We wanted to tell our family about
our surrogacy plans in person, and have made an effort to do this. But Mother Nature
and American Airlines had different plans. We ended up playing the “delay-then-cancel”
game trying to get out of town. Maybe
part of it was our fault for trying to fly out on Christmas Day. We ended up
celebrating Christmas at home. But after spending a week in the Caribbean with
the intention to fly out again after one day at home. We had no real food in
the house and of course no stores were open. So I turned our Christmas dinner
into a Top Chef competition where we had to make dishes out of the random
ingredients we had in the kitchen. The winning dish: a can of corn that I did
nothing to but reheat. Ta Da! Ok, so we had some really bad food and any
aspirations for joining the cast of Top Chef were squashed as fast as a “quick-fire
challenge”. The following day gave us
more of the “delay-then-cancel” game. This time AA didn’t win any fans with me –
maybe it was the multiple times spent standing in lines for hours trying to get
any information. We found out that we couldn’t fly out for another 2 days, and
it was unlikely we would get to the same city as our already-checked luggage.
With so many cancellations, the remaining flights just didn’t have any more open
seats. My poor husband was sorely disappointed, and I drug him home all Eeyore’d
up.
So now we must tell them over the phone. Having a baby is
exciting and fantastic and that doesn’t change just because the news is coming
over the phone, but it would have been nice to be able to celebrate in person with the
rest of our family. After we tell them,
I plan to send them a link to this blog. I hope that it can clarify and answer
any questions anyone has. We have been beside
ourselves with the amount of support we have received and are very fortunate to
have such loving friends and family.
Most Frequently Asked Questions:
Is it surrogacy in India safe? We did a great amount of research before this
undertaking. Our clinic is Surrogacy Centre India, and it is a very good clinic
with a world-renowned reputation and a very dedicated staff. Our doctor (Dr.
Shivani) was trained at Hammersmith College in London. She is very talented,
but also compassionate. I have both the utmost respect for her abilities and the
dedication she has to her work. Because of our history, it is very important
that there is a Level 3 NICU.
This type of NICU has the ability to host even the most severe cases. It’s kind of like an insurance policy - you
hope you don’t have to use it, but if you do… you want it there.
When I thanked our surrogate for protecting our child, she
put one hand on her heart and one on her stomach. It was a gesture that transcended
any language barrier, and I feel she is very committed to keeping the baby
safe. To be perfectly honest, I thought
once I returned home I would worry about the baby being safe, but I have no
such regret. And after seeing the
operation and meeting the woman protecting our child I can answer the question,
“is it safe” with a very confident yes.
Surrogacy is legal in
Texas, so why are you going overseas? This is an honest blog, so to be absolutely
crude it boils down mostly to the cost.
The entire undertaking from IVF to delivery will be a little more than
the legal/agency costs alone here at home.
Will you do it again?
Honestly, I don’t know if we will do it again. We are discussing it as an
option, but haven’t made up our minds. I can tell you that if we decide to grow
our family further, then the answer is yes.
This seems private - why
are you blogging? Ok, I understand this question and anyone who knows me
knows I am the last person they would suspect of having a blog. A - I am not on
“the Facebook” and B – wait for it - I don’t carry a cell phone. I used to have one; I got it when a kid at the
Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh made me feel like a dinosaur for not having
one. I think his exact words went something to the effect of “YOU don’t have a
cell phone?!?!” But after my son passed, people would call the cell while I was
out doing XYZ with beautiful well wishes and sentiments. While I appreciated their
calls, it could make doing XYZ after the conversation really difficult. So I
lost the phone for a while and then found the sense of freedom from not having one
overrode its convenience factor. To make a long story short, I’m not the tech-savvy
person you suspect a blogger to be. I am
blogging because there are a lot of unknowns about undertaking surrogacy in a
foreign country. I don’t know anyone who has done this. There are not a lot of
books on the subject. The people who have started blogs and gone through this
process have really helped me chip away at some of those unknowns. I felt a sense
of responsibility to pay it forward. It
is a way to document our story for our child. And since a lot of our family does
not live near us I thought it is a way that they could follow along as well if
they want. I try to keep the blog centrally focused around this journey of IVF,
Surrogacy, Pregnancy, and All Things Baby.
We have gotten an array of other questions, but it seems in
most conversations these 4 in some variation or other seem to pop up.
