Gus heard the keys in the lock and hastily clicked off the realty site he had been exploring for the last half hour. It wasn't that he wanted to hide anything from Jason, but the last time they had talked about looking for a house to buy it had been less than well received by his husband. He understood where Jason was coming from, but it didn't stop him from dreaming. After all, they didn't really need the excuse of building their family to invest in their own home. It may be true that they had been quite happy in this same apartment ever since college days and it was true that a house had only come up when they started talking about expanding their family, but it wasn't the only reason Gus wanted to consider home ownership. Yes, it was the main reason, but not the only one. It just seemed a practical idea in today's economy.
By the time that Gus heard Jason's footsteps, he had already hurriedly opened up another page on the next chapter of his new book. When Jason came up behind him and offered Gus the usual kiss for the top of his head, he saw that his spouse was hard at work on his new novel. Gus swirled around in his wheeled chair and pulled Jason onto his lap. Gus reached for Jason's face and pulled him down so that they were nose to nose. A second later, Gus was firmly planted mouth-to-mouth with the man he loved more than life. He had been in love with Jason for almost a dozen years now and, despite a few bumps in the road, he couldn't imagine life without him. He was actually very content with a life of just the two of them, except he knew they had so much love to share, and children could enrich it even more.
Jason hadn't given any argument once the idea was first broached by Gus a couple of years earlier. They had been lying in bed after a particularly hot evening of passionate lovemaking. They were celebrating the success of Gus' second novel, a gay love story called 'In the Shadows of Stonewall'. Sales had been brisk, and the publishers were already asking for a third book. Gus was making enough money from the sale of his first novel, and now his second one, for them to have a healthy amount in their savings account and start thinking about Jason opening up his own Architectural Design firm. Then out of the blue, Gus asked Jason how he would feel about adding a child to the mix. It took several heartbeats before Jason responded, making Gus afraid that the idea wasn't going to be well received. Then suddenly, Jason smothered Gus in kisses.
"I thought you'd never ask," Jason declared. "I've been thinking about it a lot lately, ever since Gidge told me she was expecting her own baby. She's my little sister and she's already ahead of me in the family department."
"Whoa! Hold on a minute. I know how competitive you can be, but don't you think having a kid just because your little sister is could be considered a rather poor reason for doing it?"
Jason rustled Gus' hair. "No, silly! For heaven's sake, Gee, you know me better than that. I'm telling you that I figure if my baby sister is old enough and mature enough to become a parent, I figure that two mature, intelligent, and well-organized men like us can handle it too. I've loved it just being the two of us, but we'll be thirty in a few short years and I think it is time we settled down and became an old married couple with kids like our dads are."
That had been the beginning of their journey. But now it was two long years later and the road had led to plenty of laughs, a little joy, and more than their fair share of tears. Now the couple were exhausted by it all and both seemed reticent to face anymore of the tears. Somehow, without knowing exactly when, they had slipped from eager anticipation to resigned acceptance after nothing seemed to go right for them. Lately, the only time children were mentioned was as uncles or future uncles to Gidge's baby boy and expected second child, and JR's rapidly approaching newborn. When Gus showed signs of wanting to talk about the subject again lately, Jason usually found an excuse to change the subject. It was clear, he wasn't ready.
Gus pulled away from his kiss and watched as Jason lifted himself off his lap and took a seat on the second chair used at their double-length computer table. It had been set up as a mutual office space where each had their own space with an array of cubby-holes built into the wall for them to keep supplies and notes. They liked browsing the internet side-by-side, often checking out completely different sites. The couple were as close as two men could ever be, but they also celebrated their differences as much as their similarities. They even looked very different. Gus was still the same tall, lanky brown-haired lad he had been since high school. He had a runner's build and had managed to keep in shape all these years. Jason was quite a bit shorter with a stocky wrestler's build. Even though he had given up the sport ages ago, he had retained his muscular frame with no trouble at all and had not an ounce of fat on him. His dark looks still made Gus' heart skip a beat.
"How were things at the office, Jase?" choosing to drop all thoughts of babies from his mind for the moment.
"Not bad, Gee, but I'll be a lot happier when they finish the renovations. I'm glad I talked to your Dad before we got started with this whole thing. You know, that man is a fount of good advice when it comes to starting your own company. I can see why he did so well with his advertising firm. He has a real smart head on his shoulders."
"Just like his son," Gus laughed.
"Modest, much?" Jason laughed back, slapping Gus on the thigh.
"Honesty is a virtue, or so they say."
The couple continued to banter back and forth in the same easy way they had been enjoying for more than a decade. Gus continued to work on the new chapter of his book, once a comfortable silence fell between them, while Jason went online to check out some more supplies he would need for the new company he and his partner, Tom Ulrey, were starting up. Strangely enough, Tom had become one of their best friends, once it was made clear that the man no longer had any designs on Jason. He now had a special someone of his own and the four of them often spent a lot of time together. Marcus, Tom's better half, was the exact opposite of Jason, which made Gus feel even more comfortable. It was obvious that Tom wasn't trying to replace his former feelings for Jason with his new love.
Jason and Tom had been a huge success as a team at their job with Breyer Architectural Designs, and they were grateful for the experiences they had there. All of the work they did taught them a great deal about the business. The company's clients often asked for them by name and many referrals came in based on their work. But their dream had long been to form a company of their own. They often talked about it over dinners or drinks; always making sure that Gus was included in their discussions. Now they also sought the support of Marcus ever since he had moved in with Tom a year ago.
Marcus was more into the liberal arts, having formed his own dance troupe with his boyfriend, Wayne, right out of college. When Wayne's deeply religious Southern family had come for a surprise visit on his twenty-fifth birthday, they not only discovered that their son was gay but that he had a black lover. Even though it was well into the third decade of the twenty-first century, some people still lived in the dark ages. They had turned around and left their son's apartment without a word. Marcus had known that Wayne was a sensitive soul, but he had not realized how deeply hurt the young man had been by his family's rejection. Marcus had been certain that he would come out of his depression with a little time. A week later he found out how wrong he was. He came home from a shopping trip to the grocer’s to find his lover unconscious in their bed. A call to 911 had proved futile. By the time they reached the hospital, Wayne had slipped into a coma and passed away before the dawn broke from the overdose of sleeping pills he had taken.
It had taken Marcus a long time to trust in love again. After more than a year of mourning, he had awakened one day feeling alive again for the first time in ages. He had always been a rather flamboyant man who never hid his light under a bushel. He suddenly decided that his light had been dimmed long enough. It was fate because it was that next Monday that he met with the architect who was going to design the new dance theatre for his troupe, and others who used the same rehearsal halls. That man was Tom Ulrey, and they connected immediately. Gus and Jason took to the friendly, outgoing Marcus the first night they met him. Now the four men were fast friends.
As Jason clicked onto another site to compare prices for some of the supplies that he and Tom would need for their new office space, he felt a sudden rumbling in his tummy. He was so excited about opening up their 'Creative Visions Architectural Designs' business that he completely forgot about dinner. He let out a sigh and clicked off his computer, making sure to bookmark where he had last been. He looked over at Gus and saw that his mate was thoroughly absorbed in the page in front of him. Jason could see that the screen was more than half empty and Gus' fingers were poised over the keyboard but not really clicking on any keys. Even from the side, Jason could tell that Gus was at a standstill. His furrowed brow was always a telltale sign that he was blocked. Jason lightly touched Gus on the shoulder, making him jump back like a man who had been shot through with electricity.
"Wha...?" Gus looked distressed.
"Are you okay, Gee? You looked like you were in a trance there for a second. Are you finding yourself blocked again?" he asked solicitously.
Gus nodded his head. He didn't want to admit that his mind had wandered back in time again. He wasn't in the mood to 'discuss' what was on his mind with Jason right now. Looking at houses had brought it all up again, but he knew that Jason just wanted to put it all behind them and give up on their dream for a while. He seemed to believe that time would heal all things, and then they could talk about what they would do for the future at a later date. The problem was that Gus had begun to feel differently. It was one of the few things they didn't see eye-to-eye on. Of course, looking back on everything, Gus understood Jason's reluctance to re-visit that dark period in their lives. Yet, Gus knew that ignoring it and being afraid to face it would put up a road block to the future that they might never get around to.
As Gus' mind drifted off again into the memories, he could hear Jason telling him that he was going to run out and pick up some dinner at the market deli a few blocks away. Gus heard Jason tell him to set the table and he'd be right back. Gus nodded and listened as the door closed behind his husband. Gus closed his computer and retreated to the kitchen. The story could wait. He got out a couple of plates, silverware, and glasses from the cabinets. He pulled a couple of cold beers from the fridge and opened up one of them. Gus sat down at the small dinette table they used for casual meals and rested his elbows on its top. As he laid his head in his hands, he let his mind drift back...back...back to a time that changed both of them profoundly. They were no longer the carefree youths who found that everything came to them so easily, such as finding the great love of their life so very young....when most kids their age didn't even know what they were looking for. But Gus knew what he wanted even back then, and so did Jason.
They had always seemed to be in perfect sync with each other. That held true on the subject of expanding their family. Once they both were in agreement that it was time to think of children, they went all out to explore their options. Adoption came up in the beginning, but the truth was that they both loved the idea of maybe having a mini Gee or Jase, although a female version of one or the other was perfectly acceptable to both of them. They even liked the idea of each of them fathering a child. Two seemed to be the perfect number for both sides of their family. It would have been nice if they had a situation similar to Gus' dads, minus the deceased mothers of course. Unfortunately, neither man had a lesbian friend more than willing to lease out her reproductive abilities for their sakes. The few lesbian friends they had were in committed relationships and any children they had they intended to raise themselves.
Eventually the couple settled on the surrogacy route. Surrogacy contracts were perfectly legal in all the States now as long as the money exchanged could not be misconstrued as the selling of a baby. Basically, all the surrogate mom could ask for was all medical costs, living expenses during the pregnancy, and legal fees. Most lawyers recommended that the surrogate carry a donor egg already inseminated by the father's sperm so that she would not be carrying her own biological child. The contract could be either open or closed, depending on whether the fathers wanted to know the woman who carried their child or not. The total price could run well into the six figures and be quite prohibitive for Gus and Jason, but as often happened for them the family stepped up once they became privy to what the boys were thinking of doing.
Jason's parents were just as eager to have a grandchild by their son as they were to have Gidge's child to dote on. Brian and Justin had both been amazingly successful in their chosen fields and had a healthy nest egg set aside for their futures and the futures of their kids. Both sets of parents insisted on wanting to finance the surrogacy. Gus and Jason had been reluctant at first, wanting to stand entirely on their own two feet. It took a family pow-wow between the Tylers, the Kinney/Taylors, and the couple to get them to agree to the help, but only after they insisted on it being a loan that they would pay back someday, once Gus became an even more successful author and Jason had his own wildly successful architectural firm. Once the agreement was made, things began to move quickly.
There had been months of searching for the right surrogate. Both men took the whole thing very seriously and they knew in their hearts that they would recognize the right woman when they found her. It wasn't that easy. It really wasn't the fault of the women. There was nothing inherently wrong with any of the women they interviewed, having decided to go with an open contract from the beginning. It had been a lot easier choosing the woman who would provide the eggs. That was not open, but they had her full medical history and all the pertinent information as to education, physicality, likes, and dislikes, etc. The background they had on their choice for egg donor reminded them a lot of the women in their family that they admired the most.
Once they had made that choice, it took several months more to decide on a woman who lived in Philadelphia with her husband of eleven years as the one to carry the baby. She had already had three successful births of her own children and one successful surrogacy for another gay couple two years earlier. She loved being pregnant but she and her husband had decided that three was enough children for them to bring into the world. Her brother was a gay man, and she knew how much he had struggled to have a child with his mate. She had made up her mind that she would do her best to help other gay men in the future as long as she was able to. Her husband was in total agreement, as long as she spaced the pregnancies out so that the strain wouldn't harm her overall health. Gus and Jason would be her second surrogacy.
The moment they met Rachel Anders, the couple took a liking to her easy-going personality and warmth. The interview went remarkably well. By the end of it, Gus and Jason knew they had found their woman. Rachel could see that this couple was exactly the kind of men that she wanted to help. The love and devotion they felt for each other was clear from every simple gesture between them. They always looked each other square in the eye as they formed their answers to her questions and they had a habit of gently laying their hands on each other’s knees as they talked, as if the connection made them more comfortable in what they were saying. She was impressed by their intelligence and dreams for the future. The deal was sealed without any follow-up interviews.
In the end, Gus and Jason decided to mix their sperm so they would both feel like they had fathered their child. Once they had a number of viable embryos ready, they were implanted in Rachel. Then came the wait. Weeks later they got the good news. She was pregnant. The news spread throughout both families like wildfire. Gidge and Kevin still had months left of their own pregnancy, and she was excited at the prospect of swapping babysitting duties with her brother. A month later, the floor dropped out from under Gus and Jason when they got a call from Rachel's husband. Less than eight weeks into the pregnancy, Rachel had awakened from a nap with terrible cramping. By the time her husband got home, the baby was gone.
The doctors could give no reason for the aborted pregnancy. Just simply Mother Nature correcting a problem, they all said. Gus and Jason were devastated. They had already made plans for finding a house to buy with a big backyard for the baby to enjoy. They had bought baby furniture and clothes...all in yellows, purples, and greens since they didn't know the sex of the baby yet. They quietly packed everything up in boxes and stored them in their storage locker in the basement of their apartment complex.
It took a few more long months before the couple felt they were ready to try again and Rachel was more than happy to oblige. Once again, she got pregnant on the first try as the embryos were implanted. Neither man was quite as eager to share the good news this time. They waited until Rachel was safely into her second trimester and then sent out formal announcements. When Rachel began her fifth month, the couple flew to Philadelphia so that they could be with her when she had the ultrasound that would reveal the baby's sex. The men cried in each other’s arms as they watched their active baby inside Rachel's tummy and heard the doctor declare that they would have a son. The sound of the baby's heartbeat was the sweetest music they had ever heard. They flew back home with visions of family outings dancing in their heads.
Two more weeks flew by, and at twenty-two weeks of pregnancy, the couple were reassured that all was moving ahead as it should. The phone call from Rachel gave Gus and Jason reason to celebrate and they enjoyed a night out at their favorite restaurant, inviting their three dads to join them. Brian, Justin, and Mr. Tyler were amused at the way they whipped out the ultrasound photo of the baby from their wallets as if they hadn't already showed them to every person who hadn't moved fast enough in the family and at work more than a dozen times. Of course, they didn't admit out loud that they were secretly more than happy to view the first glimpse of their future grandchild again. Once they all parted ways, Gus and Jason hurried home.
The evening ended with the couple exploring each other again in the comfort of their king-sized bed as if there was something new to be found every time. They fell asleep exhausted in each other’s arms. An hour later, the phone rang. And then the world crumbled at their feet. The call was from Rachel's husband. They were at the hospital. It turned out that she had become concerned when she hadn't felt any movement from the baby for a couple of days. When she started lightly spotting that evening she decided to reassure herself by paying a visit to the hospital. She was sure there was nothing to worry about, but she wanted to err on the side of caution. Another ultrasound revealed that the baby's heart had stopped beating. There was no reason for it. There was no one to blame. But it was over...just like that.
That had been almost a year ago, and the pain was as raw today as it had been on that terrible night. The unborn baby's picture had been removed from wallets...the clothes and furniture packed up a second time and put away...and talk of babies had become a taboo subject. Life went on. Gidge made the couple uncles shortly after. JR got pregnant and Gidge followed suit with her second pregnancy. Thoughts of buying a home for a family were set aside. But now Gus was feeling the longing again. The question was - would Jason be ready yet? He wasn't sure, but he knew he would have to ask him if he ever hoped to open that door again.
To be continued............................