The petite woman in the tangerine-coloured sari confidently waves a hennaed hand at the couple entering a stuffy conference room in Mumbai’s World Trade Centre. “Mr. Gerry, come sit here,” Rekha Tayde commands in halting English, smiling broadly. “Come, come, Miss Rhonda.” Gerry and Rhonda Wile smile back, delighted. But they approach carefully, as if the woman is made of china, fragile and easily broken.
Gerry stands a solid six feet tall, with broad shoulders, tattooed, muscular arms and fingers as thick as cigars; Rhonda, with blond, wavy hair and a kewpie-doll face, is not much smaller. They dwarf Rekha, but she isn’t nervous. She wants to put Rhonda, a nurse from Niagara Falls, Ont., and Gerry, a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, at ease. This is their first meeting, and Rekha wants to assure them that they’ve done the right thing by choosing her to try to become pregnant with their child. A housewife and a mother of two, she is an old hand at the surrogacy business, having carried another couple’s baby to term in 2007, just one year ago.
“I’m strong,” she declares, pointing to her abdomen.
“I’m big,” Gerry shoots back.
“No worry,” she replies, serene.
He laughs and hugs her. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m from Nova Scotia,” he says. “I hug everybody.”
For the couple, it has been a long journey to this place, on a plane from halfway around the world and then several hours by taxi through monsoon rains.
In this moment, as they meet the woman who is willing, literally, to carry all their hopes and dreams over nine long months – morning sickness and water retention included – all their doubts are erased. “We can’t tell you how happy we are that you’re doing this,” Rhonda says, a bit teary from emotion and the hormone shots she has been administering over the past two weeks to make her ovaries produce more eggs.
They carefully place children’s backpacks on the table and begin to pull out gifts. They knew what to bring, sort of, after watching a grainy video of Rekha sent to them by Surrogacy India, the company they have contracted to broker and manage the deal. They know she has a seventh-grade education and liked being a surrogate the last time, partly because her husband and children pampered her as if she was a queen. They know she is interested in children’s theatre and the ancient art of mehndi, in which intricate henna designs are painted on the body; that her 13-year-old son is a budding artist and her 10-year-old daughter is a fan of all things pop cultural. So the presents include a drawing manual, a set of coloured pencils, Hannah Montana paraphernalia and a picture book of Disney princess tales. Rekha is silent for a moment as she surveys the pile on the table. “My children will feel rich,” she finally says. “Much joy.”
 |
