Not My Daughter

Looking back, I realise how heart-rending it must have been, the words I tossed around with careless defiance – mother, father, real. Each one would have been a stab wound, especially for my mother, who took them all painfully to heart.

They tried to placate me with sentiments they’d read in books about adoption: it was understandable that I would want to know more about who I was, and if I wanted to look into my birth mother’s identity, the record would be made available when I was eighteen, and so on. They said it with resolute expressions and kindly tones, but I knew. I always knew it would devastate them both for me to look.

My eighteenth birthday came and went and I never did anything, because I knew my parents would be hurt, but also because I’d moved past angry, adolescent curiosity to a worldlier, hardened indifference. I’d thought about it, and I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of woman gives up her baby when she is six months old. A drug addict? A prostitute? A woman who doesn’t care about her child? A woman, I decided, I had no interest in getting to know.

I told my parents as much, and it felt like we’d passed a milestone; we were all relieved, because now we could go on as we were, without any questions or comments or what-ifs.

I was happy with my decision, because I loved my parents and I didn’t want to upset them. As Matt said – like everybody says – they’re wonderful. They’ve cheered me on my entire life, have shown up for every sports day or school ceremony, no matter how silly or small. They didn’t bat an eye when I went through a brief and unfortunate Goth phase in school; they took Anna into their house and treated her like their own, and they’ve loved Matt from the first moment they met him. When it comes to my parents, I am so very thankful.

And yet. When it comes to my parents, there is always an infinitesimal, unfortunate and yet, because I’m adopted. Because it’s always been a point of interest, of conversation, a fact that somehow must be mentioned, even when I’d rather it wasn’t. It’s a huge part of who I am, and while that’s not a bad thing, it’s still a thing. A thorn. And I don’t know if I can explain that to Matt or Anna or anyone.

I also don’t know how it makes me feel about this baby-who-isn’t-yet, who will be part Anna, part me, part who knows who else. Do I want the fact that my child was conceived in a test tube from someone else’s egg and sperm to be his or her thing? The fact we trot out, the point of pride because it has to be? I picture my mythical daughter, six years old, standing up in class. I came out of my mummy’s tummy but she’s not my biological mother. Do I want that?

Do I have a choice?

When I told Anna I had a vision, I meant it. At least, I wanted to mean it, because it sounded beautiful. Why shouldn’t we all get along, work together to raise this child? It takes a village, right? It can be that way for us. The more I think about it, the more it feels like the only way forward, the only way this will work. If it’s not a last resort, but a conscious decision, something we embrace rather than merely accept. And so, that’s why I suggest, instead of using Matt’s sperm, we use his brother’s.

‘Jack?’ He stares at me, dumbfounded, speechless.

‘You only have the one brother,’ I remind him lightly. ‘Why not?’

‘Why not?’

‘All I mean is, I hear where you’re coming from, when you say you’re not comfortable using Anna’s egg with your sperm. I’m not comfortable with it, either, even if it doesn’t completely make sense. But I still don’t like the idea of using some anonymous donor – it seems so cold. So mercenary. Just some random person we?

?re choosing.’ I pause and Matt folds his arms, looking nonplussed.

He’s come around to the idea of IVF with donor egg and sperm mostly, but at moments like this we both stumble, and something instinctive in us resists. And yet now I turn resolute, because I have to. Because, for me, this is the only way forward for our family, and I like the idea of our child being related to at least one of us. I’ll carry this baby, and Matt will share its genes. A win-win in what is, admittedly, a less than ideal situation.

‘If we use Jack’s,’ I continue, ‘then at least it’s still close. Still family. Siblings share 50 per cent of their DNA—’

He offers me a small smile, although his eyes are troubled. ‘So do humans with a banana, apparently.’

‘That’s a bit of an urban legend,’ I counter. I did my research. ‘It’s a completely different level of complexity.’

Matt rolls his eyes. ‘Whatever.’

‘Do you have a problem with it being Jack?’ Jack is two years older than Matt, and has been living in France for the last ten years, restoring villas. A few months ago, he relocated to the Cotswolds, to turn a barn into a pricey conversion. He and Matt aren’t particularly close, but they’ve always had an amicable relationship. I think.

‘Do I have a problem?’ Matt repeats. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t had time to think about how I would feel, raising my brother’s baby—’

‘I’ve told you so many times, Matt, it really is not like that—’

‘Except it is, a little bit, because you’ve been telling me how we can all be involved, how Anna will be some sort of second mother—’

‘I did not use those words.’ I’m sure of it. I never would have even thought of it like that. ‘All I meant is, we can all be involved, to some degree—’

‘Which sounds great, but it still feels very complicated, and emotionally quite dangerous. What if, for example, Jack or Anna decide they want parental rights?’

‘They wouldn’t, and anyway, sperm and egg donors are never considered legal parents. They have no legal or financial responsibilities or rights, ever. It will be our names on the birth certificate, Matt.’ I have definitely done my research about this.

‘Still, it feels different because we know them,’ he insists. ‘If it was someone anonymous, someone we could just forget about…’

‘But we can see this as a plus,’ I argue. ‘Have all the information upfront. And when our child is curious about his or her origins, they won’t have some official-looking file, they’ll have us, and Jack, and Anna. That makes a difference.’ I pause, to let him absorb that, and my own experience of having never opened that file. ‘If you agree to it, of course.’

He sighs. ‘I just don’t know. I still need to think about it.’

‘How about this?’ I suggest. ‘We have Jack and Anna over for dinner, to discuss things. Talk it through. And if, after that, someone decides it’s not going to work, we call it off.’ A prospect that makes my stomach swirl with dread. I already feel as if I’ve invested so much in this. But I hope having the four of us sit down together might make Matt see how it could work. How it could be something good. Assuming, of course, that Jack agrees. That Anna doesn’t change her mind.