I Became a Surrogate for My Brother – When He Came to the Hospital for His Newborn Daughter
For months, I thought I was assisting my brother and his spouse in creating the family
they had long desired. The happiness in that hospital room quickly changed into something I never could have imagined.
When the nurse placed her on my chest, I was trembling from the last push and the lights in the delivery room were too bright. She was flawless, wrinkled, and pink. Her little wail was the only sound in the
universe for a split second.
With both hands covering her mouth, Melissa was already crying at the foot of the bed.
“She’s here,” she muttered. “Oh my God, Ryan, she’s here.”
Her little cry was the only sound in the world.
Standing behind her, Ryan gazed at the infant as though it were a hundred miles distant.
Before I tell you what happened next, I would like to clarify what this meant to us.
I’m a 36-year-old single mother. Gabriel, my seven-year-old son, is the loudest and most compassionate young person I have ever encountered.
He and I have been together since he was two years old.
The loudest is him.
My twin is Ryan. My best friend, not simply my brother. He had always been there for me and encouraged me. After our parents were killed in a car accident five years ago, my brother slept on my couch for a
month since I was unable to stay in my apartment by myself.
He had been attempting to conceive for six years with his wife, Melissa. two IVF cycles. My sister-in-law
(SIL) suffered a loss at 11 weeks, from which I doubt she ever really recovered.
He has always been there for me.
I didn’t even let Ryan complete his statement when they sat me down at their kitchen table last spring and asked if I could carry for them.
“Yes,” I said. “Whatever you need. Yes.”
I knew what kind of love they were yearning for because I had a child of my own. I therefore wished to
assist them.
I didn’t even give Ryan a chance to complete his sentence.
Every appointment was attended by them. Each and every one. Ryan held my hand during the blood draws because I’ve always detested needles, and Melissa brought a small notebook and recorded everything the doctor said.
As their baby developed, they observed each ultrasound.
My SIL closed her eyes as though in prayer and placed her palm flat on my stomach during the gender
reveal.
“Thank you,” she said. “Ivy, thank you.”
I was going to destroy my mascara, so I told her to stop.
Every appointment was attended by them.
When they discovered it was a girl, they had purchased toys. Additionally, they hosted me for dinner two
months prior to the birth and showed me the nursery by walking me down the corridor.
It had a white crib with a mobile of small felt stars and pale green walls.
Melissa pulled open the changing table’s top drawer. It was filled with tiny, folded outfits that resembled doll attire.
She said, “I know it’s silly,” while simultaneously laughing and sobbing. “I just couldn’t stop.”
The walls were a light green color.
Ryan grinned and leaned in the doorway, but he remained outside the room. That struck me as strange, but I quickly forgot about it.
There were minor issues, if I’m being completely honest. The cloth has small snags.
Melissa was warm, yet at eleven o’clock at nite, she would contact me to ask if I had felt the baby move
that day. During ultrasounds, Ryan began to turn the screen away from his wife in order to check his phone.
I recall finding that strange.
I once inquired about his well-being at work. “Yeah, just busy,” he replied, quickly shifting the topic.
He was anxious, I told myself. New fathers experience anxiety.
The technician was humming under her breath as she carefully moved the wand up the baby’s spine during
the final ultrasound prior to delivery. She stopped then.
For one beat too long, she kept the wand motionless on the infant’s lower back.
He was anxious, I told myself.
Then she added, “Everything looked good,” grinned, and continued.
I observed Melissa’s expression. Nothing had caught her attention.
However, Ryan was gazing at the television as though he had witnessed something that none of us were meant to see as I turned to face him.
He remained silent the entire way home.
Nothing had caught her attention.
“One more push, Ivy. You’ve got this.”
I felt like I may break Nurse Bianca’s fingers because I held her hand so tightly. I used all of my remaining strength to push through the contraction as it peaked.
Suddenly, that unbelievable sound filled the room. A wailing infant. My niece is in tears.
I gasped, “She’s perfect,” in a whisper. “Ryan, go hold your daughter.”
I held Nurse Bianca’s hand tightly.
Like a man going through water, my brother moved slowly. After putting the swaddled bundle in his arms,
the nurse and the others left to give us a moment. For the first time, I saw my twin brother gaze down at his young daughter.
And as he examined her, I saw a shift in his expression.
It wasn’t happiness. It wasn’t shock at all. Something quieter, like a light fading behind his eyes, was what
was happening. He lowered his shoulders. His mouth parted, then shut again.
I saw a shift in his expression.
“Ryan?” I asked. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
I got no response from my brother. He continued to gaze at the infant before carefully repositioning her in his arms and turning to face her.
Melissa continued to wipe her face with the corner of the hospital gown while shedding happy tears.
“Let me hold her, honey. Give her to me.”
“What’s wrong?”
However, Ryan did not approach his spouse. Instead, he looked pale as he turned to face me. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice sounded weird and flat, like it belonged to someone else.
“I’m sorry, but… I can’t take her home.”
There was silence in the room. I believed I had misheard him.
“What did you just say?”
“I can’t take her home.”
Melissa’s smile remained stuck on her face, as though her mind had not yet caught up. “Ryan, what are you talking about?” she asked. “Give me the baby.”
My brother turned to face his spouse. He then turned to face me. Then he uttered the words that shattered
everything.
“I’m sorry, but I have to give up the baby. I’m not taking her with me!”
He then put her back in my arms.
“What are you talking about?”
I was having trouble breathing. My brother, my twin, and my best friend had just given me his kid like she
was a box sent to the incorrect address while my body was still trembling from labor.
I added, “Ryan, she’s your daughter,” and I could hear my voice shaking. “What is going on?”
With her hands out and tears in her eyes, Melissa had gotten up from her chair.
“Why? Ryan, why can’t we take our daughter home? Tell me right now!”
I was having trouble breathing.
My brother refused to give her a glance. His eyes remained fixed on the ground, and I could see the terrible flush on his face from our childhood. He had done something that he was unable to undo.
With a sigh, he added, “Look at her back. We can’t do this.”
I hadn’t checked yet. I hadn’t opened the cover since I was so preoccupied by his face.
My brother refused to give her a glance.
I carefully moved the infant onto her side and pulled the cloth down just enough with shaking fingers.
There was a tiny reddish mark at the base of her spine. a quarter-sized soft, elevated, skin-covered region.
I was aware of it. The brochures they sent home were read by me. I almost passed out as my stomach rolled around.
“It’s spina bifida,” I muttered.
I pray I never hear Melissa’s sound again.
I carefully rolled the infant onto her side.
It was not a word. The entire corridor erupted in a scream, and I heard racing footsteps.
“No. No, no, no,” my sister-in-law said. “The ultrasounds were fine! They said she was fine! They said she was fine, Ryan!”
“Melissa, please,” Ryan pleaded. He continued not to glance at anyone.
Nurse Bianca rushed back in, followed closely by another nurse.
“The ultrasounds were fine!”
“What’s happening in here?! Ma’am, please sit down!”
Ryan, the man who had held my hand at our parents’ funeral and assured me that we would always be a family, turned and left the room as Melissa began to crumble, her hands covering her face.
simply went out the door and into the corridor.
Sweaty and yet glued to the monitors, I sat in bed with a newborn that all of a sudden belonged to me.
Melissa was already falling apart.
Bianca, the nurse, knelt next to me and put her hand on my shoulder.
“Honey. Honey, look at me. Just breathe.”
The small face on the blanket caught my attention. She had her eyes shut. Her mouth opened and closed in
a tiny circle.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I told her in a whisper. “Do you hear me? You are not going anywhere.”
And my brother was fleeing from something I still didn’t understand someplace in that hallway.
Beside me, Nurse Bianca knelt.
My kitchen felt like a tiny courthouse three days after the delivery.
Wearing the same jacket he had worn to the hospital, Ryan stood on one side of the counter. Still wearing
the sweatpants I had put on between feedings that morning, I stood on the other side.
In the bassinet beside the window, Baby Hope was fast sleeping. I didn’t speak loudly because of Ryan, but
rather because Gabriel was down the hall, curled up under his dinosaur blanket.
It felt like a tiny courthouse in my kitchen.
“You don’t get to just show up,” I replied.
“Ivy, please. Let me talk.”
“Talk? I’ve been up since 4 a.m. with a baby you left in my arms.”
My brother winced. I desired for him to.
“The doctors said surgeries,” he began. “Plural. They said therapies, braces, specialists for years. I heard the numbers, and I can’t breathe.”
“Let me talk.”
“She’s your daughter.”
“I know.”
“You held her for 10 seconds and handed her back like a receipt.”
“I know, Ivy.”
I was about to throw something, so I clutched the edge of the counter.
“It’s a fixable condition, Ryan. Dr. Patel called yesterday. One surgery, therapy, and she has a shot at a real life. And you walked out of that room as if she were a defect.”
“You held her for 10 seconds.”
“That isn’t what I thought.”
“Then what did you think? Because from where I was sitting, you looked at your own baby that you’d asked me to be a surrogate for and decided she wasn’t worth the trouble.”
Something in Ryan’s shoulders gave way as he took a seat on one of my kitchen stools. I saw my twin brother fold in half in front of me. He had brought me home after Gabriel’s father had left us five years
prior and assured me we would be alright.
“That isn’t what I thought.”
“I lost my job, Ivy.”
I gazed at him.
“What?”
“Four months ago. Right after the second trimester scan.”
The stove’s clock was ticking away. It was audible to me.
“Melissa doesn’t know.”
“Ryan.”
“I put on a shirt and tie every morning. I sit in the coffee shop until five. I send resumes. I’ve had two interviews in four months, and neither called back.”
I gazed at him.
“The nursery,” I murmured softly.
“Credit cards. Three of them. She thinks the crib came from our savings. There are no savings, Ivy. There haven’t been for weeks.”
My legs quit working, so I also sat down.
“So when the doctor said surgeries,” I muttered.
“I saw a bill I couldn’t pay on top of bills she doesn’t even know exist.”
“There are no savings.”
Ryan inhaled.
“And when I saw the diagnosis, I knew I could use it. Melissa will grieve, but she won’t ever know I already failed her.”
“You were going to let her think you rejected your own child because of her condition? Just to protect your pride?”
“To protect her from me.”
“That’s the same thing, Ryan.”
I sat across from my brother, and he buried his face in his hands.
“I knew I could use it.”
I detested him. I cherished him. However, I couldn’t tell which was louder.
“All those appointments,” I replied. “You were on your phone. Checking, checking. I thought you were nervous.”
“I was applying for jobs in the waiting room.”
“Good God, Ryan.”
“I know.”
In the bassinet, Hope made a tiny sound, the quiet sound of a baby that isn’t quite wailing. We didn’t move.
“You were on your phone.”
“You used a baby as an exit,” I remarked.
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I used my daughter as an exit because I was drowning and I couldn’t tell my wife.”
I let that linger between us. I accepted it for what it was.
“I built my whole life around holding this family together,” I concluded.
“You used a baby as an exit.”
“After Mom and Dad. I was going to give you and Melissa a daughter because I couldn’t get them back.
And you were going to let me carry your lie into a nursery.”
“Ivy…”
“I’m done carrying it.”
My brother raised his head.
“You tell Melissa tonight. All of it. The job, the cards, the coffee shop, the reason you walked out of that hospital room.”
“She’ll leave me.”
“I’m done carrying it.”
“Maybe. But that’s her choice to make with the truth in her hands, not the version you’ve been feeding her.”
“Ivy, please…”
“Tonight, Ryan. Or I’m getting in my car with Hope, and I’m telling her myself.”
My brother didn’t respond. Like a man consenting to walk into deep water, he only gave one nod.
I grabbed my car keys.
“I’ll follow you over.”
“That’s her choice to make.”
I carried Hope up the walkway to Ryan and Melissa’s house that nite.
Like a man approaching his own punishment, my twin brother opened the front door.
Melissa was waiting on the couch already. She glanced first at her spouse and then at the infant in my arms.
“Tell her,” I said.
Ryan took a seat across from her. He began, his voice trembling.
“Tell her.”
“I lost my job four months ago. The nursery, the savings, all of it. I’ve been lying to you every morning.”
My sister-in-law stayed put. She merely gazed at him.
“When I saw her back, I broke. And then I heard the word ‘surgeries.’ I used her diagnosis as a way out. I’m so sorry.”
“You lied to me for months,” Melissa said. “Not about the baby. About us.”
“I know.”
“When I saw her back, I broke.”
“I would’ve sold every stick of furniture in that nursery, Ryan. I would’ve worked two jobs. I would never have chosen money over our daughter.”
My sister-in-law got up and approached me. She reached for Hope, her hands trembling.
Melissa’s tears spilled across the blanket as I put the infant in her arms.
“Dr. Patel called this afternoon,” I muttered. “It’s a mild form. One surgery in the first few months. With therapy, she has an excellent chance of a full, active life.”
“I would’ve worked two jobs.”
My brother cried and buried his face in his hands.
Melissa glanced first at Hope and then at him.
“I’ll forgive the panic,” she declared. “I won’t forgive silence again. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” he replied in between sobs.
“I’ll forgive the panic.”
As I observed my brother, his spouse, and their daughter, a tightness in my chest that had been present
since the death of our parents relaxed.
For the first time since Hope’s birth, I thought we would be alright after giving her a forehead kiss and
taking a step back.
