The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant

by Dan Savage

  Up to this point, the three of us had been sitting around Melissa's room—taking care of the baby, watching videos, eating, and talking—as if it would always be thus, as if we were going to stay here at the hospital for the next twenty years and bring up this baby together. Laurie's arrival reminded us that tomorrow, like yesterday, would also be a day of drama. If Melissa signed the papers Laurie had brought, Terry and I would be taking this baby back to the Mallory with us, and Melissa would be leaving the hospital alone, returning to her apartment alone, and going back to the streets a few weeks later. Laurie asked Terry and me to step out into the hallway with her. It would take her about thirty minutes to go over the paperwork with Melissa; why didn't we go have some lunch in the cafeteria and come back around one? Laurie didn't mention it, but she didn't have to: this was Melissa's final opportunity to change her mind. Once she signed the papers, she was no longer David Kevin/Daryl Jude's legal parent. If she wanted to keep this baby, she had to say so now.

  Laurie went into Melissa's room and shut the door. We stood in the hallway for a minute, staring at the closed door, and then slowly turned and walked out of the maternity ward and to the elevator. Terry asked if I'd be all right in the cafeteria.

  “Can you remain calm at the sight of bacon bagels, or will I have to drag you out of there again?”

  Walking through the cafeteria—bacon bagels now in their proper perspective—I remembered my conversation many months ago with the gay man whose adoption fell through at the last possible moment. When I told him we were doing an adoption because it offered us more autonomy, he laughed.

  “What you don't understand is that you have less, much less, doing an open adoption,” he told me. “At least coparenting, or if you're having a baby with lesbians, or if you're doing a closed adoption you're dealing with adults. Doing an open adoption, your fate is in the hands of some teenage girl who may not be thinking very clearly right after she gives birth. You have no autonomy in that situation, believe me. You have none.”

  Terry was suddenly nervous, more nervous now than he was that morning. What if the heart scare bonded Melissa to the baby, and she couldn't give him up now?

  “She could be explaining to Laurie right now why she can't sign those papers,” Terry said, as we stood in line to pay for our cinnamon-sugar bagels. “What will we do if she changes her mind?”

  “We'll go home, stay sane, and go back in the pool.”

  “I want that baby,” Terry responded. “He's Daryl. He's the baby we're meant to have.”

  “Maybe. But if she keeps him, then he wasn't the baby we were meant to have. We have to be rational, Terry. We're ‘meant to have’ the baby we wind up getting, and no other.”

  “You have no heart,” Terry said.

  “I do have one, Terry. But I'm not going to volunteer to have it stomped on. That baby isn't ours until he's ours.”

  We were both too nervous to eat our bagels, so we took our drinks and headed back up to the maternity ward. Melissa's room was near the end of a long hallway, and about fifteen feet past her door was a window seat with a tremendous view of Portland and the Willamette River. We sat, drank our Cokes, and waited. And waited. One o'clock came and went. Laurie said the signing would take a half an hour, and soon ninety minutes had passed.

  “She changed her mind,” Terry said.

  We talked about what we'd say to Melissa if she decided to keep the baby. Would we even be allowed to see her and the baby to say good-bye? We wouldn't argue with her, or attempt to change her mind, but we would want to say good-bye.

  Laurie came out of Melissa's room, closed the door, and waved us over. With a gesture, she indicated that she'd rather not talk in the hall. Terry looked as if he were going to drop, and as soon as Laurie turned her back to us, he grabbed my hand and shook his head. We walked up the hall, away from Melissa's door, and into an empty room identical to hers.

  “Well,” Laurie said, “Melissa signed the papers. . . .” We exhaled, and Terry groaned his relief. “Were you worried?” Laurie asked. Yes, Terry explained, since Laurie took three times as long to come out of Melissa's room as she'd predicted. Had Melissa had doubts?

  “Well, you know Melissa. We talked about a lot of other things before we got down to looking at the papers. But, no, she didn't have doubts. She seemed very sure of herself and her decision to do an adoption.”

  Technically, the agency now had custody of the baby, and would be David Kevin's legal guardian until the adoption was finalized. Laurie took out some papers for us to sign. These indicated that the agency was placing the baby in our care; all she needed was our signatures—and the name we intended to give the baby, if it was different from the name Melissa gave him.

  We told Laurie that Daryl Jude would be the baby's new first and middle names. She wrote those names down, and then she looked up. “Have you decided on a last name?”

  For most of the drive down to Portland, we'd argued about that. Savage? Miller? A hyphenate: Savage-Miller? Miller-Savage? Hyphenated names were so twenty years ago. Terry said we should give the baby my last name.

  “We shouldn't give him my last name,” I said.

  “Then let's give him Miller.”

  But he shouldn't have Terry's last name either. I'd feel like the odd man out if there were two Millers in the house and only one Savage. We knew a lesbian couple with two kids; rather than choosing one name, or hyphenating both, they gave their daughter an old family name. So all three—mom, mom, son, and daughter— had different last names. Maybe we could do the same? There was a great name in my family—Hollahan—that was dying out; why not name him Daryl Jude Hollahan? Terry liked the ring of that, so it was settled: D. J. Hollahan.

  But half an hour later, this scenario popped into my head:

  “D. J. Hollahan? You must be Irish.”

  “No. I'm French and Scottish and German.”

  “But your last name, Hollahan, that's Irish, isn't it?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you're not Irish?”

  “No.”

  “Then how come—”

  “I was adopted by a gay couple, and one of my fathers is Irish, and his grandmother's name was Hollahan, so rather than choose one of their last names, or give me both, they gave me an old family name of one of my dads, Hollahan, which is Irish, like my dad. But I'm not Irish.”

  “Why would they do that? Didn't they want you to have one of their names?”

  “LOOK, I DON'T KNOW. OKAY? YOU WANT TO KNOW SO BAD, CALL THEM AND ASK!”

  Considering how often people in America inquire about the ethnic backgrounds of people they've just met, and considering that a kiss-me-I'm-Irish name like Hollahan invites the question, D.J. would have conversations like this over and over again all his adult life. He would come to hate us for giving him such a green-beer-and-shamrocks last name. There were a couple of other family-name possibilities—Keenan, my middle name and also my other grandmother's maiden name; and Bunbaker, Terry's mother's maiden name. But Keenan presented the same “So you must be Irish” problem as Hollahan, and a name like Bunbaker could get a kid beaten up on the playground daily through grade school. With two gay dads and the name “D. J. Bunbaker,” he would never get out of junior high alive. We might as well name him Liberace.

  I don't remember whose idea it was, mine or Terry's, but at some point, one of us tossed out another idea: give the baby Melissa's last name, Pierce. We wouldn't even have to give it to him; he'd already have it, we just had to leave him with it. When anyone asked about his last name, he could say, “It's my mother's name.” And if in adolescence, he got his panties in a bunch about his gay dads “taking away” the first and middle names his mother gave him—which I worried he would—we'd be able to point to his last name and say, “We left you with the most important name your mother gave you: the name you share with her.”

  Terry nudged me; Laurie was waiting.

  “We want him to have Melissa's last name.”

  Laurie look
ed touched.

  “Oh, that's really sweet, you guys,” she said. “We'll have to check with Melissa to make sure it's okay, but I'm sure it will be. I think that will mean a lot to her.”

  “We figure he'll have a name I gave him—Daryl, for my dad, a name Dan gave him—Jude, for Dan's mom, and a name his mom gave him,” Terry said.

  Laurie wrote down the name—Daryl Jude Pierce—and we signed the papers.

  “Melissa wants to be alone with the baby in the morning,” Laurie said. “She has to check out by two, so if you guys came in around one o'clock that would be good.” Laurie would be available to Melissa all morning, in case she needed to talk, but otherwise Melissa would be alone with the baby.

  “Adoptive parents usually present the birth mother with a small gift—a locket, a bracelet—and if you guys wanted to go out in the morning and get some pictures developed, presenting the birth mother with a small photo album of hospital pictures is always a nice gesture.”

  Laurie suggested we bring in a few going-home outfits.

  “Let Melissa pick the outfit and dress Daryl.” Hearing the baby called Daryl startled me. “And don't forget to bring your car seat up, because the hospital won't let you check out without one. At about one-thirty, we'll have a little placement ceremony.”

  “A placement ceremony?” Terry asked.

  We're not big on touchy-feely stuff. We're not huggers, and neither was Melissa. Even after all we'd been through in the last six weeks, we hadn't hugged Melissa, and she hadn't hugged us. Looking dubious, I asked Laurie what exactly a “placement ceremony” would consist of. Was it like a baptism? And who officiated?

  “No, no. The ceremony is just what the adoptive parents and the birth mother want it to be. Maybe you'll say a few words, give Melissa her photos and a placement gift; maybe she'll want to say something to the baby,” Laurie explained. “It's a special moment, when the baby is given by the birth mother to the adoptive parents. Marking it, pausing to let the moment sink in, is good for everyone.”

  We walked into the hall and down to Melissa's door. Laurie knocked as she opened the door, and Melissa was lying in bed, TV off, looking at the baby sleeping in his crib. He was no longer David Kevin, he was Daryl Jude. The baby was asleep on his side, Melissa was on her side, facing him, their faces separated by eights inches of air and a quarter of an inch of clear plastic. He was wrapped up, his little face poking out from under his knit hat. Melissa looked up at us as we filed in, then looked back at the baby.

  Laurie sat on the side of the bed, and asked if she was all right. Melissa nodded, and sat up.

  “Terry and Dan signed everything, so we're all set for tomorrow,” Laurie said gently. “They gave him your last name, Melissa. I wanted to make sure that was okay.”

  Melissa look up at Terry, then at me.

  “Really?”

  We nodded.

  “That's cool,” she said, smiling at Daryl. “That's cool.”

  We left the hospital to run some errands and get a nap in back at our hotel. Before we left, we promised Melissa we'd bring her some decent chow for dinner—which meant steak. Since Melissa likes her steak well-done, the hotel restaurant was the obvious choice. There isn't a restaurant in the lobby of the Mallory Hotel, just a dining room, and everything from the food served to the decor reminded me of my dead grandmother's apartment. When we told them we wanted to take dinner to a friend at the hospital who'd just had a baby, the Mallory went that extra mile. The Mallory dining room doesn't do to-go orders, the manager explained, but for our friend, the new mother, they would make an exception. We ordered three steaks, and three pieces of chocolate cake. When we came down, not only had they boxed up three steak dinners, but also salad, rolls, butter, silverware, real plates, salt and pepper shakers, a tablecloth, cloth napkins, chocolate cake, and flowers.

  We overtipped.

  Melissa laughed when we came into her room carrying a box with flowers sticking out of the top, and when we pushed a table up to Melissa's bed and started pulling napkins and flowers out of box, setting the table for dinner, Melissa sat shaking her head. She would've been happy with some hamburgers, she said, but we had to make a big production out of dinner. We weren't the ones who made a big production out of dinner, I told her, the restaurant manager was.

  The baby slept while we ate, and the chocolate cake met with Melissa's approval. We watched TV, passed the baby around, took some more pictures, and didn't say one word about tomorrow. We were still behaving as if things would go on like this forever, the three of us living at the hospital and taking care of the baby, with no one calling him by name.

  When we'd come in with dinner, Melissa said she was worried that David would show up and there wouldn't be enough food to go around. She was sure he'd come tonight. When eleven o'clock came and went, and David still hadn't shown up, Melissa's mood got darker. Melissa and David weren't involved, nothing romantic; she had taken him in, and spoke of him with the same weary affection with which she spoke of her other animals. Like the dog and the cat, David was her responsibility. Melissa had updated us on him whenever we visited: he had a job, he'd lost a job, he was on crystal, he was off crystal. Melissa had never introduced us to him, but we got a look at him when we dropped Melissa off after our visits: he was a skinny kid, good-looking, with intense blue eyes. He'd been living with Melissa since she moved into the apartment, eating her food, and she couldn't understand why David—or any of her other friends—would fail to come see her and the baby. Did her friends get busted? Were her animals okay?

  The gutter-punk ethos is all honor and loyalty; the only real and the only dependable people on the street are other punks. Melissa romanticized street life. Her network of friends and fellow punks were her “real” family, she told us, and they were always there for her—unlike her biological family. They were the people she could count on, the ones who looked after her animals when she got busted or sick, the ones she spare-changed with and shared beer with. So where were they?

  They were, I thought, drinking out of space bags, and they were used to people disappearing, whether they got busted, or decided to leave town on a moment's notice. Melissa was out of sight, and quickly out of mind.

  I asked Melissa if we could stop by her apartment on our way back to the hotel, and see if David was okay. She looked at me for a moment, and gave us her apartment number.

  When we left the hospital, we drove past places Melissa told us David hung out: Pioneer Square, Outside In, the downtown Safeway. The Mallory was only two blocks from Melissa's apartment, so the apartment was our last stop. We parked, and walked up to the door. I rang the doorbell, and a few seconds later a stoned-sounding voice said, “Yeah?”

  “Is this David?” I asked.

  “Yeah, who's this?”

  “It's Dan and Terry, the guys adopting Melissa's baby. Can we come up and talk to you for a minute?”

  There was a long pause.

  “I'll come down.”

  While we waited—in the rain—I got pissed. Why hadn't he come to see Melissa at the hospital? She'd named the baby after him, for Christ's sake; he was living in her apartment—which we were paying for—and he couldn't get his ass to the hospital?

  When David came to the door, he looked a little surprised to see us. He wasn't wearing shoes, and either he was stoned or we'd awakened him.

  “Remember Melissa?” I asked.

  He knew it was a trick question. He smiled a stoned smile— his eyes were very big and his pupils very black—and told us that, yeah, he remembered Melissa.

  “She's upset that you haven't come to see her at the hospital. She wants you to meet the baby.”

  David looked down at the ground.

  “Oh, yeah, I was planning on going up to see her, but I got real busy, I'll go up tomorrow.”

  “She has to be out tomorrow at two, so you better go up early,” Terry said.

  He nodded, but I wasn't sure he'd even remember this conversation in the morning.

&
nbsp; “Tell you what,” I said, “we'll come over at nine, pick you up, and drive you there. Be outside.”

  “Okay, thanks, that would be great,” David said, as we turned to leave. “Hey, what did she name the baby?”

  “I think Melissa wants to tell you the baby's name,” I said.

  “Okay, cool. See you in the morning.”

  The Logic of Open Adoption

  When we drove up to Melissa's apartment building in the morning, David was waiting outside, saving us the trouble of kicking down the door and dragging him out to the car by his neck. He was appropriately sheepish, and thanked us for reminding him to visit Melissa, which made it hard to stay angry. We headed up to the hospital, David telling us about his new job— landscaping—and us filling David in on the birth and the last couple of days.

  After we dropped David off, we had three hours to kill before meeting Laurie and Melissa for the hand-off. We needed to get photos developed, and find a gift for Melissa—which wasn't gonna be easy. What do you get for the woman who has, and wants, nothing? We didn't think Laurie's suggestion, a locket, would go over well: it might work for your average birth mom, but it was a little girly for Melissa. We knew Melissa needed a new backpack, but something practical didn't seem right either, given the occasion. We needed a keepsake, something slightly sentimental, but Melissa wasn't—or tried not to be—a sentimental person. Somewhere in the vastness of Lloyd Center we hoped to find something we could present to her with straight faces, something that said, “Hey, thanks for the kid,” without too much mush.

  Walking into the mall, I was seized by a sentimental impulse, which was very unlike me: I'm not a terribly sentimental person either. But whatever else we did this morning, I wanted to skate.