Sean continued to explain everything that we had done to protect ourselves, how we were proceeding legally with reputable attorneys in Brian McKeen and Marty, and how we had chosen to keep this a secret for as long as we could.
“You were pregnant in Florida?” my mom asked, incredulous. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us. I can’t believe you went all this time keeping this to yourselves. I’m so sorry you were alone in this.”
“You don’t know how many times I wanted to call you,” I said. “But we had to keep this a secret in case I miscarried. We didn’t want you to be upset unnecessarily if I lost this baby.”
An hour later we were still answering questions, particularly my father’s questions, about malpractice and the legal process, when MK woke from her nap. I brought her down to play on the family room floor while we continued our conversation. While I was sitting next to MK, I looked up at my dad and saw that he was thumbing through Brown Bear, Brown Bear, a children’s board book, as he listened. He turned page after page, pretending to look intently at the illustrations. I realized he was in shock. He held that book the entire time. He was sad. We were all sad. We were a pitiful bunch that afternoon.
We wrapped up the meeting before the boys got home from school, as we thought they’d find it weird that all of their grandparents had been summoned to their home for…what? an afternoon cup of coffee? Before Kate left, we asked her if it would be okay to call an emergency meeting of all of Sean’s siblings and their spouses at her home that evening. We didn’t want to meet at our house because we weren’t going to tell the boys until the next day after school. Kate agreed, and Sean immediately made eight phone calls requesting that his siblings and their spouses be at their mom’s at eight o’clock that night. Sean thought if he gave his siblings only a few hours’ notice, we would limit their worry time. He told each of them what he had told our parents: that we weren’t sick, getting divorced, or going to jail.
Although we’d just dropped a considerable bombshell in our living room, we had to resume our “everything’s just fine” posture for a carbo-loading dinner with Drew that his school was hosting. It was the special “night before the run” meal, and the school always invited an outstanding inspirational speaker to address the crowd before dinner. The original speaker had a family emergency and had to cancel, so the replacement speaker was going to be a surprise.
Drew, Sean, and I arrived at the very last minute so we could avoid any small talk before the event started. We slid into a seat in the back and heard the crowd buzzing with speculation about the speaker. When they announced that it was Mrs. Jackie Frisch, I couldn’t believe my luck, as I was sure she would have a message that I needed to hear that night. Jackie is the mother of ten boys and suffers from a rare and debilitating disease that threatens her life daily. In the face of her ailment, Jackie and her husband found the strength in their hearts to adopt seven Haitian orphans—all boys—now her sons. Last year, in an episode of Extreme Home Makeover, the wizards from that show whipped up a beautiful new home for Jackie and her family. She is also an ordained minister, and one amazing lady.
That evening Jackie talked about gratitude and love and how grateful she was that God had chosen her to suffer from her sickness. Her illness made her love every single minute of every day she spent with her family in her home. She talked of her seven Haitian boys and three biological sons, who now filled her life with love and ate her out of house and home. Yes, her life was tough. Yes, they didn’t have much money, and she worried about her health, but she exuded love. And the love made her happy.
The amazing thing about hearing Jackie talk was that it made me think that I needed to catch her fever of love. I needed help leaving my own pity party.
You need to be peaceful like her. You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself. If she can get up every day and face her fears, you surely can get through this pregnancy.
We left the carbo-loading dinner a little early, telling Drew we had to meet up with some friends. We dropped him off and headed to Kate’s for our next meeting.
SEAN
Carolyn and I spoke little as we made the two-mile drive to my mom’s house on a perfect spring evening. We planned to arrive at her house a few minutes after 8:00 so we wouldn’t have to make small talk as we waited. I parked in front of Mom’s, and Carolyn and I paused to take one last look at our reflection in the car window before we entered the house.
As I surveyed the living room, I counted my siblings and their spouses, most of whom were dressed casually in workout gear, to make sure that everyone was there. We are an athletic family, a family of runners and basketball players, but the feeling in the room wasn’t our usual jocularity. We were gathered in the same room where year after year we had opened Christmas presents and hunted for Easter eggs, but the mood that night was nervous and a bit somber. When the whole family is together with the grandkids, we are forty-strong. My mom and dad have quite a legacy. They raised us kids to be fiercely independent, but as exemplified that night, if anyone needed help, we would drop everything at a moment’s notice. My family knew that a meeting being called like this had to be about something serious.
Everyone had instinctively formed into a circle around the two chairs that my mom had positioned in a corner of the living room. They looked like the “hot seats.” My mom told us that one of my brothers was running late. To avoid awkwardness, Carolyn and I ducked into the nursery that my mom keeps for her grandkids. I was so nervous in that nursery. I just wanted to get this over with. Soon after that, everyone was seated, and we entered. Dusk was beginning to settle outside. The room was chilly and dim, lit only by a few lamps.
Of all the family members there, the one Carolyn was most concerned about was JoAnn. My brother Kevin, her husband, was out of town, so she was taking this in alone. She was also the only person who knew Carolyn was pregnant because she was the one who had watched MK the day of our embryo transfer. Therefore, she was the person we felt the worst about, because we’d let her believe we were pregnant with our child. She and Kevin are MK’s godparents. JoAnn had been ecstatic about the pregnancy and told us how she couldn’t wait to get her hands on our next baby so she could cuddle and spoil him or her the way any good aunt would.
“Carolyn and I really appreciate you dropping everything to come here tonight,” I said. “On February 6, Carolyn underwent a frozen embryo transfer. On February 16, the doctor called to inform me that they mistakenly transferred another couple’s embryos and that Carolyn was pregnant with someone else’s genetic child.”
I looked up at JoAnn, who was as pale as a ghost. My sister Kelly, who is just a year older than Carolyn, held her hands over her eyes and slid a little lower in her chair with every sentence I spoke. I was glad when I was almost done because I thought she might fall on the floor. I looked at my brother Scott, who was sitting directly across the room from us gripping his forehead. My oldest brother John looked like he might get sick.
I noticed Carolyn was beginning to shake when she started her remarks. She did fine until she got to the sentence “We have been devastated by this.” She got as far as “devastated” and started to cry. JoAnn practically hurdled the couch in an attempt to get her Kleenex. My mom started sobbing when she saw Carolyn begin to cry. My mom is the consummate caretaker and matriarch of the family, and I am certain she internalized our pain at that moment. The word “devastated” hung in the room for what seemed an eternity.
“We are going to be telling the boys tomorrow afternoon and a group of friends tomorrow evening. We ask that you not tell a soul, including your children, for twenty-four hours. Thank you again for being here with us. Are there any questions?”
“I don’t know how something like this could happen,” said my brother Brian, a highly regarded physician. He and his wife Beth were shaking their heads. “Doctors and nurses spend the better part of their days preventing tragedies like this.”
“This is like an episode of Dateline,” my brother Jeff sa
id. His wife Carol looked like she wanted to punch him.
After Jeff’s remark, Carolyn and I stood up and everyone else did the same.
Generally my family doesn’t like to discuss tough topics, so I knew there would be very little talk after we were done. One by one, my siblings approached us as though we were standing next to a casket to offer their condolences, prayers, and support. I was very touched by my brother Aaron, my best man and the brother closest to me in age. He gripped me and said, “I am so proud of both of you.” Each sibling left silently. After a few minutes the only three remaining were my mom and Carolyn and me. I embraced my mom. She was still shaken, but I knew my sisters Kelly and Patti would help her.
On the way home we were relieved and even laughed a little. My family’s Irish Catholic heritage gives us special talents when it comes to bottling things up. We are there to support each other, but we avoid hugs and expressions of emotion.
“I bet when I started sobbing, everyone wanted to run from the room,” Carolyn said.
“The support was tremendous, but seeing the family leave their emotional comfort zone was just so painful. We would rather do anything than have to share feelings,” I said.
When we got home that evening, Carolyn’s parents had waited up for us to make sure everything had gone all right. I doubt that anyone really slept well that night. We had a big day ahead. There would be Drew’s race, and then we would have to tell the boys, and finally our friends.
After a restless night of sleep, we headed to Drew’s school for a slight reprieve from the stress that was threatening to overwhelm this forty-eight-hour period. Before the race, 1,000 cheering alumni, students, and their families gathered near the starting line. I took a deep breath and inhaled the fresh spring air on a beautiful day. The doors of the school opened, and the 180 seventh-and eighth graders, wearing their neon-green race T-shirts, poured out onto the sidewalk, high-fiving and smiling as they jogged to the starting line. I caught Drew’s eye and nodded to him. I knew he had been waiting years for this moment. I saw determination in him, and confidence. The horn sounded, and a herd of pumped-up teenagers took off. As Drew went by, I was so glad we had not broken the news to him and Ryan the night before. The run was tough enough.
I wasn’t just rooting for Drew, though. I had coached many of these kids, and I wanted them all to do well. I jumped in my car and drove to a point about a mile into the route where I could cheer the runners on. Drew’s stride was smooth and in control. This appeared to be Drew’s day.
“Drew, looking strong! Keep it going! I’ll see you at the finish line!”
At the finish line, I focused my video camera at the place where the kids would take the final turn. I was still worried about Drew. What if he cramped? What if he turned an ankle? He was running so well. I didn’t want something like that to ruin this spectacular performance.
The lead bike came around the corner, and right behind him, I recognized Drew’s stride. As Drew came more into focus, I pictured him running with me back in kindergarten. Nine years before, I’d had to slow down to run with him. Now I couldn’t keep up with him. Drew was about 150 meters away. Then, before I knew it, he was upon me. I realized I needed to sprint to film him crossing the finish line.
As Drew broke the tape and the crowd cheered, a chill went up my spine. He had done it! I watched him working to catch his breath as he poured water on his head. I placed my arm on his shoulder.
“Drew, fantastic run. You earned this. Enjoy it.”
For sixteen minutes I had put aside the pregnancy and reveled in Drew’s run, but my reprieve was over. I was a proud dad. I had been robbed of a great deal of normal time with Drew, Ryan, and Mary Kate during the previous ninety days and would continue, it seemed, to miss a lot into the foreseeable future. I would be a fool to think this had not already hurt them. However, what was going to win this moment was a family celebration for Drew’s huge accomplishment. The period after the race, when the kids were taking pictures of each other and congratulating one another, capped off a big week when everyone had done their best. It was a perfect moment to set aside the stresses of life, and that’s what we did.
As the event was winding down, I walked to the car with Drew by my side and saw a young man who was coming into his own. Although he hated getting hugs, I gave one to him anyway and then made the drive back to work and reality. When the boys got home, it would be time to tell them the news.
We needed to keep ourselves as even-keeled as possible to make this go well for the boys. As a principal, Carolyn had seen many times how children suffering through a tragedy follow the emotional lead of their parents. If a mom ends up in the fetal position in the corner, her children mimic that response. But if a parent is rational, his or her children remain rational. We decided to be straightforward about what had happened, explain why we had decided to do what we were going to do, and then assure them that, although the whole thing was difficult, everything would be okay. Unlike the way we approached our other meetings, we didn’t hold our outline as we spoke. This was parent to child, and we wanted to be open to what they had to say, not restricted by a list.
Both Drew and Ryan were in a great mood when they got home and looking forward to the weekend. Carolyn and I were waiting in the family room.
“Drew and Ryan, we need to talk to you about something. Please take a seat.”
Their smiles faded as they sat down.
“We have some news to share with you,” I said. “It is not good news, but we don’t want you to worry. No one is sick or anything like that.”
“You know how there are eleven years between Ryan and Mary Kate?” Carolyn said.
They nodded.
“Well, we didn’t plan it that way. We love you guys so much, and we always wanted more kids, so after you were born, Ryan, we kept trying and trying to have more, but it never seemed to work out. We finally found a doctor who helped us get pregnant with your sister. Have you ever heard of in vitro fertilization?”
“Yup. That’s what that lady did who got eight babies,” Drew said, with a serious look of concern on his face.
“Well, that is what we did to get Mary Kate. During that process, we made more embryos than we could use. So we had them frozen so we could try again. We tried again a few months ago, but the doctor made a big mistake and put someone else’s embryos inside of me.”
From the look on the boys’ faces, it wasn’t clear that they really comprehended what had happened. I remembered how the disclosure had gone the day before: the news was so shocking that everyone we told needed to hear it twice.
“Mom is pregnant, but the baby doesn’t belong to us,” I said. “It belongs to another family, and they want him.”
The boys were speechless.
“We met the other mom and dad last week, and they seemed very nice and were very grateful that we decided not to have an abortion,” Carolyn continued. “They really want their baby.”
“So, Mom is going to have the baby, and then we have to give him to his parents,” I said again. “Do you understand?”
They both nodded. Ryan was looking straight ahead, but Drew was looking right at me.
“Do you have any questions?” I asked them.
They both hesitated, and then the firing began with Ryan.
“Do you have to give him back? I mean, wouldn’t he like it here with our family?”
His question broke our hearts.
“Yes. I’m sure he would love it here with our family. But his genetic parents want him. It wouldn’t be right for us to keep him.”
“Are they nice people?” Drew asked. “Were they nice to you when you met them?”
“Yes. They were nice to us,” I said. “They already have two kids, and they really want this one too.”
“Does the other family go to church?” Ryan asked.
“Do they smoke?” Drew wanted to know. “What do they do for a living? Where do they live?”
I could see where their minds wer
e going. We had it pretty good. We were a close-knit family. Wouldn’t this baby just want to stay here?
“Who else knows?” Drew asked.
“Well, we told Grandma Kate, Grandma Linda, and Papa yesterday, and we told all of my family last night,” I said. “We didn’t want to tell you until after the 5K was over with. We knew it was going to be a big day for you, and we didn’t want to distract you from your goals today.”
Drew shook his head. He got it.
“At five this afternoon,” I said, “we are leaving to go up to church. We called a meeting with all of our friends in one of the meeting rooms. We are going to tell them then.”
Drew wanted to know who was going to be at that meeting. We reviewed the list with him, and he suggested a few additions, all parents of friends of his. This surprised us, but we made a few quick phone calls and got the parents he requested to agree to come.
“I knew you were pregnant,” Drew confessed.
“You did? How?” Carolyn asked.
“You left that heartbeat thing on the floor next to the bed a couple of times. I figured you must be listening to the baby like you did with Mary Kate. I’ve known for three weeks.”
“Oh, Drew, I feel so bad about that,” Carolyn said. “You thought for weeks that you were going to get a little brother or sister. We probably shocked you more than we ever could have realized. Are you okay?”
He nodded his head yes. But I am not sure there was much conviction behind that answer. This would be tough for Drew, since he had already planned on another sibling.
“Are you going to sue?” Drew asked.
I didn’t expect to get that kind of question from the boys.
“We have attorneys who are taking care of that part. Don’t worry about that,” I said.
“Well, I think you should sue. They shouldn’t be allowed to make these kinds of mistakes. They should get in trouble for this.”
I told him I agreed with him.
I looked at Ryan and saw sadness in his eyes as he looked out the window. He has a gift for compassion and loved being a great big brother and protector of Mary Kate, and I am sure he was seeing that opportunity vanish for this next child.
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