Not My Daughter: An absolutely heartbreaking page-turner

by Kate Hewitt

  I prickle at that; he makes it sound as if I pushed her into it. ‘She offered, Matt. And what position are you implying, exactly?’

  ‘I’m not implying anything.’ Wearily, he rakes a hand through his hair. ‘But Anna would do just about anything for you, Milly. You know that.’

  It sounds like an accusation, as if it’s an aspect of our friendship I’ve abused, but I know I would do anything for her too. I fold my arms, feeling stubborn. ‘So why not this?’

  ‘Because this is in a whole other category than housesitting or watering our plants or whatever. Come on, Milly. You know that.’

  ‘Yes, and I also know that Anna is my best friend, and I love her like a sister, as she loves me. Who else would offer? Who else would we ask? Who would we trust?’

  ‘What about me?’ Matt bursts out. ‘Did you even think about that? How I would feel, raising Anna’s baby as our own?’

  ‘It’s not like that, Matt,’ I fire back, even though I was thinking along similar lines back at the wine bar. ‘Honestly, it’s practically like giving blood.’ I echo Anna’s words, even though I don’t believe them entirely. ‘It would be our baby. I’d give birth. Genetics aren’t that important, you know.’

  ‘I know that, but do you?’ He straightens to look at me levelly. ‘Why not adopt?’ The words hover in the air and then drop into the stillness. I look away.

  ‘I don’t want to. I told you that.’

  ‘Yes, but why not? Your family is great, Milly—’

  ‘I know they are.’ I sound irritable, but I can’t help it. I’ve already had this conversation with Anna, and I don’t want to have it again, even though that’s not fair to Matt. I know how great my family is, and that is not the point here. ‘Look, I know it might seem like an obvious choice, but it just isn’t for me.’ I take a deep breath and then blow it out. ‘I’m the one who knows what it’s like to be adopted, okay? And I don’t want that for my child.’

  ‘But why?’ He looks bewildered, as well as a little disappointed in me, as if I’ve said something unkind. Perhaps I have. ‘You had an idyllic childhood, and your parents adore you…’ Unlike his, who are generally indifferent and wrapped up in their own lives. Genetics don’t count for much there. I know that, and yet… I still want my own child. I want to rest my hand on my swelling bump. I want to give birth. I want to hold my baby in my arms and know it came from my body, if not my blood.

  ‘I never said they didn’t adore me. That’s not the point.’

  ‘Then help me understand what is.’

  I fold my arms, tap my foot. I feel edgy now, as if my skin is prickling all over. This is how I always feel when I talk about being adopted. Over the years, I’ve learned to mask it – cue the breezy smile, the brisk brush-over. I’m adopted, but my family is great. I’m adopted, but my parents are wonderful. I’m adopted, but… That’s how it goes. That’s how it always goes. The never-ending caveat that I’ve always been aware of.

  ‘Do we have to talk about this now?’ I ask, trying to soften my voice. ‘Because it feels like a different discussion. What matters to me right now is that I might still have a chance to be pregnant. To have my own – our own – baby. Can you understand that, Matt? Can you understand how important it is to me?’

  My voice rings out, and Matt sighs. Somehow, we’ve started arguing and I don’t even know how we got here. I left the wine bar feeling so optimistic, so hopeful, and now this. I wanted Matt to fall in step alongside me, catch my excitement, even if we needed to be cautious, but as usual I’ve raced ahead and he can’t catch up.

  ‘I don’t know that I have any objections,’ he says after a moment. ‘I just want to think about it very carefully. There are a lot of emotional repercussions, Milly. For us, as well as for Anna. We can’t go into this with our eyes closed.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘In some ways I think an anonymous donor would be better.’

  ‘But there’s no waiting list this way, and Anna has great genes.’ I try to take a lighter tone, to defuse some of the tension. ‘She’s gorgeous.’ Anna has never made the most of her beauty, but the truth is, she’s stunning – tall and blonde, with sea-green eyes and perfect curves. The opposite of me in fact, as I’m small and dark and skinny, with pale, freckly skin that burns if I step into sunlight for a millisecond.

  ‘That’s hardly the point.’

  ‘What is, then?’

  ‘How Anna feels about us having her baby—’

  ‘Matt, it really isn’t like that.’ I have to believe that, or this whole plan falls apart before it’s even started to be stitched together. ‘It’s an egg—’

  ‘And whose sperm?’ he asks quietly. ‘Mine?’

  I feel jolted, as if I’ve missed the last step in a staircase, a sudden whoomph. I haven’t thought about that aspect, and in a painful flash I realise just how many things I need to consider. I can’t rush ahead with this, as much as I want to. ‘I don’t know,’ I admit.

  ‘Because, frankly, I’d find it a bit weird, if my sperm is combined with Anna’s egg.’ Matt folds his arms. ‘Sorry if that’s not how you want me to feel about it, but I do.’

  I nod, realising that’s how I feel too. I know it weakens my whole it’s-only-an-egg argument, but it’s still a deep-seated feeling, ingrained and instinctive. I know it doesn’t entirely make sense; it’s not as if anything physical or even emotional will have happened between Matt and Anna, and yet I can’t escape the offensive and uneasy feeling that it will be their baby. Not ours. Not mine.

  ‘I understand that,’ I say slowly. ‘I feel the same.’

  Matt leans forward. ‘Then you understand that we need to think through this carefully. Not just start tossing test tubes around.’

  I start to respond, but then my face crumples and I bring my hands up to hide my tears.

  ‘Oh, Milly.’ Matt reaches over and pulls me into his arms. I rest my head against his shoulder and let the tears come, even though I don’t want them to.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say through my snuffles. ‘I know I’m rushing ahead with this. I hadn’t even thought about it until Anna offered, and it felt as if she was throwing me a lifeline. We’ve been stuck on this hamster wheel of waiting, always waiting, and being told just to relax, and now we find out that it was going to do bugger all, all along.’ The words burst out of me, along with the anger. It’s so unfair. ‘If we’d started earlier… if Meghan had run some tests earlier…’ Bitterness corrodes every syllable. If only. If only.

  ‘We don’t know what would have happened,’ Matt says, sounding so frustratingly reasonable. I want him to be angry right along with me. I want him to feel. This whole process – the ups and downs, the uncertainty, the endless waiting, he’s taken in his stride, unruffled, practically unconcerned. Tonight was the first time he has shown a proper emotion about anything fertility-related – and it was frustration with me. ‘There’s no guarantee,’ he continues in that same calm voice, ‘that it would have happened that way at all.’

  ‘But it might have.’

  ‘Yes, it might have.’ He sighs and strokes my hair. ‘But there’s no point in wondering what might have happened, because it hasn’t. We’ve got to deal with the here and now.’

  ‘Exactly.’ I ease back, wiping the tears from my cheeks. ‘Which is what I was trying to do.’ I didn’t mean to get back to this point so soon, honestly I didn’t, but here we are. ‘Please, Matt. Can’t we at least look into it together? See if it might work for us?’

  He stares at me for a long moment, as if he’s trying to burrow into my brain. I stare back, knowing my hope and urgency are reflected in my face, and hoping that Matt sees that. That it means something to him, how much I want this.

  ‘All right,’ he says at last, and he reaches for his laptop on the coffee table. I sit next to him and he puts his arm around my shoulders as he types in the search engine is egg donation right for you?

  We click on the first link, a fertility website blog that details
one woman’s process as a donor. Silently we read about the hormones she takes, the side effects, the aspiration of eggs under sedation, and the fact that ten of her eggs were fertilised and the embryos frozen for later use. Ten little babies-in-waiting, which makes me realise if we go down this route, we could have more than one child, so precious and alone, like I was. We could have three, the family I always wanted, big but not too big, lots of faces around the table, jostling for space.

  Matt frowns and then clicks on another page, and then another, both of us gaining information about donors and the intended parents, the process, the cost, the legal ramifications. We are mapping this strange new territory, page by page.

  Matt doesn’t say anything; he just reads with the same quiet intensity with which he does everything. But I am becoming excited, like a balloon of hope is filling up inside of me. I know better than to say anything now, but I file away every fact like a promise: the 50–70 per cent success rate of egg donation and insemination; the case studies of open relationships with donors that read like one happy family after another; and, best of all, a study that shows a pregnant mother’s DNA affects the baby she is carrying, even when genetically it is not her own. This will be my child.

  Finally, gently, Matt shuts the laptop. We sit on the sofa, silent, expectant. I tell myself I am not going to say anything. I am not…

  ‘This could work,’ I venture cautiously, after a few endless minutes. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Matt sounds as guarded as ever, and I wonder which part of what we read gave him pause. ‘It’s a lot to think about.’

  ‘Yes, of course it is. But it’s… possible, isn’t it?’

  Matt turns to me with a tired smile. ‘I know you, Milly. I tell you it’s possible and tomorrow you’ll have booked Anna into the clinic.’

  ‘Not tomorrow,’ I object, trying to smile, make light of it, even though everything in me is tense and ready. ‘Maybe next week,’ I joke, although I’m not actually joking.

  Matt manages a small smile, but he still looks worried. He doesn’t want a baby the way I do, with the same desperate, frightened urgency. Yes, he’s wanted kids, but he’s not panicked about it. He hasn’t dreamed about finally – finally – holding a baby in his arms and thinking I know you. I’ve always known you.

  ‘There’s no harm in thinking about this for a little while, is there?’ he asks. ‘Taking a few weeks at least…?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I say, even though I am disappointed. ‘I know it feels like I’m rushing into this, Matt. I am rushing into it.’ I blow out a breath. ‘But it feels right to me. I want to be pregnant, with a lovely big bump. I want to hold my squalling newborn in my arms. I crave that physical connection – I can’t explain it any better than that.’ I feel a lump forming in my throat and I will myself not to break down yet again. ‘It’s important to me. Very important.’

  Matt’s face softens as he pulls me close. ‘I know that,’ he says, and he kisses the top of my head. ‘I know that, Milly.’

  But I wonder if he really does. I wonder if he understands at all how much I long for this, how having my own child will anchor me to this world in a way nothing else does.

  At least that’s what I thought then, but I had no idea how I would really feel when it came to pass, or how devastating it would turn out to be. And if I had known, would I have done things differently? Would I have walked away, told Anna, no, it’s not for us?

  I still can’t answer that question. The truth is, I don’t want to.

  Four

  Anna

  The weekend after my drink with Milly, I lie in bed and let the wintry sunshine from the window stream over me, as I daydream about what my baby will look like.

  Of course, I know it won’t be my baby, that’s not how it works at all, but ever since I put the idea to Milly, I’ve been… curious. Wistful. Considering the lack of romantic relationships in my life, I doubt I’ll ever have children of my own, so perhaps this could be the next best thing? I’ll get to see what a child of mine would look like. I might even watch him or her grow up, be a godmother, or an honorary auntie.

  The thought makes me smile, but it also brings its own, peculiar pain, because it hurts to remember. But I’m not going to think about that today.

  It’s Saturday, which are very quiet days for me. I don’t have a lot of friends besides Milly, just some casual acquaintances from work, along with a woman I met at a spin class with whom I occasionally get together for a coffee, and another old friend from my evening business course I took years ago.

  As for boyfriends, there haven’t really been any, which is actually fine. Over the years, I had a couple of dating situations that never went anywhere much, and more recently I haven’t bothered with it at all. I’m happy alone. I’ve learned to be.

  But today as I potter about my one-bedroom flat on the top floor of a Victorian terrace, I let my thoughts drift. I let myself dream, in a hazy and pleasant sort of way, about this nebulous future where Milly and Matt have my child, and I’m involved in his or her life.

  I feel hesitant about thinking this way, because I know he or she wouldn’t be my child in any real way. I’m giving an egg, not a baby. But still… would she have my hair? My eyes? The scaly patches of eczema on my elbows? I can’t help but wonder.

  I’ve never been particularly maternal, mostly because I haven’t let myself. After the turbulence of my parents’ marriage, as well as my own teenaged years, I’ve avoided serious relationships. Milly is the only one who has breached the defences I’ve put up out of instinct, and then only because she was so determined to.

  So, with these vague images of a rosy-cheeked baby, a tow-headed toddler drifting through my mind, I settle myself on my overstuffed sofa, with my cat Winnie purring contentedly next to me and a large cup of coffee on the table by my elbow, and open my laptop.

  It doesn’t take long to be sucked into the vortex of internet surfing, as I click from link to link, following a rabbit trail of research that tells me in detail all the things Milly mentioned so briefly, and more.

  I learn that I’ll have to take a rigorous cycle of hormones, as well as undergo at least one session of psychological counselling to make sure I’m okay with the whole process. I’ll have to be under general anaesthetic to have the eggs ‘aspirated’; I picture a Hoover. I’ll have no parental rights.

  I end up closing my laptop, deciding I need to clear my head. Running always does that for me, and so I change into my gym clothes and pull on my trainers. It’s a cold, bright day, the air crisp and clear as I head down my road to Victoria Park.

  My heart thuds in time with the pounding of my feet as I pick up my speed once in the park, the trees stark and leafless, the sky a bright, hard blue above. I’m not going to think about eggs or embryos or babies, about how Milly will get to be a mother while I chose not to be. I’m not going to wonder what if, what if, what if, because I can’t. I’ve learned to live with the choices I’ve made. I don’t question them, not anymore, and this is about Milly, not me. I can’t let it be about me.

  On the south end of the park, I finally come to a stop, my lungs burning, my hands on my knees. I straighten as my heart rate slows and I see that I am near the play area by St Luke’s Road. It’s not very busy on this cold February day, but a girl with golden plaits, six years old or so, is squealing with delight as her father pushes her on the swing. Without thinking about what I’m doing, I walk towards the play area, resting one hand on the fence as I watch the girl soar, the father pushing her higher and higher. Her head is tilted back, her eyes closed and her mouth wide open with joy. The father is laughing too, just from looking at her. It’s such a joyful moment, and I stand there transfixed by it, enjoying it simply by association, but also aching in a way I can’t articulate.

  Then the dad catches sight of me and his expression morphs into a guarded frown.

  ‘I’m sorry, may I help you?’ he asks, pitching his voice pleasant but firm. I realise how
creepy I must seem, standing there staring at the pair of them.

  ‘No, no, I’m just… just resting,’ I stammer, and then I turn away and start running back towards home, faster than before.

  * * *

  On Monday, all baby-related thoughts are driven from my mind when a young intern from the IT department pokes her head through my door.

  ‘Anna?’

  I don’t remember her name, although I probably should. Qi Tech has a hundred and fifty employees, and I’ve been working here for fourteen years, since I was twenty, on an apprenticeship in HR.

  ‘Yes? Can I help?’

  ‘Could I talk to you for a second?’

  I glance at my computer and then the clock. I have a meeting in twenty minutes with my boss Lara, the head of HR, to discuss the latest round of performance reports. I’ve barely looked at them yet, but something about this young woman’s stance – her hunched shoulders, pink dip-dyed hair sliding in front of her face – makes me pause.

  ‘Okay, sure.’

  She comes into my small office and I rise to close the door behind her. Something tells me this is going to be personal.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say as I sit behind my desk again. ‘I can’t remember your name.’

  She blinks uncertainly at me. ‘Sasha.’

  ‘Right. Sasha.’ I commit it to memory as I fold my hands on my desk. ‘What can I do for you, Sasha?’

  ‘I’m not sure how to say this…’

  ‘Honest and upfront is always my policy.’ I smile even as my mind is racing, wondering what’s troubling her. ‘It seems as if something is wrong…?’

  ‘Yes, well.’ She sighs, sitting down, her fingers knotted in her lap. ‘I don’t want to cause a big problem.’ She chews her lip as she glances at me from under her fringe. ‘Or get fired. I mean, you hear things…’

  ‘There’s no reason at all to think you’re going to be fired, Sasha.’ But what has happened? And who is involved? As the assistant director of Human Resources, my job ranges from recruiting, to resolving disputes, to the more unpleasant damage control. Some days I do nothing more interesting than file pay stubs. On other days, I try to keep something from blowing up big time online, because that’s the world we live in. A single tweet can spell disaster. Right now, I’m sensing today is going to be one of those other days, and I start to feel worried. Lara is not going to like this. ‘What’s happened, Sasha?’ I ask gently.