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.

a family through surrogacy

I have been working my way through a lot of blogs over the past few days, it being ILCW and all. A lot of people have been leaving comments here which I LOVE. In leaving comments I have been reading a lot of comments and I noticed something. I am getting a lot of comments about how brave and courageous I am. This is not true. I have written another post about this, but I want to make this really clear.

Surrogacy is the right way for me to make my family, it is the only way that I can have my family. Not that I would not adopt a child in a second. What makes this right for me is that I want my husband to have a chance at having his biological children, not that he says this is important to him. Being the one with the fertility problem makes me feel responsible and makes me want to do all the rest of it the best I can. Surrogacy was the answer. I could have tried to carry our child, but at some point I decided that I wanted to be a mother not a pregnant woman. This was not a brave, courageous, or noble move on my part, it was an answer to a horrible problem.

I started this blog because there was a dearth of straight intended parents' voices in the world of surrogacy. I began to feel like there was some secret hand shake that I did not know. Our journey was becoming very complicated and I needed to know that others had been in my shoes and come out the other side. My insecurity and fear started this blog, and now that some of that has subsided my need to keep others from ever feeling that alone keeps me here.

Surrogacy is the third rail of infertility. Many in the IF world see it as a last resort and the general public have all kinds of weird ideas about what the process. I have had people ask how I could allow my husband to have sex with another woman. Been told that I was exploiting some disadvantaged women who could not possibly know better. Worried myself that I was not really going to be able to be a mother and still have a relationship with our surrogate. I have heard people tell me that anyone who would buy a baby should not be a mother. All of these statements are completely false. In reality none of this is happening, and if I thought for one second that it would I would have quit.

One day my child may have to tell the story about how they came to be and I do not want them ever to be ashamed. Not that I am going to make them wear a shirt saying they were a product of surrogacy, nor am I going to make it a big part of their life. We have decided that we are going to be honest about their beginnings, and yes there was a time we were not sure we wanted them to know. There was a time when I wanted to move to a cabin deep in the woods with my newborn and husband and stay forever, a little family of hermits. I was so angry that all these people were in our reproductive life, so raw from all the comments, and so tiered of feeling the pain. One day it dawned on me that the reason for all this was so that I could be a mother, and if I was just going to runaway I was not going to be a very good mother. A good mother advocates for their child and tries to make the world a better place. So here I am educating a few people about the incredible process that will make my dreams a reality.

Motherhood may still be years away for me and that fact breaks my heart some days. Those are the days that I come here and hope to teach someone a little bit about this process. One of the blessings of infertility is that you have time to research and think about everything. From highchairs to cloth vs. disposable diapers, I have read everything and then some. It was just natural that if I was going to put so much time and effort into those things, I should put at least the same amount of effort into educating as many people about how this whole thing works, so maybe when my child tells someone about surrogacy they do not have to hear a rude and hurtful comment.

There is no courage or bravery here, just a woman white knuckling her way through life.

i bit the bullet

i conquered the first really terrifying parts of this process. i finished my part of the profile. since i am not really that good at conveying who i am to others, i thought this was going to be a miserable experience. in reality once i started writing it all just fell into place.

what was easiest for me was to start writing about the easy part for me. in my case this was the medical history. after repeating it a thousand times to doctor after doctor, it was easy. funnily, in writing what i thought would be a dry piece of work it became really personal.

there was such a natural flow, in talking about the technical the personal heartache was not so difficult. the last thing that i want is for some woman to pick us out of pity. i can feel sorry for myself and wallow in it all i want, but i will not accept pity. it was not until i started sharing my medical difficulties with others that i realized just how awful the whole thing was. i knew it was not the ideal situation, but it was my situation and had become my normal. in the end i made a choice between being pregnant and being a mother, and i do not regret my choice.

making myself sit down and just start writing was the most difficult part. working through all the anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, and getting it through my own thick skull that i am worthy of this amazing gift, was one of the biggest learning lessons of my life.

i know that i am a decent person, a good friend, an okay daughter and sister, and a fantastic wife (jimbob does read this). still, it is hard to imagine that i will ever do anything in my life to be worthy of this amazing gift. i know that you all are probably sick of me talking about surrogates like they are deities, but to me they are. without some incredible woman who is a stranger to me, making the decision to give up her body, parts of her life, and her waistline, i would not be able to hold my child in my arms just moments after he/she sucks air for the first time. there is no way that i could ensure that my child got every chance at the healthiest start in life. in my way of thinking there will never be anything that i will ever do in this life to match that kind of altruism.

i am however one giant step closer to making this all a reality.

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.

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.