Not Perfect, Still Ours Part 2

I finally dragged Abaynesh out of her home studio and onto a hike with me. After spending a lot of time applying sunscreen, packing snacks, and tugging on our boots, we finally made it out to our hiking spot. I picked a spot I had explored before, keeping Abaynesh’s lack of athleticism into account. It was a gorgeous hike, with thick foliage marking the path to a small valley with a creek to swim in and a gorgeous waterfall. 

Abaynesh didn’t complain too much about the hike; it was easy, a meandering path that would take us to a gorgeous destination. We talked about the farm, our lives over the past year, and all of a sudden, Abaynesh paused.

“I know we’ve always talked about kids, and we both want kids. But how do you feel about soon?”

I turned to look at her, “Of course. I love you so much, and I know we’ve always wanted to expand our family.”

We continued walking, and questions began to surface. Who would carry the baby? We decided. Abaynesh wanted to, but she wasn’t sure she would ever be ready, especially after her mother described how difficult all of her pregnancies were. Who would we want to get a donation from? Family? Friend? Abaynesh suggested we should ask her older brother.

By the end of our conversation, we were at the creek, practically buzzing with excitement and possibility. 

The idea came up accidentally.

Or at least that was what Beth would insist later.

One minute, they were helping clear dishes after Shabbat dinner at Abaynesh’s parents’ apartment in Oakland, the next, they were standing shoulder to shoulder at the sink while Abaynesh’s younger brother, Yonatan, dried plates with theatrical incompetence.

“You’re making them wetter,” Abaynesh observed.

“I’m giving them emotional support,” Yonatan replied.

Beth laughed despite herself, stacking bowls beside him. The apartment still hummed with post-dinner warmth—voices drifting from the living room, someone arguing affectionately in Hebrew over tea, music low in the background.

It should have felt easy.

Instead, Beth could feel the conversation sitting between her and Abaynesh like an unopened letter.

They had talked about it privately for weeks and circled it carefully. Turned it over from every angle.

Known donor. Anonymous donor. Genetics. Family resemblance. Boundaries.

And now here they were.

Abaynesh dried her hands slowly on a towel. “Yoni,” she said.

Something in her tone made him glance up immediately.

“Oh no,” he said. “That’s your serious voice.”

Beth looked down at the counter, suddenly fascinated by a water ring near the sink.

“We wanted to ask you something,” Abaynesh continued.

Yonatan leaned against the counter. “Okay…”

Beth could feel her own pulse in her throat.

Abaynesh looked at her briefly—checking in, silently asking if she wanted to continue.

Beth gave the smallest nod.

Abaynesh inhaled once. “We’ve been talking about IVF.”

Yonatan’s face brightened instantly. “Wait, really?”

Beth laughed softly at his immediate excitement. “Really.”

“That’s amazing.” He looked between them. “Why do you both look like someone died?”

“Because there’s another part,” Beth said.

“Ah.”

The room suddenly seemed quieter, though the living room was still noisy.

Abaynesh folded the dish towel carefully, buying herself another second.

“We were wondering…” She paused. “How would you feel about being our donor?”

Silence.

Not hostile silence. Not shocked, exactly.

Just stillness.

Yonatan blinked once.

Then twice.

Beth’s stomach tightened immediately. “You absolutely do not have to say yes,” she rushed to add. “And if this makes things weird or uncomfortable, please forget we asked—”

“Beth,” Abaynesh murmured gently.

“No, because we talked about how this could be a huge thing to put on someone, and maybe we shouldn’t even have asked during dishwashing—”

“Beth.”

She stopped.

Yonatan was staring at both of them now, a dish towel hanging limp from one hand.

Then, unexpectedly, he laughed once under his breath.

“You really rehearsed this conversation, huh?”

Abaynesh groaned softly. “For days.”

“It shows.”

Beth covered her face briefly with one hand. “This is going terribly.”

“No,” Yonatan said immediately, his expression softening. “No, it’s not.”

He set the plate down carefully.

“I just…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I need a second.”

“Of course,” Abaynesh said quickly.

“Take all the time you need,” Beth added.

“You’re both talking very fast.”

“Sorry.”

Yonatan leaned back against the sink, thinking.

The sounds from the living room drifted in and out—his mother laughing loudly at something, a chair scraping across the floor.

Finally, he looked at Abaynesh first.

“You’d want the baby to have a biological connection to your side?”

Abaynesh nodded slowly. “If possible.”

“And you’d both be the parents.”

“Obviously,” Beth said before she could stop herself.

Yonatan smiled faintly. “Right. Obviously.”

Beth felt heat rise into her face. “Sorry. That sounded intense.”

“It was a little intense.”

“She’s been anxious all day,” Abaynesh translated.

“I can tell.”

Beth crossed her arms. “In my defense, this is a very vulnerable conversation.”

“It is,” Yonatan agreed quietly.

That settled over them for a moment.

Then he looked down at the dish towel in his hands.

“I think…” He paused. “I think I’d want to understand what boundaries would look like.”

Relief flickered through Beth so quickly it almost made her dizzy. Not a no.

Not immediately impossible.

Abaynesh nodded. “Yeah. Us too.”

“I wouldn’t want the kid confused.”

“They wouldn’t be,” Beth said softly. “You’d be family. But not…” She searched for the right word.

“Not the parent,” Abaynesh finished.

Yonatan studied both of them carefully.

“You’ve really thought about this.”

“We’ve thought about almost nothing else,” Beth admitted.

That made him smile again, shorter this time.

“And you’d actually trust me with this?” he asked Abaynesh.

Her answer came immediately.

“Yes.”

Something shifted in his expression at that—something touched and slightly overwhelmed all at once.

Beth suddenly realized this conversation wasn’t only about them wanting something from him. It was also about what they were offering: trust, permanence, a place in a future they were trying to build.

Yonatan exhaled slowly.

“I can’t answer tonight,” he said.

“Of course not,” Beth said quickly.

“But…” He glanced between them again. “I’m not saying no.”

Abaynesh’s shoulders loosened visibly for the first time all evening.

Neither she nor Beth spoke for a second.

Then Yonatan pointed the dish towel at them both. “Also, for the record?”

“What?” Beth asked.

“This is the most married conversation I’ve ever witnessed.”

Abaynesh laughed immediately.

Beth groaned. “What does that even mean?”

“You came in here with emotional preparation, bullet points, visible panic—”

“I did not have bullet points.”

“You absolutely had bullet points in your soul.”

Even Beth laughed at that.

From the living room, Abaynesh’s mother called out, “Why has dishwashing become a committee meeting?”

Yonatan grinned toward the doorway.

Then he looked back at Beth and Abaynesh, his expression gentler now.

“I’ll think about it seriously,” he said.

And for the first time since the conversation began, Beth let herself believe that maybe this strange, complicated, deeply loving thing they were building might actually be possible.

The clipboard is heavier than it should be.

Beth shifts it from one hand to the other as they sit side by side in the waiting room, the hum of the air conditioner filling the space between muted conversations. The forms are clipped in neat, official stacks—white paper, black ink, clean lines. Orderly. Reassuring, almost.

Until she actually reads them.

“Patient Name,” she murmurs under her breath, scanning. That’s fine. Address, insurance, medical history—she moves quickly, grateful for the familiar rhythm of boxes and blanks.

Then she reaches the next section.

Mother’s Name:Father’s Name:

Her pen hovers.

For a second, she thinks maybe there’s another version of the form. Maybe she grabbed the wrong packet. She flips a page, then another. The same language repeats, slightly rearranged but unmistakable.

Across from her, a couple leans toward each other, whispering, the man pointing at something on their own clipboard. The woman laughs softly, nodding, and writes something down without hesitation.

Beth looks back at her paper.

“Mother’s Name,” she repeats, quieter now.

Abaynesh leans closer, her shoulder brushing Beth’s. “What is it?”

Beth tilts the clipboard so she can see. “It’s just… this.”

Abaynesh reads it, her expression shifting—not surprised, exactly—more like… unsurprised.

“Ah,” she says.

“Ah?” Beth echoes. “That’s your reaction?”

Abaynesh smiles faintly. “What did you expect? A beautifully designed form that understands nuance?”

Beth exhales through her nose. “I expected… I don’t know. Something that at least pretends to.”

Her pen taps once against the paper. The box is still empty.

“Okay,” she says, more to herself than to Abaynesh. “So what do we do? Do I put my name here?” She points to “Mother.” “And you here?” She points to “Father,” then immediately winces. “That feels—wrong.”

“Yeah,” Abaynesh says. “I don’t think I’ve ever been anyone’s father.”

Beth lets out a small, involuntary laugh, then sobers. “But we have to put something. They need… information.”

“Then give them information,” Abaynesh says simply.

Beth looks at her. “That’s not helpful.”

“It is,” Abaynesh insists, nudging the clipboard back toward her. “You’re very good at systems. Adjust the system.”

Beth stares at the form again. The lines don’t change. The boxes don’t widen.

She presses her lips together, then draws a single, decisive line through Father’s Name.

The pen scratches louder than she expects.

Next to it, in careful, deliberate handwriting, she writes:

Parent

She hesitates, then adds a small “2.”

She glances at Abaynesh. “Is that… ridiculous?”

Abaynesh tilts her head, considering. “A little.”

Beth groans softly.

“But also accurate,” Abaynesh adds, her eyes warm. “Which one am I?”

Beth looks back at the page, at the two spaces now—imperfect, slightly crowded, undeniably theirs.

She writes her own name under Mother. Then, more slowly, she writes Abaynesh’s under the new label.

Parent 2.

She leans back, studying it. It doesn’t match the rest of the form. It’s not aligned. The spacing is off.

“It looks messy,” she says.

Abaynesh shrugs. “So does everything important.”

Beth huffs a quiet laugh, the tension in her shoulders easing just a fraction.

Around them, pens continue moving. Boxes continue being filled.

Beth flips to the next page.

More questions. More blanks.

She adjusts the clipboard on her lap, steadies her pen, and keeps going.

The box had been sitting on the kitchen table for three hours.

Beth had moved it twice—first away from the fruit bowl, then farther from the edge of the table, as if positioning it correctly might somehow make its contents less real.

Now it sat between them under the warm glow of the pendant light, untouched.

Abaynesh poured tea into two mugs and slid one across the table. “You’re staring at it like it insulted your family.”

Beth folded her arms. “It’s holding a needle.”

“A very small needle.”

“That’s still technically a needle.”

Abaynesh bit back a smile and sat down across from her. Outside, the last of the evening light faded over the hills beyond their windows, turning the dry grass blue-gray.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

Beth wrapped both hands around the mug. “I know this is irrational.”

“You don’t like injections,” Abaynesh said.

“I hate injections.”

“You survived all the bloodwork.”

“Barely.”

Abaynesh leaned forward slightly. “Do you want me to do it?”

Beth looked at the box immediately, then away from it just as fast. “I don’t know.”

That was the problem, really. She didn’t know how to do any of this yet. There were instructions folded inside the package, diagrams online, and calendar reminders on her phone. But none of it had prepared her for the strange intimacy of willingly bringing a needle into their home.

Into their life.

Abaynesh reached for the box at last and opened it carefully.

Beth’s stomach tightened.

Everything inside looked aggressively medical—alcohol swabs, capped syringes, printed labels in sterile fonts. It all felt out of place on their worn wooden table, beside a half-finished loaf of bread and a vase of drying wildflowers Beth had picked on a hike three days earlier.

“It’s strange,” Beth admitted quietly.

Abaynesh looked up. “What is?”

“That something so clinical is supposed to help create a family.”

The words settled between them.

Then Abaynesh nodded once. “Yeah,” she said softly. “It is.”

She unfolded the instructions while Beth watched with increasing dread.

“You’re reading those way too calmly.”

“I like instructions.”

Beth narrowed her eyes. “No, you don’t.”

“I like instructions when you’re panicking enough for both of us.”

Despite herself, Beth laughed.

It loosened something in her chest.

Abaynesh prepared everything slowly, narrating as she went—not clinical, not overly cheerful, just steady.

“Okay. Alcohol wipe.”Pause.“Then injection.”Another pause.“Then we’re done.”

“You make it sound very simple.”

“I think the goal is for it to be simple.”

Beth looked down at her hands. “And if I pass out?”

“You won’t.”

“And if I do?”

“Then I’ll make fun of you a little, but lovingly.”

Beth groaned. “Terrible bedside manner.”

“The worst.”

Abaynesh moved her chair closer until their knees touched.

“Hey,” she said gently.

Beth looked up.

“We don’t have to be good at this tonight.”

Something in Beth’s expression softened immediately.

The pressure she’d been carrying all day—the need to do this correctly, bravely, gracefully—eased just enough for her to breathe.

Abaynesh handed her the alcohol wipe. “You want to try?”

Beth stared at it for a moment before taking it.

Her hands trembled slightly as she swabbed her skin.

“There,” Abaynesh said quietly. “Perfect.”

“It absolutely was not perfect.”

“It was completely acceptable.”

Beth gave her a look. “You’re lowering standards for me.”

“I’m adapting expectations realistically.”

Beth inhaled sharply as Abaynesh uncapped the needle.

“Oh, I hate that part,” Beth whispered immediately.

“I know.”

“I really hate that part.”

Abaynesh reached for her free hand. “Look at me.”

Beth did.

“You’re okay,” Abaynesh said. “You’re safe. We’re just doing one step.”

Beth nodded once, though her eyes had already started watering from nerves alone.

“This is deeply undignified,” she muttered.

Abaynesh smiled softly. “A lot of meaningful things are.”

Beth laughed again—a shaky, unwilling laugh, but real.

“Ready?” Abaynesh asked.

“No.”

“That’s fine too.”

Beth squeezed her hand harder. “Just do it before I develop a speech about why we should adopt twelve-year-olds instead.”

Abaynesh snorted.

Then, gently, carefully, she gave the injection.

Beth flinched immediately. “Ow—”

“It’s done.”

Beth blinked. “What?”

“It’s done.”

“That was it?”

“That was it.”

Beth looked down in disbelief. The needle was already gone.

“You’re kidding.”

“I would never joke during a medical procedure.”

“You absolutely would.”

“Fair.”

Relief arrived so suddenly that Beth almost felt embarrassed by it. Her whole body loosened at once, adrenaline draining away in a rush.

Abaynesh pressed a small bandage against her skin.

“There,” she said softly.

Beth looked at her for a long moment.

Then she laughed—full this time, exhausted and incredulous.

“I spent all day terrified of that.”

“I know.”

“It took five seconds.”

“Mmhm.”

Beth shook her head, leaning back in her chair. “I feel ridiculous.”

Abaynesh stood, carrying the used supplies toward the trash. “You’re going to have to stop saying that every time something is hard.”

Beth watched her move through the kitchen—the familiar ease of her, the quiet steadiness.

When Abaynesh returned, Beth automatically reached for her hand again.

“Thank you,” she said.

Abaynesh brushed her thumb across Beth’s knuckles. “For stabbing you?”

“For staying calm enough for both of us.”

A small smile tugged at Abaynesh’s mouth.

“Well,” she said, glancing toward the darkened windows and then back at Beth, “that’s marriage, isn’t it?”

It was still dark outside.

Not fully night anymore, but the thin, colorless hour before dawn when the house felt suspended outside of time. The hills beyond the windows were only outlines, the kitchen still carrying the faint smell of last night’s tea.

Beth sat on the closed toilet lid holding the pregnancy test in both hands like it might break.

Three minutes, the instructions had said.

Three minutes suddenly felt cruelly long.

Abaynesh sat cross-legged on the bath mat in front of her, hair still tangled from sleep, wrapped in one of Beth’s oversized sweatshirts.

Neither of them had spoken much since the timer started.

Beth stared so hard at the small testing window her eyes hurt.

“Maybe it’s too early,” she said quietly.

Abaynesh glanced up at her. “Maybe.”

“Or maybe this one didn’t work either.”

The words came out flatter than she intended.

Months ago, she would have cried immediately after saying something like that. Now the disappointment lived in her body differently—quieter, heavier, sediment settling layer by layer.

Abaynesh rested her chin against Beth’s knee.

“We don’t know yet.”

Beth nodded once.

The timer on the counter ticked forward in tiny, unbearable movements.

She hated how much hope had become tied to objects.

Needles. Calendars. Appointment reminders. Bloodwork numbers. Tiny plastic tests are sitting on bathroom counters before sunrise.

She looked down at the test again, then looked away immediately.

“I can’t do it,” she whispered.

Abaynesh’s brow furrowed softly. “Can’t do what?”

“Look first.”

For a second, neither moved.

Then Abaynesh held out her hand silently.

Beth gave her the test almost instantly, relief and terror arriving together.

Abaynesh looked down.

Beth watched her face instead.

Nothing happened at first.

No immediate smile. No sharp inhale.

Just stillness.

Beth’s stomach dropped. “It’s negative.”

Abaynesh didn’t answer.

Instead, her eyes lifted slowly to Beth’s.

And Beth saw it before she heard it—that fragile disbelief, the kind that enters a room so quietly you’re afraid to disturb it.

“Oh,” Abaynesh said softly.

Beth blinked. “What?”

Another pause.

Then Abaynesh laughed once—small, breathless, almost startled.

“Beth.”

The room tilted.

“No,” Beth said immediately, already shaking her head. “No, don’t do that unless—”

“It’s positive.”

Everything inside Beth went completely still.

“What?”

Abaynesh turned the test toward her with trembling fingers.

Two lines.

Clear enough that there was no searching for them, no squinting, no bargaining with shadows.

Two lines.

Beth stared at them so long that they almost stopped looking like lines at all.

The air in the room changed.

Not dramatically. Not all at once.

Just enough.

“Oh my God,” Beth whispered.

Her voice cracked on the last word.

Abaynesh was laughing now in that disbelieving way people laugh when reality arrives too suddenly to process properly.

“Oh my God,” Beth said again, quieter this time.

She pressed one hand against her mouth.

Months of appointments flashed through her all at once—the clinic waiting rooms, the injections at the kitchen table, the failed cycle neither of them knew how to grieve correctly, the cautious rebuilding of hope afterward.

All of it leading here.

Abaynesh reached for her free hand. Beth grabbed it immediately, hard enough to hurt.

“We’re okay,” Abaynesh murmured instinctively, though Beth hadn’t realized until then that she was crying.

“I know,” Beth managed.

But tears kept slipping down anyway.

Abaynesh climbed awkwardly to her feet, still holding the test carefully between two fingers like something sacred and absurd at the same time.

Beth laughed through her tears. “I can’t believe it.”

“I know.”

“We made a person.”

“Well,” Abaynesh said, her voice trembling now too, “statistically speaking, we made the beginning of one.”

Beth let out a watery laugh.

Then suddenly she was standing too, and they collided in the tiny bathroom, half-hugging, half-holding each other upright.

The pregnancy test got trapped awkwardly between them.

“Careful,” Abaynesh said immediately.

Beth pulled back just enough to stare at her. “You’re already protective.”

“Obviously.”

Beth laughed again, pressing her forehead against Abaynesh’s shoulder.

For a long moment, they stayed like that in the dim bathroom light, breathing each other in.

Outside, dawn had begun quietly spreading over the hills.

The world was becoming visible again.

Eventually, Beth pulled back enough to look at the test one more time.

Two lines.

Still there.

Still real.

A strange sound escaped her then—half laugh, half sob.

“What?” Abaynesh asked softly.

Beth shook her head slowly, overwhelmed beyond language.

Then finally:

“Our kid is going to hear this story someday.”

Abaynesh smiled immediately. “The story where you were too scared to look at the test yourself?”

“I was emotionally delegating.”

“You handed me a stick of urine and outsourced the trauma.”

Beth covered her face, laughing helplessly now.

“That cannot be how we tell it.”

“It is absolutely how I’m telling it.”

Beth looked at her wife—sleep-rumpled, crying a little herself now, still holding the positive test in shaking hands.

And suddenly the future no longer felt abstract.

It was here already, small and invisible and impossible to fully understand.

Not perfect.

Still theirs.