we finally decided to just tell him.

  “So, Dad,” I said, “we are expecting our daughter on Thanksgiving via surrogate.”

  He looked at me, holding out his hand like he was deciphering a riddle. “No shit?” he said. And then he looked at my stomach. I realized the riddle was how I wasn’t showing if I was pregnant with a baby due in two months. As he stared at my stomach, it was this immediate kick to the teeth.

  “Oh, nooooo,” I said. “She’s being born by a surrogate.” On the one hand, I was getting to tell my dad that he is finally going to have this grandchild that he has wanted from me, and asked about nonstop, since my late twenties. But I had to explain that no, I am not able to physically give you this child, but she’s coming. It felt like explaining failure during a win.

  “Are ya gonna let her see her kid after?” he asked.

  Her kid. I had to explain surrogacy to him, and no matter what, the concept wasn’t getting through that this baby was genetically mine and Dwyane’s. And also, I wanted to be mindful that every fertility journey is different. This baby would be no less mine if she came to us through an egg donation or sperm donation, or adoption.

  He joked about me having to find someone to get the job done, and it stung. It still stings now. My father communicates through sarcasm and digs, and for years that was my default with people I loved, too. We matched wits with put-downs, but it’s something I’m consciously working on not doing, and I’ve changed. Now, it doesn’t feel like my dad and me bonding, it feels like the opposite. There was no denying he was excited, while at the same time remaining so defiantly confused about how surrogacy works that I wondered if he was doing a bit. But, now my parents both knew.

  As I began to tell more friends, they were literally overjoyed, their happiness spilling over to a point that I sometimes physically stepped back. As they tried to show how beside themselves they were with anticipation, I nodded and smiled. They all asked when I would be having a baby shower.

  “Let’s wait until she’s here,” I’d say, looking down. I’d tempted fate enough.

  The L.A.’s Finest pilot had been picked up, so I had to tell my employer, executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and Sony, our production studio. You know, “Hey, don’t tell anyone, but I’m having a baby via surrogate. She’s coming on Thanksgiving.” I fantasized that they would be completely thrown and it would cause all these issues. Nope, they were thrilled. Then I remembered that I was the boss, as well. I had created the workplace of a parent’s dream for Jessica. I just still couldn’t fathom it being mine, too.

  They started talking about quietly outfitting my trailer to make it baby-friendly, basically preparing for the birth of the golden child. A celebrity mom I knew suggested a baby nurse, and was alarmed that I had not lined one up already. My complete and utter lack of physical preparation was apparent when the nurse started in-person meetings to get to know us and prep our new house in L.A., which we were still in the process of moving into. I saw the alarm on her face as she realized nothing was ready. Finally, she just said, “Where’s the baby gonna go? And where am I gonna sleep?”

  “Oh, it’ll be fine,” I said, bluffing. “It’ll be finished.”

  Nothing had changed by the next meeting. Imagine A Baby Story meets Flip or Flop with the HGTV narrator tut-tutting, “Gab said she wanted a baby for years, but now, at crunch time, the nursery’s not complete. They don’t even have window treatments.”

  Things finally started to fall into place as we headed into October, inching closer to her Thanksgiving due date. My trailer was ready, and all the things were ready at home. A beautiful nursery and a closet that rivaled a starlet’s. Picture-perfect preparation on paper, with everyone ready except Kaav’s mother.

  I could busy myself throughout the day, but there was no blocking out the thought at night. Brushing my teeth the night before my birthday in late October, I looked at myself in the mirror. You’re gonna be a whole-ass forty-five, I thought, and teen moms are more prepared than you are.

  * * *

  A week after my birthday, I was on my way to the gym before work. It was 11 A.M., and I’d been on the set late the night before. I had what I call my wig braids in, the prison cornrows I put my hair in so I can just pop my work wig on when I get there.

  My phone rang. I looked down and saw Natalie’s name. Natalie, her husband, Dwyane, and I were all in a group text chain, and that’s how we usually talked unless we arranged a call. I pressed the speaker.

  “My water broke,” she said.

  “Hunh?” I said.

  I know, I know. I try to pay so much attention to words and my response was “Hunh?” I had Kaavia James’s due date in my mind as set. She would be here at Thanksgiving. I was just getting used to it being November.

  “I’m headed to the hospital now,” she said.

  “Okay!” I said. “Okay.”

  I called D. He was in Miami, and in the first few weeks of his final NBA season, which the media had christened “One Last Dance” as soon as he announced his retirement two months prior.

  “Natalie’s water broke.”

  “I can get there by eight P.M.,” he said. He’d had a plane on standby for just this moment. He called the pilot right away.

  “Just get here as fast as you can,” I said, having no clue how fast these things go. “Hopefully you get here in time.”

  I called my mom. She picked up quick, like there was a call sheet that went out that morning that didn’t include me. “I’ll get on the first flight.”

  I realized I was still driving to the gym. Some magical thinking took hold, and I wondered if I should still work out before work. Shit, work, I thought. I called them, and they had a whole plan and would put it into motion. Of course they had a plan—we were that kind of set. Friend o’ Mothers. They would shoot all of Jessica’s stuff, which meant she was going to have to work every day to compensate while I was out on maternity leave.

  I called Jessica. “No problem,” she said, going into Robomom mode. “On it.”
r />   The car was silent when I hung up. “Uh, well,” I said to myself. “That was fast.” So right, D and my mom were on their way, I didn’t have to worry about work . . . the baby nurse. I had to call the baby nurse. Again, she picked up right away. Unbeknownst to me, she was hunkering down in town in case the baby came early. “Thank God,” I said, “because that had just not occurred to me.”

  By then at least I realized I wasn’t going to the gym. I turned around to head home and get the bag I’d packed. Of course, I had the perfect bag packed—I wanted that A-plus. I had done all the things I was supposed to do, but this wasn’t how I pictured it. I looked in the mirror quick, and saw my prison braids. I called my friend and hairstylist Larry Sims.

  “I’ve gotta drive down to the hospital,” I said. “But I, um, uhh, look crazy. And I know I’m gonna take pictures and I don’t want to look crazy. Can you, um, come and put a wig on me?” I laughed. He came right over. Off I went.

  On the way down, a friend texted me that a tabloid TV show was working on a story that I had moved out on D and was living on my own in California while he and the rest of the family were in Miami. We were splitting up. It was over.

  “Oh,” I said, laughing to myself. She didn’t know about Kaavia James at all. I thought of a dozen or so replies, then hit her back: “We’re good.”

  We reserved a hotel and rushed to our surrogate, descending on this hospital in no time. My mom got there before Dwyane. She is a reader like me—favoring Black mystery and sci-fi by authors like Walter Mosley and Octavia Butler—and she’d brought so many books with her that I realized she wasn’t sure if I wanted her physically in the room. She was prepared to bide her time if her arm’s-length daughter would have her sit in a hallway somewhere. D arrived in his black Sweet Sixteen hoodie, commemorating his sixteenth season in the NBA, and the baby nurse and her crew were there with these very Republican-looking Ann Coulter Collection receiving gowns steamed and hanging in the hospital room.