19
Babas & Booties was the perfect preparation for the next stop on our parade to parenthood: Orange County. As any good L.A. homosexual knows, Orange County is where they hunt gays for sport. It’s also where Tiffany’s ob-gyn was located.
“Oh, he’s very nice,” she assured us. “He delivered Gavin.”
“But is he gay-friendly?”
Tiffany shrugged. Of course. How would she know that? It’s not something straight people think about when they meet other straight people. Hmm, I wonder if he’ll throw a rock through my window if he finds out who I sleep with? That’s purely a gay person concern. It’s pretty much the first thought that goes through my mind anytime I meet anyone, ever. The ability to spot enemies is the one thing more important to the modern homosexual than gaydar. It’s homophobe-dar, and it can save your life—or at least spare you a few moments of awkward conversation with an asshole.
It turns out I didn’t have to get very far into the doctor’s office to get my first hint of the man’s inclination.
“Oh my God, do you see that?”
Drew stopped short. He was just about to open the door to the ob-gyn’s office. “What? The nameplate?”
“Yes, the nameplate. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before.” Drew looked back at me blankly. “Tiffany’s doctor’s name? See?”
“Dr. Robertson?”
“Patrick Robertson. Drew, our babies are going to be brought into the world by Pat Robertson!”
Drew sighed and pushed me into the waiting room.
By now we’d come to anticipate a certain kind of reception when we first met new people and shared our arrangement with them. “Oh my God, that’s incredible! I’m so happy for you all! What an amazing story!”
I believe when Tiffany introduced us to her doctor, the conversation went something like this:
“This is Drew and Jerry. They’re the dads of the babies.”
“Hello.”
The “hello” came with a half nod, but no handshake. Homophobic? Who knows? The man made his living inspecting vaginas. Maybe we just weren’t properly equipped to get his attention.
He was nice to Tiffany, and that was more important. He asked her how she was feeling, what she was eating, and how often she was puking. While his hands kneaded her belly like a lump of bread dough, he made gynecological small talk. “You’ve never had a C-section, right?” “You getting enough folic acid?” And finally, the big one. “Are you going to learn the sex?”
Tiffany shrugged. “Ask them. These are their babies.”
Dr. Robertson chuckled, as if she’d made a joke. Their babies! Ha ha! Good one, pregnant lady!
Quick to defuse any awkwardness, Drew jumped in. “Yes, we want to find out. We can’t wait!”
“Make an appointment for the eighteen-week ultrasound,” Dr. Robertson said, again addressing Tiffany. “They’ll be able to tell you.”
“He hates us,” I said to Drew, once we left the office. Tiffany was at the receptionist’s desk, making the ultrasound appointment. It was the first time we had a minute to talk.
“What? He was totally nice,” Drew said.
“Are you kidding? He didn’t even look at us.”
“Well, he’s her doctor.”
“He’s a homophobe!”
“What are you guys talking about?” Tiffany asked, rejoining us.
“Nothing!” I said, instantly. “When’s the appointment?”
Finding out our babies’ sex was a no-brainer for us. We’d had enough surprises already, and the delivery would be incredible enough without the added zing of Dr. Pat Robertson deadpanning, “It’s a . . . !”
More than that, we felt the need to mentally prepare ourselves for whatever was coming. We hated to admit it, but the time had come to face our fears: We were terrified of having a daughter.
Drew and I aren’t “girly” gays. We have no interest in makeup or hairdressing. We don’t know how to tie pigtails or throw tea parties for stuffed animals. We don’t know Sleeping Beauty from Cinderella, and we groan when we see those little girls traipsing around Disneyland in their Snow White ball gowns. We couldn’t even imagine how we’d deal with puberty. Sure, we could swap notes with our daughter about which boys we thought were cute, but we feared all her questions about getting her period would send us running to Wikipedia or trying to find whichever iCarly episode covered the topic. No, she deserved better than that. There was no way we could have a girl. We’d be such a crushing disappointment to her.
The only thing worse than having a girl would be having a boy. Drew and I aren’t “manly” gays either, not the kind of Schwarzenegger-slash-Schwarzkopf tough guys a little boy wants to write his “My Dad Is My Hero” essay for school about. We’ve never owned baseball cards or G.I. Joes. We wouldn’t know how to hold a gun upright, let alone sideways the way Keanu Reeves does in The Matrix. We don’t like monster trucks or mud. And no matter how hard I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to get a football to do that cool twirly thing real dudes can do so effortlessly. What would we say when our teenage son came to us with girl troubles? “Eh, sorry kid. Not our forte!”
The ultrasound room was down the hall from Dr. Robertson’s office, with an entirely new staff to gawk at us. Tiffany giggled excitedly the moment she saw us. “Well . . . ,” she said, “what do you think they’re going to be?”
“It really doesn’t matter,” I replied, though in the back of my head, the rest of that sentence was, “because either way, we’re screwed.”
As nervous as I was, it was calming to see Tiffany so at ease with the pregnancy at last. The cramps and nausea had subsided, and she could feel the distinct presence of two tiny people inside her. She looked rested and happy. She was as excited as we were, eager to show us her ever-evolving baby bump.
“Tiffany Ireland!” the nurse called. Eric stood up instantly to accompany his wife. Drew and I hung back. We never knew how naked Tiffany was going to have to get at the appointments, so we always waited for the okay to join her.
“Come on!” she smiled, waving us in. We stood up, collected ourselves, and strode confidently to the doorway. This was it. The big moment. The unveiling of our unborn children’s genitalia.
“Uh-uh!” a nurse scolded, blocking the doorway. “Only the husband can come!”
Never ones to defy authority, Drew and I stammered. We could see everyone looking at us, the receptionists and patients, wondering who these two other men were. We felt like intruders, exposed and ashamed.
“But they’re the dads,” Tiffany explained. It was so casual, as if the situation needed no further explanation. Yes, I’m carrying two babies, and this is my husband, but those two men will be raising them. Why are you looking at me like that?
I could feel the pain of a half dozen tongues being bitten simultaneously, but the nurse stepped aside and let us through. “No talking,” she warned, as if to get in a parting shot.
As we entered the ultrasound room, a technician was busily preparing the machine. Tiffany lay on the table, with Eric at her side. Finally, the heavyset woman looked up, staring uncomfortably at me and Drew.
“Hi!” Drew beamed, extending his hand. “We’re the dads!”
The tech sneered at him. “Ugh, I can’t have all these people in here!” She stomped across the room and threw open the door, as if looking around for someone to complain to. “Ugh!” It was like she suddenly remembered some sensitivity training the staff had been forced to endure for our benefit. She slammed the door.
“Stand against the wall, and don’t say a word!” she barked.
She didn’t introduce herself, but the ultrasound screen identified her by her license number, R423A. She squirted Tiffany’s torso with goo from what looked like an old mustard container and began the procedure.
There they were. Our kids. Baby A and Baby B. It had been weeks since we’d seen them, and I just now realized that I actually missed them. I knew almost nothing about them, but I’d grown so attached. They were so much bigger now, so much more human-looking. I could almost picture the day Drew and I would bring them home.
R423A was examining Baby A very closely, nodding and grunting occasionally. She took a still photo, then leaned over the keyboard to type something on the screen.
“B-” she typed.
I squeezed Drew’s hand, misting up. It was a boy!
“L-A-D-D-E-R.”
Huh? I looked at the whole word. “Hmm . . . bladder looks good,” R423A grunted. Then she rubbed her wand over another part of Tiffany’s belly.
A minute later, she stopped and took another snapshot. “L-I-V-E-R,” she wrote.
It went on like this for ten minutes. “One kidney,” she counted, then, five seconds later, “Two kidneys.” She went through the entire digestive, circulatory, and respiratory systems, then she started over with Baby B.
R423A sure knew how to keep us in suspense. We’d been in her office for twenty minutes, during which she’d subjected us to the world’s longest sonographic striptease.
“Can you tell us the sex?” I asked, finally.
Drew glared at me. How dare I anger R423A? It didn’t matter, though, because she ignored me completely.
Finally, I noticed the distinct butt crack of Baby A. This was it. The tech hovered over the crotch, nodding and making notes but saying nothing. I had no idea what I was looking at. I didn’t see anything that looked like a penis, but I didn’t see anything that looked like a bladder or a liver either, and the kid apparently had those.
“You wanna know the sex?” R423A asked.
Drew and I clutched each other’s hands. “Yes! Please!”
She drew a circle on the screen around something that was supposed to be a giveaway. She looked at me to see if I’d figured it out, but all I could do was shrug. She bent down over the keyboard and typed in, excruciatingly slowly, “I-T-apostrophe-S, space bar, A, space bar . . .” Yes? Yes?
The instant the letter “B” popped up on screen, I gasped. “A boy!” I cheered. “Ah, so that’s a penis!”
“O-Y,” R423A typed. Then she printed out another snapshot.
Drew and I smiled at each other. A boy! It was amazing. With every detail we learned about Baby A, he became more real. He was a boy, with lungs and a stomach and a spleen! In that moment, there was no fear about having to coach his little league team or help him pick a prom date. That could come later. For now, we were just happy to learn a little bit about our kid.
R423A spent a few minutes checking out Baby A’s junk and making notes before she switched over to Baby B. She once again paused over the fetus’s groin before asking, “Any guesses?”
From where I was standing, this crotch looked exactly the same as the last one. Apparently, though, I was missing something.
“It’s a girl!” Tiffany squealed.
The technician confirmed her guess by typing “IT’S A GIRL” on the screen. The second I saw Drew’s tears, my own came pouring out, too. Tiffany was crying. Eric slapped us on the backs triumphantly. A boy and a girl. A boy and a girl! It was the biggest shock since we found out we were having twins, but this time, there was no blood in the uterus to dampen our enthusiasm. It was the kind of thing life gives us far too seldom—pure, solid, perfect, completely unspoiled good news. This was a moment to savor.
It took a few moments before we realized R423A had switched off her ultrasound machine and wiped the goo off Tiffany’s skin. She lowered her glasses down the bridge of her nose and glared at us, as if wondering why we were still standing there.
“We’re done,” she said. “Go.”
As quickly as we could scramble out the door, we moved our celebration to the hall.