Chapter 20

Mike

“So we are okay? No sanctions or whatever the heck the board likes to do to people?” I said to the attorney as I sat in his office.

“Yes, but from now on I’d just say no if I were you guys. In this particular case the woman that Bruce had donated to was well known and went to bat for him. It might not turn out as well if they got wind of a second case.”

“Deal. We will close up our sperm donations,” I said trying to keep things a little light.

“Mike, this was a close call. If they would have taken your license or Bruce’s you two wouldn’t have a way to make a living. If we are moving ahead with this expansion I think you should look at taking on a business manager at the site. Someone who I can work with and we can make sure you are protected.”

“I agree. We need some additional staff as we grow. I also think it might be time for me to take a little step back and manage more than I’m seeing patients.”

“Whatever you need to do.”

“Thanks, I’ve got some new life changes going on and I think I’ll need some time to get acclimated to everything.”

With Julia having her babies I knew I was going to want to help her out as much as possible. There was no way I could keep a full load of patients at work. The legal scare that we had only helped me to realize that there were some major changes I had to make in my life.

It wasn’t until the next day when I realized Julia hadn’t returned any of my text messages that I really started to worry. I had hurried out of the hospital so fast that I didn’t get a chance to tell her what was going on with our legal stuff and I was really worried she was still angry with me.

As the next couple weeks went on it became glaringly clear that Julia was still angry. Or she just had decided that she didn’t want anything to do with me. I tried texting and calling her. I even tried reaching out to her friends to see if they could put in a good word.

When I was at the hospital I swung by the NICU and a few times I’d seen Julia in with the boys, but I didn’t want to interrupt them. If she needed some time I was going to give it to her. But by the time I heard the boys were getting ready to go home I was beside myself with worry that Julia and I were never going to work stuff out.

It wasn’t like me to push myself on a woman. If she was pushing me away then I stayed away. If Julia wanted to talk to me she knew how to reach me. I also knew that we would probably be running into one another in our condo complex and we should try and settle on how we were going to interact.

As I walked down the hall of the hospital after visiting a patient, I was engrossed in planning some way that I could reach out to Julia without being overbearing. It was harder than it seemed. I had obviously tried calling her over and over again. I’d sent text messages just asked if there was a time we could talk and none of it was working.

“Hey, asshole,” a woman’s voice said as I walked around the corner near the cafeteria.

“Oh, hey Sarah. How are you?”

“Seriously, Mike. You are the lowest of the low. I can’t believe you.”

“What?”

“You know what. You deserve to burn in hell for how you treated my friend. What sort of total asshole just disappears like that? And saying she could take care of her own babies, I mean, wow. That was rude.”

“Sarah, I don’t think you have the full story.”

“I’m sure you have a lot of excuses. But save them, I don’t want to hear it. You stole my girls heart and then crushed it in a million pieces. I know she won’t admit that her heart is crushed but it is. She was devastated by you.”

“I’ve been trying to talk to Julia since the babies were born. She won’t return my calls and I didn’t want to stress her out while the boys were still here. I want to be involved with her. I love her,” I said and paused when I realized the words had just come out of my mouth.

“You love her?” Sarah asked skeptically.

“Yeah,” I reassured myself. “I do love her. I’ve had a lot going on with legal stuff at work and I fully admit to being a total jerk when we went out to dinner. But I didn’t want to say I was going to be an involved father if that wasn’t what she wanted. She said she wanted to do this all on her own. I didn’t want to take that away from her or make her feel like I had to be involved.”

“Have you two talked about any of this? I mean it seems like a pretty big deal and something the two of you should have talked about at some point over the last few months.”

“No. We haven’t had a chance and I’ve been trying to reach her.”

“You guys have been hanging out for months. How have you not talked about what was going to happen after the babies came?” Sarah looked at me as if I was an idiot.

The way she asked the question did make me feel pretty stupid. Julia and I had been spending tons of time together. We were enjoying one another and having fun. We both were avoiding the topic. It wasn’t just me. Julia didn’t bring it up either.

Sometimes I would say something like I couldn’t wait to have all of us go for walks to the park. Instead of speaking up and saying that it sounded like a good plan, Julia simply shook her head in agreement.

Other times when Julia talked about how hard things were going to be for her taking care of the babies all by herself, I wanted to speak up. I wanted to say something about what it would be like if I helped out more. One time I even wanted to tell her that I could stay the night and help with the babies. But the nerve to say something passed and we went back to both being quiet and avoiding the topic.

“Well, we need to make this happen. You two just need to be in a room together and hash this out.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been trying to talk to her but she won’t talk to me. This whole thing is just her being stubborn. Okay, not just her. But she is being really stubborn. I can’t believe she hasn’t returned any of my phone calls. I mean, at some point I just needed to take the hint and stop calling.”

“And you being unwilling to communicate what you want,” Sarah added. “You should have told her a long time ago that you wanted to be involved.”

She was right. If I had come out and told Julia that I loved her a long time ago then I wouldn’t have had to worry so much about figuring all of this out now. I’d been keeping my feelings close to my chest and waiting for Julia to tell me her feelings. I shouldn’t have waited. I should have just gone for it and told her. But now everything was a mess. She was angry with me in the midst of trying to care for her newborn babies. The last thing she needed was for me to get her all worked up with my feelings.

Everything was out of control now. Julia was busy with the boys and it had been weeks since we had talked. It wasn’t going to be easy for me to get close to her without the help of her friends. I didn’t even know if her friends could help at all at this point. Julia might already have her mind set; she might have decided to move on.

“I’ve been visiting the boys at night after Julia leaves. I love them so much. I want to be involved. I need to be involved. Not out of obligation or anything like that. I just need Julia and the boys in my life.”

“Then we need to figure out a way for you to tell her that. Let me get Kendra and Teddy, so we can all talk this through and figure out a plan.”

Sure enough Sarah found Kendra and Teddy and the four of us ended up in one of the hospital conference rooms trying to figure out what to do next. Julia clearly wasn’t going to call me back just yet and if she didn’t want to talk to me I wasn’t going to just show up somewhere.

The three of them were like super heroes coming to my rescue. They believed in my feelings for Julia and somehow believed that me being involved in her life was a good thing. There was no way to know what Julia was going to say about the whole thing, but having her friends support me in my quest was a really good thing.

“Maybe we could have you surprise her in the nursery holding the babies?” Kendra said. “You could do that whole kangaroo care where the babies are resting on your naked chest. Oh, yeah that would be awesome.”

“No, absolutely not,” I replied. “I’m not going to hold the boys without her permission.”

“What about if you just waited for her outside the nursery?” Teddy suggested.

“I don’t think it should be done at the hospital. I can wait a little bit. I’ll just come visit her once she returned to her apartment.” As much as I wanted to straighten things out with Julia right away, I didn’t want to push myself on her in the middle of getting ready to come home. She had enough to worry about without worrying about me too.

We sat in that conference room for over an hour throwing around ideas before we finally settled on one. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I loved the idea, but it was exciting to have a plan and something I could look forward to.

“Okay, well I’m going to work with Julia so I know when the babies are coming home and I’ll keep in touch with everyone else,” Kendra said.

“Yes, I can’t wait,” Teddy added.

“This is going to be fantastic. I’ll help you with your part, Mike so you don’t have to worry about any of that. Within the week the two of you love birds should be on your way to a happy future.”

“Thanks for your help everyone. I really hope this works.”

After some reassuring hugs, everyone took off and left me in the conference room to contemplate our big plan. That was when I started to get really nervous. This was going to expose me more than I’d ever been exposed. I was going to have my raw emotions laid out there for Julia to see and she could decide to stomp all over my heart.

Of course, I hoped she had the same feelings for me as I had for her but there was no way to know for sure. I was already nervous about the whole thing. My hands were sweating at the thought of this surprise. Not just because of what it might mean for Julia and me but for what it could mean for our future.