Part 10 – A Brown Envelope
Charlie and Colby sat on the couch, side by side, and stared at the manila envelope in Charlie's hands. The return address said, 'The Repository for Genetive Diversity.' They both knew what was inside the envelope. Charlie had been dreading it since a phone call last week.
"Dr. Eppes, when one of the parents is known, as it is in your case, it is our policy to send information on the other parent to you as well. Regardless, you would be receiving detailed medical history, for obvious reasons, but in this case we are also including personal information from the egg donor. The personal information is in a separate enclosure, if you prefer not to be aware of it. If you don't want to read it yourself, we recommend that you keep it in a safe place, for the inevitable time when your child will want to read it."
Until Charlie opened this envelope, until he found out about the egg donor, he could pretend that the baby was his alone, formed out of some cloning technology then implanted in the surrogate mother's womb. But it wasn't just his genes. There was a whole other set of genes that would be added into the mix to form the 'nature' part of the child. He and Colby would manage the 'nurture' part, but babies didn't come as blank slates. And he'd always been one that believed the more data, the better …
He looked over at Colby to find Colby's warm eyes resting on him. Colby smiled in reassurance and put his arm around Charlie.
"The baby will be ours, Angel," Colby said quietly. "Ours alone. But … I'd rather know than not know."
Charlie nodded, took a deep breath, and opened the envelope.
The first set of documents was the heavy-duty contracts that the egg donor signed that surrendered any parental rights whatsoever to any children. Those were good to have a copy of. The second set of documents was the donor's medical history. They scanned through it but didn't see anything terrible. Charlie assumed that if there had been, the eggs wouldn't have been accepted. There was some heart disease on the paternal side and an epileptic aunt, but Charlie's own medical history was spottier.
Behind that was another set of documents, sealed inside its own envelope and labeled 'Personal Information.' With trembling fingers, Charlie opened this second envelope.
The first thing that fell out of the envelope was a picture. It showed a tall blonde woman with bright blue eyes. She was thin—no, just muscular and wiry. She was not pretty, in a traditional sense, but could be called handsome. She was wearing an attractive dark-blue dress, but somehow looked out of place in the dress, like she wasn't accustomed to such an outfit. Charlie moved the photo aside and looked at the sheet underneath it. There was a name on the document, a heavily-Scandinavian name.
"Do you know her?" Colby asked, his voice tight.
"No, don't recognize the picture or the name," Charlie said and felt Colby relax. He hadn't realized how worried Colby had been that the egg donor would turn out to be one of Charlie's colleagues, someone who he knew and interacted with regularly.
Charlie was familiar with the format of the document, having filled out one himself, and his eyes jumped quickly down the page until he found the section on 'Notable Accomplishments'. There, instead of the expected doctorates and publications and Nobel prizes, was a list of sporting events. Most of the listings started with 'First Place' or 'Gold Medal' or 'World Champion'. There were marathons, bike races, and other events Charlie couldn't identify. Charlie recognized some triathlons, including the Hawaiian Ironman and Escape from Alcatraz. Oh, and six Olympic medals – three gold, two silver and a bronze – one in Triathlon, two in Cross-country Skiing, and the rest in Biathlon.
"She's … an athlete?" Colby said in confusion.
"Yeah," Charlie said, "Millie said the place was collecting genetic material from the best and brightest in all fields. I guess that means athletes, too. She certainly is … fit."
"Damn, biathlon," Colby said, shaking his head in wonder. "Gotta be the world's toughest sport. Tried it and failed miserably."
"That's the biking and swimming one?"
"Nope," Colby said, still shaking his head. "It's cross-country skiing and shooting."
"Why's that the world's toughest sport?" Charlie asked. "There are a lot that sound tougher, like, I don't know, kick-boxing."
"Biathlon's like … like running as hard as you can for three miles, then stopping and threading a needle five times without missing, then running again. It's two totally different sports together – one that requires heavy aerobic exercise and another that requires your body and heart to be entirely calm. Ask your buddy Edgerton how tough that would be."
"Hmm," Charlie said, impressed. It wasn't as good as being a scientist but it was still noteworthy.
Charlie turned the page and scanned over her background – Swedish with a Norwegian grandfather, then turned to the next page until he got to the section that he really needed to see. It listed her current children, zero, and her expected future children, zero. Attached to this was a separate sheet of paper, handwritten in a neat, almost-architectural print and in natural-sounding English, was a long paragraph that started with – "Why am I doing this?"
Why am I doing this? It's not a simple or pleasant process, believe me, and many of my friends think I'm crazy to go through this. I never wanted to have kids. I like kids, sure, but just never saw kids as part of my present or future. I'm happy with my life and am quite content to let others produce the next generation. My sister, however, is a different story. She's wanted to be a mother for as long as I can remember, and she and her husband tried the usual way for years. But there's something wrong with her eggs. So I decided to offer her mine – it's not like I'm using them! She had her first child using my egg and sperm from her husband and my little nephew is adorable. When she came to me, saying she wanted a second child, I'd like to say I didn't hesitate, but now I knew what I was in for. We decided to go for one big egg harvest, with plenty of spares for as many kids as she wanted. In a twist of fate, that same week I received the invitation to donate eggs to this repository. I thought a lot about it – could I deal with there being kids of mine out there in the world that I didn't know about? Then I realized that the kids wouldn't really be mine, I'm just supplying some building blocks for someone else. It's the people who raise the kids that they really belong to. I've seen what happiness that being a mother brings to my sister, and while I haven't changed my mind about having my own children, I'd like to help others have that same joy if that's their desire. Also, the egg-quality issues with my sister appear to be environmentally-caused and I worry that future generations will have more and more trouble with fertility.
Charlie turned the page to find a section with more introspective questions. Reading through these and her answers, Charlie began to get a fuller image of the woman.
'If you could choose, what personality traits of yours would you like to pass on to a child?' My love for the outdoors and nature, my determination and my ability to make and meet long-term goals, my social personality and love for friends and family.
'If there is something about your personality that you hope a child wouldn't get, what would that be?' My stubbornness and difficulty with losing.
'Are there any physical traits that you would like to pass on?' I guess what you would call my core good health. I've been very blessed!
'Any physical traits you hope a child wouldn't get?' My tendency to sunburn and my big feet.
"What did you write?" Colby asked.
"Hmm?" Charlie said, his gaze on the paper.
"What did you write for those questions?"
"Oh, I don't remember. I filled out this form ages ago."
"Okay, so what would you write now?"
Charlie looked up, blinking the image of the blonde woman from his eyes. Colby was smiling at him encouragingly, and Charlie felt a rush of warmth for his husband. No one had ever understood him as well as Colby did. Right now, Colby was trying to turn his attention away from this woman, who was half way across the world but would have a profound effect on his life, and turn that attention back towards their own family.
Charlie scratched his ear. "Um, let's see. If I could choose personality traits to pass on, I'd choose my ability with math and my ability to visualize abstract concepts. What I wouldn't want to pass on would be my lack of organization and, well, being a poor loser."
Colby grinned. "Good choices. And the physical stuff?"
"I'd like a child to get my …" He flushed. "Well, my hair."
Colby laughed. "Me, too. A baby with curls has got to be almost as adorable as an adult with curls."
Grinning, Charlie elbowed him.
"And the other side?" Colby asked.
"Oh, definitely not my nose, and being short."
Colby nodded thoughtfully. "Definitely not the nose."
"Hey!" Charlie said. "I thought you liked my nose."
"Oh, I do," Colby said. "But wouldn't want there to be two such noses in the world. Just like I wouldn't want there to be two Charlie Eppes in the world. One is perfect. Two, I think, would be Armageddon."
Charlie snorted. "I see." He looked at Colby. "What about you? What do you want to pass on?"
Colby's smile faded. "I won't be passing anything on, Charlie."
"Sure, you will," Charlie said firmly. "Who knows what nature or nurture does and you're gonna be a big part of the nurture. So, what would it be?"
The corner of Colby's mouth turned up in one of his sideways smiles and he shrugged.
"I'll help," Charlie said. "You want to pass on your patience, your sense of humor and your ability to understand me."
"I understand you?" Colby asked with mock surprise.
"And you don't want to pass on your ability to avoid talking about stuff until it becomes a problem."
"Look who's talking!"
"And for physical stuff …"
Colby shook his head. "Now, I know that that's nature, not nurture."
"Who knows?" Charlie said lightly. "People start looking like their pets, why not kids start looking like their true daddies?"
Colby looked skeptical but waiting to see what Charlie would say.
"Your blond hair," Charlie said thoughtfully. "And, if it's a boy, your physique." He ran his fingers down one of Colby's muscular arms and across his chest, both which still thrilled him after years of familiarity.
Colby smirked. "And what would you not want?"
"Umm," Charlie said, actually at a loss. He loved Colby's body from head to toe. "How about your ability to attract bites from every mosquito in a square mile?"
"Yeah," Colby said with feeling. "Don't wish that on anyone."
"It's just that you're so delicious," Charlie said, as he'd said many times before.
Colby rolled his eyes, as he'd done so many times before, and turned back to the document sitting on Charlie's lap. Charlie nodded and paged through the last few pages, but there was nothing particularly interesting. With a thump, Charlie turned the pages back over then slid the document into the envelope. He took one last look at that woman who had given something profound of herself so that Charlie's family could be complete, then put her photo back into the envelope and shut it. He put that envelope and the other documents back into the shipping envelope.
Charlie said, "We should get a safety deposit box for this, not the medical stuff, but the rest. We wouldn't want the kid to run across it before we've talked about it." And I want to totally forget it myself.
"Okay," Colby said. "You alright?"
Charlie shrugged. "I will be."
Colby took the envelope from Charlie's hands and set it aside. "Just a few more months," he said. "Then we'll have our baby in our arms and nothing else will matter."
"Fifty-three days left, if the gestation is average," Charlie mumbled.
"I've got an idea," Colby said, pulling out his wallet. "Let's look at the picture of the sonogram again."
Charlie gave Colby a grateful smile and took the folded up copy that Colby handed him. There, in that fuzzy black-and-white image, was their child, forming and growing.
"Besides," Colby said with a smile. "We still have to finish painting the baby's room. Nena's anxious to do one of her mood paintings on one of the walls, and needs our help deciding what mood we want. Happy? Calm? Laughter?"
"I can't tell the difference when she paints any of them," Charlie grumbled.
"Me, either," Colby admitted. "But let's go look at the room and talk about it, okay?"
"Okay." Charlie carefully folded up the sonogram and returned it to Colby. Charlie picked up the envelope with the egg donor information, slid it into his briefcase and locked the case. Then he threaded his fingers through Colby's and they stood up together. Hands linked, they went upstairs, towards the room that they were preparing for their child, their child, soon to come.