a bad day in surrogacy - land

today is going to be one of those days, my nerves are so close to the surface. pampers commercials are sending me over the edge, and forget anything about a family on vacation. on these days i hate the person that i am, it angers me that i can not be grateful that my life is so full and wonderful. for some reason there just is not that amount of gratitude in me. i am angry that my body has betrayed me and is denying me the one thing i want more than anything in this world.
infertility has been like this for me, there are times when i am fine and think that i have come out of this rather unscathed. unlike so many people i know, i have not spent years injecting myself, sitting in waiting rooms, crying over home pregnancy tests, and documenting every movement. my body just never functioned properly and i finally just could not take it anymore, so i decided that i would avail myself of the many options for creating a family and improve my quality of life. we never tried to prevent pregnancy and it just never happened for us, so we were going to have to go through all those steps.
i knew myself well enough to know what was the right decision, and i am so grateful that i have that insight. still there are these days, when i am angry and i want to beat my fists on the floor. THIS ISN'T FAIR, I DON'T DESERVE THIS. i should have never had to make the decision between being able to be a good mother and being able to give birth to my child.
over the past month i have found this amazing group of women and men who have been a huge source of support. i finally do not feel that i am the only person in the world going through this. it has meant the world to me to not be alone in this, and not be judged for what i am doing, but don't even get me started on the judgemental idiots of the world.

i just want to crawl back in bed and hide.
oprah is having the show on surrogacy in india today, which means there is going to be all these people commenting on a subject they know very little about. whenever the media gets hold of this story, they seem to suck all that is good and beautiful out of the process.
so before you start judging me, I DID NOT CHOOSE THIS, MY BODY BETRAYED ME, AND I HAVE SUFFERED GREATLY FOR IT, I DON'T SIT AND JUDGE YOU, SO YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO JUDGE ME!!!! this whole thing upsets me so much because people are unwilling to really educate themselves before they call people in our situation "opportunistic white people with too much money". this is not the situation, not even close.
my main goal in all of this, besides having a family, is to make sure everyone walks away from this feeling good about the experience. i am NOT buying someone's baby, and i am NOT engaging in any action close to prostitution.
what i am doing is engaging a woman in a contract to carry a child for me. we both know that upon the birth, the child will legally be my child. under no circumstances is she being coerced or bribed. she will be compensated financially, but i guarantee you that there are much easier ways to earn money.
i know that it is hard to believe that there really are people in this world who are willing to give so much of themselves to a perfect stranger, but these people really do exist. this is a practice as old as time, it is talked about in the old testament (sarah, hagar, and abraham). we have just moved so far away from community, become so distrusting, locked ourselves away from our neighbors for fear they will take advantage of us, that the idea someone would sacrifice for another has become a foreign concept. truly it is sad that we have become such a cynical society, that we can not even imagine a world where people want to help others. we have learned to worship the almighty dollar so much, that we can not conceive that someone would help without being primarily motivated by money.
in the past few weeks i have had the privilege to get to know many of these women. if you want to really offend them, tell them that the money is their main motivation. let me warn you, you do this at your own risk, these are some fierce women, who you anger at your own peril. the truth is that these women are beautiful people, who want nothing more than to help someone in need. while some women give their time and energy to particular causes, such as breast cancer charities, these women give of themselves to help people realize their dreams of becoming parents.
personally, there is nothing that i could ever do to repay the woman who will help make my dreams come true. even though i have yet to meet her, i know that she would say knowing that she had helped me bring a child into the world would be enough.
people have the right to their opinions, and i would never deny anyone the freedom to express themselves. along with rights come responsibilities, and the responsible thing to do before spouting hurtful speech, is to educate yourself. surrogacy is extremely complicated, and no two situations are ever the same. i can only speak for myself, for me this is just one of the many ways people create families. this is the way that we have chosen. other choose different methods. if i had the chance to have my own child, i would. i can not do that, so i had to come up with a different option. in choosing this option, we made a conscious decision to involve a lot of people in making our family. from the beginning we decided that each of these people would be treated with all the respect that they deserved, this is the way we live our life. it is important to us that our child be created in an environment of love and respect, just as they would have if we could have done it the old fashioned way.
just remember that you do have the right to your opinion, you do not have the right to hurt others. couples who have their children through surrogacy, are not doing it to avoid the stretch marks, they are doing it because they are for whatever reason, out of options.