His Royal Family

Compared to Luis’s parents who had adopted in secret, the whole world knew when Luis and I started going through the adoption process. Even though we tried to keep it as quiet as we could, once people knew we were looking to adopt, the media started making comments. Like whether we’d receive any special treatment, whether we’d get picked more easily because of the child would grow up to be rather than who we were as potential parents. I’d wanted to lie on our forms and say that we had normal jobs and all that, but I knew we couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be ethical. But at the same time, I was so conscious of being chosen for the wrong reasons. Which is why I was insistent upon meeting the mother of our potential child. If she was more interested in Luis and I being the next rulers of the country – which was a terrifying thought – she was ruled out immediately.

As you would imagine, we had to meet with quite a few pregnant women before we found one we liked. She was 17 years old and had become pregnant accidentally with her boyfriend. She didn’t believe in abortion but knew she couldn’t look after the baby. Her name was Rachel and pretty much straight away, I sensed she was different. She asked us questions about our relationship and how we’d find time to run a country and look after a baby and how we’d make sure the child didn’t feel different because of who he or she would become. All of the other mothers had asked if we would make the child feel like they were the genuine heir to the throne, but Rachel wanted to make sure the child didn’t feel ‘special’ and I liked that. I wanted my child to essentially be like every other child out there. She asked if we’d raise the child in Scotland, which was the plan, and she asked whether he’d get good schooling. She just seemed to ask all the right questions, asking about our parenting plans rather than our royal obligations.

“I like her,” Luis said once Rachel left the room and I turned to him and smiled.
“Me, too,” I said. We’d decided we were happy with an open adoption, though Rachel didn’t appear concerned about maintaining contact with her baby other than receiving updates on how the child was doing. “She’s definitely the best so far.”
“She’s got a very no-nonsense attitude,” he said and I laughed and nodded. The more we talked about it, the more we liked her. That evening, I phoned her to ask if she was interested in giving us her baby. She said she’d think about it, which was a refreshing answer, considering most people were eager to throw their babies at us.

We waited for two days – and we were both dreading that she’d say no, because we weren’t sure whether we’d find anyone else. But eventually she phoned us and told us she would like us to have her baby. I teared up when I heard those words and passed the phone over to Luis because I wasn’t sure if I could talk without my voice breaking. We actually had our baby. After talking about it for nearly 2 years, we finally had one. Well, she was only 5 months along, so we’d have one in 4 months’ time. But still. We were getting a baby.

For the next few months, we decided on which room would be the nursery. We had so many to choose from, but we ended up choosing the room next to ours. It was the easiest to get to during the night and not so far away that we couldn’t hear what was happening. We’d have a monitor obviously, but it just made the most sense. We’d also decided not to learn the sex of the baby. Of course, once the media caught wind of the fact that we had a mother willing to give us her baby, they wanted to know the sex of the child. But we didn’t know and Rachel wasn’t telling. We also considered doing an interview with her, because obviously the world was speculating that Rachel chose us because of who her child would grow up to become, but Rachel didn’t want the publicity. She just wanted to give us a baby and then disappear, not be forever recognised as the next heir’s birth mother. So instead, she released a statement explaining why she had chosen us specifically and it didn’t once mentioned about how she liked that her baby would one day become King or Queen.

Luis and I started trying to think of good names. Obviously, as the child would become the next ruler of the country, we couldn’t pick something obscure. We were thinking Andrew for the boy and Margaret for the girl. Rachel was still at school, but as she entered her third trimester, she realised that she couldn’t handle both pregnancy and school, so she took a leave of absence with the plan to finish once she’d given birth. This meant that we were able to spend more time with her. We went shopping and made sure she had everything she needed – all the maternity clothes and supplies for her hospital stay. It was a shame that she didn’t want to be involved in the child’s life, because I could have seen us being good friends. Her boyfriend was nice too. Like Rachel, he wasn’t bothered about who adopted his baby as long as they would love it. And we definitely would.

Finally, the day arrived when Rachel went into labour. Luis and I were in the delivery room with her, along with her boyfriend. Even though the whole thing was kinda gross and looked beyond painful, we didn’t want to miss the birth of our child. And when those little squeals filled the room, we forgot about the whole process and just focused on the little baby in the doctor’s arms. “It’s a girl,” he said and I turned to Luis and grinned. He had tears in his eyes and he wrapped his arm around me and pressed a kiss to my temple. A minute later, after she had been cleaned up and had the routine tests, she was placed in Luis’s arms. I gazed down at the little face and grinned, stroking her cheek gently.
“Does she look like a Margret to you?” Luis asked I frowned and shook my head.
“No,” I said as I gazed down at her. “What about Rose?” I suggested. We’d not discussed that name before, but looking down at her, it just seemed to fit.
“Rose,” Luis mumbled. “I like it.” I smiled up at him and pressed a kiss to his lips. We turned to Rachel, who looked exhausted, and I took her hand tightly.
“Thank you,” I whispered and she smiled and nodded wearily.
“You’ll be good dads,” she said and I grinned.
“We’ll send you photos and stuff,” I told her. “And if you ever want to meet her, you’re welcome to.”
“Thanks,” she said and I nodded.

When we got Rose home, we took her into the nursery. We hadn’t really redecorated the room much, only changed the furniture, but looking around with the baby in my arms, I knew I didn’t want her to have such a drab room. It should be lively with stars and colourful animals and just fun stuff on the walls. “We should redecorate,” I told Luis who smiled and nodded.
“Yeah, this isn’t exactly a little girl’s room,” he said and I smiled.
“Are you disappointed we didn’t have a boy?” I asked him as I gently set Rose down in her crib.
“No,” he smiled, wrapping his arms around my waist as we gazed down at our daughter. “Besides, we’re still having 3 kids, right? One’s bound to be a boy.” I smiled and nodded. I knew how succession worked, though. If we had a boy, Rose would be behind him in line for the throne. It was kind of sexist, but that’s just the way it was.
“I’d like her to have brothers or sisters,” I said. Both Luis and I had been only children and while we turned out okay, I know I’d always wished I’d had siblings growing up.
“Me too,” Luis smiled. “Not yet though. We should wait a couple years I think. Just enjoy having Rose for now.”
“Definitely,” I smiled, turning and pressing a kiss to Luis’s lips. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he smiled, kissing me again.

The media went nuts when they found out we’d had a girl. The whole issue of needing a male heir was thrown around, but Luis and I weren’t bothered. We loved our daughter and we knew we’d have a boy to take the throne eventually. And even if we didn’t, even if we ended up with three girls, we knew they’d grow up to be great leaders of the country. They had Luis as a role model, as well as their grandparents. And they had me to keep them grounded. And I knew our kids would turn out to be damn good rulers of the country.