Three days after giving birth, I was in my hospital room with my newborn sleeping on my chest and milk dripping from him. My mother walked in with a manila folder in her hand like a weapon and told me not to make the situation ugly. I looked from her pearl earrings to the manila folder in her hand.
My sister Celeste stood behind my mother, wearing sunglasses on her head and wrapped in a cream-colored linen side of the bed like someone who was waiting for a present to be wrapped rather than someone whose heart had just been ripped out. I asked my mother what the folder was and she said temporary custody papers. The room fell silent, save for the soft whispers of my son as he slept in my arms. I couldn’t help but laugh a little; it was better than screaming because I couldn’t scream at my mother. “Are you kidding me? You brought custody papers to my maternity ward?” Celeste moved closer to me and said I had no one in my life at the moment, I would be leaving for the military in six months, that I had no husband, that I had no permanent residence, and that frankly, Mara, I had always been intense.
I looked at my mother in disbelief and said, “Intense?” My mother raised her voice and exclaimed, “Your sister deserves this child! After everything she has been through.” I pulled my baby tighter into my chest and said, “She deserves my child?” Celeste looked at me blankly, a look I knew she reserved for when she was about to cry, and said, “You know I can’t have kids and how infertility has affected me.” Of course I knew she couldn’t have children or wouldn’t have children and that infertility had caused her great pain. I knew because I had spent all my savings on her: $42,500. Every bank transfer she received from me carried the label “IVF.” Every single phone call to her was made with the same intent, to provide her with emotional support and to remind her that families sacrifice for families. I looked at Celeste and said, “I am the one who paid for everything you used for your fertility treatments.” Celeste replied with a twinkle in her eye, “But it didn’t work.” My mother pushed the papers toward me and said, “Please sign the papers and then we can tell all your friends that you made a loving choice.” “A loving choice.”