Three Dads and a Baby by Ian Jenkins

Author:Ian Jenkins [Jenkins, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Three Dads and a Baby
ISBN: 9781627785228
Publisher: Cleis Press
Published: 2021-01-01T04:00:00+00:00

viii She has since become our best babysitter, the most entertaining grandparent on toddler FaceTime calls, and the only grandparent to turn to for leading children’s songs.

CHAPTER 25

BLOOD

I‘m bleeding,” Delilah’s text said. “A lot.” Delilah had an ob-gyn she loved, Dr. Gordon, who’d delivered all of her children. But because of her age, a high-risk obstetrician named Dr. Lee had been following her for our surrogacy. Delilah called Dr. Lee’s clinic. They told her to take it easy and come in the next day. For now, there was nothing to do.

We knew, immediately, we either faced a good chance of losing our baby or that we’d already lost her. What the hell else could heavy vaginal bleeding mean at eleven weeks? We felt completely helpless. I thought, Hope for the best; prepare for the worst.

That’s what I tell patients when all signs point to advanced cancer and they have to go through the awful experience of waiting for biopsy results. Lots of people think that breaking bad news is a singular event, maybe even one sentence. It’s actually a process. Patients don’t need to hear all the bad news at once. In fact, they usually can’t, because people go into shock when they hear horrible news. Besides, I have to start by telling them why they need a biopsy.

“Tell me straight,” many of these sick patients ask. “Do I have cancer?” I say, “Hopefully it’s an unusual infection. But it’s best to hope for the best; prepare for the worst. If it’s good news, it’ll be a pleasant surprise. If it’s cancer, you’ll be ready, and we can start planning the treatment.”

Here’s a secret: It’s always fucking cancer. When that teenager had that seventeen-centimeter monster displacing his heart; when that young mother had nodules in her liver; when that nonagenarian told me the thing he dreaded most would be losing his speech if that thing in his brain ate his language center—it was always cancer. Once, I went through this process with a good friend who had cancerous-looking masses throughout his abdomen. That one time, the biopsy was negative and the illness melted away on antibiotics: the exception that proves the rule.

When I told myself, hope for the best; prepare for the worst, I was already preparing myself for the loss of our baby. Every miscarriage is a tragedy, I know. I already felt a deep sympathy for everyone who’d suffered one. But let’s be honest . . . we had worked so hard to get where we were. We’d spent $90,000 on IVF and hired most of the lawyers in California, and we’d accepted a great gift from Delilah, putting her health at small but measurable risk. We only had two embryos left, and each try would cost another $25,000. Our surrogate would probably be tired of trying (and was not getting any younger), and that would mean locating a new surrogate and another flurry of legal fees and time.

A miscarriage could mean the end of our parenting plans.

There was more.

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