Because of his character, I was able to marry the guy of my dreams. However, given the generally negative perception mothers-in-law have, I was first anxious to meet his mother. She surprised me, though, by being just as sweet. Before my in-law offered to be our surrogate, I believed I had married into the ideal family.
Arthur was the type of man who recalled everything when I first met him. Little things like my preference for two slices of lemon in my tea and the fact that I once fractured my wrist roller-skating in seventh grade are just as important as anniversaries and favorite films.
He recalled my favorite coffee, my cat’s name, and even the amusing tale of how my mother taught me to whistle through my teeth.
We sat opposite each other at the so-called singles table, which felt more like a matchmaking experiment, during a friend’s wedding at this oddball barn location.
Before I could freak out, Arthur offered me his suit jacket without hesitation, grinning sheepishly, and said, “Here, now you’re fashionably clumsy.” I had just spilled red wine on my green satin dress.
I fell in love with him since it was so kind and old-fashioned!
Two years later, near the lake where we had our first date, we were married in a modest ceremony by the water. We were surrounded by string lights and fireflies. Linda, his mother, sobbed during the entire event.
I trusted her when she took my hand and whispered, “You’re exactly what Arthur needed.”
I was taken aback by Linda because she wasn’t your typical mother-in-law (MIL). Warm and incessantly chatty, she was the type of person who, upon hearing a sniffle on the phone, would arrive with chicken noodle soup.
My mother-in-law referred to me as “sweetheart” and always made me sit down after supper so she could clean the dishes and clear the table. She treated me more like a daughter than a daughter-in-law for the first five years, and I genuinely thought she loved me as such.
Shortly after our wedding, Arthur and I began the process of trying for a child. Both of us were 34 and prepared. However, nothing occurred month after month. We experimented with everything from complex spreadsheets that tracked ovulation to vitamins and acupuncture.
No second pink line, though. Each test seemed like a mean joke.
We switched to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) after two years. Three rounds were completed. Each one eroded me financially, physically, and emotionally. I broke in the third round. I sobbed till I could no longer breathe while sitting on the bathroom floor and gazing at yet another negative test. Linda discovered me there.
“Don’t lose hope, honey. Families come together in all kinds of ways,” she added, putting her arms around me.
She knocked on our door a week later with a binder full of articles and printouts. “I’ve read about gestational surrogacy, I’m healthy, I’ve had two babies without any problems, and I’ve already talked to my doctor, and he says it’s possible,” she added as she set us down at the kitchen table.
I gazed at her as if she had grown a new head!
At first, I thought she was kidding, so I laughed.
Linda, 52, was a former elementary school teacher who mostly volunteered at the library, made jam, or tended to her garden. This isn’t possible.
She begged, “Let me give you the family you deserve,”
Arthur smiled at me and said softly, “Maybe this is our answer.” He had so much hope in his eyes that I couldn’t say no when the doctors confirmed that she was in fact in wonderful health and that it could work.
The thought of eventually holding our child, even if it came from something as unconventional as this, felt like the tiniest glimmer of hope after months of heartache, despair, and anxiety.
Everything we did was correct. We obtained the required medical clearances, engaged a lawyer, and underwent counseling. I even wrote a comprehensive contract with Arthur. Linda was adamant that she wanted no payment.
“It was a gift,” she remarked, “that only a mother could give.” In precise terms, she said, “I carried Arthur. I can carry this baby too.”
It seemed unreal, like a miracle taking place.
The embryo implanted the first time as if it were destined to be. When the clinic called, I started crying. With the remark, “Your little miracle is on the way!” and a dozen heart emojis, Linda shared a picture of the positive test with us.
The shirt she wore to her first sonogram read, “Baking for my daughter-in-law.”
Everything was going smoothly for the first few months. Almost every day, Linda called to give me updates. She posted amusing notes to pictures of her growing baby bulge, such as “He kicked when I played Bruce Springsteen—already has good taste.”
However, her tone shifted during the seventh month. She laughed and added, “Don’t rush. He’ll be staying with me a lot, anyway.” I laughed uneasily, assuming she was kidding when I discussed putting up the nursery one day.
Then, however, she began using “my baby” rather than “your baby.”
“It’s just hormones,” Arthur shot me down when I brought it up to him that evening. “You know how Mom gets. She’s sentimental, but she’ll be fine.”
I wanted to believe him, but I was beginning to feel uneasy about Linda’s speech pattern. She identified herself on the intake form as the mother during her subsequent session. I gave the nurse a mild correction, but Linda heard and remained silent.
The baby arrived early. On a Saturday morning, Linda went into labor, and we hurried to the hospital with blankets and a duffel bag full of onesies. I was trembling with excitement. This was the moment we had been dreaming of after years of heartache!
Just after 10 p.m., we heard the baby cry, and I thought, This is it. I’m going to become a mother now!
“Congratulations, parents. He’s beautiful,” the nurse said, grinning at us through the glass.
Then she leaned out from the hospital bed to give me the baby, but Linda snapped, “Don’t touch him. He’s not ready to go with you.”
My heart fell. Thinking I had misheard, I stepped back.
“Linda, what are you talking about?”
Her voice trembled as she clutched the baby close. “You don’t understand. He knows who his actual mother is.”
Arthur moved to stand next to me and said, “Mom, please. Give us the baby.”
I swear her whole face altered when she glanced at us both. She no longer exuded the warmth she once did. Her eyes were calculating and chilly.
Softly, “Oh, sweetheart,” she said. “You just don’t know everything, do you?”
My stomach twisted. “Linda, what are you saying?”
She continued to hold the infant and declared, “I gave birth to him. That makes him mine.”
“No,” I answered in a shaky voice. “That’s not how this works. This baby has my genes—and your son’s. You carried him, but he’s not yours.”
She looked over at the nurse. “I want everyone out of this room. Now.”
I was trembling. “That’s not how this works. You signed the papers, you know that. You’re his grandmother, not his mother.”
My MIL went crazy, saying, “You’re not taking him!”
Arthur stepped forward. “Mom, stop it. You’re scaring her.”
“You ungrateful son! You don’t deserve this child. I do! I carried him. He’s mine now!” she yelled, glaring at him.
She then instructed us to depart. Unaware of what was going on and likely concerned about disturbing the recently delivered woman, the nurse gently led us out.
Stunned, we stood in that corridor. From the room behind the door, all I could hear was the cry of the newborn. The first cries of our baby. I should have had him in my grasp, but I had nothing.
I cried while Arthur held me. “She’s taking him from us.” I said in a whisper, “She’s really going to take him.”
Hours later, a doctor came over and indicated that Linda was suffering postpartum attachment disorder and possibly hormonal disorientation. “It happens sometimes,” to quote him. “Once she rests, she’ll calm down.”
We waited. and bided their time.
Four hours later, the baby was finally brought out by a nurse. Softly, “She fell asleep,” she said. “And we have your paperwork here on file. He’s yours.”
That’s when I held him for the first time. Neil is the name we gave him.
Never in my life have I experienced so much love in one instant!
Neil would never feel unwelcome or burdened by the burden of bringing him into the world, I told myself as I hugged him against my chest. I tried to get rid of the fear that was still holding onto my bones by kissing the top of his little head and breathing him in.
Arthur, who sat next to me, stroked Neil’s foot with an expression that I hadn’t seen in a while: a mix of sadness and relief.
When we got home, we assumed it was over.
But my phone rang at two in the morning.
Linda was the one.
Her voice was broken and frantic. “You tricked me! You took him! He belongs with his real mother!”
In my arms, Neil woke up with a start and started crying. Arthur picked up the phone while I got up and bounced softly in an attempt to calm him.
“Mom, stop,” he urged in a forceful but hushed voice. “You signed the contract. You knew this would happen. He’s not yours!”
“Don’t you dare tell me what I knew,” she yelled. “I carried him! He was part of me for nine months. You can’t just rip him away like he’s a pair of shoes!”
Arthur squeezed his nasal bridge. “You knew exactly what this was. You’re the one who offered!”
She snarled, “You used me!” “You and that woman used me! I am not just a vessel!”
I saw Arthur’s expression tighten. He hung up without saying anything more, opened our closet’s safe, and took out the folder containing all of our documents, including the signed consent forms, the surrogacy contract, the medical reports, and the letters of legal clearance.
His words, “I’m going back to the hospital,”
I muttered, “What if she calls the police?”
At the door, Arthur stopped. “Then we’ll show them the truth.”
Because I was terrified of every sound outside our window, Neil and I stayed up all night. I left the door locked and the lights off. Arthur responded to my repeated texts in a brief but composed manner.
He appeared worn out when he eventually returned home after sunrise.
He remarked, “She’s calling a lawyer,” “She said she’s going to sue us for custody.”
I was unable to comprehend it. “Is she serious?”
“She thinks she has a case. Says the emotional trauma of the pregnancy makes her the true mother.”
“But Neil is our child,” I said in a whisper as I held him closer. “She carried him, yes, but the embryo came from me and the sperm from you. He is our biological child. Our DNA. Our baby.”
Arthur placed his head in his hands and sat down next to me. “I know, babe. Mom’s lost it. She actually believes this.”
Within a week, we obtained court documents.
It seemed unbelievable to me!
Linda had located a lawyer who was prepared to defend her. She said we deceived her into believing she would be involved in the child’s life and then “discarded her” after the baby was born.
She had support from her family, including her two sisters, an aunt, and even a close friend. They claimed that we “used her body” and that she was free to decide otherwise. The fact that she was “traumatized.”
Are you traumatized? She pleaded with us for her assistance! When we agreed, she had sobbed with happiness!
It was a mess, I’ll be honest.
I was frightened to go outside! I locked all the doors, kept the blinds closed, and startled whenever the doorbell rang. We didn’t get much sleep. The only thing that kept me sane was Neil. I always remembered why we were fighting when I gazed at his little face.
The court date arrived in a flash.
Wearing a lovely pink cardigan and holding a tissue as if she were the victim, Linda sat across from us with her lawyer. She never gave us a glance.
Everything was provided by our lawyer, including the DNA findings, the contract, the counseling papers, and even the letters and texts Linda had written us during the pregnancy, referring to Neil as “your miracle” and concluding with “love, Grandma.”
Her attorney attempted to argue that she hadn’t fully comprehended what she was committing to, that she had been emotionally coerced, and that the hormones had affected her judgment.
“I carried him. I felt him kick. I talked to him every night. He knew my voice.” Linda stood, shaking, and added, “You can’t tell me I’m not his mother.”
I turned to Arthur. He was looking at her as though he had forgotten who she was.
The results of the DNA test were requested by the judge. She didn’t need any more confirmation that Neil was ours biologically.
The decision was made quickly.
Neil’s legal parents were Arthur and me. Linda had no legal claim to the kid, and full custody was awarded.
We ought to have been relieved. However, all I experienced was numbness.
It was outside the courthouse that Linda finally turned to face us.
She responded, “You think you’ve won,” in a hollow voice. “But one day, he’ll know what you did. You’ll have to explain why you took him from the woman who gave him life.”
Arthur’s tone was forceful but composed. “We’ll tell him the truth, Mom. That you helped bring him into this world. And then you tried to take him away.”
Linda’s sisters continued to call. “She was used. You owe her something for what she went through,” one voicemailer said.
Perhaps that’s where we went wrong.
After hours of deliberation and consideration of our alternatives, Arthur and I concluded that we had had enough. We’d experienced enough anxiety and tension. We had finished attempting to defend the unimaginable.
We proposed to pay Linda the same sum that we would have given to a paid surrogate. Although each dollar felt like a kick to the gut, it was generous.
She took it without saying anything.
At least the ordeal was over, even though it cost us a lot of money.
We then stopped communicating, switched phone numbers, relocated to a different area of the state, and began anew.
We don’t have many family members around anymore, so I respond with a smile and the words, “It’s just easier this way.”
I simply grin when people discuss “keeping family close,” as I discovered the hard way that some things are never appropriate to do in a family setting.
Limit dinners to Thanksgiving and birthdays. Let outsiders handle surrogacy.
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