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Authors: Giselle Green
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quite as…personal as this.
‘The timing is not the best,’ I begin, wondering how on earth I’m going to be able to get out of it. The timing is the least of it as far as I’m concerned because there will never be a good time to ask me for something which I have so little inclination to do. But she’s my sister and she’s desperate…
‘Hol, are you saying that if you got some good quality eggs you’d be able to have the baby yourself?’
‘Unfortunately no. My body doesn’t produce the right level of hormones any more – that’s why the IVF failed. In the beginning, when I was producing the right hormones, the eggs didn’t implant. Now I haven’t got the eggs or the hormones…’
‘OK,’ I say gently. ‘So you’ll still need a surrogate. But if I donate the eggs for you, that should do it, right?’
So why does she need a year of my life?
Hollie shakes her head, almost imperceptibly. ‘No,’ she says decisively. ‘Thank you but no. I can’t do that because I can’t risk using a surrogate mother who might just change her mind at the end.’
‘Why would a surrogate change her mind?’
‘She might. There have been cases documented where just such a thing has happened. I can’t risk it.’
I frown at her stubbornness. ‘Life’s all about taking risks, surely? And…if someone volunteered to do it for you, they surely wouldn’t just change their mind? There must be contracts and things.’ I nudge her elbow when she doesn’t respond. ‘What do you mean by that anyway?’
‘In this country, the law states the baby belongs to the birth mother,’ she says slowly. ‘People can and sometimes do change their minds. If that happened it would just about finish me off…’
‘You’ve just said you’re going to go to India, aren’t you? Maybe the law is different there?’
‘Scarlett, I’m not sure if I can explain this to you in a way that you’ll understand it.’ My sister looks up at me now and her dark eyes are hooded with pain. ‘After all these years of trying I feel…battered. Sort of used up. I could go out to India and use your eggs with a surrogate, sure. Originally that’s what I was going to ask you for. But the more time goes by, the more I realise that this has got the best chance of working if
you
agree to doit for us. Not some stranger, out in some foreign place far from here. But you, my own sister who I can trust and here, in our own home without the need for medical fees and international air travel and all the huge expectation that goes along with it. Here we could do it quietly, privately, without all the risk and the fuss…’
‘No!’ My hands fly up to my mouth. ‘Have a baby for you? Are you…
completely
mad, Hol?’
There’s a silence again. A wide grey silence that bounces off the walls, gets stuck in the faded yellow hops she’s got hanging from the oak ceiling beams. For a few minutes we both stand there looking at her pastry sitting in a bowl in the middle of the table.
‘I can’t.’ It makes me feel queasy even thinking about it. I get up and bolt out of the kitchen door and Ruff follows me loyally out into the garden. How could she ask me that? She’s out of her mind, she knows what I’m like, what my life is like right now and I
can’t
give it to her. A year of my life. A life sentence more like…
The crisis in the Amazon – the work I’m doing there – it needs tending to now, it’s not going to wait and I can’t either.
‘I’m sorry,’ she calls out desperately after me but she doesn’t get up to come after me and I don’t want her to. I need her to leave me alone.
I need her to let me get on with my own life.
Hollie
When I look out into the silent garden, growing dark now with the early evening that’s drawing in, there’s still no hide nor hair of her. For an instant I feel the twinge of an old ache, the familiar worry of not knowing where my sister is, who she’s with, if she’s even all right…
How many
‘The timing is not the best,’ I begin, wondering how on earth I’m going to be able to get out of it. The timing is the least of it as far as I’m concerned because there will never be a good time to ask me for something which I have so little inclination to do. But she’s my sister and she’s desperate…
‘Hol, are you saying that if you got some good quality eggs you’d be able to have the baby yourself?’
‘Unfortunately no. My body doesn’t produce the right level of hormones any more – that’s why the IVF failed. In the beginning, when I was producing the right hormones, the eggs didn’t implant. Now I haven’t got the eggs or the hormones…’
‘OK,’ I say gently. ‘So you’ll still need a surrogate. But if I donate the eggs for you, that should do it, right?’
So why does she need a year of my life?
Hollie shakes her head, almost imperceptibly. ‘No,’ she says decisively. ‘Thank you but no. I can’t do that because I can’t risk using a surrogate mother who might just change her mind at the end.’
‘Why would a surrogate change her mind?’
‘She might. There have been cases documented where just such a thing has happened. I can’t risk it.’
I frown at her stubbornness. ‘Life’s all about taking risks, surely? And…if someone volunteered to do it for you, they surely wouldn’t just change their mind? There must be contracts and things.’ I nudge her elbow when she doesn’t respond. ‘What do you mean by that anyway?’
‘In this country, the law states the baby belongs to the birth mother,’ she says slowly. ‘People can and sometimes do change their minds. If that happened it would just about finish me off…’
‘You’ve just said you’re going to go to India, aren’t you? Maybe the law is different there?’
‘Scarlett, I’m not sure if I can explain this to you in a way that you’ll understand it.’ My sister looks up at me now and her dark eyes are hooded with pain. ‘After all these years of trying I feel…battered. Sort of used up. I could go out to India and use your eggs with a surrogate, sure. Originally that’s what I was going to ask you for. But the more time goes by, the more I realise that this has got the best chance of working if
you
agree to doit for us. Not some stranger, out in some foreign place far from here. But you, my own sister who I can trust and here, in our own home without the need for medical fees and international air travel and all the huge expectation that goes along with it. Here we could do it quietly, privately, without all the risk and the fuss…’
‘No!’ My hands fly up to my mouth. ‘Have a baby for you? Are you…
completely
mad, Hol?’
There’s a silence again. A wide grey silence that bounces off the walls, gets stuck in the faded yellow hops she’s got hanging from the oak ceiling beams. For a few minutes we both stand there looking at her pastry sitting in a bowl in the middle of the table.
‘I can’t.’ It makes me feel queasy even thinking about it. I get up and bolt out of the kitchen door and Ruff follows me loyally out into the garden. How could she ask me that? She’s out of her mind, she knows what I’m like, what my life is like right now and I
can’t
give it to her. A year of my life. A life sentence more like…
The crisis in the Amazon – the work I’m doing there – it needs tending to now, it’s not going to wait and I can’t either.
‘I’m sorry,’ she calls out desperately after me but she doesn’t get up to come after me and I don’t want her to. I need her to leave me alone.
I need her to let me get on with my own life.
Hollie
When I look out into the silent garden, growing dark now with the early evening that’s drawing in, there’s still no hide nor hair of her. For an instant I feel the twinge of an old ache, the familiar worry of not knowing where my sister is, who she’s with, if she’s even all right…
How many
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