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Back The Surrogate
Chapters (65)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Part One
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Twenty-Four
  29. Twenty-Five
  30. Twenty-Six
  31. Twenty-Seven
  32. Twenty-Eight
  33. Twenty-Nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-One
  36. Thirty-Two
  37. Thirty-Three
  38. Part Two
  39. Thirty-Four
  40. Thirty-Five
  41. Thirty-Six
  42. Thirty-Seven
  43. Thirty-Eight
  44. Thirty-Nine
  45. Forty
  46. Forty-One
  47. Forty-Two
  48. Forty-Three
  49. Forty-Four
  50. Forty-Five
  51. Forty-Six
  52. Forty-Seven
  53. Forty-Eight
  54. Forty-Nine
  55. Fifty
  56. Fifty-One
  57. Part Three
  58. Fifty-Two
  59. Fifty-Three
  60. Fifty-Four
  61. Fifty-Five
  62. Fifty-Six
  63. Acknowledgments
  64. About the Author
  65. About the Publisher

I looked at him and squinted. I couldn’t see his face well because the ceiling light was above him, making a halo. “Okay,” I said, and I put my hand on the baby. I didn’t know if she would fall off the edge or what.

Hal walked over to Ruth. She had been standing near the door, watching us. Her arms were crossed. She looked away, and they both slipped out the door.

Then it was just me and the baby, dark and quiet and alone. A while later, a nurse came in and closed the curtain around my bed. She picked up Nell and put her in the bassinet. “Try to sleep,” she said. “Press your call button if you need us.”

“Where will the baby be while I’m sleeping?”

“She’ll be right here in the bassinet or in the nursery,” said the nurse.

I’d already asked the nurses lots of questions, like how they kept track of the babies, because didn’t they all look alike? She explained our matching bracelets and the alarm system, and the DNA tests, but they rarely needed to use those.

“Don’t worry,” she said; maybe she saw something in my face. “We’ll take good care of her. And you.”

“Thanks,” I said, and closed my eyes.

Eight

Hal

NOVEMBER 2001

Morning

When drafting a contract of any nature, I always begin with a template. A template contains the standard boilerplate language, the generic yet necessary clauses that I don’t need to spend time drafting. No need to re-create the wheel, so to speak. The traditional surrogacy agreement (hereinafter, the TSA) was no exception.

Since I didn’t practice in the area of family law, which is where surrogacy law would reside, I consulted a family law treatise and form book. Once I had the form, I tailored the clauses to be specific to us, such as names and addresses, and also the topics that were important to Ruth. She had some particular proscriptions about Cally’s behavior during pregnancy (e.g., nutrition, safety), as well as concerns about the delivery itself and the naming of the child. That sort of thing.

My practice with getting documents signed is to bring the parties together in a room and walk through the details. In this sense, I’d usually be talking about real estate deals, but the document review and signing process is effective regardless of the topic. The result is that any sticky issues can be identified and any unclear provisions can be clarified immediately.