Our surrogate had our baby—but when my husband bathed her, he said, ‘We cant keep this child’
Here is my story, and I’m still shivering with fear while recalling those moments. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve had more than several hours of sleep since last Thursday. You know how long we’ve waited for Sophia. Ten years! And those were ten years of injections, of crying my heart out at every negative test which felt like I was a failure every single time, of being frustrated with my “broken” body.
Now that we finally brought her home, I couldn’t help but feel as if I were holding my breath. I did not dare to make any noise or express excitement out of fear that the cosmos might notice the error and reclaim her. Yet, there she was, our baby girl, asleep in our crib.
And then came her first bath.
We were in the bathroom, and this was to be our core memory, yes? The ‘perfect parents’ experience? Well, Daniel was being so incredibly sweet – you know what he’s like, such a perfectionist! He was holding her delicate head up with one hand while pouring hot water from this little plastic cup over her. She looked like fragile china to him.
But then…
He suddenly just stopped!
The cup tipped over, water began sloshing out into the bath again and he just stood there frozen. “Daniel,” I called out to him, but he didn’t so much as blink. His face was fixed on the area of her back above her shoulder blades in sheer terror. “No,” he murmured. “Not possible.”
Before I had a chance to question him, he blurted out, “We can’t keep her!”
My heart dropped not just down, but to my feet. My mind raced with all sorts of scenarios – did he have second thoughts? Was she ill? Was she not ours?
But he wanted me to look closer. As I leaned down, I saw it. It wasn’t a mark from birth or a scratch from the crib. It was a scar, a line perfectly straight from a surgical cut. She had been operated on without us ever knowing.
Words cannot describe how frantic and panicked I felt at that point. Daniel bundled her up in a towel, still trembling, and we were out the door. I was trying desperately to get ahold of Kendra, our surrogate, but it went straight to her voice mail. Again and again and again.
I don’t even remember how we got to the hospital. I couldn’t stop looking at my baby girl, questioning what was inside her and what they had done to her. Finally when we arrived at pediatrics, this doctor approached with total calmness, which actually made me scream internally, and said “the procedure was successfully performed.”
He explained that she had a slight risk of infection at birth and required “immediate intervention.” I asked him as to who gave consent as this surely wasn’t from our side, and then the door opened and in came Kendra.
Her face was so pale that it looked like she had seen a ghost. Once inside the doctor’s office, she explained that the doctors had informed her that the procedure was urgent. She said that the doctors had attempted to contact us, but were unable to do so. So, she had to sign the forms and make the decision for our child.
There I stood, looking into the eyes of this person who had been entrusted with everything, only to look into those of another doctor who had never even heard my name before, and come to understand that they had seen me as an outsider in my own daughter’s life. There had been just a single phone call from the hospital. Only one. And because we didn’t answer immediately, they assumed that we weren’t available.
I felt insignificant. Like just another faceless woman paying the bills.
I was honest with Kendra and explained that even though she meant no harm, I was angry at her; I told her that she made a decision which was mine to make. I also demanded from the doctor every document, all the logs of the conversation on the phone, and an an explanation on why I was not been seen as a parent when the situation became complicated.
On the way back home, there was absolute silence in the car; Daniel was blaming himself for not having insisted to remain by her side throughout the delivery, or for not having checked her body after we went out of the hospital. I did not allow him to say those words because we cannot write history.
Upon our return, the bathroom was still messy. The water in the tub remained the same. It seemed that while away from this life, we had returned into another life. It became difficult for Daniel to continue the process, which I ended up finishing myself.
I put her back in that warm water and began washing her. While doing so, I remembered that scar mark on her back, and suddenly, it dawned on me that she is indeed a fighter. She endured surgery in the absence of her mother and father by her side, yet emerged from it perfectly.
I’m still angry. I’m going to spend the next month making sure that hospital never ignores a mother again. But when I held her in that towel and she made this little annoyed squeak because she was cold, Daniel actually laughed. A real laugh.
They made efforts to make me just an afterthought. They think that being a mother begins when the paperwork is simple, but they are mistaken. I am her mother because it is me who is there, and it is me who will never let go.
Finally, I know that she belongs to me. It hasn’t been a flawless process, but it is now when the world tried to push me aside that I found myself back by her side. Everything will be all right from now on. She is asleep, and for the first time in ten years, I believe that I can sleep too.
Please SHARE this article with your family and friends on Facebook.