by Cj Howard
“I’d be glad to. There are big changes happening every month, so it will be a good idea to keep you in the loop and visit here to tell you about what’s going on. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow actually, so I’ll let you know how that goes when I see you next month, and I’ll be sure to make my next appointment before I see you, so that I’m meeting with you after the appointments.” She gave him a smile as she stood up and held her hand out to him. “Thank you for visiting with me, and for taking such good care of us. I’m sure it’s going to make a difference.”
He rose up and shook her hand. “I’m glad to; it’s my duty to you both.” He walked with her to the door, catching the scent of her perfume as she walked and smiling as he breathed it in. If all of the sweetest parts of spring had a scent, it would be the one that she was wearing.
“We’ll see you next month.” She told him as she smiled and passed through the door that he held open for her. He told her goodbye and she waved at the receptionist as she left.
The meeting had gone much better than she had imagined, and she felt some pride in herself as she walked from the building to her car. It had been a big decision to take on a surrogacy pregnancy, and she hadn’t been completely sure that she wanted to do it when she had taken it on, but she was confident enough that she was willing to take it on.
Now that she had spent some time talking to the father of the baby she was carrying she could see just how interested he really was with the pregnancy and the well-being of the baby, and she was glad that she had decided to do it. He would get his child, and she would have more than enough money to open up the flower shop that she wanted to own. Both of their dreams would come true.
The next day she went to the doctor’s office for her monthly check up to make sure that everything was going alright with the baby and herself. She sat in the waiting room and flipped through one of the magazines that she had found on the table there.
Another woman came into the room and she looked up at her and smiled. Jasmine noticed how lovely the woman was, and wondered by her skin and hair if she was from South America. Her hair fell to her shoulders, long and silky dark brunette, and her eyes were dark. She had full lips and high angled cheek bones. Her skin had a golden-brown hue to it, and though she was very curvy, she looked to be fit and trim.
The woman sat adjacent to her, only a few feet away, and though Jasmine had lowered her eyes and gone back to reading her magazine, the other woman decided to strike up a conversation.
“Are you here for a pregnancy?” the woman asked with a friendly smile.
Jasmine nodded. “I am, how about you?” She returned the question, thinking that she’d rather have a conversation with someone than sit there reading the trivial articles in the magazine that she was looking at.
“I’m pregnant too.” the woman grinned happily and held her hand over her belly. “Two and a half months now. How far along are you?”
“I’m at three and a half months.” Jasmine answered with a friendly smile.
“My name is Eva.” The woman leaned forward and extended her hand to Jasmine. “Eva Cruz.”
“I’m Jasmine Thompson.” Jasmine replied. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too!” Eva smiled widely at her. “Is your husband here today too?”
Jasmine shook her head. “I’m not married.”
“Oh! I’m sorry.” Eva gave her an apologetic look.
“That’s alright. This is a surrogacy pregnancy. The baby I’m carrying is for someone else.”
Eva brightened and laughed. “Is it really? Mine is too! This doctor is a fertility specialist though, so it shouldn’t surprise me to find another lady in the waiting room who is doing a surrogacy pregnancy. Is this your first?”
“Yes, and it’s going pretty well so far. How about yours?” she asked curiously.
Eva waved her hand dismissively. “It’s fine. It’s my first pregnancy too. Who are the people you’re doing your surrogacy for?” she asked, stretching the conversation further.
Jasmine nearly told her, but then she thought that discretion was probably best. “Well, it’s not a couple, it’s the father. He’s a businessman here in Silicon Valley. He wants an heir, I guess, and so I’m helping him achieve that goal.”
Eva nodded and listened. “Mine is that way as well. Local man who wants a son. He’s actually pretty famous here, you might know him. He’s a billionaire. Cameron Elliot… have you heard of him?”
Jasmine stared at her and tried to remain as indifferent as she could. She was dumbfounded at the name that had come out of the woman’s mouth. It was the name that had been on the tip of Jasmine’s tongue only moments before; the name that she had withheld for discretionary purposes. The name of the father of the baby she was carrying.
Try as she might, Jasmine couldn’t get around the shock that Cameron had hired two women to simultaneously carry surrogate children for him. She remembered what he had told her just the day before about wanting a son and how important it was to him. She wondered if he was trying to increase and better his chances of having a son by having two women carry surrogate children for him, or if it was some other reason that he was bringing two children into the world at once. simultaneously.
Eva looked at her with a strange expression. “Do you know him?” She asked, studying the look in Jasmine’s eyes.
“Yes, I’ve heard of him.” Jasmine answered, feeling her stomach tighten as she said it. She didn’t like it. It wasn’t her business, she thought to herself, but she didn’t like it.
The receptionist looked over at her then. “Miss Thompson, he’s ready for you now.”
Jasmine looked over at the round woman sitting behind the wall at the open window before her. She was the only one working there. She was the only receptionist who worked in the office.
“Thank you, Jeannie.” Jasmine smiled at her and stood up. She looked over at the other woman who was watching her interestedly.
“It was nice meeting you, Eva. Good luck with your baby and your surrogacy.” Jasmine meant it, though she was still reeling in a way from learning what she had about Cameron.
Eva waved her fingers at Jasmine, her shiny red nails matching the red on her full lips. “It was very good to meet you, too. Good luck with your baby!” she smiled widely again, and Jasmine went into the examination room to see the doctor.
He came in shortly after she was ready for him, not making her wait long at all. He measured her belly and was talking to her about the baby and the pregnancy as he set up a heart monitor machine on her belly to hear the baby’s heartbeat.
“Well this little one sounds as if it’s doing well.” He grinned at her. He had short brunette hair that was gelled and carefully combed. His eyes were hazel, and his jaw chiseled. Jasmine had thought to herself the first time she had met with him that he was quite a good-looking man. She was glad that he was also thoughtful and kind.
“How are you feeling? Are you eating right and getting enough rest?” he asked, sitting on his swivel stool and looking at her pleasantly.
She nodded as much as she could while lying on the table beside him with her head on a pillow. “I am. I’m eating strictly organic foods and working out regularly still, but I’m being careful about that. I’m doing maternity yoga and getting about eight hours of sleep a night.”
He grinned. “That’s good. That’s the best report I could have gotten from you.” He looked at her curiously then and gave her a coy smile. “What about your social life… are you seeing anyone… romantically?”
She thought for a moment that he was going to talk with her about intimate relations during pregnancy and she felt her cheeks warm slightly. “No, there isn’t anyone in my life that way.”
He nodded slowly and the grin stayed on his face as he gazed at her. “That’s good to hear.” He watched her closely as he spoke. “I know that this is a surrogate pregnancy for you, so you won’t be keeping the baby, and I know it might seem like a s
trange time to ask you this, but… I was wondering if I could take you out for dinner sometime. That is… if it wouldn’t be too weird for you to go out on a date with your doctor.”
She blinked and stared at him in amazement. “You… you want to go out on a date with me?” She could scarcely believe that she was asking him the question, and more than that, that he had asked her out on a date.
He shrugged. “Yeah, I do. You’re a really sweet lady, you’re beautiful, you’re brave enough and kind enough to do something like this for someone else who needs the help. It says a lot about the kind of person you are, and I like that. I like you. It wouldn’t be weird for me to date you, and after you have this baby I doubt I’ll be seeing you again unless you do another surrogacy, so I thought I’d better ask now while I have you as a captive audience.” He chuckled a little and kept his eyes on her.
She laughed a little then too and sat up, looking down for a moment before she met his eyes again and answered him. “I’m not sure if this is a good time for me to start dating anyone. I’m trying to focus on the pregnancy and on a few other things, so I’m going to say not right now, but thank you for asking me. I am pretty flattered.”
He looked away with a half-smile, and then looked back at her before he walked out of the examination room. “If you change your mind, you have my number. That’s a standing offer. I’ll see you next month.”
He closed the door behind him and she dropped her face into her hands and laughed at the irony that her good-looking doctor would ask her out while she was three months pregnant. She chuckled as she picked up her keys and her purse and wondered if she ought to change her mind about it. It might be nice to date a doctor, but it just seemed to strange to do it while she was pregnant with another man’s baby, even if that doctor had helped her to become pregnant with the other man’s baby in the first place.
Chapter2
Jasmine sat in her car after walking out of her appointment with Dr. Clayton, and frowned as she held on to the steering wheel. She was still parked, sitting in her car, her mind stuck on the fact that Cameron Elliot had two women doing surrogate pregnancies for him at the same time. She couldn’t seem to get over it.
Looking over at her purse, she dug in it for her cell phone and swiped her finger over the screen. Pressing the call button, she held the phone to her ear and chewed gently on her lower lip as she tapped her finger on the steering wheel.
“Hey Jas, what’s going on?” her best friend Kelly asked, sounding chipper and happy to hear from her.
“Are you busy? Something came up today that… well I guess it just has me a little… weirded out. Can I come over and talk to you?” she asked, hoping that Kelly was free. “I’m sorry it’s short notice.”
“Oh yeah, of course. I’m just rolling out dough to make pasta.” Kelly bubbled pleasantly.
“I love that you make your own pasta. Are you making chicken noodle soup?” Jasmine asked with piqued interest.
“Yes, would you like some?” Kelly was grinning, and Jasmine could hear it right through the phone.
“You know I live for your chicken noodle soup.” Jasmine answered as a smile came over her face. “And we need to talk. I need a different perspective. I’m way too close to this one to think about it clearly.”
“Okay. Chicken soup and advice is waiting for you. Come over anytime.” Kelly offered sweetly.
They said goodbye and ended the call, and Jasmine headed straight over to her best friend’s house.
Kelly Madison lived on the west side of the big hills that separated Silicon Valley on the east from the ocean on the west. Her house was a ranch, like many homes in the hills of California, and it sat on the side of a golden hill overlooking the sea, surrounded by tall redwood trees that protected it from the winter storms that sometimes rolled in from the Pacific.
Jasmine pulled her car through the white split rail fence and drove along the short driveway until she got to the house, where she parked out in front on the gravel drive. The house was buttery yellow with white trim. There were windows framed in white all the way around it, and wrap around porch that encircled three sides of it. On the front side, facing the blue sea that seemed to go on out forever until it met the horizon, hung a big white wooden swing, big enough for two people.
When Jasmine arrived, Kelly was sitting on the swing. She waved and called out to her. “Come on over here and sit with me. I have your soup ready for you.” There were flower pots sitting at each post on the railing of the porch, and hanging from the eaves of the porch, and planted in the earth around the porch. No matter how warm it was outside, the plants kept it cool and pretty on the porch, and nearly fenced in with green leaves and flowers.
Jasmine walked up to the porch and crossed over it, picking up the bowl of chicken noodle soup from the little table beside the swing, and sitting down beside her best friend with the bowl in her hands. “This is paradise. It really is.” She sighed happily as she relaxed and smiled over at Kelly.
Kelly was thin and strong, she had endless energy and was someone who got up with the sun and worked hard or played hard, or relaxed well all through the day, until a reasonable bed time, and then she hit the hay every night and got a good night’s rest. She was a woman whose life was together.
She had a large garden that she tended, she ate only organic food, she made much of her own food like the pasta that was found in the bowl of chicken soup that Jasmine was eating. She did all of the work around her ranch, fixing fences, tending to the two horses she owned, as well as three goats, two dogs, and one cat who was rarely around.
She had a grove of orange trees and she sometimes set up a stall and sold those at farmer’s markets in the summer, along with other fresh vegetables from her beautiful garden. She also sold some of the flowers she grew, and the honey from her beehives near the orange grove.
Her hair was shoulder length and curly, her eyes were bright and dark, and she almost never wore makeup. She was a simple, clean, healthy, strong woman, who love nature more than the façade of life that she saw many other people living in within big cities. She had gotten a master’s degree in business and finance and then left the big city for the countryside.
She often did some work online, advising businesses and doing day trading, but she was more often kneeling on the ground with earth in her hands than she was trading stocks and creating business plans at her computer.
“What’s bugging you baby?” Kelly asked as she looked over at Jasmine. She had a burlap bag at her side, and a bowl in her lap. She was shelling peas.
Jasmine took a sip of the soup and savored it, closing her eyes and loving the taste as she chewed and swallowed. She was two bites in before she turned and looked at Kelly.
“So, I went to the doctor’s today.” Jasmine began, hardly able to believe that she was going to say what she had come to say.
“Yeah? What did he say?” Kelly asked, sliding a row of peas out of their shell and into the bowl in her lap.
Jasmine laughed for a moment, “Well, he said the baby and I are doing fine, and then he asked me to go out and have dinner with him.” She laughed again and shook her head.
Kelly’s jaw fell open and she stared at Jasmine. “He asked you to go out on a date with him?”
“Well yeah, he knows this is a surrogacy pregnancy; he’s the one who did it. He knows I’m not keeping the baby, that in six month’s it’ll be just me. He’s interested in dating me, and he said that he wanted to ask me out while I’m still going to him, because once I have the baby, I’ll be gone and he probably won’t see me again. He didn’t want to miss his chance.” Jasmine shrugged.
“Smart man. So, what did you tell him?” Kelly asked, eyeing her curiously as she popped open another pea pod.
“I told him that I didn’t think it was a good idea. At least… not now.” She sighed and shook her head. “That’s not even why I came over here. As crazy as it sounds, that wasn’t even the weird part of the visit to the doctor.” Jasmine sh
ook her head and looked over at Kelly as she ate another spoonful of her soup.
“So, what’s the weird part?” Kelly asked, popping a couple of peas into her mouth.
“The weird part is that I was sitting in the waiting room, waiting to see the doctor, when another pregnant woman came in. She was really pretty. She looked like she was from South America; Brazilian or Peruvian or something. Anyway, she and I started talking and it turned out that she was in there for a pregnancy as well, and that her pregnancy was a surrogacy too.” Jasmine frowned a little.
Kelly’s eyebrow lowered slightly as she listened.
“It’s not that weird; the doctor is a fertility specialist. I’m sure there are lots of women who go in there to do surrogacy pregnancies.”