MARCUS OHLSSON/TRUNK ARCHIVEItrained for my Tony Awards speech like an athlete.
My friend Amber (Gray, also nominated for her work
on Hadestown) and I would ride the train home after
the show and time each other, like sprinters, fearful
of exceeding the 90 seconds allotted to the winners.
I wondered – if I actually got the opportunity to give
a speech for an audience larger than our subway car – whether
to focus solely on gender and racial diversity, or to broaden
it to include our profession’s challenges for working parents,
something I was more attuned to since working with Amber,
a mother of two children. I was aware of the power this might
have as I was both the only woman nominated for directing
a musical last season, and would be visibly pregnant at the
ceremony – even though the baby I was carrying belonged
not to me, but to my best friends.
I met Jake on the first day of college. I was 18, he 17. We
were in the same group at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts
and quickly became close friends and collaborators – he was
a cerebral Allen Ginsberg in my third-year adaptation of
Howl. During school breaks, we would visit each other’s
families on the East and West Coasts. When, every couple
of years, Jake would abandon New York to go on a cross-
country wander, we mostly stayed in touch via extensive letters- his, beautifully typewritten with artfully decorated envelopes,
signs of his future life as a visual artist.
Six years later, I co-founded an experimental theatre
ensemble called The Team, and Jake joined shortly thereafter.
Nick was an early-career set and costume designer when, in
2006, I invited him to work on a show. He and Jake fell
almost immediately and madly in love, and several years
later were married in Canada. In 2015, their marriage finally
became legally recognised in the States. They’ve been my
partners in life and work, and at the time of writing, I am
34 weeks pregnant with their baby. Meaning I’m close, but
I’m still allowed to fly.
A few basics: it’s my egg; I’ve not yet had a child of my
own; I’ve never been pregnant before; and I recently turned
- I have a husband – who is also named Jake (for storytelling
purposes, he shall be referred to as My Jake). He thinks I’m
crazy, but has been nothing but supportive of my decision
to carry my best friends’ baby.
Most people’s first question – before the real nitty-gritty
stuff – is: why? My Jake is certainly not the only one who
thinks this is wild. People immediately say, “What a gift
you’re giving them.” Few seem to consider the idea that I not
only suggested the plan, but that I am gaining enormously
from this singular experience (and I don’t mean monetarily).
My Jake and I fell in love when I was 25, and married when
I was 31. Love came suddenly, and with the ferocious
declaration “I wanna have your babies”, though from the start
I lived with the knowledge of his family’s
complicated medical history; that they
carry the gene for a virulent form of
early-onset Alzheimer’s – his father died
of complications related to the disease
when My Jake was 13. Genetically, he
and his five siblings had a 50 per cent
chance of inheriting the gene mutation,
and of potentially passing it on to their
children. It’s played a large part in my
husband’s lifelong ambivalence towards
having children, though four of his
siblings have beautiful families.
To begin with, I feared daily that he
would die early in our marriage. Some
days the fear would come fast and with
tears, other times it was simply the
ambient noise in the background of
our lives. All of this is to say I have
contemplated non-traditional family
structures from the beginning of our
relationship, because I anticipated being
widowed young and needing the support
of my friends. Hell, I run a collaborative
theatre company that on more groggy
days resembles a punk band. So the
thought of raising kids on a commune
feels like home to me. And, for a good
while, that’s the life I envisioned.
Then, when I was 32, I directed a
show called Natasha, Pierre & The Great
Comet of 1812 at a tiny Off-Broadway
space. It exploded, and with it so did
my professional life. I became intoxicated
with a sense of artistic empowerment,
and began to feel uncertain as to whether
I wanted to adjust to raise a kid.
Jake and Nick, meanwhile, have
always wanted children. They’re both
drawn to the model of the nuclear
family; in many ways, despite being a
queer couple, they are more traditional than My Jake and
me. And so, in 2016, I said I’d be interested in discussing
having a kid with, or for, them.
I’ve always wanted to be pregnant. I grew up playing sports
and am still a (very slow) long-distance runner. I’ve always
been curious about the athletic feat of pregnancy and birth,
as well as the question of whether I’d find it “spiritual” – when
I was tripping on mushrooms at 20, I spent the better part
of a night breathing deeply with a tree and rubbing my belly.LABOUR OF LOVEAt the height of her career, award-winning director
Rachel Chavkin embarked on her most dramatic
project yet: becoming a surrogate for her best friends11-19-FOB-Viewpoint-Surrogacy.indd 114 03/09/2019 12:23