Robyn Carr - Moonlight Road

“Mel,” he said gently, giving her hands a comforting squeeze. “Mel, between us we might be missing some parts for having our own…”

She laughed a little bit. “I know my uterus is gone, Jack. But I still have ovaries and you still have sperm. We could get a surrogate.”

“Huh?” he said, frowning.

“You know what that is, I know you do.”

“I do,” he said. “But…”

“In vitro—our baby in a surrogate.” Then she smiled brightly. “You do make such wonderful babies. And I think we can squeak in one more before we really run out of time. We were sort of thinking about that right before Emma was born anyway. And she’s two.”

“No, we weren’t. I’m forty-four. And you’re thirty-six.”

“Hardly Grandma Moses and the old man of the sea, Jack,” she said.

“Is this something you just started kicking around? This surrogate idea?” he wanted to know.

“I’ve been giving it some pretty serious thought for a while now. We’re not the youngest parents, but lots of couples nowadays start their families in their thirties and forties. We’re healthy and strong…There’s no reason to think we won’t be around to see them well into adulthood. Of course, one or both of us could fall off a mountain, but that’s not an age-sensitive calamity. When you think about it, with my history of infertility, had we decided to have a family it might well have taken us this long to get started anyway.”

He was quiet again. Then he said, “Mel, your history of infertility did not follow you to Virgin River. And we have two kids. Two smart, healthy, beautiful kids.”

“Will you at least think about it? Because it’s really a logical solution for us. We have everything but a uterus…”

He was shaking his head. “Baby, we don’t need a solution! We don’t have a problem!”

“Well, if we want one more child, we have a little problem. Jack, it’s just surrogacy—it’s not brain surgery. There are a number of women who, for whatever reason, are willing to carry a baby for a couple who can’t carry their own. They’re most often married women who already have children, don’t really need or want more, but deal with pregnancy and childbirth very well. Of course, they’re paid and their medical expenses covered, but it’s rarely a moneymaking proposition for them. It’s usually a service they’re willing to provide for couples who can’t carry and deliver their own baby.”

“You really believe that?” he asked. “That it’s not about the money?”

She shrugged. “I suppose sometimes money is a major factor, but there are always many screened surrogates to choose from and I wouldn’t be interested in one who desperately needs money. Her motivation might not be what we’re looking for.”

“Listen, I’ve seen news stories where the woman doesn’t want to give up the baby…”

“That usually happens when the woman provides half the biology,” Mel said. “When it’s her egg involved, sometimes her feelings change while she’s pregnant. Then it’s her baby she doesn’t want to part with. Our case wouldn’t be like that. In our case, all we need is a womb. A living, breathing petri dish. Problems and complications with screened surrogate applicants are rare.” And then she smiled broadly, as if the matter had all just been settled.

Jack picked up his towel and a glass from beneath the bar and began wiping out nonexistent water spots. Mel had learned long ago that that was a move Jack used when he didn’t know what to say or how to act. Sometimes he did that to look busy when his mind was spinning out of control, or to keep from throttling someone. “How does it work, exactly?” he asked.

“Well, you determine whether you’re good candidates—and I can tell you we are. You look over screened surrogates and interview some. You harvest some eggs from me, collect some sperm from you, have a qualified lab create embryos from our egg and sperm, freeze them, implant a couple in the surrogate and—”

“And get six or eight babies?” he asked, lifting a brow.

“No, Jack. Just one. Outside chance of two, but if you choose a surrogate with a proven uterus who conceives easily, the doctor will only implant one, or a maximum of two embryos. If it doesn’t take after a few tries, the doctor might chance three at the outside. Having all the embryos take on the third or fourth try? A miracle. No, Jack. It will be one baby. The chance of two would be the same odds as us having our own set of twins if I still had a uterus and we decided to have one more pregnancy.”

His towel-covered hand continued to rotate inside the glass and he was quiet. His face was a stone, void of expression.

“Jack?” she asked. “Not such a crazy idea, is it?”

He let out his breath. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember that this sort of thing is your business—your area of expertise. I try, though.”

“And?”

“And it might help if you’d try to remember that it is not mine.”

“And that means?”

He put down the glass and towel. He leaned his elbows on the bar so his face was even with hers. He grabbed her hands again. His eyes and his voice were soft. “Mel, if we hadn’t had a baby and you wanted one really badly, I’d do almost anything I could to help that happen for you. If you asked me to think about opening our home up to one more kid, maybe a kid who otherwise might not have parents, I could give that some serious consideration. You know—room in the heart, room in the home. But this thing you’re asking…” He shook his head almost sadly. “I don’t know if I can watch our baby make another woman fat. I don’t know if I can watch our baby come out of another woman’s body.”

“You don’t have to watch,” she suggested.

“Getting you pregnant was about the biggest trip I ever had in my life,” he said. “Knowing you were knocked up, battling through your mood swings, watching your belly grow and move, then giving birth…it was sacred to me. A miracle. Mel, our two kids and all that went into getting them, hardly anything measures up to that. Something about my swimmers meeting up with your eggs in a dish in a lab, growing inside some woman I don’t know…”

“But it’s a last resort!”

“No, baby. A last resort is being thankful for the blessings we have. If things had been different and a third one came along, I could live with that. I could be happy about that. But we don’t have to have one more.” He made a face. “At least not that way.”

She chewed her lower lip for a moment. “It’s just very strange and alien to you.”

“You got that right,” he agreed.

“But it’s done all the time.”

“I don’t do it all the time,” he said.

“Before you make a final decision, will you at least talk to John Stone about it? The clinic he worked in before coming to Grace Valley had a very active fertility practice. I think Susan said she and John needed a little jump start to get their first child. Would you do that, please? Would you talk to John? Ask him some questions from the man’s point of view?”

He pursed his lips for a moment. “For you,” he said. “I’ll talk to John about it. I’ll ask some questions. But the way I feel right now, Mel? This isn’t something I want to do.”

“Talk to John,” she said. “Please?”

He leaned toward her and kissed her. “Okay.”

“Thank you, Jack. It would mean a lot to me if you could try to just keep an open mind.”

“I’ll try, babe. I’ll really try.”

Erin was bored out of her skull. When Ian and Marcie left her after spending one night, she just sat around for a couple of days. The longest days of her life. But, determined to get a handle on her life and forge a new direction, she pulled out some of the books she’d brought along—self-help books about relaxing, serenity, meditation, the psychology of inner joy, the power of positive thinking, the energy of intention, taking control of your emotional life, and her personal favorite— Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.