When my MIL handed me a “special gift” at my daughter’s first birthday, I braced myself. I’d endured months of subtle digs since using a surrogate, but nothing prepared me for what was inside that gift bag.
When I first met Linda, she took my hands in hers and smiled at me warmly. Her eyes swept over my face like she was memorizing me, and I’d felt chosen.
Special, even.
“You’re perfect for him,” she’d said, squeezing my fingers. “Just perfect.”
Linda welcomed me into the family when Jake and I got married. We didn’t have enough common interests to be friends, but we laughed together over coffee and even shared an inside joke about the disastrous green bean casserole Jake’s cousin brought to Thanksgiving.
We had a good relationship, which made it that much harder to process when Linda turned on me.
After a year of trying for a baby, Jake and I visited a fertility specialist.
Months of testing followed, culminating in a diagnosis that shattered my world: “Early ovarian failure.”
I couldn’t just not carry a child to term — my eggs weren’t viable at all.
Jake and I were devastated. We grieved for the children we’d never have, but then, one conversation changed everything.
“You could still adopt,” our long-time friend Cheryl suggested one day. “Or look into surrogacy.”
“Surrogacy could work,” I said, looking at Jake.
“But I wouldn’t even know where to start…”
“I’d do it for you,” Cheryl replied.
That casual conversation turned into planning.
We had meetings with our fertility doctor and visited a lawyer to discuss contracts.
Things were looking up… until we discussed it with Linda.
“Surrogacy and an egg donor. Oh, dear. That’s…
mature of you, Mandy,” she said, as if I’d just confessed to giving Jake permission to cheat. “Won’t you feel left out, knowing you had to rely on another woman to give you a child?”
“No, of course not,” I’d stammered, hating how defensive I sounded. “Besides, we’ve found the perfect surrogate: Cheryl has agreed to help us.”
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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