A Year in Blogland

A year ago, today I started writing here, in the hopes that this would just be a place where I could vent and chronicle this journey for myself. I never really thought that anyone besides the people that I knew in person, okay my mom, would ever read what I had to say. Over this year though so much has changed, more than I ever imagined. The people that I have met and the stories that I have been privy to are so amazing that I have no words to describe how I feel about them. On the days when I think that there is no more that I can take, when this journey just becomes overwhelming I come here and all of you show up and find healing. The healing comes from every comment, every view, and every other story that all of you allow me into. There are the times when this journey actually goes right, when I cannot wait to come here and share the news, and you all show up and celebrate with me. Infertile is not a title anyone of us wanted, and this is not the club that we want to belong to and this makes the support even greater. The fact that so many people in the world can show up and support each other through something that is often horrendous, will never cease to amaze me. So, I am going to use this post to thank all of you, if I forget anyone it is not because I do not care, it is just my little brain gets overwhelmed.

Amanda, this would have never started without you. It was because of you that I had the courage to come out and tell this story. You are an amazing friend, I could never be able to articulate the ways you have made me a better person.

Mel, all of us infertiles owe you a debt of gratitude that I cannot begin to comprehend, thank you for bringing us all together and making me so much less lonely. I will never be able to put into words what you have done for me.

Sabrina, what can I say? You found me at my lowest, when I was ready to give up. You took a chance and let me into a group that has saved me more times than I can count. That would have been enough, just to have you next to me while I walked this path. The fact that you will be carrying our child still astounds me. Thank you is too minute a word.

Emily, my hopeless Emily, you have given so much hope. You have let me into your life in a way that I could have never imagined. Your strength is infectious, and I could have not gotten through this last year without you.

Amani, you are constantly amazing me and have taught me so much about overcoming what feels like insurmountable problems. The way that you are able to take a situation that would break others and use it to change the world so that others may realize their dreams, is awe-inspiring.

Allison, I could not ask for a better cheerleader. Even when you are working so hard with your own journey, you have always been there to encourage me.

Meredith, your writing takes my breath away, your talent as a photographer inspires me. Sharing your journey over the past year has given me the ability to open up here and learn that fear will get me nowhere.

Momsoon, thank you for making this world of surrogacy feel much less lonely.

Duck, you handle all of this with a grace that I can only hope to have. Thank you for teaching me that surrogacy is truly as beautiful as I imagine.

Daniele, you are always there to comment and support me even when things are not going well for you. Just reading your beautiful writing has given me the ability to heal more than you will ever know.

Cara, you give me the strength to face the days that I feel like will finally cripple me. The Bear and The Comedian keeps reaffirming that I am working towards what I really want.

Mrs. French thank you for the beauty you bring into my darkest days, and all the shopping you make me want to do.

Kristen, your constant comments make me want to keep doing this.

Corine, the humor and beauty you bring into my life is so important. It is also her birthday today (hint, hint, wink, wink)

Yolanda, you are my self-esteem coach. You do not blog nearly enough, I only say this because I miss you. Thank you for the amazing amount of support that you have given me, it mean more than you will ever know.

Lisa, you are my geeky comedian and the person that is never afraid to say what is on her mind. Thank you for the friendship and the smartass comments.

Cyn, you just amaze me.

Anonymous, who commented yesterday. Please feel free to e-mail me anytime.

To all of you, who I may have forgotten, thank you. All of you really mean the world to me. I never thought that this community would give me so much. It is hard to feel like I take so much more than I will ever give, but I am trying. Please go read some of these amazing women, I promise your life will change.

I look forward to being with all of you in the next year. To share all the moments that makes our lives and our world a little better.

birther of dreams

A little over a year ago, we were sitting in the office of a surrogacy agency; the place that we believed would be our salvation. No decision we have ever made about creating our family was ever taken lightly, every turn we have taken has been calculated and thoroughly researched and debated. In truth, this is how we live our lives; we deal with highly emotional situations by taking them to a very cerebral level and working everything out while standing outside the whole ordeal. It is called protection, without this method I would have been nothing more than a bundle of nerves in a padded cell years ago. The agency turned out to be a bitter disappointment, an utter train wreck of a situation. One that almost made us make the decision to live the rest of our lives childless, we just could not deal with that type of pain again. The fact is that we were being taken advantage of because we were in a vulnerable situation, and to me there is nothing lower than those who seek their fortune on the backs of others desperation and misery. That was over a year ago though.

Now life is so incredibly different, we are in a good place, which frankly is even more frightening. I know disappointment and failure, they are very good friends, so good in fact they are on the Christmas card list. We know how to fail, it is success that we are uncomfortable with, and it is just something that we never really learned to excel at because we were always so much better at failing. This is no ones fault but our own, we constructed our lives to ensure that failure was always the outcome.

I wrote a post some time back about how lonely this world of surrogacy can be. We are out on the third rail, in the place where we have given up and are not doing anything that appears to be for the common good of humanity. I understand these feelings, I have had these feelings, but at the end of the day we made our decision. In writing that post, something amazing happened, something that I would have told you was impossible a year ago.

I got an e-mail. Just a simple note from a complete stranger asking me to be part of a support group. She was someone whose blog I had commented on, someone who gave me hope that surrogacy was not as frightening as I once believed. I cannot recall how long it had been between my finding her and her finding me, but I know it could not have been that long. The night that I found her, I read every word she had written. I had found someone who took her job of being a surrogate very seriously and still managed to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing. This is tough on either side, and if you are unable to laugh, you are going to lose your mind. Sabrina did this with such ease that I was in awe. I mean, who tags themselves as "like the tooth fairy only fatter"? This was the kind of person that I needed by my side, and I was prepared to do whatever it took to keep her there.

I joined the group and watched as she grew two beautiful babies for P-Daddy, and at the same time grew their relationship. I was envious I wanted that relationship with my surrogate. After all, this woman and her family are going to forever be a part of my family. When she gave birth to the princesses I cried, P-Daddy was now a daddy and Sabrina was officially the "birther of dreams."

We e-mailed, talked on the group, and became facebook friends. She did not know that I had made the decision that I would wait forever for her to carry my child. I would have walked through fire to have the honor of having her care for my child while I was unable, and at the same time I felt that I would never live up to P-Daddy. Let's face it, I am not a single man, and carrying another woman's child is a whole other ball of wax, than carrying a child of a man who is not your husband. This was something that I have always understood. Us women come with complexities that men do not, there is the obvious jealousy that is bound to show up and then there is the whole micromanaging. Face it, when women get pregnant they TALK and TALK about everything and I have heard more dos and don'ts of pregnancy that I should have at least ten kids following me around. Then again, none of this is me. I started this process knowing where my feelings belonged, they belonged to me and were not anyone else's problem and I have no right to go around throwing these feelings all over someone else.

I was just grateful that Sabrina was going to be there to walk down this road, helping me to navigate our surrogacy adventure.

Wait, what is this, a facebook message with Sabrina's number. What an honor, I was going to speak with Sabrina, the woman who had most likely unknowingly, pulled me out of a hole. I was actually in such a hurry to talk to her that I did not even bother to read the rest of the message. We talked forever on the phone, and while she knew all my crazy to an extent, she really learned just how nutty I really am. We talked about it all and then some. It was one of the best conversations I have ever had with someone, and at the same time one of the strangest, we knew each other and yet this was the first time we had ever heard the others voice.

A week later, I was cleaning out my e-mails, and there is was the words that stopped my heart. Sabrina had offered to be our surrogate. She had chosen to go through another pregnancy so that we could be parents. I had not asked, she had just offered. Now what was I going to do? I had spent hours on the phone with her and not once mentioned that I would love for her to be our surrogate, that it was my dream, that I would have given the world to have her carry our child. There was no one else in the world that I could even imagine doing so. Of course if she had not wanted to that would have been fine and I would have found another wonderful woman. In the end, I would still have Sabrina in my life and at the end of the day that is what mattered. So I called her again, with monster sized butterflies in my stomach, I thought she was going to say no. I mean I cannot even finish reading an e-mail what would make her think that I was going to be a good parent. I told her that I felt like an idiot and that we would be honored to have her carry our baby. I know that she said yes a millisecond later, but it felt like a million years.

So here we are!!! The amazing Sabrina is our surrogate. We are aiming for August to do our transfer. I say aiming because I make no firm plans when it comes to baby making. There is nothing that means more to me than becoming a mother, and no one else that I would rather have to carry our child than Sabrina.

Standing on the edge of reality

My hands are shaking, my lips are numb, and there are so many emotions running through me that I am unable to identify a single one. What has been a plan, detailed as it was, and is slowly becoming a reality. There are still a million details, but the biggest obstacle is out of the way. For the past 13 years, I have been focused in one way or another on becoming a mother. I have been through every conceivable possibility besides conception. With every option, I have immersed myself into the research and then made an educated decision, and each of those discarded/failed options have taken chunks of my heart. I am not the same person who started this journey, just as I would not be the same person if I had just been living a typical life for 13 years. With infertility though I have a center square, Infertile Park, and a few side streets College Ave., Wedding Lane, Day to Day Alley, and a few others whose names change off and on. I am comfortable in this little town of mine, filled with dark and rainy days, with a horrible storm that blows through a few times a year, but the temperature is comfortable and I have set down roots. The other day I began to notice that the bushes are overgrown and it is more uncomfortable to sit on the benches.

Someone showed up in town and suddenly I am not so comfortable anymore. This person is unlike many I have or ever will meet, she is the rare person is willing to give so much to a relative stranger. Sure there have been and always will be people in my life that will pick me up after the fall, but she is the one who will walk with me down this path, with a big fat belly. My feelings about this whole situation are so odd, I want to describe every emotion as they come, but they are coming so fast that I cannot catch them. We have talked this over for weeks and I was very cerebral about the whole thing, I learned a long time ago to not let my emotions get too involved too early on in the process. Tonight it all just hit me, we are really going to be intended parents, we are really going to have our surrogate, and she is a real live human who is willing to give us the ultimate gift.

The biggest thing that I was not prepared for, is this feeling of responsibility. I want to do this all perfectly so that she gets everything she deserves, minus the marching band (that might get a bit annoying). Being a mother to an infant who needs me for everything is something that I can handle, and something that I am as prepared for as I can be. Being an Intended Mother is a completely different thing. I feel responsible for someone who is a mother, wife, daughter, sister and friend to many, and my responsibility to her is my responsibility to them.

I am so happy, my whole family is so happy. We are here standing on the edge of reality, right where we want to be.

There are still a thousand things to work out, and I will blog every moment of them. I just need to let this all soak in for a moment.

Thank you all who stood beside me, this has been a long road, and there are still many miles to go. I could not have done this without you.

Still Here

I am still here. Before you all send out the search party.

This is my final semester as an undergraduate, I am applying to graduate school, I am trying to clean and do laundry, and I am also attempting to rule the world. See I am a very busy lady, and I also know that none of you are going to accept any of these excuses.

Our profile went out 2 weeks ago. I try very hard not to think about this. Somewhere, a woman is reading about us and maybe considering giving us the greatest gift ever. Then again, she could be reading about us and laughing, so hard that she pees her pants, at the thought of us ever being parents. In all honesty, we are not exactly the most normal couple ever, we certainly don't look like normal people. I just hope that she is out there. Then there is the fact that there is someone out there who has stolen my heart.

In good news, we have narrowed down the potential egg donors down to FOUR. I am also happy to report that we did not even have to resort to pulling numbers out of a hat. In the end it really came down to women who we could see ourselves being friends with. Now I just have to keep myself from looking at new applicants, which involves a lot of hand slapping.

Once again, we find ourselves in a holding pattern. In that place where we do everything we can to distract ourselves. In that place where we try not to let ourselves dream too big. In that place where our dreams have taken on their own lives and wander around in our minds. The difference now is that we are getting closer, closer than we ever thought.

It seems like a lifetime ago that we started down this path and now we are really starting. It may only be small steps, and we very well may fall on our butts, but we are walking. Then again we have been here before and the crash was horrifying. I am really trying to keep those memories of the past where they belong, way far away. Those scars are carried with us though. We know that the stove is hot, but we also know that we have to be willing to risk the burns to get the yummies.

It may not be this year, but soon we are going to bring our baby home.

Thank you all for waiting around for me to post. I will try to be better.

All of you mean the world to me. I really do not think that I would have made it through last year without all of you. Just knowing that I am not alone makes the world a sunnier place.

Standing Outside the Pain

Here it is again that suffocating feeling, watching someone you would move the world for slipping into a hole. Wanting to join them there because it is comfortable, being that far down that is familiar. Knowing that jumping into the hole only makes the hole deeper. It all happens out of love, a love that on the right day could re-align the solar system.

Instead of jumping in, I am going to throw a rope and start pulling. Believing that not letting go will work, fighting for them with all the strength that comes from standing on the sidelines. It is painful knowing that my strength cannot be transferred. Knowing where this road leads if love and strength is not enough. We started in a place so far in the hole for so long they were the strength that pulled me through and now the table has turned. Now I am the one who must plant my feet and pull.

Today I stand in awe of how fast watching someone you love suffer can make everything else seem so petty. Yesterday my problems were all encompassing; nothing could have hurt so deeply than walking through life without a child, today it is simply a small blister that will become a callous. Life can change so quickly when someone you love is in pain.

Decision Making and Surrogacy

After reading Amani and Bob Surrogacy this morning, I began to think about redefining dreams. How through the adventure of having a baby these dreams have been redefined a hundred times. From the first time, the reality of medical intervention steps in to the point that you are going to need the help of more than just a doctor. Going through this process so many times it would be logical to think that this gets easier, that by the time you need to decide between surrogacy and adoption that it should only take a few moments and the pain should be non-existent. No statement can be further from the truth. Each moment is excruciating, because with each decision comes a new reality and with each new reality comes new chances to have your heart broken. Each new decision drips with the dew of self-doubt, rages with the thunderstorm of unknown factors, and culminates in the hurricane of excitement for new possibilities and intense emotional exhaustion.

The worst part about it all is trying to keep emotions out of something that is so intensely emotional. For me this is where having my father to go through all the legalese makes it so much easier. I am not capable of taking out the emotional intensity of needing to hold my child in my arms and dealing with the business side of all this, of making huge economic decisions. This is not to say that he is completely emotionally detached, he is just able to separate it out, ah the wonders of men. If I had to give only one piece of advice to people who were just starting out with surrogacy, get someone in the trenches with you who can keep their emotions out of the proceedings (and this cannot be your lawyer, agency, etc.).

Faced with having to make so many "life decisions" at once can also make having to make other decisions just excessively overwhelming. On more than one occasion, I have left the grocery cart in the middle of the aisle and just walked away, because there were too many choices in bagels. The prospect of having to make one more choice was too much. Funny as this sounds it really happens, at some point the brain just says "I am not going to make another choice" and the body must obey. Thankfully, I did not have to choose which way to turn on my
way home, or I may still be sitting in the parking lot. Truly there are no words to express how overwhelming all of this can really be.

Enter the fact that you are making decisions that affect a child who you love more than life itself, even though it has yet conceived. I know that this sounds weird, trust me it feels weird. It is like trying to live in a fantasy world and making decisions that affect the real world. At moments you feel the need to have a psychologist follow you around to make sure that your brain did not escape and go running down the road screaming in agony. I am almost positive that this cannot happen, but there have been moments when I look behind me just to make sure.

Then there are the moments when you have to make the big decisions that are going to affect a number of people who you care about deeply. For me it came when Joe-bob told me to make the decision that I thought was best for us. WHAT? YOU WANT ME TO MAKE A HUGE LIFE DECISION!, you are the one with the big huge brain and all that knowledge; you should be the one to do this. I make decisions on laundry detergent and dinner choices and I am not very good at those. Okay, I decide that we are going to do nothing, we are going to sit right here for the rest of our lives and not move, because movement will require other decisions. We sat there for a while and then came the moment when sitting a there was more painful than being terrified and making
decision. I got up one morning and taught myself everything that I could about surrogacy. I weighted through all the moral and ethical issues, because I was going into a fight and I was going in armed with as much ammunition as I could gather.

That is right, at the beginning of this whole process I thought that maybe I could not go forward with this because I would not stand for doing something that would put others in a situation where I was taking advantage of them. Obviously, I found this not to be the case. Now this ammunition is used to defend myself against people who look at me like the devil incarnate for wanting to have a child. More specifically that I want an infant whose parentage I can trace and who will be mine from the first moment they breathe air. Those people who try to make me feel guilty about not taking in some sweet orphan who will be condemned to roam the streets in some 3^rd world capital. I myself question whether it is right to create another person rather than taking in one who needs me. In the end I want what I want and if that is selfish then so be it, if it makes me a bad person I will beg forgiveness to the powers that be, but I know that it is not any of these things this is the way things are meant to be for me.

I cannot express the feeling of excitement and terror that accompanies every step in this adventure. All I can say is that coming to this point has been difficult, but actually being here is wonderful. To be in the presence of women who are willing to sacrifice so much to give to a stranger the chance to make a dream a reality. At some point on the road of infertility, I began to have a very pessimistic view of the world then I found this option and something changed. Even with all the fear there was suddenly a light that I have long forgotten existed, I was able to see the light at the end of the cave and I knew that this was where we were meant to be. Finally, I had made a decision that made perfect sense. While this happens to others when they find other alternate methods of reproduction for me, it happened with surrogacy. The other day someone wanted to know how I knew that this was going to work for us, and all I could think of is that you just know, in the same way that you just know when you meet the person you were meant to be with for the rest of your life. I am not saying that this made it any easier it just made is easier to get through the rough spots. In future months, I know that there will more overwhelming decisions but knowing that this is how we are to expand our family makes it a little easier to make those decisions.

Something very scary

My dear friend Amanda is going through some very scary medical issues. She is one of the smartest, compassionate, and most amazing women I know. After a long struggle with IF she gave birth to Hazel, the most perfect little girl, 6 months ago. No one should have to go through this ordeal, but especially someone who has just found such a profound new love. Please go by and leave her a comment at Hazel's Adventure Begins or just send her good healthy thoughts.
I love you dearly Amanda.

i love him

today the energy is gone, the hope is fading and there is no urge to get any of it back. nothing happened all is still moving. it is just one of those days where putting one foot in front of the other is more than difficult. we talked the other night and the words finally hit my brain, and out jumped the fear. the feeling provoked are not his fault, they are my feelings, he just provides the safety to release them.

"Do you feel like you are apart of this whole process. I mean you really are just following me around."

"Of course I am part of it. This is like the wedding, make the plans and tell me when to show up and what to do."

"We are creating a child not throwing a party. Don't you want more input."

"I trust you. Just do what you think is right."

"I know you trust me, but I don't want you to feel left out. You don't get excited or upset, you just follow along."

"My life is just really busy right now. I am excited, you are just going to have to wait a bit for me to break out the pom-poms." He is getting a PhD and works insane hours.

"Okay, I just wanted to make sure you were in this with me."

"I am"

that was the end of the conversation. ten minutes later.

"You have been in so much pain for so many years, and now you are in a position that your heart can be shattered. If I get in there with you, who is going to piece you back together? I need to stay detached for you."

he never ceases to amaze me.

blogging on the surrogacy rollercoaster

this post is inspired by IVF Land on Surrogacy World, who is just plain inspiring because he is a man blogging about an experience that most men have a hard time finding the words to explain.

if you google surrogacy and then go look at the blog results, you will receive all kinds of information. what will be missing, or at least very limited, is the intended parent's perspective. as i have said before, there are gay parents, surrogates, lawyers and agencies galore, but few anxiously awaiting parents. in no way am i the typical intended mother, if such a person even exists.


our journey to surrogacy did not come with most of the baggage the accompanies so many couples. there were no countless visits to the doctor, and no years of failed transfer after failed transfer. our decision was made because i had to do what was right for my health.

as an adopted child it was not that much of a stretch for me to understand that biology does not make a parent. it was not important to me that my child look like me, share my blood, or come from me in any way. what is important to me is that i get to have the experience of being a mother from day one.

this does not mean that i did not go through the grieving for not being able to do this on my own. i questioned who i was as a woman. got upset that all these people were poking around in my life. got down right angry that others were having children at the drop of a hat. i wish that this was not the process that we had to go through, but i am grateful that we have the choice.

sometimes it is hard for me to talk about these things. i feel that i am supposed to shut up and be grateful that this path is open to me. the biggest thing that i have always felt bad about feeling, let alone saying, is that i hate the fact that i am not going to be able to have a child who i can take home and never have to share with anyone. i would of course never dream of cutting our surrogate out of my child's life, i do have to look at myself in the mirror after all. honestly, i think it is awful that people think that it is acceptable to take the child and run, but some small part of me understands the urge. of course reading Bump Fairy's post about giving D&G to their daddy how could i even begin to think that it would be at all appropriate to cut off our surrogate. she is not going to make any decisions, she will not be their mother, she will just be another person in their life who loves them (and we all need as many of those as we can get).

our child will have a ton of people like that in their lives, the only difference is that this person will have a unique relationship with them. there is of course this small part of me that is jealous of this relationship, i am human after all. fact is though, it is not a relationship my child will ever remember, and one that i am making so much bigger than any surrogate i have ever met would see as their relationship with my family.

the biggest lesson that i have learned through all of this, is that surrogacy is way too dramatized. a couple of cases have gone horribly wrong, and that is tragic, but thousands more create beautiful families. the difference is often simply being honest from the beginning.

i am one of those people who is constantly trying to be perfect and falling short at every turn. to get through this process has taught me that perfect does not exist in this world. of course i still have my dreams about the perfect relationship that i want with my surrogate, dreams of what will make this whole experience perfect. perfection is now defined as going through this highly emotional and trying process and coming out the other side with everyone feeling like it was a good experience and that we all got what we wanted, whatever that may be. for me that is of course a baby, but also that i have treated everyone involved with the utmost respect and have had that respect returned.

some people think that i am insane for putting this out for the world to see. fact is that maybe 20 people a day see this, so that is hardly the world. plus i am not doing this for anyone other than myself and my family. for my family it is a way that they can know what is happening without having to ask. this can be a tough thing to ask about and answers often just lead to more questions. letting them be able to read how i feel about this day to day, gives them a unique insight into what is happening and what i am willing to discuss. i hope that they know it is everything, as long as they are not telling me to give up and get a dog. for myself this is a way to keep myself from going insane through this process. keeping all these feelings inside would probably land me in the loony bin. there are so many huge emotions and they have to go somewhere, and mine are going here.

another really important reason that i am blogging this, is one day i want my child to know just how much they were wanted. it took me going through this ordeal to fully appreciate just how much my parents wanted a child. opening your life and heart up this much is not something you do lightly. it is something that you do because nothing else in the world could hurt you more than never being a parent. i hope that my child will only have to read this to fully understand what that longing feels like. i know that it is not something that can be verbalized, i can only hope that it is something that will come across in writing. in the end i want a record of what now feels like it will last forever, though in reality i know it is something that will last only for a moment. i never want to forget what this process was like. i want every moment to be forever preserved.

happy birthday

32 years ago today my husband was born. i have been fortunate enough to have known him for the past 16 of those years. we celebrated tonight with a dinner and just some time together. in these moments of celebration i feel so inadequate, there are all these feelings that i want to express that never leave my head.

he is my heart and soul, without US, i do not make sense. this is not to say that i need him to define me, only that i need him to share with me all that each of us brings to this relationship. over the past year our lives have become masses of nerves and stress. through it all i have been able to depend on him to prop me up when i could not even fathom standing on my own. over this year i have been driven to make our child a reality, to the point that i have pushed him to the side. not once has he yelled and screamed, he simply taps me on the shoulder hugs me tight and lets me know that he is still here.

i could not have custom ordered a better person to go through all this with. in my quest to keep my head through this mess, he has been the one patiently placing back on my shoulders. i can only hope that he knows how much i love, admire, cherish, and adore him. he is the most amazing man in the world and deserves so much more than i give him.

happy birthday hun. all my love now and forever.

who am i really?

writing our profile has brought up a thousand questions. the main question being, who the hell am i? most of us spend our lives searching for an answer, but i do not think i will ever come close to finding an answer.

since i have started writing about this journey, wonderful new people have come into my life, and the old ones have found a new way of communicating with me. through these interactions i have gained some insight into how i look through others' eyes. the one word that seems to stick out the most, courageous. the first time i put it in the "you are just nuts" column. then it kept popping up and i had to question the meaning of the word.

cour·age –noun
1. the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery.


well, now i know they are all really crazy, and the men in white coats carrying butterfly nets need to be called. fear, anxiety, and a strong desire to never speak, is what defines me, i do not speak in class unless points are being awarded, i do not have strong convictions about anything, at least not strong enough to ever open my mouth. my stomach still turns when i have to talk to people i have know forever. my biggest fear is that everyone will one day find out that i am faking my way through life. as a child i was painfully shy, and i still remember how difficult it was for me to open my mouth and the pains in my stomach, the heat on my cheeks, and just wanting to melt into the floor.


i have had a few moments in my life, when i have gotten away from myself. these are moments when others threatened or hurt those i loved. i have made it my mission in life to make sure that no one near me ever feels pain or sadness. even people who i am not really close with, if you are in my life, even on the periphery, i will do everything i can to protect you. as a child i did not have many friends, it was really difficult for me to find relationships with my peers. this got so bad, that i was in a major depression by the time i was 13, and i never wanted anyone else to feel the pain of being alone.


in some ways i do not think my self esteem ever recovered from those years. i never understand why people want to be friends with me. it is difficult for me to see what qualities i possess for friendship. i am not saying this so all of you tell me how wonderful i am and how much i do for you, this is truly how i feel. i know that you all love me and i know that you would walk to the ends of the earth with me, as i would with you, i just will never understand why.

infertility throws self image into the tilt-a-whirl and then sends it through the cheese grater. i am a woman, women carry babies, i can't carry babies, so who in the hell am i? it is insane logic and extremely myopic, but it is the thought pattern i have lived with for years.

what i have learned over the years, is that no matter how you define yourself there will always be something to turn that definition sideways. in the end, for me it is how well i live up to my ideals. the majority of the time i fall so short, that it probably is not worth having ideals at all.

in my ideal world i...
- care for others
- listen to everyone, especially those i disagree with because those are the people i learn the most from
- give everyone the respect they deserve
- don't look out for only my self interest
- make sure everyone i love knows that they are loved
- help those who i can, and find help for those i can not
- do not judge others' behavior, because i am no saint

like i said this is my ideal, i don't think there has been one day of my life that i have met two at a time, let alone all of them. it may happen one day, most likely it will not, but i still have hope.

i am not courageous, i am scared to death and this is how i deal with it. i was debating between writing about it and banging my head against the wall, and since this was less messy i chose to write. i really hate to clean. 99% of the time i am white knuckling my way through this jungle, and i know that i am not alone. in reality i am doing this for everyone who is unable to talk about this struggle, in hopes that it might help them find a voice.
the longer we keep silent, the longer we will have to endure the pain.
my biggest fear is that not dealing with all the pain created by this process, and as a consequence having my relationship with the child, i have fought so hard to have, suffering.

just me catching my breath again

seven years ago today i became a wife. i married the love of my life and to this day i pinch myself. in those quiet moments, with him in his chair and me in mine, i look over at this man who agreed to spend the rest of his life with me, and seven years later it still takes my breath away.
a lot of people say they are married to their best friend, and i believe them. when i say i married my best friend, i mean that i married a man who at one point was my friend and only my friend.
the moment he told me he was in love with me was the most magical moment of my life. it would be another 10 years before we were married, in those years our lives took many twists and turns, but that was always the moment when my whole world was right.
while we were saying our vows, all i could think of was how do i stop this without everyone noticing. in all the years we had known each other i had never seen him so white, i really thought he was going to pass out, hit the floor, or throw up on my shoes. "i just hate everyone looking at me," was the response he gave when i questioned him later. frankly, i did not know anyone else was there, for those twenty minutes it was him and i and nothing else mattered. every dream i had ever had was coming true at that moment. what ever else happens in this life, what ever else never happens in this life, i will always have that moment.
he walked into this knowing that we were not going to create a family in the conventional, back of the car manner. he walked into this knowing that there were going to be major stumbling blocks. he knew walking into this that i was flawed, in so many ways. he walked into this marriage knowing that there were sides of me that were ugly, nasty and at times down right mean. we knew each other so well the day we got married, that we could have an entire conversation standing across the room from each other, with just our eyes.
he amazes me every day. he still takes my breath away. he still makes my heart skip a beat. he still makes me feel like i am the only person in the world.
so on the day that marks seven years since we got married, i have the need to tell the world just how the man i married is amazing.

because i am not talented enough to put into words the way i truly feel about this man, i'll let David Francey do it for me:

Broken Glass

Saw you standing in the cafeteria line
I'd have given the world just to make you mine
Saw you at your locker, in the high school hall
And it didn't take a minute for my heart to fall

When you hear a sound like broken glass
That's my heart every time that girl walks past
When you hear a sound like the rush of wind
It's just me catching my breath again

Saw you on the bus, on the way back home
You were sitting so pretty, sitting all alone
Couldn't think of anything much to say
Except I'll love you forever, 'til my dying day

When you hear a sound like broken glass
That's my heart every time that girl walks past
When you hear a sound like the rush of wind
It's just me catching my breath again

Seeing her now makes me think of then
And I remember how and I remember when
You'd go to a party hoping that she'd show
Then you'd dance in the darkness to Abbey Road

When you hear a sound like broken glass
That's my heart every time that girl walks past
When you hear a sound like the rush of wind
It's just me catching my breath again




you just have to change the she to he, but i refuse to change the words of a genius.


if you have never heard David Francey, i recommend that you check him out, he is one of a quickly dying breed, a true musician and gentleman.

hun, if you are reading this, i love you more than all the stars in the sky. i know i am one crazy person to put up with and you do it so well.

telling the kid about surrogacy

now that we have decided that this is the path we are taking to have our family, we now have to answer the big question: how are we going to tell our child about how they came to be?

one of my most clear memories, is the entire day of my life that culminated in my parents telling me that i was adopted. i was in the 2nd grade. that afternoon i had my two bottom canine teeth pulled. while sitting in my nana's den, eating an orange jelly candy, my mother asked me where i wanted to go to dinner that night. oh the sheer joy and excitement, my parents wanted me to give input on what i wanted. they really cared what i wanted to do and i got to make a decision and they were going to comply and i was not going to have to scream and yell or hold my breath until i turned blue. i started counting all the teeth i had yet to loose and wondering how many the dentist would pull. pulling teeth obviously led to this great and glorious day when i had power, real and true power handed to me without question. there was no question, we would dine in the wonder that was the Old San Fransisco Steakhouse, the fantasy world of all little girls, who aspired to walk across bars. they had a red velvet swing above the bar, and they let kids swing being pushed by a woman dressed in late 1800's whorehouse costume, think Hollywooded up Deadwood. then they gave you a certificate. i probably collected hundreds. now if this was not enough they served this huge block of swiss cheese with a slicer cutty thing. I LOVE CHEESE. my father says, "if you put cheese on dog shit jaymee would eat it." that is a bit of an overstatement, but not too far off the truth.

after all the glorious swinging and cheese eating, it was time to go to bed. i was told to go put on my pjs and come back out. i knew this was too good to be true, i was getting in trouble, it was never good to be told to come and talk. so in my nightgown i sat on the brown velour couch with my parents. the stress was building in my little body. "Your adopted, do you understand what that means?," my mother blurted out. according to my father she had spent weeks working out what she was going to say, and she had a whole speech ready, i never heard that speech. like all adopted children of the late 1970s i had "the chosen baby" book, it was one of my favorite stories, and through that i knew what adoption meant. i remember crying, i do not know why i was crying, but it was one of those awful snotty icky crying. i had suspected that i was adopted a year before they ever told me, and asked my nanny. my sister not being adopted, had pictures taken in the hospital, and i did not. my parents documented our lives so closely, you would have thought they were conducting research. the thought that they would not have a picture of me in the hospital could only have one explanation, i had to be adopted, there was no other option.

my mother then went and got a painting that she bought for our new house. it was 2 star gazer lilies on a black background. i don't know what happened to the painting, i assume my mother sold it when we moved. sadness fills me that someone picked up this canvas at a garage sale, they will never know all the emotions tied up in that piece of art.

being able to remember that day with such clarity is one of the best memories of my life, but it has taken me years to get to this point. i know that my parents wanted to become parents so bad, that they were willing to jump through so many hoops. i am not sure i could have endured all that they did, and i definitely can not imagine worrying for two years that someone could come and take away my child. (at the time i was born the laws gave biological parents two years to change their minds, this is not done anymore) in fact i know i would have been a wreck and there is no way that i could let myself love my child as fully as my parents love me, because i would paralyzed by the fear.

being told that i was adopted was an event in my life. i will always remember that day, because my whole self concept changed. my parents are wonderful caring people who could not love me more. they were working with what they knew, and did an amazing job raising me. out of all the people i know, there is no one that will not do something differently than their parents when it comes to raising their children. for me this will be my change. i will consider myself accomplished as a parent if my child grows up feeling half as loved by me as i do by my parents.

for my child i want something different, i want them to always have known how they came into the world. over the years i have had a lot of friends who were adopted, and it has been my experience that the ones who always knew they were adopted seemed to just accept their adoptions and never give it a second thought. for them it is a natural state of being, their adoptions never defined them as people.

our child will be the product of surrogacy. no shame should ever be attached to this fact. none of us asked for this to be the case. as a little girl, i never thought, one day i am going to grow up and have another woman carry my child. all the same this is how we will make our family happen, through a lot of work, tears, fear, joy, and people who really love each other, our child will come into the world. actually that is not much different than how most children get here, we are just adding a few more people.

a dear friend of mine sent me the book, "Hope and Will Have a Baby", which is a very sweet book. i am so happy my child will have their own version of "The Chosen Baby". still i am left with the question of how do i explain this process to a small child. i got my answer while reading the blog of a gestational surrogate. her young, adopted daughter surprised her with knowing that she was having a surrogate baby for another couple. she simply explained that sometimes women have broken tummys and other women have babies for them, please read the story here, it is simply one of the sweetest story i have read on this subject.

having all this time to think about having a child, makes you think of things that most people never consider. i can not begin to list all the crazy thoughts that have gone through my mind. a happy child, who knows we love them more than anything in the world, is all i really want for them. giving birth to a child in no way makes you a mommy and biology does not make you family. sacrifice, love, constant support, mending scraped knees and hearts, makes a family.

finding support through a surrogacy journey

this is one of those nights where sleep has eluded me, so insomnia you win. this also means that i have sat in the dark, alone with just my thoughts, because nick at nite needs to change their lineup. so i have been looking for more women like me. i know that they are out there, but apparently you have to know some secret handshake, because every time i apply to one of their groups i get told i am blocked. i have no idea what i have done to rank this banned status, frankly i have done nothing. this just makes me mad.
the majority of the support seems to revolve around the surrogates, which is great, but i need people too. my family and friends are wonderful, and they try so hard to be supportive and understand what this is like. just like i will never know what it feels like to be pregnant, they will never fully know what this feels like.
to all those who control access to your secret world of support:
i am not some crazy stalker, i am not trying to sell you anything, i am not a secret agent, i just need a place where people who know what this is like will listen to me from time to time. i will send you references, all my friends think that i am a good person. at times, rare though they may be, i have even been known to be insightful and supportive.
you would think that this would not be so difficult. i have read blogs of women who belong to these groups and they all seem nice enough. all i want is a place where i can talk about stuff and actually have people understand.
i know i sound pathetic at the moment, but i just can't take the rejection anymore. i was that kid no one wanted to play with, i have been the outcast and freak for so long, and 15 years after i had gotten over that, here i am again. only this time this is serious. these are real adult issues.
oh well, i have held my own before, and i have an amazing group of women who would walk through fire for me. honestly i could not ask for more understanding friends. i am amazed at this group of people who love me. i probably should not say this, but if i had to go through this with me i might have walked already.
over the past year i have become a crazy woman on one mission, to become a mother. my mom would tell you that i was born on that mission, and she would not be wrong. i have wanted a family from the moment i understood the concept. over the past year though there is an urgency, as compulsion, a drive to have a child to raise.
joebob asked me the other day why i wanted a child. my response was to look at him and shrug my shoulders. words can not be used to describe what i need, this is no mere want, i want to be a size 2, i need to be a mother. he wants to understand this, it is just a bit beyond his realm of comprehension. this in no way implies that he does not want a kiddo, he just is not compelled to have one. he gets just as crazy about this as i do, the other day he ordered baby clothes. i had no idea he even knew babies needed clothes, this is the man who wants a legal document absolving him from ever changing a diaper. but there they were, baby clothes, in baby sizes ordered by my husband, i know this because i asked for identification. then at the bottom of the box, baby bottles, bottles one would use to feed a baby, bought by joebob himself. i love this man.
with all the crap that infertility throws at you, there are also these small gifts. through this awful process, that tears me apart and makes me want to pull mine (and at times other peoples') hair out. i have fallen in love all over again with this man who has stood beside me through all of this. he may not understand why i am so crazy about this, he may get annoyed, feel pushed aside, and wonder who this woman is who ate his wife, but he is always supportive. i have heard people say that building a house will tear a couple apart, well constructing a domicile is nothing compared to constructing a child through surrogacy.

how surrogacy works

the primary reason that i started this blog was to get some information out there about surrogacy, from the viewpoint of an intended mother. in reading my posts, i realize that i have not done a very good job at meeting this objective. this process is very emotional and brings up issues that you never even thought existed. this post though is going to be about the process. so

fasten your seat belts, this is going to be a bumpy ride:

first, you have to become infertile, this can be voluntary or involuntary, and for the purposes of this discussion, it does not matter. in my situation it was being born with a bleeding disorder (von williband's disease) combined with polycystic ovarian syndrome.

this will give you the magic combination for marathon periods. at the age of 12, was hospitalized because my blood pressure was 60/40, i had my first blood transfusion and my first d&c at this time. i was put on 3 birth control pills a day, which after a couple of months quit working. lucky me got to graduate to estrogen and progesterone. by the time, i was 13 i was on the highest dose of estrogen made. i will not bore you with how terribly awful this is for a child, or anymore boring details. this whole process was repeated over and over, until i had had ENOUGH. i finally got to the point where i had no quality of life. therefore, at the age of 31 i had an endometrial ablation because i could not take another 3-6 month period and the hormones were making me so sick. this was the hardest and best decision i have ever made. this is not to say that there have not been moments when i worried that i had made a mistake. once i came back to reality though, i knew that there was no other option, and my quality of life has greatly improved.

once you have determined that you are unable to carry a child and are prepared to turn this over to someone else, you need to find people to help you navigate this minefield. this is a lot easier said than done, in my experience there is not a ton of information floating around. i am one of those people who trusts about 5 people on the whole planet and none of them could carry a baby for us. we have all heard the horror stories about surrogacy, and there is an element of risk inherent in this process just as there is in any endeavor. i hire people to do my taxes and take care of my lawn, so why would i not hire someone to guide us through this?

we had a false start with our first attempt to find an agency, but that is what happens when you are finding out how this works. the best advise i can give here is to do what feels right to you. emotions have to stay out of this, which i know is much easier said than actually done, but you have to try if you do not want to risk much worse emotional harm later. i would do anything to be a mother, except risking all that i own, or compromise my integrity.

remember you have never done this before so there is going to be a big learning curve. interview people, ask a ton of questions, and wait until you find someone who makes you feel comfortable. these people are going to make your pure will into a baby.

at the agency interview, you will be given a ton of information. i probably only remember about 5% of what we were told in this 4 hour meeting. nervous does not even come close to what i was feeling. take notes, and remember that you can always ask questions later, when you are not scared to death. most of what they go over is procedure, agency history, and a general overview of the process. then there are the questions that none of us really want to answer.

do you want to do amniocentesis?
if the results of the amniocentesis are not good, what actions will be taken?
in the case of high order multiples would you want selective reduction?
for me at this point i wanted to crawl under the table, who wants to think about these issues?

this is the point where you need to put on your big girl panties and be brutally honest. we all want to think that these issues will not affect us, but they do happen. in the perfect world, we would be immune from this and could deal with them only if they arise. here in the real world you are asked these questions so that you are matched with someone who has the same views as you. you should not feel judged by the answers you give. better to get over this part now than when it happens and you find out that you and the surrogate have different feelings.

next, there are all kinds of fertility tests, psychological evaluations, drug tests, and paperwork. the most difficult part of the paperwork for me has been putting together a profile. this is what prospective surrogates first see about you and your partner. i guess it is like putting together something for a dating service. personally, i have never used one of these services, but i imagine that is what it would be like, only about you as a couple. this part of the process is a lot like being in jr. high and liking a boy/girl. you pass notes through your friends (the agency) and a lot of worrying if they (the surrogate) are going to like you back.
this is as far as we have gotten, so the rest of this is what i have been told.

next, it is the big meeting. we will go with our agency representative to meet the surrogate and her partner in person. this is after we have all approved each other’s profiles. at our agency, this woman and her family will have been approved before we meet them. from what i have heard, this is not always the case. if we all agree to working with each other then we start drawing up the contracts. you learn fast that there are soooo many lawyers in this process, which is good b/c everyone needs to be protected as much as possible. there are so many pitfalls that spelling it all out is important.

at some point, she will become pregnant. here there are all kinds of numbers and terms i cannot even begin to understand. at this point, i am not concerned with them. chances are though if you have made it this far you have been through the fertility ringer, so the majority of this will not be unfamiliar; you are just adding another person. the one major difference is that you are going to have to synchronize your cycles so you go on birth control at the same time.

once she is pregnant, you will go to various doctor's appointments together, or at least talk to each other and the ob/gyn if you live far away. in a perfect world she would live down the street, in reality for us at least she will most likely live very far away. thankfully, they can now e-mail you the heartbeat and the sonograms, is not technology nifty.

depending on the laws of the state in which she lives, not where you live, remember this. the custody thing will work one of two ways, with possible variations. if your husband's DNA has been used, he gets to go on the birth certificate automatically. the law has not gotten to the point where they recognize the DNA of the egg, so the mother is going to have to adopt the baby regardless of whose DNA was used. this is a stepparent adoption so it is not the grueling process of a stranger adoption. you are going to have a simple home study, they are much easier when you are married to the father, and the surrogate will sign away her rights. just like any other adoption, you will be the parent with all the rights and responsibilities. this is where the variation comes in, some states will let you do this in the second tri-mester, or you will do this after the birth. the only real difference here is the timing.

at the hospital you will have this all worked out before, but you can be there for the birth. now here is the tricky part, you know those plastic bracelets; well in they come in 3 packs for maternity, 1 for the baby, 1 for the woman giving birth, and 1 for the partner. due to the high security of maternity wards, you will only be able to get the baby from the nursery with the magic bracelet. some facilities will give you and your family their own room provided there is an empty one. they are not going to leave some poor woman out in the hall to give birth just so you can coo over your baby in your own room. in this case it will make it easy, if not though whoever has the bracelet is going to have to be there to get the baby, or the surrogate is going to have to get the baby. all this really means is there will be little rest for the person with the bracelet.
now here is the part that makes many people uncomfortable. this is my opinion only!!! the amazing woman who has just given you the greatest gift in the whole world needs some time to say good-bye to this parasite she has been hosting for nine months. i have read some very sad stories about surrogates who felt pushed aside once the baby was born. i figure i have waited years to take my baby home, another 30 minutes is not going to hurt. some people worry that doing this is going to make her want to keep the baby, and in some cases, it might, but these women go into this knowing they are helping you have a baby. this is not like an adoption; in most cases, she does not have any biological connection. so please give her those moments, it is the least you can do, because there will never be anyway that you can thank her for what she has given you.

most people work out the level of contact they want after the birth. there are some people who go home and send a few pictures and cards and never talk again, and then there are others who become family. this is up to you and your surrogate, and you will know what feels right. chances are though it will not be what you thought you were going to do in the beginning.

who are the amazing women that are willing to lone you their bodies for well over nine months? our agency requires that they have at least one child and encourages them to be finished having children for themselves. women sometimes loose the ability to have more children during the course of pregnancy. you will have to pay extra if she looses her uterus, but no amount of money can replace her ability to have more children for herself. personally, i could not live with myself knowing this had happened, so that i could be given this amazing gift. economically, they have to be sound. i am not going to pretend that the money is not a nice bonus for these women, but it is not the primary reason that they are doing this, fact is they are not being paid that much for what they are doing. from what i have read many of these women have some personal experience with infertility in their family, or are just love their children so much that they can not imagine not helping someone have the same joy they get everyday.

this is what i know for now. it is a lot to take in all at once. this whole process is a lot to digest. remember this is your labor process. the way i see it, i may not be carrying this child in my body, but i have willed him/her/them into being, by my desire to bring them into this world.

lessons learned (2)

don't forget that your life is still happening: hubby and i went to dinner last night and in the course of our conversation he told me that i have become a woman obsessed by this process. it is so easy to make having a baby the center of your universe. the leap to making it all that you are, is more of a tiny hop than a leap. i try to keep a balance in my life, and usually fail. my personality lends itself to becoming consumed by things. you know that person that calls 15 times a day, until you finally pick up? well that is me.

hubby (who will now be referred to as joebob) said that he was feeling pushed aside already. i think that this is his biggest fear, about us, when it comes to having a kid. we have a relationship that is super focused on each other, we have friends, but 90% of the time it is us focused. our lives have been held together by strings at times, but we have always had each other. so how is it that this new life is going to fit? are we going to be those people who wake up one day and realize we no longer have anything in common? not if i have anything to say about it.

so now i have to focus on us and how we are going to make this all work. becoming parents is going to turn our little corner of the world upside down, there is nothing that will change that fact. we get to do this thing together, and there is no one in the world i would rather have this adventure with. i just have to remember that this is an addition to this incredible life we have made for ourselves.

infertility takes over your life, simple fact. i know soooo many people whose relationship fell apart when faced with the reality of infertility or childlessness. to us though, this is only a minor speed bump, we have been way more battered than this little thing. i just have to remember that it is we.

all too often i think that men get lost in this process. we think that b/c they get the "easy" tests that they don't suffer right along with us. fact is that they do, they pick us up when this is overwhelming, endure hours of endless babbling, feel all the disappointment, and are there through every moment. so, i have to learn to not forget that he is there and he deserves all my attention. i couldn't go through this alone, and it just isn't fair not to acknowledge that we are going through this as a couple.

so from now on i am going to remember that there is already this amazing, wonderful person in my life. even though he wants to use the stupid name of joebob, and pulls crazy stunts in target, i wouldn't change a thing; because he is also the man who held my hair while i vomited and he can just wrap his arms around me and reduce my pain. i can't imagine my life without him, craziness and all.

showing the monster in the closet

for many of you this is your first time here. i have gotten a few concerns about my putting this out for the world to see. trust me it took me months to decide to put up this blog. i think of it like the monsters under the bed or in the closet, it is only when the lights are off that they can get you. so many times in my life i have missed out because i was afraid of the unknown. i almost didn't pursue surrogacy out of fear, and i have learned that there was much less to be afraid of than i thought. after tossing this idea around i decided that i was going to be the one to take the leap.

i have looked for surrogacy blogs from the intended parents point of view and there aren't any. for me there is no shame in this process. okay, so there is no morning sickness, i am not going to gain a bunch of weight, and i won't have to go through labor, but i will have given life to this child through a lot of really hard work. this is not a process that should be kept in the shadows, it is a beautiful way to make a family and i think that it should be celebrated. so here it is our adventure through this tangled web of lawyers, agencies, contracts, doctors, and whatever else we have yet to discover.

criticism is just a part of life, people judge each other everyday for way pettier stuff. if the worst thing that can be said about me doing this is that i took a chance, well then i am doing well. i hope one day our child will read this and be proud that all this work went into bringing them into the world. people say that you forget the pain of labor, well this is the closest i will ever come to that experience, and frankly i don't want to forget a moment. at the end of the day this is going to make my biggest dream come true.

thank you all for the love, support and concern. each of you make my life better and i couldn't do this without each of you.

the worst nightmare

i dream every night, others have told me that this is weird, but then again i have never been "normal". i have had those nightmares where i wake up screaming, usually b/c there are rats running around. though last night i woke up crying, sobbing, balling my eyes out and i could not stop even thirty minutes after waking. i dreamed that my husband choked on a big brown cracker and died. i am getting choked up just writing this. i am happy to report that he is healthy, happy and reading to me about a 5 pound bacon sampler.

my biggest fear, even bigger than never being a mother, is loosing him. i spent three years between high school and us getting back together, not knowing if he was alive, or where in the world he was, and i can't imagine not having him here. someone once told me that we have a symbiotic relationship, and she was right. it isn't that we both don't have our own lives (i barely understand what he is saying when he talks about work) but all of my experiences are less rich until i share them with him. i am one of those lucky women who is truely married to her best friend. we were best friends for 3 years, at one point the thought of a romantic relationship was soooo forgien.

to this day, after 9 years of living together, i still look over at him and have to pinch myself. the idea of never being able to do that again truely is my worst nightmare, and i hope that i never really have to live through that. i take it for granted that i have him here everyday. at 4:37 this morning though the sound of him breathing was the most beautiful sound in the world.