Sharing the Gift of Life

So Kovacic wasn't sure what to expect when a recruiter in Maryland put her in touch with Van Cleef. Van Cleef wasn't sure either, but the two instantly liked each other. And they took it from there. In October 1992, each began hormone injections to get their cycles in sync. Each made her way to the Genetics and IVF Institute in Fairfax at 7 a.m. every morning for blood drawing and sonograms. Kovacic's daughters called them her trips to the "egg man." And in August 1993, on the second try, Kovacic became pregnant with Carol and Doug's child.

Lisa Kovacic, 22, a senior at the University of Virginia, remembers the startled looks she got when she told people matter-of-factly that her mother was going to have a baby but that she wasn't going to keep it.

"I remember my mom, from day one, explaining how she wanted to give someone something big," she said, "And what better gift can you give someone than a child? Their child."

Van Cleef accompanied Kovacic on most of her doctor appointments. She was there for the sonogram that showed that the baby was a girl. The two began talking frequently on the phone, and Van Cleef's mother threw a shower for them. When the baby was born, Van Cleef was the first one to hold her.

"I got to feel like a father does when a child is born," Van Cleef said. Before leaving the hospital with their daughter, Carol and Doug gave Kovacic a necklace with a gold heart.

From the earliest days, Van Cleef made sure that Jamie knew where she came from. She would show her pictures of the two women and ask "Where's Mommy?" Jamie would point to Van Cleef. She'd ask, "Where's Jamie?" And Jamie would point and say, "In Kimmy's tummy."

At the birthday dinner, Jamie laughed when she recalled being asked one year at summer camp what made her special. The only thing she could think to say was, "I'm a test-tube baby."

The facts of her birth are not something Jamie thinks about much. "I can't really remember how I felt about it when I was younger, but now that I'm older, I can see from my mother's point of view how much she wanted a daughter," Jamie said. "It helps me realize, it doesn't really matter how I was born and that my mother didn't actually carry me. But it does matter that I am here. I am born."

For Jamie's baptism, Van Cleef's father, a Methodist minister in New Jersey, wrote a poem, "Love Child." It hangs framed in the Kovacics' family room. He writes of Van Cleef's search for the "proper vessel to carry the precious seed." At the end, he calls Jamie:

A "child of parental yearning

Offspring of Science's light

Gift of God's grace

You shall forever be to us

No less a miracle

Than all the wondrous acts the Scriptures tell."

And so, in the din of the restaurant, as an unknowing and uncomprehending world looked on, Jamie the miracle baby and Kovacic blew out their birthday candles.