Three Months Later
There are five plastic containers of baby food laid out on my desk: apple, pear, peach cobbler, sweet potato, and autumn vegetable turkey.
Recently, Cuddles has decided to branch out into the baby food market. I’m supposed to be writing copy for the website they’re developing to display and sell their baby foods. Specifically, they want a catchy slogan. Considering I have little experience with baby food, I thought I would buy a few containers of them and hopefully it would inspire me.
I have learned one important thing about baby food: It tastes awful.
I can’t believe people feed this crap to helpless infants. Well, the apple and pear were okay. Tolerable. The peach cobbler sounded good, but tasted too sweet. The sweet potato made me gag, but I successfully got down a bite of it. But the autumn vegetable turkey… I don’t use the word “sickening” too often, but wow. That could have been the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.
Oh, and I learned one other important thing about baby food: It’s a very powerful laxative.
And I didn’t even try the prune baby food.
Maybe there’s a slogan in there somewhere. Cuddles Baby Food—as good for the bowels as it is for the soul.
Maybe not.
A fist raps on the door to my office. Monica is standing at the doorway, in her modest outfit of black slacks and a crisp white blouse buttoned up to her throat. She smiles when she sees me.
One month ago, we finalized our contract for Monica to serve as our surrogate. Sam spent forever going through it with our lawyer, and the terms are very strict. We will pay for Monica’s entire graduate school tuition, but she gives up all rights to the baby at the moment of conception. There is no option for her to change her mind at any point after that. I worried the terms might scare her, but it didn’t. She signed with a flourish.
Then a few weeks ago, Sam went to the doctor’s office and gave a sample of his sperm. Since I know Monica so well, we certainly didn’t have to go through the doctor—we could have gotten a sample on our own and given it to her. But he insisted on doing it this way.
And now… we’re waiting. Obviously, this is only our first try so the chances of pregnancy aren’t huge, but I’m still excited. If it doesn’t work this month, then it will next month or the month after that. Monica is only twenty-three and her doctor declared her to be in excellent health, so there’s no reason this shouldn’t work.
“Have you ever tried baby food?” I ask Monica. She makes a face. “No, should I have?”
“No. You definitely shouldn’t.” I notice Monica is clutching her purse under her arm. “Is everything okay?”
“Well,” she says thoughtfully, “sort of.” “Sort of?”
She reaches her hand into her purse and digs around a bit. When she pulls her hand back out, she’s holding a white plastic stick in a clear Ziploc bag. She lies it down on my desk so I can see it clearly.
There are two blue lines on the stick. “You’re pregnant?” I breathe.
Monica nods, her eyes shining. “There are no false positives.” Monica’s pregnant.
Sam’s sperm knocked up my assistant on the very first try. We tried for so many years without any success. It’s not like I ever doubted that I was the one responsible for our infertility, but I’ve never seen the evidence smacking me in the face like this.
First try. Pregnant.
After a second of silent self-deprecation, the impact of the news hits me. Monica is pregnant. Which means in less than nine months, she will give birth. I’m going to be a mother. After all this time of waiting and trying and wishing, this is finally going to happen for me.
I can’t believe it.
“This is incredible!” I exclaim.
She nods happily. “I didn’t think it would happen so fast. I guess I’m really fertile, huh?”
Her words are a quick jab in the gut, but I push it aside. She’s doing this for me—she’s just excited at how quickly it all happened. “I guess so. Hey, I’m going to text Sam, okay?”
“Of course.”
I whip out my iPhone, which of course doesn’t recognize my thumbprint because my fingers are all sticky from baby food. I punch in my passcode, which is my birthday. Yes, I know—it’s not very secure. But I don’t think anyone is plotting to steal information from my phone. Half of what’s on there is text messages with my coworkers. Mostly between Shelley and me, complaining about Denise.
I type a quick text to Sam: Monica’s pregnant!
After I type the words, the iPhone suggests a pregnant lady emoji, which I add in, even though I know Sam is not a big fan of random emojis. Oh well.
“What did he say?” Monica asks, casually leaning over my desk to see the screen of my phone.
Sam’s reply comes a second later: Wonderful.
It’s hard not to imagine a touch of sarcasm in his response. Even though Sam has been on board throughout this process, he’s been noticeably reluctant the whole way. When he left to give the sperm sample, he gave me this look and said, “Here I go.” And then he waited, like he was hoping I might tell him to forget the whole thing. I didn’t.
“He said, ‘Wonderful!’” I say.
Monica beams. She doesn’t need to know I inserted the exclamation point myself.
I look down at her stomach, which is flat as a board. We agreed she’d work until she was showing, but it doesn’t look like that will happen any time soon. “How are you feeling?”
“Good!”
“Any nausea?” “Not at all.” “Tired?”
“Just a bit.” She holds her thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart. “But not too bad.”
She doesn’t look like she feels tired or nauseous. She looks… great, actually. Like she’s glowing.
“You’re taking the prenatal vitamins, right?” I ask. She nods.
“Two a day,” I remind her. “The recommended dose is two pills per day.”
She smiles. “I know.”
I squeeze my hands together. “And you have to avoid cold cuts. And sushi. And, well… alcohol is supposed to be okay in moderation, but—”
“Don’t worry, Abby,” Monica says in that calm voice of hers. “I’m not going to drink at all. I promise.”
I hear a knock on the door, and before I can say anything, Denise is standing in the doorway. She never waits for a reply before barging in. She peers at me, a noticeable lack of a smile on her lips, but that’s nothing new. She regards Monica briefly, but chooses not to even acknowledge her with a greeting.
“Abigail,” she says. “Have you found a slogan yet for Cuddles? I just got a call from them.”
“Um…”
Cuddles baby food—tastes fifty percent less sickening than the other leading brands.
“Not yet,” I say.
Denise eyes the baby food containers on my desk. Too late, I notice Monica’s pregnancy test is still lying there. I put my elbow in front of it, hoping Denise doesn’t notice. Aside from Shelley, I haven’t told a soul here about my arrangement with Monica, and I don’t intend to. Nothing good can come of that. She’s going to leave the company before she’s showing, so really, it’s none of their business.
“We’re meeting with them tomorrow,” Denise reminds me. “I hope you’ll have something by then.”
“Absolutely.”
She frowns at me. “Don’t disappoint me, Abigail. This is an important account.”
Yes, I know this is an important account. Despite my success with the diapers campaign, you’re only as good as the last thing you’ve done. If I screw this up, I’m finished. Why else would I be sitting here, eating this disgusting baby food?
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m on it.”
I let out a breath when Denise breezes out of my office. I’m dreading the conversation where I have to tell her I need twelve weeks of family leave after all. But what can I do?
Wow, this baby thing is really going to happen. I’m going to have a baby.
I can’t believe it.
“I better prepare for this meeting,” I say to Monica, who kept her head down the whole time Denise was berating me. “But… well, I know I’ve said this before, but I can’t say it enough: thank you. This is… incredible.”
She smiles, showing off a row of pearly white teeth. “I’m happy to do it for you.”
She looks down at the positive pregnancy test lying on the table in front of me. She starts to reach for it, but I shake my head. “I can throw this away for you.”
“Oh, no.” She snatches it off my desk and holds up it, admiring the two blue lines. “I want to save it. You know, as a keepsake.”
She wants to save it? She wants a keepsake from a pregnancy she’s going through just to get a ticket to art school? Is it just me or is that odd?
If anyone should want to save the pregnancy test, it should be me. And I don’t want it. I mean, it’s got urine on it. But I don’t want to make a big thing of it. So I don’t say a word as Monica carefully tucks the pregnancy test back in her purse.
