I gathered that a second IVF cycle was going to be a financial strain for the Straubs, but they didn’t hesitate. We scheduled another embryo transfer for mid-July.
The eight weeks passed as if in slow motion, as did the ten-day wait after IVF.
I didn’t talk to the baby this time.
On Day 10, I was pregnant. I belonged to the Straubs. We belonged to one another. If the pregnancy were successful, I saw a joyous future with all of us, Amelia, Fritz, Natalie, and me, raising the child together.
In one single bound, I had catapulted myself into another life, another social stratum. I had power now. I was carrying a baby in my womb, living in the home of artists, in a rarefied neighborhood, and it followed that I had status myself.
I walked to the grocery store nearby, and looked around at the customers and the people who worked there. I practiced looking down on these people and speaking to them with a tone of superiority. I purchased groceries and asked that they be delivered, saying my address loudly and repeating it, so everyone around me could hear where I lived. I walked into a café. The barista did not make my drink correctly. I had the right to complain. My voice mattered. My pregnant body demanded respect.
Some people live their whole life just waiting for the moment when they have the power to scorn others, as opposed to being the object of scorn themselves. Now I could assert my superiority with confidence, knowing that I belonged to a family of means. Fitting in with my clients and their friends had always seemed to be just out of my reach. Now I would seize a place at the table and make sure the rest of the world understood my position.
I was going to partner with Amelia and Fritz as parents. I believed that Amelia was sincere when she talked about my shared participation in the baby’s life, but I also knew it was important to make certain. When the time came, I would clarify what my needs were.
I did recognize, without it ever being articulated, that if I didn’t succeed in carrying the child, everything would disappear. Like Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and women throughout history, my value had all to do with my body, whether I could carry a baby to term. I knew very well that if I lost the pregnancy, I would lose my new apartment, my new neighborhood, my new family. I would lose all of it if I lost the baby. I was paying for all of it with my womb.
Amelia and Fritz were supporting me with low rent, nutritious meals, and health care. I turned down several jobs in order to prioritize my sleep and my health. My income was going to drop and that was perfectly OK. The baby was going to come first.
In weeks four and five, I didn’t have any signs or symptoms of the pregnancy. It was a terrifying sensation, as if the baby were a figment of my imagination. But in the sixth week, morning sickness kicked in. My days began and ended with retching. The extreme nausea gave me confidence—tangible evidence of the life inside me.
Amelia was excited, bordering on frantic, busying herself with activities to channel her energy. One Sunday evening in late August, she and I were talking in her kitchen. “I want you to eat as many meals here as you’d like to,” she said. “I plan to buy fresh fruit, vegetables, fish and steak, organic yogurt and milk, all the things you really need when you’re pregnant.” During the lowest points of Amelia’s despair, I’d noticed that the Straub refrigerator was often empty. Now, however, Amelia considered the unborn baby’s health an acknowledged priority.
She poured us each a glass of seltzer. “It’s odd that Ian hasn’t returned my calls,” she said. “Do you know if anything’s wrong?”
“Well…” I paused and counted to three.
“What?” She sat down at the counter next to me.
I sipped my seltzer, enjoying the carbonation in my throat, which temporarily relieved my nausea. “He’s mentioned a desire for growth … something like that.”
She looked at me like we couldn’t be talking about the same person. “He’s not happy in his job?”
I shrugged. “I don’t want to put words in his mouth.”
In early September I was seven weeks pregnant and Amelia was soaring. She texted to ask me to babysit and to come upstairs before Natalie arrived home from school, so we could talk. She had returned to the glamorous woman I’d met months earlier. Today she answered the door wearing black pants, a low-cut red silk blouse with no bra, and a very large clunky amethyst necklace. I envied her effortless Katharine Hepburn figure.
I was soaring too, maybe higher than Amelia, but even so, I was aware of Natalie and didn’t want her to feel unappreciated, whereas Amelia’s attention was fixed solely on “the new baby.” In other words, it was fixed on me. Her attention was what I’d been pining for, only, I didn’t want it at Natalie’s expense. I found myself covering for Amelia at times, distracting Natalie, changing the subject of conversation, when her mother was being particularly insensitive.
At this point, I found it easier to spend time with Natalie or Amelia, as opposed to both of them, so I was pleased for Amelia to invite me upstairs early, before Natalie arrived home. “How I wish I could pour you a glass of wine right now. After the baby is born, we’ll have cocktails every day.” She held her arms high in the air in a gesture of triumph. I imagined our future with evenings together around the fire and coffee together every morning.
Amelia filled her wineglass and poured me a glass of filtered water.
“Do you mind if I drink in front of you?” she asked solicitously.
“Of course not.” I did mind, actually. I found it challenging to watch Amelia drink. Over the last few months, I’d noticed a significant uptick in her drinking, and it hadn’t leveled off with the news of my pregnancy. But her body wasn’t the sacred vessel. Mine was.
I looked more closely at her amethyst necklace and noticed that the links were soldered together, an indication of twenty-four-karat gold. I breathed in her intense lemon-and-bergamot perfume. It was too much for my heightened sense of smell.
“You know,” Amelia said, “Ian’s like our family.” The subject of Ian had come up a couple of times over the last week, with Amelia using me as a sounding board. She clearly didn’t want him to leave the firm, but supporting Ian’s ambitions was in line with her self-image.
“I suggested he should talk things through with you,” I said, “but he says he can’t … desert you.”
“Desert us?” She laughed weakly and set a plate of green grapes, cheese, and crackers on the kitchen counter.
“You know … starting his own firm.”
Amelia’s eyes widened. I could tell it was an effort for her to maintain an expression of equanimity. “Ohhh.” She took a large sip of wine.
“I told him you’d support him.”
She hesitated for a split second. “Of course, we would.”
“Whether that’s clients, referrals, infrastructure,” I said. “Because I know how much you care for him.”
“Anything … of course.” Amelia smiled with her mouth, but her eyes betrayed something akin to resentment.
I was twelve weeks pregnant with a confirmed fetal heartbeat. If Dr. Krasnov recognized that I had never carried a baby to term, he hadn’t ratted me out thus far. I felt that he and I had reached a truce of sorts. He explained that I’d passed a critical milestone and the likelihood of miscarriage had significantly diminished. Upon hearing his words, a sensation of expansiveness and levity moved throughout my body and filled me completely.
Amelia was standing by in the waiting room at my request. I did take some secret pleasure in these moments, when she was the outsider who was forced to wait for me. I had the critical information before she did.
Afterward, she was invited into the doctor’s office and offered a seat next to me. “So far, so good, Mrs. Straub.”
The look on her face was like someone who had just finished scaling a mountain.
My power was increasing daily. I was carrying a life inside me. I had an indisputable purpose. My value in other arenas—my professional value, my value to lovers and friends, had never had the same gravity. Not even close. Amelia needed me and it was a life-and-death kind of need. I could feel vibrations of anguish and desire radiating off her.
The doctor shook her hand. “Now Ms. Dawn can continue care with her OB.”
Amelia stumbled over her words. “Thank … thank you so much.”
While waiting for the elevator together, she embraced me. “You’re a miracle.” I noticed how chapped her lips were and considered offering her some lip gloss, but thought better of it. I remembered the high-end pot of lip gloss on her desk in her home office. I doubted that she’d want to use my brand of lip gloss. Neither would she want my germs.
A sick feeling threatened me, but, just as quickly, it subsided.
Amelia drove me back to Brooklyn in her silver Mercedes SUV and insisted that I join her for lunch at her house. Occasionally I allowed myself to acknowledge why she adored me so much. Of course, it was because of the baby. It wasn’t real love. Or was it? I understand why some women get pregnant to secure a husband or hold on to the one they have. It’s the ultimate power.
I rested on the sofa in the great room, and after a few minutes she brought me a turkey sandwich and a glass of ice water and placed them on the iron coffee table. “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “My dreams are coming true. I want the same for Ian.”
“Of course,” I said.
“So Fritz and I called him.” She sat down next to me. “We told him he should start his own firm.” Amelia smiled with what seemed to be considerable effort. “And that we’d support him.”
“Wow.”
“And that you were his strongest advocate in making it happen.” She beamed.
I took a bite of my turkey sandwich and swallowed.
“I guess … he was overwhelmed or agitated,” she said, “especially anxious regarding his mother’s health.”
“I’m sure he’s grateful.” I chewed on a piece of ice in an effort to quell my nausea.
“Well … we’ll miss him.” From her tone of voice, it sounded as though she were speaking of someone from the distant past.
I noticed that I was extremely warm. I removed my sweater so that I was only wearing a tank top. No one would have known that I was pregnant. My stomach was still practically flat. Amelia studied my body. I could tell she was in love with it, in an odd, objectifying way.
There were times when I thought Amelia might view me as being in service to her—as her inferior. Surrogacy isn’t entirely dissimilar from prostitution. I have no ethical problem with prostitution. It’s a class problem. I’d slept with a guy for money twice, in a hotel room in Florida. He was a loser. So fucking him for money made me into a double loser. Then I left Florida and came to New York.
Amelia probably felt as though she were paying me indirectly—with her love and attention, with the time I spent with Natalie, and with the under-market apartment. But she might not have realized that I no longer needed payment.
She moved down to the end of the sofa next to my feet. She removed my socks and pressed her thumbs into pressure points on the arches of my feet, my heels, and my toes. At first, I was surprised that she would debase herself so. But then it dawned on me that she believed her actions were in service of her child. So there was an element of ego and self-preservation in her behavior. “Some pressure points really support the body’s immune system and strengthen it,” she said, “allowing the baby to receive all the nutrients and vitamins that it needs.”
Her fingers were resting on the faint scar from Itzhak’s bite. She didn’t seem to notice it.
Natalie appeared in the doorway with her camera in hand and snapped a photo of us. “Is Delta sick?”
“No, I’m fine.” I sat up on the sofa.
“Natalie, the baby’s healthy so far.” Amelia looked from Natalie to me. She clasped my hands. “What a mitzvah.”
“Mitzvah means ‘good deed,’” Natalie explained to me.
“What’s your favorite boy’s name?” Amelia asked Natalie.
“BoBo.” Natalie opened the refrigerator door and looked for a snack.
Amelia frowned. “Sweetheart…”
I wanted Amelia to drop the subject. It was obvious that Natalie was not going to engage.
“Do you know if it’s a boy?” Natalie opened a kitchen cabinet and rummaged through it.
“A sixth sense,” Amelia said. “I like the name Emilio.”
“Did you forget about the ‘evil eye’?” Natalie asked.
“I’m not naming the baby now,” Amelia said. “Just getting ideas.”
Natalie pulled out a box of saltine crackers.
“This baby,” Amelia said, “will change everything in our lives.”
Over the last few weeks, I’d continued to research surrogacy laws in New York and had confirmed what I already understood to be true. If a surrogate changes her mind and wants to keep the baby, the genetic parents don’t have a lot of recourse. Even if the Straubs and I’d had a written contract, it would be worthless. That meant I would have the power to make my position in the Straub family permanent. My leaving would not be an option. I planned to bring the subject up in the right way at the right time. I would make sure Amelia understood that I wasn’t trying to take anything away from her. Amelia, Fritz, and I would be partners on an exciting journey. We would raise the child together.
Natalie took a bite of a saltine cracker.
“I feel like it’s a second chance for our family and my marriage,” Amelia said.
“Because your first chance failed?” Natalie licked crumbs from her lips.
Amelia was choosing not to notice her daughter’s jealousy. “A baby brings positive energy into a home.”
“You’re so full of it,” Natalie said.
“Shut your mouth.”
Natalie closed her fist around a saltine cracker, causing it to crumble in her hand. “Fuck you.” She dropped the box of crackers onto the counter and ran out of the room and up the stairs.
I wanted to follow Natalie, but I had a feeling that Amelia wouldn’t appreciate it if I did.
Amelia looked up at the ceiling and breathed deeply. “Privilege. It’s a double-edged sword. Natalie’s surrounded by children who have no clue about the world. I had to work like a dog to get where I am. Natalie thinks my life and Fritz’s should revolve around her. News flash. Getting all the attention doesn’t make you a stronger person.”
Amelia needed to believe what she needed to believe.
Half an hour later I found Natalie reading in her room and suggested she come down to my apartment for a photography lesson. When she arrived, we bundled up and walked around the block with our cameras.
“What do you want for your birthday?” I asked.
“It’s two months away.”
“Let’s go to a museum together.”
Her eyes brightened. “OK.”
“There’s a photography exhibition at MoMA that opens in November. I think you’ll like it.”
It was mid-October. The weather had turned cold, and the sun was approaching the horizon. Natalie took out her camera.
“It can be harder late in the day,” I said.
She took a picture of a blue jay flying from one tree to another.
“That one will turn out blurry,” I said.
“I hope it does,” she said. “You can’t freeze the bird at one moment in time. I want the photo to say time doesn’t stand still. My mom doesn’t realize that. She’s too old to have another baby. She’s ancient.” I hoped that Natalie refrained from this line of thought when her mother was around.
We walked almost all the way around the block. “My mom said I can stay over with you tonight.”
“I’m so glad.”
Natalie photographed the evergreen magnolia in front of the Straubs’ house. I had to remind myself it was my house too.
“Do you have morning sickness today?” she asked.
“I feel all right.” My morning sickness usually died down around 2 P.M. each day.
“Piper told me her mom had morning sickness when she was pregnant with her little brother. She said if you’re not nauseous every day, it means the baby isn’t healthy.”
I found it hard to swallow. “Piper has a lot of information.”
She put her hand on my abdomen. “I can feel the baby.”
She was right. I’d felt a fluttering sensation over the last few days.
Once inside my apartment, she took off her coat and shoes and left them by the front door, as she’d been trained to do.
I opened a package of chocolate chip cookies, placed several on a plate, and brought them to Natalie. She sat cross-legged on the sofa with the plate in her lap. Slowly and methodically, she took little bites around the edge of a cookie. “You’re going to have a baby and then give it away,” she said. “I don’t get it.”
A strong pressure in my sinuses spread to my ears and throat. I felt faint. “Don’t worry. I will see the baby.” She didn’t understand that our lives were going to be overflowing with light and love.
That evening, Natalie and I sat together on the sofa and looked through the photos she had shot on the viewfinder of her camera. She had a strong point of view. For photographers, that was rare. Of course, she lacked skill, but what she already had was almost impossible to teach.
“‘If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you,’” I said. “‘If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.’”
“Hmm?”
“It’s something Jesus said about self-expression.”
I also had a point of view, but I chose to avoid it most of the time. Were I to embrace it, I would have had to acknowledge other things that I was not interested in acknowledging. People like me created useful stories to paste over other stories. Because the real stories would take you on a deep dive to hell. If you knew for a fact that you’d break into a thousand pieces on your way there, then you might say to yourself, well, Jesus was actually wrong with regard to me.
In my case, I had a structure to my life and my mind, and I wasn’t going to trade that in for anarchy and chaos.
Natalie was different than I was. She could stomach her reflection in the mirror, not just once, but over and over, each and every day. She could look at herself and say, This is the person I am. I have nothing to offer that doesn’t come from a place of darkness and ugliness.
I lay in my bed that night with Natalie in the next room. I rested my hand on my abdomen and felt the faintest movement. The baby was going to provide a pathway out of the grime that had been clinging to me for all these years. I had a window now, and I could see what was possible.