Mommy Man

by Jerry Mahoney

  “Gerald, hi it’s Aida from Dr. S’s office. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  I did my best to keep smiling, but already I felt queasy. Bad news? Shit. This was it. Drew was right. None of the people in my office knew the good news yet. A second ago, good news was all there was. Why did I have to pick up the call? “I need to take this. Can we finish later?”

  The second they were gone and the door was closed, I sat back in my chair and sighed. “How bad is it?”

  “Tiffany’s been bleeding and cramping a lot,” she said. “She just spoke to Dr. S. He told her that if she soaks through a whole pad, she needs to go right to the emergency room because that means she’s having a miscarriage.”

  Ugh. She was being so casual yet so graphic. It was the worst sentence I’d ever heard.

  “Are we still having our ultrasound tomorrow?”

  “If Tiffany makes it through the night, then yes.”

  And just that quickly, I had a new worst sentence I’d ever heard. “If Tiffany makes it through the night, then yes.” I couldn’t bear to think about the flip side of that statement, the one that resulted in “then no.”

  “I knew it!” Drew shouted.

  Because I was the one who got the call, I had to break the news to Drew. I repeated what the nurse said, then I tried my best to cheer him up.

  “It might be nothing. Lots of women bleed and cramp when they’re pregnant.” I wasn’t sure I believed it myself as I said it, so I quickly did a Google search at my desk. Yes, indeed, lots of women bled and cramped when they were pregnant. Whew!

  “This is why you don’t tell people. We shouldn’t have said anything!”

  “I’m really scared, Drew.”

  “I knew it!” Drew repeated.

  “Are you going to tell Susie what’s going on?”

  “No!” Drew shot back. “We’re not telling anyone. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.” Now we had two levels of secrecy—people who didn’t know we were pregnant and people who didn’t know we might be losing the baby.

  There was a knock on my door. I had been secluded in my office for ten minutes, an eternity. A coworker poked her head in. “Everything okay, Jerry?”

  “Yeah,” I said, forcing a smile. “Just fine.”

  Work made the day go by faster than it had any right to. I spent every moment in fear of feeling my cell phone vibrate again. That night, I turned my ringer on and left my phone at my bedside, just in case an urgent call or text came while I was asleep. It was a relief when the sound that woke me up was my alarm clock the next morning.

  As Drew and I arrived at Westside Fertility, I half expected the receptionist to stare at us sadly, shaking her head and saying, “Sorry, I was about to call you.” Instead, we were greeted like we always were and told to have a seat until Tiffany arrived. A few minutes later, she did. She looked miserable and sick, like she hadn’t slept all night. I’d never felt so relieved.

  A few minutes later, Tiffany was lying on an exam bed, and Drew and I were pelting Dr. S with questions.

  “How common is this?”

  “Is it going to go away?”

  “Is our baby okay?”

  Dr. S had Tiffany lift up her shirt, exposing her belly. For the first time, I realized she had her navel pierced. I wasn’t sure I should know that. I made a halfhearted effort to look away, but Tiffany just rolled her eyes and groaned. “Oh, please . . .”

  Dr. S rubbed a wand over Tiffany’s midriff, and a big gray blob appeared on a monitor across from her. Inside the gray blob was another blob, a white one. I had no idea which of these blobs, if either, represented our baby. Was it some composite of both blobs, or was it just a tiny speck amid all the noise, still too small to be distinguishable?

  Drew held my hand as we waited silently for Dr. S to speak, but for a long time, he said nothing. He repositioned the wand over and over, shook his head repeatedly, sighed more than once, and typed a few times on a dull tan keyboard.

  “Well, guys,” he said finally, “there’s a lot of blood in there.”

  Drew squeezed my hand harder. I could feel his bones pressing against mine, as if there were no skin between us, just two skeletons clinging as tightly as they could.

  “I have no idea what we’re looking at,” I confessed.

  Dr. S used a pen to point at the monitor. He waved it around the gray blob, which took up about 80 percent of the screen. “All of this is blood,” he said.

  “That’s a lot of blood,” I replied.

  Dr. S nodded. “It’s a lot of blood. That’s not good. We implanted three embryos, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s a chance Tiffany is just rejecting the third embryo, after which the blood will clear out. I can’t tell for sure.”

  “So that could happen, and the other embryo could still survive, right?”

  “Yes, they could.”

  They? I realized Dr. S was leaving out possibly the most crucial detail of all.

  “You said the third embryo is being rejected. Does that mean there are two left?”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Didn’t you know? It’s twins.”

  For the first time, Tiffany smiled. “You guys couldn’t tell?” she said, pointing at the screen. “Those are the embryos.” I never could have found them on my own, but now they seemed perfectly obvious. Two tiny peanut shapes, each inside its own little clearing amid the blobs. They had oversized heads, translucent skin, and barely discernible limbs, but they were unmistakably fetal, just like out of a health class textbook.

  I gasped, turning to Drew. I was ready to throw my arms around him, but he was shaking his head. “We only got a 142. We thought that meant a singleton.”

  “Oh no, it’s definitely twins,” Dr. S said. “Count them!”

  “We’re having twins!” I beamed. I squeezed Drew’s hand again, but at the same time, I felt him let go. He looked as if he might pass out.

  “Want to hear their heartbeats? “ Dr. S asked.

  He moved his wand some more, and soon we heard the rapid throbbing of each baby’s heart, one at a time. I never expected to experience so much from a first ultrasound. Dr. S explained that because they were conceived in vitro, these fetuses were six weeks old already. I still couldn’t believe there were two of them. Two babies—my kids. I felt an instant attachment. Even though they lacked faces, I fell in love.

  I was also paralyzed with fear.

  “Are they going to make it?”

  “I really don’t know, guys.” Dr. S showed us how the sacs containing the fetuses were barely making contact with the uterine wall. “The blood is keeping them from fully attaching.”

  “Is there anything we can do?”

  He shook his head. “Just wait.”

  I felt impotent. I’d been quietly gloating about not having to deal with morning sickness and the other inconveniences of pregnancy, but now I would have done anything for the comfort of knowing my babies were inside me, that their fate was in my hands.

  “What’s going to happen? I know you can’t predict, but . . .”

  I was hoping he’d say something to cheer us up, but if there was a silver lining, it was too cloudy right now to see it. “If we’re lucky,” Dr. S said, “one will survive.”

  Just to be safe, he ordered Tiffany to go on immediate bed rest. He set up another ultrasound for the following Tuesday because these babies would need to be monitored closely. “Call my office immediately if you have any more bleeding or cramping,” he instructed.

  He tore off his surgical gloves and switched off the monitor. “Here,” he said, tearing a crinkled paper out of the machine. He handed it to me, a still image of our two fetuses, the thin wall of their egg sacs separating them from a sea of blood.

  “I know it’s hard to say,” I started, “but what are the odds of them making
it for the next nine months?”

  “I’d say the chances of Tiffany carrying either one to term are about fifty-fifty.”

  17

  The Sad Happy Face

  I don’t understand God. I’m not saying I don’t believe in him—or Him or her/Her, it/It or them/Them—just that I don’t understand. Sure, maybe there is some unseen big shot on another plane of existence who’s secretly micromanaging our lives, but I don’t get how anyone finds comfort in that. I mean, what kind of person (or faceless entity, for that matter) takes that much interest in whether some shady contractor is telling the truth when he’s sworn in on Judge Judy? No disrespect intended, but the type of God so many people claim to believe in sounds like a loser. If anyone needs to get a life, it’s the guy who has all the power and knowledge in the universe but who spends his time helping pro bowlers take out 7-10 splits.

  At the same time this loving, omnipotent gajillion-year-old whatever-it-is is helping Jay-Z clean up at the Grammys, he sits by while people carpet bomb and date-rape each other into oblivion. Sure, some people believe they can explain all the bad things away. Cancer? That’s God’s way of making you appreciate life. Tsunamis? God’s way of making us respect nature. YouTube videos of people dancing with their dogs? God’s revenge for all that cyber porn. I’m not saying any of these explanations are wrong, because they make as much sense as any other justification for human existence. But if that’s the way God does business, why bother praying? If God shrugged off the Holocaust because it made some point about faith or brought some nice people up to Heaven to live with him sooner, then my babies and I were fucked.

  Tough times have been known to drive heathens to prayer, but if you ask me, the worst time to pray to a god like this is when you actually need help. I wasn’t going to ask a favor of some guy who got off on jerking people around. Better to fly under the radar than alert you-know-who to the fact that my fetuses could be a tool in teaching me some kind of bat-shit spiritual lesson.

  At the same time, I couldn’t accept the notion that I was completely powerless. There had to be somewhere I could turn to help me save those kids. I know it’s impossible to write the following sentence without it being political, but I’m going to try anyway: Those six-week-old fetuses I saw on the sonogram monitor were people—real people, and I loved them like a father already.

  I’m pro-choice and pro-women’s rights, and I don’t want to give any fuel to the people who aren’t, but to be honest, I was already mentally preparing myself for the day those two hovering blobs moved out to go to college. I could picture me dressing the blobs as ketchup and mustard for Halloween, me and the blobs riding the teacups at Disneyland, and me breaking my back in a bounce house at the blobs’ fifth birthday party.

  “Blob 2, call an ambulance!” Blob 1 would say.

  “On it!” Blob 2 would reply.

  They were real people, capable both of injuring me and of summoning medical assistance. If they didn’t make it, I would cry real people tears.

  Maybe I didn’t see any point in addressing some cloud-floating cruise ship blesser, but there was still someone I could turn to. Someone I fully believed in, who was directly involved in this situation. I decided to take this matter straight to them:

  January 11, 2009

  Dear Babies:

  That’s right. Babies. There are two of you. We saw you in the doctor’s office last week. Two little blobs came up on a screen, and Dr. S said, “It’s twins!” and Daddy Drew almost fell over. (He claims I’m the one who almost fell over, but suffice it to say we were both pretty shocked.)

  So that’s the good news. You may not have a fully formed brain yet, or any fingers or toes. But you’ve got a buddy.

  When you’re gay dads having a baby with a surrogate, it’s easy to put the baby out of your head. We’re not living with Tiffany, so we’re not taking care of her when she gets morning sickness or waiting on her when she’s resting in bed to make sure you’re okay.

  But although we may not be living under the same roof with you yet, seeing those tiny little beams of light on the doctor’s low-tech screen, well, it was like meeting you for the first time. I’m sure what I’m feeling now is only a tiny fraction of what I’ll feel when I’m holding you in my arms in a few months, but all I want to do is take care of you and protect you and let you know that you’re loved.

  And, really, I can’t.

  That’s the scary part. Okay, so I’m kind of avoiding the bad news, but that’s because I know it won’t amount to anything and I can’t let myself focus on it. But we did have a bit of a scare last week. Tiffany’s body wasn’t expecting twins either, and if it doesn’t figure out how to handle you, there’s a chance you won’t be born.

  Dr. S said there’s nothing any of us—even Tiffany—can do to make sure you hang in there. So we all feel kind of powerless and are just hoping for the best.

  That’s why I’m glad there are two of you. I know down the road, you’ll have all kinds of sibling rivalry. You’ll fight over toys, then you’ll fight over girlfriends or boyfriends or who gets to borrow the car. But for the next 7 1/2 months, I hope you’ll get along. Share that womb, kids. Take care of one another. Grow together, tiny unformed hand in tiny unformed hand.

  Until you’re born, there isn’t much Daddy D and I can do to shield you from danger. But that doesn’t mean you’re alone.

  Until then, you’ve got each other.

  Love,

  Daddy J

  Going into the next ultrasound, I was cautiously optimistic. Tiffany was still cramping, but the bleeding—which was far scarier—had stopped. There had been no obvious signs of a miscarriage, but given how tiny our fetuses were, I could easily imagine them slipping out of Tiffany’s womb undetected.

  It was a huge relief when I again saw both of my kids on the monitor. They were slightly bigger and slightly more developed, each tethered to an umbilical cord in its own little sac. Gazing at the image, I imagined that they were sending me a message of their own.

  “It looks like a happy face,” I observed. I pointed to the fetal sacs, two wide round eyes, then to a crescent-shaped mass below them. I knew from our last visit that this was the blood. While the babies were growing, the blood was shrinking, but it still comprised almost half the volume of Tiffany’s uterus. Somehow, it had taken on the upturned crescent shape of a tremendous grin. It did look like a happy face. Everyone agreed—although Tiffany got more specific.

  “It looks like Jack Skellington,” she countered. It makes sense that, as a Disney freak, she would reference the lead puppet from The Nightmare before Christmas, but her comparison was spot-on. There was something about us standing there before a gruesome image trying to find something lovable in it, which I think Tim Burton would have appreciated.

  The next week, we took a step closer to the Disney of The Little Mermaid. The fetuses had developed clear extremities—feet, hands, heads. We could see them squirming in their sacs—alive and kicking, literally. It was quite a thrill.

  If there was an upside to being stuck in a high-risk pregnancy, it was this ongoing ultrasound marathon we were treated to. The doctor needed to check and make sure things were progressing reasonably, and that gave us a regular opportunity to check in with our growing offspring. We’d only known we were pregnant for a month, but we’d already had as many ultrasounds as most expectant parents had in their entire pregnancies.

  Tiffany’s Uterus became my favorite weekly TV show. We tuned in every Tuesday morning to enjoy the ever-developing adventures of our lovable main characters, labeled helpfully by the doctor as Baby A and Baby B. This week on Tiffany’s Uterus, Baby A sprouts predeveloped nostrils, while Baby B finally loses his vestigial tail. The two main characters had parallel storylines but distinct personalities. Baby A was our squirmer, constantly swiping and pawing with his protruding limb buds. No doubt about it. We were in for some regular sh
enanigans from Baby A. Baby B was the little one—cute, smooshy, and lovable. That fetus may still have been lacking eyelashes or discernible genitalia, but one thing the kid definitely had was charisma.

  It was appointment viewing, like Lost, speaking of which, bed rest had turned Tiffany into that show’s number one fan. Our gift to her while she minded our growing babies was a complete series box set. She had never seen it before, but we assured her it would keep her busy on those long days when she was confined to the couch. Boy, were we right. She watched the episodes over and over, with and without commentary tracks. She started developing her own theories about the mysterious island and its inhabitants.

  Every week we’d ask her where she was in the show. Had she met the survivors from the tail section? Did she reach the flash-forward? Was Kate with Jack or Sawyer or Jack again? It was our dream come true. We’d turned our surrogate into a nerd, like us. There was no more awkwardness or hesitation between us. When we ran out of baby talk, there was always Oceanic Flight 815 to discuss.

  Tiffany caught up before long, and we were all on the same page, waiting for season 5 to start airing live. Right around then came the best episode of Tiffany’s Uterus yet. Tiffany had stopped cramping entirely, and Dr. S announced that the blood in the uterus had been officially written out of the storyline.

  He had some other big news for us, too—the introduction of a new supporting character.

  “It’s time for Tiffany to start seeing her own ob-gyn,” he said.

  “So this is the last time we’ll see you?”

  “I’m not delivering these babies!”

  Drew got choked up. Reflexively, he launched into a speech. “We’re really going to miss you, Dr. S. You’ve been so helpful through this entire process. Back when we started, we were so scared, but you really guided us through . . .”