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I want to throw up and scream at the same time. I’ve never heard of such a thing as being given the wrong sperm. Fear courses through me.
“I’m afraid the hospital policy forbids me from telling you the name of the sperm donor.”
“Oh really? The same hospital policy that has me carrying a strange man’s baby?” My voice drips with sarcasm.
Panic rises up my throat. I glance at my belly. Whose baby am I carrying?
“The hospital apologizes for the distress this has caused, and we’ll do everything in our power to make things right.” Her voice wavers a bit in the last few words.
“How will you do that?” I scream into the phone.
A knock comes on my bedroom door. “Ivy, are you okay?” My roommate and best friend, Peter asks.
I cover the mouthpiece. “No.”
The door bursts open, and Peter enters. He comes to the bed and sits on the edge. “What happened?”
I shove the phone at him.
“Hello,” he says.
As the reality of what has happened dawns on me, tears fall from my eyes and stream down my face. Peter takes my hand and squeezes it as he explains who he is to the woman on the phone. “I’m the one who came with her to the clinic,” he says and then goes quiet as he listens to the woman on the other end.
Peter tried to dissuade me from being a surrogate mom, but nothing he could have said would have made a difference. He didn’t understand my all-consuming ambition to succeed as a writer, and to be honest, it scared me sometimes. I wanted it so badly that I was willing to sacrifice anything for it.
Horror draws itself on his face, and his gaze drops to my belly. It’s soon replaced by anger.
“How can you make such a mistake?” he thunders into the phone. “This is someone’s life you’re talking about.”
A few moments later, he disconnects the phone without saying goodbye. He places it on my bedside table and climbs into my bed. He hugs me and murmurs comforting words. “Everything will work out just fine,” he says.
I raise my head to look at him. “How, Peter? Tell me how. I’m supposed to be pregnant with the Clarks’ baby, now I don’t even know whose child I’m carrying. What am I supposed to do with a baby?”
“The clinic is offering a termination,” he says softly.
An icy chill curls up my spine. Termination is not something that has crossed my mind, and the very thought of it makes me sick to my stomach. “I can’t do that. I’m carrying a real baby.”
“But this is not the deal you signed with the Clarks, Ivy. They wanted a baby who was half theirs,” Peter says.
My defenses shoot up. “It’s not my fault, you know.”
“I know, sweetheart. I’m just reminding you of the facts. I don’t want you to make a mistake here. If you keep the baby, you’ll have to raise it yourself.”
It’s too much to think about. The air in my bedroom has become stifled, and I throw the duvet back. “I need some fresh air.”
“I’ll be in the living room,” Peter says and leaves my bedroom.
I throw on a T-shirt and a pair of joggers. Peter offers to come on the walk with me, but I turn down the offer. I need time to think. To make my own decision.
2
Alec
Relief surges through me as we close up with small sutures. It was a difficult surgery with the myoma behind the uterus, deep in the pelvis. We close up, and ten minutes later, someone helps me take off the surgical gown and gloves.
As I scrub my hands in the sink, I muse over the surgery and how well it has gone. Rebecca will now have a chance at carrying a normal pregnancy. A feeling of having fulfilled my purpose settles inside me. This is the reason why I do what I do. My patients are not just bodies under the sheet that I cut up. They are people with hopes and dreams, most of which have to do with families. They want babies, and it is part of my job to help them achieve their goals.
I finish cleaning up and push the doors open. The first person I see pacing up and down the hallway is my older brother Jace. When he sees me, he scrapes a hand through his hair, his classic sign of nervousness.
