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Authors: Carolyn Savage
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overwhelmed. Plus, he’d fallen ill with the same virus MK and I had. All of us were weak and tired, but only two of us knew I held the source of our stress.
We’d known about this mess for only a week, and I was already getting sick of lawyers. I respected them, and I understood that they were necessary and that we were getting prudent advice, but the way this was all shaved and sorted seemed wrong. The language they used to discuss what we were doing was so cold. Mary told us that we had no legal claim to the child that was growing inside me. But my heart had a claim. This baby could not survive without me, but judges had ruled repeatedly that my contribution to this life was irrelevant. How could that be? There would be no baby without me. I’m not just an oven. I am not nothing to this child. Right?
The next day, when the boys were at school and MK was playing quietly at my feet, I began researching the question online, trying to find just one legal scholar who backed up what my heart felt. I pored over laws and rulings. It seemed that, in most states, a birth mother is the biological mother. But if challenged on the grounds of genetics, DNA wins. I grew more and more upset, reading opinion after opinion that said I was indeed nothing to this child. I was an incubator, an oven. My feelings, my family, were meaningless. It wasn’t that I was hoping to find an excuse to stake a claim to the baby. But I desperately wanted to read something that said I mattered.
Finally, I found some essays written by a Cornell law professor about our very predicament. Her opinion was the only one that recognized the value of my contribution to this life.
I didn’t know whether to feel vindicated or abused. In fact, I felt both. There would be moments when I felt sweet pride at being the steward of a life. Then, in an instant, I would be slapped by the knowledge that my act of generosity was seen by the official world as irrelevant. My life mattered not at all, while at the same time this baby could not have a life without mine.
The next thing I knew, consumed with anger, I called Sean. Before he could get a word out, I started in.
“I can’t do this. I don’t want to give this gift. Why can’t they give the gift? Why do we have to sacrifice? Why can’t they sacrifice?”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“I don’t think I can go through with this. This is too much for me. Why can’t the other family allow us to keep the baby?”
“Look, I’m coming home,” Sean said.
“Don’t. Stay at work. Coming home won’t help,” I said.
“I know this is so hard, but we will get through it together,” Sean said.
I didn’t know how I would get through this day, let alone the next eight months.
“I looked at all these opinions, all these different papers on the subject, and there is only one that says I matter,” I continued.
“Carolyn, what does that matter, really? Our situation is unique.”
“Yes, unique. That’s a great word! Great! That doesn’t mean that they can’t use all these laws and decisions on me.”
I must have sounded like a lunatic because Sean was speechless. I waited for a response from him, but there was only silence.
“Forget I called. Just forget it.” And I hung up. I felt stupid for having a tantrum over the phone. I don’t know what I was trying to accomplish, and in the end I think I just stressed Sean further.
As my emotions continued to flare, practical care was moving forward. That next day Dr. Read ordered an ultrasound much earlier than would have been done under normal conditions: exactly three weeks after the transfer. She wanted to know how many babies I was carrying. My blood work suggested a multiple pregnancy. We were scared to death that I was carrying triplets.
In the more than ten years I’d struggled with fertility, I’d spent a lot of time with Dr. Read’s sonographer, Linda, who is a mini-celebrity among the doctor’s patients. Whenever friends heard
We’d known about this mess for only a week, and I was already getting sick of lawyers. I respected them, and I understood that they were necessary and that we were getting prudent advice, but the way this was all shaved and sorted seemed wrong. The language they used to discuss what we were doing was so cold. Mary told us that we had no legal claim to the child that was growing inside me. But my heart had a claim. This baby could not survive without me, but judges had ruled repeatedly that my contribution to this life was irrelevant. How could that be? There would be no baby without me. I’m not just an oven. I am not nothing to this child. Right?
The next day, when the boys were at school and MK was playing quietly at my feet, I began researching the question online, trying to find just one legal scholar who backed up what my heart felt. I pored over laws and rulings. It seemed that, in most states, a birth mother is the biological mother. But if challenged on the grounds of genetics, DNA wins. I grew more and more upset, reading opinion after opinion that said I was indeed nothing to this child. I was an incubator, an oven. My feelings, my family, were meaningless. It wasn’t that I was hoping to find an excuse to stake a claim to the baby. But I desperately wanted to read something that said I mattered.
Finally, I found some essays written by a Cornell law professor about our very predicament. Her opinion was the only one that recognized the value of my contribution to this life.
I didn’t know whether to feel vindicated or abused. In fact, I felt both. There would be moments when I felt sweet pride at being the steward of a life. Then, in an instant, I would be slapped by the knowledge that my act of generosity was seen by the official world as irrelevant. My life mattered not at all, while at the same time this baby could not have a life without mine.
The next thing I knew, consumed with anger, I called Sean. Before he could get a word out, I started in.
“I can’t do this. I don’t want to give this gift. Why can’t they give the gift? Why do we have to sacrifice? Why can’t they sacrifice?”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“I don’t think I can go through with this. This is too much for me. Why can’t the other family allow us to keep the baby?”
“Look, I’m coming home,” Sean said.
“Don’t. Stay at work. Coming home won’t help,” I said.
“I know this is so hard, but we will get through it together,” Sean said.
I didn’t know how I would get through this day, let alone the next eight months.
“I looked at all these opinions, all these different papers on the subject, and there is only one that says I matter,” I continued.
“Carolyn, what does that matter, really? Our situation is unique.”
“Yes, unique. That’s a great word! Great! That doesn’t mean that they can’t use all these laws and decisions on me.”
I must have sounded like a lunatic because Sean was speechless. I waited for a response from him, but there was only silence.
“Forget I called. Just forget it.” And I hung up. I felt stupid for having a tantrum over the phone. I don’t know what I was trying to accomplish, and in the end I think I just stressed Sean further.
As my emotions continued to flare, practical care was moving forward. That next day Dr. Read ordered an ultrasound much earlier than would have been done under normal conditions: exactly three weeks after the transfer. She wanted to know how many babies I was carrying. My blood work suggested a multiple pregnancy. We were scared to death that I was carrying triplets.
In the more than ten years I’d struggled with fertility, I’d spent a lot of time with Dr. Read’s sonographer, Linda, who is a mini-celebrity among the doctor’s patients. Whenever friends heard
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