Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?: Confessions of a Gay Dad (5 page)

She wore her hair pulled back and wasn’t overly made up. This girl dressed for comfort and convenience and was a bit of a blank slate—really hard to read. But this didn’t stop me from studying her for clues. She looked down a lot. Was she shy? Scared? She was definitely low-key. And quiet. Let me just say that I am
terrible
with people who are quiet and hard to read. I immediately assume they’re miserable or mad at me and I overcompensate.

“Do you like Thai food? I do. We’re taking you to Thai tonight. And a movie! Have I mentioned that? If you want. We’re not going to force you to see
Ocean’s Twelve
. How about
Dodgeball
? Does that sound good to you? Supposed to be hilarious. Maybe you’d rather not see a comedy. I get that. Right? I mean, what’s so funny, anyway . . . ?”
Wham!
I felt a kick. Thank God. Don was able to make the tap dancing stop.

We had meals, went to appointments, and talked about movies we liked. We didn’t talk that much about the baby, the adoption, or the fact that she was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day! I wanted to rip them from her hands. But we’d been warned through the process that we had to pick our battles, and smoking wasn’t worth the fight. Most of the birth moms smoked, and the risk of low birth weight was far less grave than if the fetus was exposed to alcohol, cocaine, or crystal meth. I decided to try and let it go. Or at least act as though I had.

We learned Samantha’s three-year old, Tye, was from a
previous boyfriend. We learned that her current boyfriend (the father of the baby she was carrying) was a crystal meth dealer. I was impressed with Samantha’s honesty. She could have made up anything about him but didn’t feel the need. She did, however, want to reassure us.

“But I have nothing to do with that part of his life,” she said casually, in between sips of a milkshake. “The baby is fine.”

“Right. Of course,” I replied. But I registered the information in some dark notepad in my brain. Could she really have
nothing
to do with that part of his life? If my boyfriend sold, say, designer shoes, wouldn’t I be lumping around the house in his samples? Would I really be able to resist the occasional employee discount? Realistically, wouldn’t my closet be full? Loafers, wing tips, boots—I’d want them all! Don and I pretended not to care.

We took her to Universal. We thought she’d like the VIP tour we’d begged some friends to help us get. Samantha seemed unimpressed—numb, even, to most of what was put in her path. I wondered if it was a coping mechanism for cruel and violent things she may have lived through. I couldn’t help wondering what this sweet girl must have seen in her short twenty-five years. I also wondered what those experiences might sound like in utero.

The tram slowed down as it approached the house where they shot
Psycho
and I noticed Samantha had jumped out. Don and I followed after her. She said she needed a cigarette break. Samantha was clearly impervious to Hollywood nostalgia, so we headed back to the parking garage.

The next morning we visited the obstetrician for a
checkup. He confirmed that Samantha was in her third month of pregnancy and asked to see her again in four weeks. He gave her a few boxes of prenatal vitamins and sent her off. “You got anything for me?” I asked the doctor. I wanted to do something in preparation for this baby. He smiled and made us a print of her ultrasound that Don and I stared at for about two hours when we got home.

We took Samantha to the airport, slipped her some “travel money,” and promised to call her the next day. The lawyer had warned us against giving her any money, officially. It is illegal to buy a baby in California, so we were limited to pregnancy-related expenses, which would have to be documented and would likely be scrutinized closely by the courts. All financial requests were to go through his office and be paid from an escrow account we set up. But we didn’t see any harm in making her feel like she was being taken care of. She texted me when she got to Vegas but that was it. She didn’t return any of our calls for almost two weeks. We were convinced we’d never hear from her again. We had heard stories of birth moms who backed out of their arrangements with prospective parents or changed their minds altogether. But eventually she surfaced and assured us that everything was fine. We just had to get used to the fact that she was in control of every part of the process, down to the frequency of our contact.

Over the next few weeks, contact with Samantha was limited. We assumed this was normal. But then we started hearing from her all the time because her roommate was kicking her out of her house. She feared she was going to end up on the street. She couldn’t live with her mom anymore
and her boyfriend wasn’t an option. I didn’t ask why because I was afraid of the answer. But we also knew we couldn’t let our birth mom—and by default, our child—live on the street.

I started calling residence motels and apartments in Las Vegas—on the outskirts of the Strip. We didn’t want to spend a fortune but wanted to make sure she and her child had food and shelter, a cell phone, and of course, a working TV.

I found a place that allowed me to pay by the week. I’d have to call at the same time every Monday and give them my credit card number and they’d charge it for another week. Samantha asked if we could just send her the rent, but I didn’t feel comfortable and again, we’d been advised against sending money directly to our birth mother. That being said, on more than one occasion Don or I would find ourselves at Western Union wiring money for “essentials.” I had a sick feeling in my stomach about the whole situation, but what did I know? I assumed it was about the whole journey—about becoming a dad. Certainly women suffered a sick feeling for months of their pregnancy, so I could hardly complain. This would be
our
sick feeling. It was our first venture into open adoption, and I kept hearing I had to breathe and keep an open mind—and a bottle of Maalox handy.

We’d call. No answer. Call again. No answer. “Maybe she’s out of town?” Don would offer. “With what money?” I’d ask. No way she was out of town. In my mind, she was lying facedown on the floor of her motel room surrounded by hypodermic needles.

Around this time, our lawyer called to ask if Samantha had taken her mandatory blood screening. We checked with
our doctor, whose office confirmed my memory that they had
not
taken blood at her last visit. She had told the nurses she was “needle phobic.” I decided to call Samantha’s doctor in Las Vegas, whose number was on the proof-of-pregnancy document we’d received from the attorney.

The nurse, named Vicki, was a firm, impatient woman with a smoker’s rasp who told me right off the bat she was not at liberty to discuss confidential medical records of patients. I tried to explain that I was one of the prospective adoptive dads of Samantha’s unborn baby and I was looking at a proof of pregnancy issued by that office. She asked if I was calling from Los Angeles. “Yes,” I replied. How it was relevant, I didn’t know. She asked if I was in show business.

“Uh, yes,” I answered, worried this would impact negatively her willingness to help. She asked if I was gay. I pretty much gave up any hope that she would be helping me out after that one, but it was too late to start making up stories.

“Yes. My partner and I are both adopting.” Vicki’s demeanor turned on a dime. As if to say
That’s a horse of a different color!
She was now brighter, cheerier, and all giggles. After I agreed to read her gay son’s science fiction television pilot,
she
agreed to look up Samantha’s name on the computer. I felt a wave of nausea and hot-face while I waited for Vicki to come back to the phone.

“Dan?” She then sighed deeply, which I interpreted as
I’ve got really bad news
but which could also have been a deep drag off one of her Merit Ultra Lights. I didn’t think anyone could smoke in a medical office, but it was Vegas after all.

“We haven’t seen Samantha in this office for over two years,” she said, knowing full well the implications of what
she was saying. “What’s the date on that proof of pregnancy you’re holding?”

“April of this year,” I told her, a little defeated.

“Well. We did one for her a few years back when she had her son, but that was the last one.” She asked me to fax it to her. We stayed on the phone as the document emerged from her machine. And then: “You’re looking at a cut-and-paste job, my friend,” she said, with a wacky
Columbo
ish tone.

My heart sank. I mean, we knew she was pregnant, so that wasn’t the issue. But her forging this medical document and lying about who knows what else did not bode well for the future of our relationship.

Coincidentally, we heard from Samantha the next day. An upcoming visit to L.A. was approaching and she needed eighty dollars to buy a suitcase. I wanted to know why she hadn’t been to the doctor in two years. She didn’t flinch. She said it cost fifty bucks every time she went to the doctor and she already knew she was pregnant so she didn’t see the need. It was hard to argue with that logic. But then what about the blood test? I explained that she wouldn’t be able to come out for the next visit until she had it.

“It’s the lawyer who is insisting on it. Not us. We think it’s a silly rule.” We’d been told to blame all matters of procedure on the lawyer or the system or the court in order to keep our relationship as clean as possible. What also keeps the relationship clean is the birth mom not lying, not disappearing, and not forging documents so much. But nobody’s perfect.

Our lawyer advised us to get out of the arrangement with Samantha as soon as he heard about the forgery. I was beyond annoyed with him for not doing any of the basic detective
work
prior
to putting us together with Samantha. But his fees don’t quite cover that level of investigative work. He put us together with a birth mom. The rest was up to us. In other words, you can’t blame a matchmaker if the fix-up is lousy in bed. Samantha’s shortcomings were clearly a result of her inexperience and modest resources. Don wanted to give Samantha the benefit of the doubt and really believed that financial hardship was what deterred her from seeing a doctor. We called her up, assured her we would cover all medical expenses, and set a time for her to see Vicki for a blood test and checkup. The night before her appointment, Don called Samantha and reiterated the importance of this doctor’s visit.

“We won’t be able to move ahead with the adoption if we don’t get this blood test.”

“I’ll be there at nine a.m. sharp!” Samantha assured us.

The following morning at nine thirty, I got a call from Nurse Vicki.

“Samantha didn’t show up.”

I swallowed hard. “Really?”

“Please don’t tell me you’re surprised,” she said, “because I’m not. I’ve seen it a million times.” That didn’t make me feel any better. Where was she? Why was she being so difficult? I hung up the phone. I was done. Finished. I couldn’t take any more of this drama and deception.

Don called Samantha. She answered the phone, sleepily. She’d overslept! Anyone can oversleep. Right? I shrugged. Don told her to get in a cab and get to the doctor,
stat
!

An hour later, Vicki called to say that Samantha had come to the office, had a checkup, but failed to pee in the cup. She
had claimed she didn’t have to pee. (How many pregnant women have trouble peeing?) And to top it all off, she said she had made an appointment for a blood test at a Quest Diagnostics later that afternoon. I wasn’t buying any of it anymore. I thanked Vicki for all her help and I hung up the phone.

Don and I were both now feeling we wouldn’t be having a baby with Samantha but felt the need to see this thing through to the end. We needed closure. Because there was always the chance that Samantha was just nervous and scared and out of money and needed our support. She had a three-year-old son, after all. We wanted to make sure she was okay and her son was being taken care of. We had to see her in person.

We cleared the rest of the day, hopped on the next plane to Las Vegas, and rented a car when we landed. Samantha texted me directions to the Budget Motel Suites. We drove out past the Strip, past military bases and refineries. We arrived in a part of town that was worlds away from Steve Wynn and Cirque du Soleil and the money and glitz of the “What Happens in Vegas” most people know about. This part of town was just depressing. It was the dirty, tattered hem on Lady Vegas. Since I wasn’t that familiar with this part of town, I’d had no idea where these “suites” were located when I was trolling online for weekly rentals. I felt a wave of guilt at having put her somewhere rundown, but frankly we were way past that now.

We pulled into the parking lot of the Budget Motel Suites and saw a family of six hanging out by the Dumpster a few feet away from the open door of their room. An old mattress had been thrown out and the kids were using it as a trampoline.
It dawned on me that the use of the word “suites” in the name was a deliberate attempt to get unsuspecting losers like me to think there could be a touch of swank to the establishment. But no. There was nothing “suite” about it.

I texted Samantha, “We’re here.” Don and I sighed deeply, locked the car doors, and headed upstairs to room number 25, Samantha’s age. We knocked, and a few seconds later Samantha answered.

“Hey guys! Come on in.” Really?
Now
she’s cheery and hospitable? I stepped into the room, my heart pounding, my face feeling flushed. To say I didn’t feel safe is an understatement—like saying there were just a few butts in the ashtrays. With all the deception and mystery over the past few weeks, I trusted nothing. Was Samantha even her real name? I had this nagging feeling that Don and I would not make it out of Vegas alive. I fully expected Samantha to pull a knife on us, or for her boyfriend to step out of the closet or bathroom wielding a gun. I hated every second of our visit and kept practicing hitting 911 on my cell phone without looking. I was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack.

Samantha went to close the front door and I insisted we leave it open. I can’t remember how I rationalized it. I know I was thinking,
So people can hear us screaming when you stab us to death!
But I said something about feeling sick from the flight and needing air, or better cell reception. She shrugged and headed back into the room.