{"id":39900,"date":"2011-02-11T08:29:09","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T13:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.bates.edu\/?p=39900"},"modified":"2018-06-04T09:36:56","modified_gmt":"2018-06-04T13:36:56","slug":"family-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2011\/02\/11\/family-affair\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;A Generous Thing for Friends&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Rachel Segall \u201991 carries a baby for Erik Mercer \u201991 and Sandro Sechi, helping to create a new way to think about family<\/h3>\n<div id=\"attachment_93640\" style=\"width: 910px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_segall-mercer-Shower_041.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-93640\" class=\"wp-image-93640 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_segall-mercer-Shower_041-900x600.jpg\" alt=\"073110_segall-mercer-Shower_041\" width=\"900\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_segall-mercer-Shower_041-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_segall-mercer-Shower_041-400x267.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_segall-mercer-Shower_041-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_segall-mercer-Shower_041.jpg 1620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-93640\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Tony Hurley &#8217;91, Rachel Segall &#8217;91, Erick Mercer &#8217;91 and Sandro Sechi gather at their baby shower on July 31, 2010.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Young Zeke Hurley needed only about 16 words to explain his mother\u2019s pregnancy to the teenager bagging groceries at a local food store. \u201cYou see my mom? She\u2019s pregnant for her gay friends. And it\u2019s not even her egg!\u201d<\/p>\n<table style=\"width: 173px; height: 121px; float: right;\" cellspacing=\"10\" cellpadding=\"10\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<h6 style=\"text-align: center;\">This story was originally published in the Winter 2011 issue of <em>Bates Magazine<\/em>. A postscript at bottom offers an update.<\/h6>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Taking Zeke\u2019s lead, here are other facts of the story of how Rachel Segall \u201991 carried and gave birth to a baby girl for Erik Mercer \u201991 and his husband, Sandro Sechi.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The egg came from a donor. Mercer and Sechi provided sperm to fertilize the egg, but just whose gamete did the trick isn\u2019t known (more on that later).<\/li>\n<li>The embryo then was implanted in Segall\u2019s womb. She is married to Tony Hurley \u201991, and they have three children, the aforementioned Zeke (9) and daughters Jordy (11) and Maddie (13), and live in Newton Highlands, Mass.<\/li>\n<li>Erik Mercer and Sandro Sechi, who live in Brooklyn, were married last March in Massachusetts at Newton City Hall. The union, among other things, ensured that they would be the legal parents of the child upon birth.<\/li>\n<li>Segall\u2019s pregnancy was covered by her insurance; all other costs were paid by Mercer and Sechi.<\/li>\n<li>And on Aug. 14, 2010, in Boston, she gave birth to the baby, who is named for her: Rachel Maria Sechi Mercer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And behind all these facts are the stories.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Rachel<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>At Bates, Rachel Segall admits that she fell for classmate Erik Mercer, his \u201980s-style quiff and all. \u201cThat was before I knew he was gay,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was the kind of guy that a lot of girls would have a crush on because he was just so easy to talk with and fun to be with.\u201d Aside from losing Mercer to the \u201cother team,\u201d as <em>Seinfeld<\/em> would say, Mercer\u2019s homosexuality made little difference to Rachel. Their friendship grew and deepened over time.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/mercer-sechi-073110_shower_089.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/mercer-sechi-073110_shower_089.jpg\" alt=\"mercer-sechi-073110_shower_089\" width=\"590\" height=\"393\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A few years ago, Segall saw a TV news story about how difficult and expensive it is for gay men and women to adopt or have biological children. Immediately, she called Mercer and made an offer that not many can pull off: \u201cI told Erik that I would have a baby for him.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Erik<\/h3>\n<p>By the time Rachel made that call, Mercer had given up on being a father. He recalls telling his own father (both parents are Congregationalist clergy) over a glass of wine back home in Maine that he figured he\u2019d be a good uncle, but never a father, and that he was OK with that.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"pull_quote\">\u201cI\u2019ve seen so much pain and suffering. I just didn\u2019t know if the world needed more people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Mercer, a career social worker who does sentence advocacy for people facing the death penalty, had buttressed his beliefs with political and social reasons. \u201cI\u2019ve seen so much pain and suffering. I just didn\u2019t know if the world needed more people.\u201d But then, \u201cI met Sandro.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Sandro<\/h3>\n<p>Last summer was dubbed the \u201csummer of homophobia\u201d in Italy after a jump in incidents of homosexual harassment. Add to the equation the ban on surrogacy, the prohibition against homosexual marriage, and the Roman Catholic Church\u2019s firm stance on homosexuality.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_93636\" style=\"width: 910px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_sandro-Shower_102.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-93636\" class=\"size-large wp-image-93636\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_sandro-Shower_102-900x600.jpg\" alt=\"Sandro Sechi.\" width=\"900\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_sandro-Shower_102-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_sandro-Shower_102-400x267.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_sandro-Shower_102-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_sandro-Shower_102.jpg 1620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-93636\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sandro Sechi.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Given the context, Sechi was hardly surprised when the Italian media pounced on the story of a native son having a child with a surrogate. \u201cThis was the perfect story,\u201d says Sechi, who was born on Sardinia, studied Russian literature at Milan University, and is now a writer and language teacher.<\/p>\n<p>The Italian media framed the story to play on the nation\u2019s ingrained religious notions of what is natural, hence the headline \u201cTwo Gay Fathers and Two Mothers for One Child\u201d in <em>La Repubblica<\/em> (though this and other stories were, Sechi says, mostly supportive). \u201cI saw our story on an Albanian news site along with stories of the bizarre, like a gigantic banana,\u201d Sechi laughs.<\/p>\n<h3>Tony<\/h3>\n<p>After a socially conservative upbringing in a Catholic family and Episcopalian boarding school, Hurley fell in love with Segall, a gregarious Jew from Boston. He lived in Rand; she in Cheney House. \u201cWe were opposites, and that was the attraction,\u201d he says. \u201cShe was exotic to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If there\u2019s a family in this story that might not feel great connections to all that has unfolded for one of its members, it would be Hurley\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy family could never have imagined one of their kids getting involved with a Jewish woman who is doing all these nutty liberal things like carrying a friend\u2019s baby,\u201d Hurley says. \u201cI certainly never imagined this happening to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_93641\" style=\"width: 910px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_hurley-Shower_127.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-93641\" class=\"wp-image-93641 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_hurley-Shower_127-900x600.jpg\" alt=\"073110_hurley-Shower_127\" width=\"900\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_hurley-Shower_127-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_hurley-Shower_127-400x267.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_hurley-Shower_127-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_hurley-Shower_127.jpg 1619w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-93641\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tony Hurley &#8217;91.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Which is why the note he received from his stepmother hit him hard. It said, in so many words, \u201cYou are doing a good deed for a friend.\u201d Hurley felt that she had graciously put aside the politics of same-sex marriage, surrogacy, and in-vitro fertilization to acknowledge \u201cthe generous thing we were doing for our friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In their circle, Hurley has been cast as the unsung hero in this story, and he quips that his main job was as \u201cGiver of Shots.\u201d (Because this was a fresh embryo transfer, Segall received hormone shots to synchronize her menstrual cycle with the egg donor\u2019s, to ensure that her uterus would accept the embryo.)<\/p>\n<p>Hurley describes himself as self-effacing; he\u2019s the type of guy who knows that being tagged \u201cunsung hero\u201d means he\u2019s actually being sung. \u201cI mean, I\u2019m not unsung because people kept telling me,\u201d he says with a chuckle. \u201cI think people were just very conscious of the \u2018what about Tony?\u2019 angle to this story.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Rachel<\/h3>\n<p>Besides his announcement to the bagboy, Zeke Hurley provided another <em>Reader\u2019s Digest <\/em>moment as he and his sisters listened to his parents explain surrogacy, and how the egg would not belong to Segall.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut what about the race?\u201d Zeke asked. The family just stared at their youngest. \u201cWe were all like, \u2018What race is that?\u2019\u201d Segall recalls, laughing. \u201cYou know,\u201d Zeke said, having recently learned the concept of the sperm and egg from a book his dad had read to him. \u201cThe race where the things race from the man to the egg. How\u2019s that gonna happen?\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I don\u2019t think she understands the way she touches people.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Good question, Zeke. In fact, three embryos were implanted in Rachel, two fertilized in the laboratory by Mercer\u2019s sperm and the other by Sechi\u2019s. (Doctors typically implant more than one fertilized egg into a woman\u2019s womb to increase the chances of a viable birth.) It\u2019s not known which embryo took hold, though Mercer says that if the baby has dark Mediterranean good looks, there will be no doubt.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_93653\" style=\"width: 910px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_rachel-Shower_073.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-93653\" class=\"size-large wp-image-93653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_rachel-Shower_073-900x612.jpg\" alt=\"Rachel Segall '91.\" width=\"900\" height=\"612\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_rachel-Shower_073-900x612.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_rachel-Shower_073-400x272.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_rachel-Shower_073-200x136.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/073110_rachel-Shower_073.jpg 1587w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-93653\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rachel Segall &#8217;91.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Segall is able to sustain circle upon circle of deep friendships with both humility and apparently inexhaustible reserves of humanity. \u201cI don\u2019t think she understands the way she touches people,\u201d says Mercer. \u201cIt is just so innate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She is quick to deflect the difficulty of carrying and delivering a baby, saying that her pregnancies have all been easy. Yet it\u2019s clear she was the carrier of this baby in more ways than one, and it was Segall who was behind the gathering of all the principals last year, where the group discussion made it real for Mercer and Sechi.<\/p>\n<p>It took place at her family\u2019s home on Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire. \u201cWe had margaritas, sat around their great room, and just talked,\u201d Mercer recalls. Segall\u2019s brother-in-law, an ob\/gyn who would ultimately deliver the baby, was there, and as he went through the sequence of a gestational birth, Mercer felt for the first time that a child could really be in his future. \u201cI could imagine taking that first step.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By August, as the delivery room loomed closer, Rachel knew, certainly, that Sandro and Erik should be present for the birth. Maybe, she thought, Erik\u2019s mom should be there too, since it was her first grandchild. Then she felt another answer. \u201cI realized that most of all, I really needed Tony with me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<h3>Tony<\/h3>\n<p>You can tell both where the pressure points are in Hurley and Segall\u2019s marriage, and the fact that it emerged a bit stronger from this experience. She is capable of sustaining so many friendships so deeply that it sometimes leaves Hurley \u201cbewildered. It\u2019s so beyond my comfort zone. Yet she expands my universe of what is possible.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf there is something I can provide Rachel, it is that quiet calm for her. It is refreshing for her at times.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Sandro<\/h3>\n<p>Sechi jokes that he speaks Italian, Russian, Spanish, French, and English, yet he cannot find a word to explain how he feels about Rachel Segall. \u201cSo I was thinking, why don\u2019t I make a new word? RachelSegally!\u201d And it was very <em>RachelSegally<\/em> when, in the delivery room as the baby\u2019s head was crowning, she looked at Erik and Sandro and said, \u201cAre you guys OK?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/mercer-sechi-segall-073110_shower_022.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/mercer-sechi-segall-073110_shower_022.jpg\" alt=\"mercer-sechi-segall-073110_shower_022\" width=\"590\" height=\"393\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause of her, I am living far ahead of what I thought my life would be like when I lived in Italy,\u201d Sechi says. \u201cHaving a baby was beyond fantasy, something you cannot reach with your mind because you are in a society that says, \u2018How do you dare to be like that? How do you dare to call Erik your husband?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Erik<\/h3>\n<p>Homosexuals can rarely place themselves into one of the easy, polished narratives created by straight society. Such as how to fall in love and get married. Or how to have a baby and to parent. \u201cThose narratives have never been real for me,\u201d Mercer says.<\/p>\n<p>After his baby was born, people approached Mercer and gushed, \u201cIsn\u2019t your heart just bursting with love?\u201d No, he explained to more than a few shocked people, he wasn\u2019t yet madly in love. \u201cI\u2019m still getting to know this baby. That\u2019s the way attachment works. It\u2019s not just <em>bam!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_93654\" style=\"width: 910px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/sandro-erik-washing-head.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-93654\" class=\"size-large wp-image-93654\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/sandro-erik-washing-head-900x675.jpg\" alt=\"Sechi washes Rachel Maria's hair as Mercer watches. &quot;I am living far ahead of what I thought my life would be like when I lived in Italy,&quot; he says.\" width=\"900\" height=\"675\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/sandro-erik-washing-head-900x675.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/sandro-erik-washing-head-400x300.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/sandro-erik-washing-head-144x107.jpg 144w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/sandro-erik-washing-head-200x150.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/sandro-erik-washing-head.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-93654\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sechi washes Rachel Maria&#8217;s hair as Mercer watches. &#8220;I am living far ahead of what I thought my life would be like when I lived in Italy,&#8221; he says.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s a point Mercer wants to make, how there\u2019s a lot of human pain caused by being told you\u2019re supposed to have a certain feeling when you just don\u2019t. \u201cI imagine it\u2019s a more common human experience than people let on,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>So yes, Mercer, admits, he\u2019s had those disconnected \u201cwhat-am-I-doing\u201d moments, when he\u2019d be at someone\u2019s house \u201cand there\u2019s a screaming kid and I\u2019d think, \u2018Oh, f****.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He shared these feelings with Whitney Wright \u201990, a good friend and career social worker who, in the 1990s, teamed with Mercer on HIV-related work in New York City. A new mother herself, Wright said that it\u2019s very possible to reconcile those opposed emotions. \u201cYou know, Erik, I never wanted to be a mother,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I still don\u2019t want to be a mother. I want to be <em>Rex<\/em>\u2019s mother.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That helped. \u201cI thought, \u2018OK, I can get my head around this,\u2019\u201d Mercer says. \u201cThis is more the way I will experience this.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>The Egg Donor<\/h3>\n<p>She\u2019s anonymous, of course. Sechi and Mercer do have photos of her, as an adult and child, and know her medical history. They know she\u2019s pursuing a master\u2019s degree. Choosing among potential egg donors is actually rather bizarre, says Mercer, because one can select for various physical traits, like tall or blonde or whatever.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"pull_quote\">&#8220;She was struggling to figure it out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Mercer and Sechi were sold when they learned the answer to why the donor was doing it, and whether she wanted to know if a child was born from her egg. \u201cMost women said they were doing it to help humankind. Our donor said she was doing it for the money, to pay for graduate school. That made us feel that she was a straight shooter,\u201d Mercer says.<\/p>\n<p>Her answer to the second question was unintentionally poignant. The woman wrote \u201cyes,\u201d she wanted to know if a baby was born from her egg. \u201cThen she crossed it out and wrote \u2018no,\u2019 then crossed that out and wrote \u2018yes,\u2019 then crossed that out and wrote \u2018no\u2019 and circled it three times. She was struggling to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Only after Sechi and Mercer read all the answers did they turn the page to view the photograph. They couldn\u2019t help but laugh as they moved from their mental response to a purely physical one. \u201cShe was totally <em>hot<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Erik<\/h3>\n<p>Mercer knows the evil that humans can do, and as a social worker with advanced training in psychotherapy, has a pretty good idea of why they do it. A professor once told him that psychopathology is about knowing when love goes wrong. \u201cWhen I meet someone in jail for doing something really horrible,\u201d Mercer says, \u201cthere\u2019s always in their history a place where love went wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_93655\" style=\"width: 910px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/erik-and-baby-rachel.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-93655\" class=\"size-large wp-image-93655\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/erik-and-baby-rachel-900x675.jpg\" alt=\"    Mercer holds his daughter, Rachel Maria Sechi Mercer, after her birth on Aug. 14, 2010.\" width=\"900\" height=\"675\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/erik-and-baby-rachel-900x675.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/erik-and-baby-rachel-400x300.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/erik-and-baby-rachel-144x107.jpg 144w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/erik-and-baby-rachel-200x150.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/02\/erik-and-baby-rachel.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-93655\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mercer holds his daughter, Rachel Maria Sechi Mercer, after her birth on Aug. 14, 2010.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Mercer shares that idea to explain why he wanted a child of his own. Even though neglect, dysfunction, and addiction roil within the people he helps, Mercer says he still often finds evidence of the human spirit. What, then, could make more sense than having the opportunity, as he puts it, \u201cto put all my heart into creating a safe, nurturing, and delightful environment for a little kid\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>He adds, \u201cI think she has the potential, in a small way, to be someone who can show that there\u2019s an alternative way of thinking about family.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Rachel<\/h3>\n<p>There was another &#8220;RachelSegally&#8221; moment at the hospital. The baby had been born, and the new family was ready to leave the hospital. Mercer and Sechi would be in town for a few days, so there was no need for big goodbyes.<\/p>\n<p>As everyone milled around, Segall unobtrusively picked up her bags and departed. She and Mercer both remember the moment \u2014 an eloquent acknowledgment that however intimate her role in this baby\u2019s creation and birth, it was now over. Now it was the fathers\u2019 turn.<\/p>\n<h3>Postscript<\/h3>\n<p>This story was originally published in the Winter 2011 issue of <em>Bates Magazine<\/em>. In 2013, Segall served as a surrogate for Mercer and Sechi&#8217;s second child, Eleonora.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rachel Segall \u201991 carries a baby for Erik Mercer \u201991 and Sandro&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":93640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[7,217,224],"tags":[10856,11648],"class_list":["post-39900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-science-technology","category-society-culture","tag-bates-magazine","tag-religion-and-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39900"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93817,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39900\/revisions\/93817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}