Chapter 27. In a Heartbeat

Of small flickers and big changes

“I’m full-blown nauseous this morning,” Marina texted in mid-October. “I hope that’s a good sign.”

It felt strange to feel happy about someone else not feeling well. But nausea in the early weeks of the first trimester was, according to every book and forum we’d read, a promising symptom. So we let ourselves be cautiously optimistic.

“I’ve also cut off coffee completely and am now drinking tea,” she added. “Which may also be why I feel constantly exhausted.”

Another good sign. Unfortunately.

Still, a bit of guilt crept in. Marina had mentioned once that there was a particular Italian chamomile tea she loved, a brand she could only find in New York. So we went to Eataly in the Flatiron District and bought a few boxes, along with some biscotti. We shipped the care package with a small handwritten note tucked inside: We don’t take any of this for granted.

The three of us waited for October 14, the day of her first ultrasound. “I’ll try to take a picture for you guys, if they’ll let me,” she said.

One of the harder realities of pregnancy through surrogacy is how many small moments you miss. We couldn’t get on a plane for every appointment. So instead, we waited—eagerly, anxiously—for her to come out and tell us what she’d seen.

That morning, Marina went in, and we stayed glued to our phones on the other side of the country. Thirty minutes passed. Then an hour. Nothing. I found myself fidgeting with my coffee cup, tracing the rim with my thumb. Jaime didn’t notice, or pretended not to; he was scrolling through news alerts. A silence like waiting for a heartbeat stretched across the room. At the ninety-minute mark, our phones finally chimed.

It wasn’t a text.
It wasn’t a photo.
It was a video.

We hit play.

The screen was black and white, clearly an ultrasound monitor inside the exam room. A large, dark, concave shape filled most of the frame. At the very top of it was a tiny, bean-shaped white spot—flickering, almost blinking. A purple-gloved hand entered the frame and pointed.

“That’s the baby right there,” a voice said. “And that little flicker you see is the heart motion.”

Just offscreen, we heard Marina erupt with a big, unfiltered, “Yaaay!”—her joy spilling into the room before any of us could even process what we were seeing.

In that instant, electricity ran through my entire body. I squeezed Jaime’s hand as my eyes burned red. We were pregnant.

I pulled Jaime into a hug, tighter than I ever had before. Nearly two years had passed since we took the very first step—signing with our surrogacy agency, daring to imagine this might someday be real. And now here we were, staring at a tiny flicker on a screen that carried every hope we had. Something shifted in us then. We were parents in the making. Two dads-to-be.

“Doctor said everything looks great,” Marina texted soon after. “I’m measuring six weeks and three days.”

For once, Jaime and I allowed ourselves to dream a little. We knew the first trimester was fragile—the probability of miscarriage during the first couple of months can still be as high as 30%. It steadily declines with every week, dropping down to around 1.7% by week twelve. But we were tired of statistics getting in the way of joy. We needed to give ourselves a break and simply celebrate how far we had come.

We went out to our favorite bar in New York, a spot on 14th and 2nd where we usually sat at the bar and ordered gin cocktails. I got a martini, two olives; Jaime went for a G&T with an orange peel. We shared a side of fries. Music played in the background. The bass from the back room thudded faintly through the floor, steady enough that you stopped noticing it until it was gone—felt more than heard.

Outside, the air had started to bite in a way it hadn’t a few weeks ago. Jackets were zipped a little higher, scarves tucked a little closer, and the city felt a little quieter, as if bracing for the colder days ahead.

“Enjoy these outings,” Jaime said, taking his first sip. “In a few months we’re going to be grounded, changing diapers and dreaming of a night out.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “You can’t hold on to two vines at the same time.”

Jaime frowned. “What does that mean?”

“I’ve thought about it before,” I said. “When Tarzan’s moving through the jungle, there’s always a moment where he has to let go. He can’t reach the next vine unless he does.”

I took a sip of my drink.

“There’s a second where he’s just hanging in the air—everything paused. That’s the part that feels dangerous. But if he doesn’t trust it—if he freezes—that’s when he actually falls.”

Jaime smiled. “So we’re midair.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But moving forward.”

“I like that,” he said.

So we did. Over the next few weeks, we lived in that in-between space. We weren’t in a rush to learn how to prepare a bottle or how to swaddle a baby, but we started noticing strollers on the sidewalk, babies balanced on strangers’ shoulders. I downloaded one of those pregnancy-tracking apps—all relentlessly designed for mommies—and every so often I’d read the updates out loud.

“Did you know the umbilical cord is forming this week?” I said one night. “And Jaidan already has stubs that will eventually become hands. Isn’t that amazing?”

Jaime nodded, politely unimpressed.

That Sunday night, after the movies and a late dinner—still blissfully unconcerned about finding a sitter—I stopped by the supermarket on our way home.

“What do we need?” Jaime asked.

“You know how Jaidan was the size of a poppy seed a few weeks ago?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well,” I said, turning down the produce aisle, “he’s a little bigger now.”

I picked up a pack of blueberries.

When we got home, I opened the box and took one out. Then I grabbed Jaime and held it up between us while we took a selfie.

“There,” I said. “Our first family photo.”

Jaime laughed. So did I.

We sent it to Marina, who laughed too. Not long after, her phone buzzed again. This time, it was a selfie from her and her toddler, preparing the chamomile tea we had sent her. She was smiling, the child perched on the counter, hands reaching for the teabag, and her caption read “Thank you for this—it’s already becoming part of our mornings.” Looking at that picture, I realized how much we were building something intimate with her at a distance—tiny rituals, small gestures, laughter and shared moments that were already stitching us together in ways we couldn’t measure from thousands of miles away.

We thought we were still waiting, still hovering somewhere in between. But without realizing it, we were already moving—pulled forward by something steady and unseen. And chances are, if we could have turned around and caught a glimpse of ourselves in that moment, we wouldn’t have recognized who we were becoming, or how far we’d already come. There was a whole jungle ahead, and we were midair, just beginning to feel the first sharp breaths of November on our skin.

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