Claiming Noah Read online

  ‘And we really do appreciate that,’ Liam said in a sickly-sweet way that Diana knew was an attempt to charm Mrs Olsen. He was always trying to do that with older women. Usually it worked, too.

  ‘Yes, you should.’ Mrs Olsen pursed her lips at Liam in a way Diana would have found humorous in a less grave situation. ‘Now, you do understand, of course, that this embryo is one of several conceived using the donor couple’s sperm and eggs. That means if this embryo results in a child then that child is likely to have full-blood siblings living with another family. How do you feel about that?’

  Diana smiled in spite of the stern look on Mrs Olsen’s face. ‘We’ve discussed that. We think it’s nice that our baby could have a sibling. We hope one day they might be able to meet.’

  ‘We won’t give you the contact details of the donor couple,’ Mrs Olsen said firmly. ‘That’s confidential.’

  ‘We understand,’ Liam said. ‘We wouldn’t ask for that. Our understanding is that once our baby is eighteen it would be allowed to find out the identity of the donor parents if it wanted to. That’s what my wife meant.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s correct.’ Mrs Olsen shuffled through a stack of papers on her desk. Diana and Liam sat in silence while she selected a page and scanned through its contents before addressing them again. ‘All I’m able to tell you about the donors is that they’re a healthy married couple in their late thirties. They’re both university educated and successful in their chosen careers. They’re Caucasian and both were born in Australia.’

  She looked up at Liam. ‘Like you, the husband has dark hair and brown eyes. The wife has blonde hair and green eyes.’

  Diana’s heart raced with excitement at the prospect of having a baby boy with the same dark hair and eyes as Liam’s. She imagined them standing side by side, her son a miniature version of his handsome father. From the look on Liam’s face, Diana assumed he was picturing the same thing.

  ‘I’ve met the couple personally,’ Mrs Olsen continued, ‘and I can tell you they’re mature, responsible and intelligent people. It’s the best you could hope for with a donor couple.’

  ‘Do they live in Sydney as well?’ Liam asked.

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Do they want to know anything about the baby?’ Diana asked.

  ‘No, they would like this to be an unidentified adoption,’ Mrs Olsen said. ‘Now, that’s all the information I can give you about the donor couple, so please don’t ask me any more questions about them. Let’s move on to issues you will need to consider if you’re successful in having a baby.’ She moved the piece of paper with the details of the couple to the back of the pile and read from a different page. ‘Have you discussed whether you will tell the child how it was conceived?’

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Olsen, I do have one question before we move on,’ Liam said. Diana looked at him in surprise. ‘What do we do if the donor couple change their mind and want to know about the baby? What if they want to meet the child when it’s older, or they want to be part of its life? Do we have any say over that?’

  The pinched look on Mrs Olsen’s face softened and she set the piece of paper down on her desk before answering Liam. ‘That’s a very good question, Liam, and an important one to ask. Genetically the child will match the donor couple, of course, but they’ve signed a donation consent form and by doing that they have relinquished their legal rights to the embryo. Once the implantation takes place, the embryo is your legal child. The couple can’t revoke their decision at a later date and decide to raise the child themselves.’

  Diana had never considered that. She was surprised Liam hadn’t discussed it with her because obviously it had been on his mind. She had been so focused on the embryo and falling pregnant that she hadn’t stopped to think about the donor couple. She assumed they weren’t emotionally invested in the embryo, because they would likely have at least one child already. If she was in their position she would want to know if the embryo had resulted in a baby, and if it was healthy. But would she want to know more than that? Would they? She shifted in her seat, uneasy with the path on which her mind was taking her. Her stomach lurched at the prospect of the couple turning up on her doorstep one day, demanding to meet their child.

  Diana said little in the remainder of the counselling session. Mrs Olsen and Liam moved on to discuss other issues, but Diana couldn’t articulate any intelligent responses. All she could think of during the session, and later that night as she lay awake in bed with Liam asleep beside her, was what would happen if the donor couple changed their mind and wanted to be involved in the child’s life. When she eventually fell asleep, Diana’s dreams were corrupted by the image of a man with brown hair and brown eyes, and a woman with blonde hair and green eyes, glaring at her and demanding she give them back their child.

  • • •

  The implantation took place at the fertility clinic the next day. It was the only embryo available for them, so if they didn’t fall pregnant they would have to go back on the list and wait for another genetic match to come up. The chance of that happening was slim and Diana knew they wouldn’t be able to save up enough money for another implantation. It felt to her like this was their one chance to become parents.

  Diana kept her eyes firmly shut throughout the procedure. ‘Please God,’ she whispered under her breath, over and over again. ‘Please give us a baby. Please let this work. Please God.’

  To Diana and Liam’s delight, her prayers were realised. They received a phone call from Doctor Malapi two weeks after the implantation to tell them they were pregnant, from their first and only try at embryo adoption. Diana had wondered how she would feel carrying a child who wasn’t genetically related to her, but as soon as Doctor Malapi told her she was pregnant she knew the baby was hers, in every sense of the word.

  The teachers Diana worked with were thrilled for her. Ever since she started working at the primary school four years earlier, after finishing her teaching degree, she had confided in her colleagues her desire to become a mother. She told them about the pregnancy the day after her twelve-week scan, not able to keep the news to herself any longer. When she entered the staffroom at lunchtime the next day she was greeted with a cake, a novelty-sized card and a roomful of smiling faces.

  ‘You didn’t have to do this,’ she said as tears blurred her vision.

  The principal stepped forward and handed Diana a knife to cut the cake. ‘It’s the least we could do. We know how hard it’s been for you to fall pregnant. How are you feeling?’

  ‘I feel great,’ Diana said, taking the knife from her and slicing through the cake, a three-layered sponge decorated with cream and strawberries, a message of congratulations piped in chocolate on the top. And it was the truth. No amount of nausea, swollen ankles, headaches or sleeplessness could detract from the incredible happiness she felt from knowing she was growing a child inside her.

  The principal took the knife from her and finished slicing the cake. ‘I told you it would happen as soon as you stopped thinking about it.’

  Diana smiled, tight-lipped. She wanted to tell them all that her pregnancy was the result of an embryo donation, but she and Liam had decided to tell only their family and closest friends. They had discussed it again the night before, while Liam sat at the table in their cramped kitchen, watching Diana cook pasta on their old-fashioned gas cooker. ‘No-one will care that the baby wasn’t conceived naturally,’ she said as she tipped the pasta into a colander and deposited the empty saucepan in the sink, trying to make room for their plates on the narrow benchtop cluttered with containers and utensils. ‘What does it matter if they know?’

  Liam was silent as Diana put his plate down in front of him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, noticing his sullen expression.

  ‘You’re a teacher, you know how kids get bullied for anything.’

  She sat down opposite him and tried not to let her frustration show on her face. ‘There are all types of families at our schoo
l. Two mothers, two fathers, single parents, kids living with their grandparents, kids who’ve been adopted. It’s different from when we were young.’

  Liam took a mouthful and started to speak before he finished eating. ‘I’m not giving my child any reason to be teased. No-one needs to know.’

  Diana twirled the strands of spaghetti around her fork. ‘You should tell some of your friends, though. You need someone to talk to if you’re worried, or feel anxious about anything.’

  ‘No, I don’t. I have you for that. It’s none of their business anyway. I don’t want people judging us, or making comments about how the baby doesn’t look like either of us.’

  ‘But I’m only saying you should tell your closest friends, not everybody. Your friends aren’t going to judge us.’

  ‘Everybody judges everybody, Di, that’s just the way the world works. They won’t admit it, but they’ll judge us.’

  She had left it at that.

  Just as Diana had predicted, her mother’s misgivings about the embryo adoption disappeared as soon as she found out Diana and Liam were pregnant and she was going to be a grandmother. By the time Diana was six months pregnant Eleanor had already redecorated one of the spare rooms in her house as a nursery. Liam thought it was a warning sign that she was going to be too involved in their lives once the baby came along, even more so than she was now, but Diana thought it was sweet.

  She quit her job when the school term finished in December. Liam tried to convince her to take maternity leave so she had the option of returning to work when the baby was older, but Diana was adamant that she wanted to be a stay-at-home mum until her child started school, just as her mother had been for her. Liam was an electrician and though his income was erratic, she knew if they were careful it was enough for them to live off for a few years. And if things got really tight, they could use what was left of the inheritance from his parents. She wanted to be there for every moment with her child: the first smile, the first word, the first step. They were too precious for her to miss out on.

  • • •

  One morning in mid March, the day after Diana’s due date, she woke to the early pains of labour. She had barely slept the night before; the summer heat had lingered into autumn and the temperature in their bedroom was so warm Diana couldn’t bear to have even the sheet over her. Her discomfort was made worse by the additional heat generating from the little person she was carrying in her womb. She could have sworn she was carrying a hot water bottle in there rather than a baby. Every position she tried was uncomfortable and she resented the ease with which Liam had fallen off to sleep beside her. Eventually she had propped a number of pillows behind her back and slept sitting up. When she woke her neck was stiff and sore, but she barely noticed because of the stabs of pain in her abdomen. The only light in the room was from the blue glow of Liam’s alarm clock, so Diana guessed it was still very early in the morning. She could only just make out the contours of the furniture and the shape of her husband lying next to her. The fan in the corner of the room hummed monotonously, but the cool air wasn’t enough to stop rivulets of sweat coursing down Diana’s temples.

  ‘Liam.’ She pushed at the bulk beside her, covered in a tangle of sweaty sheets. ‘It’s time, wake up.’

  ‘What?’ he murmured into his pillow, still half-asleep.

  Before she could answer him, Diana was battered with another contraction. The sensation was far worse than anything she could have imagined. She felt as if her insides were being wrung out like a wet towel. She tried to breathe through the pain, as she had been taught to do in her classes, but it was only once the pain receded that she managed to get the words out to tell Liam what was happening.

  ‘It’s time,’ she said, pushing at him again as she struggled to get out of bed. ‘Get up. Our baby’s coming. We need to go to the hospital.’

  Diana sat in the car, her bag already in the boot, while Liam took what felt like an inordinately long time to get dressed. She had expected the contractions to build up slowly, like her mother had told her they would, but they were only a few minutes apart and growing in intensity.

  ‘We have to go now,’ Diana said when Liam finally got into the car. ‘It’s going to happen soon.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, you’ve got ages.’

  ‘I don’t have ages. It’s not meant to happen this quickly. Can you call Mum? I told her she could be in the delivery room.’

  ‘I’ll call her when we get to the hospital.’

  ‘Call her now.’

  ‘Do you want me to drive to the hospital or call your mum? I can’t do both.’

  Diana tried to respond, but another contraction took the words out of her mouth. ‘Well, I can’t call her,’ she said when it was over. ‘Call her when we get to the hospital, then.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  But they never got the chance. When they reached the hospital Diana was taken straight to the birthing suite and told her baby was only minutes away from being born. When Liam finally called Eleanor it was to tell her that her grandson, Noah Edmond Simmons, had arrived. Fifteen minutes later she was standing in Diana’s shared room at Concord Hospital, beaming at the sight of the newborn with sticky black hair plastered to translucent skin.

  ‘You made his middle name Edmond,’ she said to Diana in a hushed tone, not taking her gaze from her grandson. ‘Your father would be so honoured.’

  ‘It makes it feel like Dad is part of this,’ Diana said. ‘I know how proud he would have been of his grandchild. This way they’ll always have a connection.’

  They watched as Noah’s head rolled to the side, arms straining against his blanket, his slitted eyes searching for the source of his mother’s voice.

  6

  CATRIONA

  Saturday, 11 February 2012

  ‘Meet Sebastian.’

  Catriona handed her tightly wrapped baby to her mother, who received him with the same reverence as if he were a religious offering.

  ‘Sebastian. That’s a lovely name. Oh, he’s so beautiful!’ She traced the curve of his cheek with the tip of her finger and turned towards Catriona’s father so he could see the baby. Sebastian regarded his grandmother with a slight frown.

  ‘Wasn’t your grandfather’s birthday the tenth of February as well?’ she asked Catriona’s father.

  ‘The twelfth.’

  ‘Close enough. They’re both Aquarians, anyway. Good people, Aquarians. Intelligent.’

  Catriona’s father looked at her and rolled his eyes before returning his gaze to his new grandson. Catriona smiled as she watched her parents delight in Sebastian’s sounds and facial expressions. Though she silently mocked them, she and James had been doing the same thing. They had gushed over his dark curls, so like James’s, and his miniature, perfectly formed fingers and toes.

  He was an alert baby. Unlike some newborns, his eyes were often open and he seemed to take in his new world with a profound sense of wonderment. Catriona had hoped her baby would inherit her eye colour, an unusually bright shade of green, but now that Sebastian had been born with brown eyes like James’s she loved how similar they looked to each other.

  Sebastian had been an easy name for Catriona and James to choose. They had become engaged while on holiday in Spain in the seaside resort of San Sebastián. Nearly four years on, their memories of lying on the beach, sipping cocktails by luxurious pools and dancing the night away in beachside bars still evoked the incredible love they had felt for each other and the optimism they had for their life ahead. They thought it was a good omen to give their son a name that had such positive sentiment attached to it.

  ‘Has your milk come through yet?’ Catriona’s mother asked her.

  ‘Yeah, it came through really quickly.’

  ‘How are you coping with the feeding?’

  ‘I’m having a bit of trouble. I’m sure it’ll be fine, though. The nurses said it can take a few days.’

  Catriona gave her mother her best attempt at a confident
smile. She had been trying all day to breast-feed Sebastian, but he kept resisting her attempts and wouldn’t latch on to her breast for more than a few seconds at a time. She had resorted to using a breast pump and was bottle-feeding him because none of the other methods the nurses suggested had worked.

  ‘Some babies just take longer to adapt to breast-feeding,’ one of the nurses had said to her after she gave Catriona a demonstration of how to use the breast pump. It hadn’t occurred to Catriona that breast-feeding could be a problem for her. Every other mother seemed to be able to do it easily, so Catriona had assumed she would be the same.

  ‘He doesn’t have a problem with the milk, though, so the problem must be with me,’ she had said to the nurse, wincing as the pump constricted and released, and averting her eyes from her son who was lying in a crib next to her bed. ‘He just doesn’t want to be connected to me in that way.’

  She had ignored the nurse’s reassurance that her son was just getting used to her.

  A few days passed, and Catriona and James took Sebastian home from the hospital, but there was no improvement. Sebastian still wouldn’t breast-feed for more than a few minutes at a time, so Catriona used the breast pump for as long as she could and supplemented the feed with formula if the breast milk wasn’t enough. Whenever she fed Sebastian a bottle in public she felt like other mothers were silently condemning her for not breast-feeding her baby, so she ended up staying home as much as possible.

  When the early-childhood nurse came to the house a few weeks after they had left hospital, she encouraged Catriona to persist with breast-feeding.

  ‘It really is so important,’ she said, with what Catriona felt was a condescending smile fixed on her face. ‘There’s no better way for a mother and baby to bond than when you’re feeding him from your breast. Just keep trying. Have you tried feeding him in a dimly lit room?’

  ‘Yes. It didn’t make a difference,’ Catriona said.

  ‘Okay, then, how about feeding him outside? Some babies respond well to the sunlight.’