Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Our Surrogacy Journey

I was asked how we made the decision for Ashley to become a surrogate. This is our story.

We had a difficult time TTC Emma, it took us 3 years, 3 known donors, and 2 mail order frozen donors. We finally conceived using a semi known donor that had contacted us after hearing about us trying to get pregnant. He had all the donor tests done just prior to contacting us as he was a donor for another local couple that did not end up conceiving. Our donor bent over backwards to help us, he didn't charge us, he was open to any type of contact that we wanted and was willing to "donate" whenever we needed. Through all of the struggles and the countless negative tests we knew it would happen for us. Our 3rd month of using this donor we got pregnant (actually it's the same time frame that we'll be doing our IVF).
 
Early in the pregnancy we were at a family function with tons of extended family so we got to explain how we conceived and one distant family member said to Ash and I, S & R (my cousin and his partner of 25 yrs) must be sick with jealousy. It was a hurtful comment for both Ash and I as both S & R were overwhelmed with joy for us. Yes, they would have loved to have had a chance to have children but it didn't happen for them.  That statement had a huge impact on both of us.
 
Ashley had a great pregnancy. She wore her normal clothes all the way through delivery.  She had an uncomplicated, unmedicated labor and delivery.  It was beautiful and everything we wanted it to be. Laying there together with this amazing newborn baby girl was an amazing feeling.  A feeling Ash knew she wanted to share. She felt like since we were given so much help to have Emma, we needed to pay forward that help in some way. 
 
Fast forward to June 2010, I read an article about a same sex couple using a surrogate to have a baby http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/in.america/gay.in.america/ and I spoke to Ashley about it and the next day we were filling out her application to be a surrogate for Circle Surrogacy. After that, things moved kinda slow, paperwork has to be faxed from Dr's and hospitals, the RE has to approve your medical records and then we both went through an interview process and a psychological assessment. 
 
The day of our psychological assessment we were asked to review a couple that they thought would be a great fit.  We reviewed them and on paper they looked great, long term married same sex couple from London. They were sent our profiles and when they also agreed we set up a phone call.  We talked that first day for close to 2 hours and it was amazing.  We all just clicked.  It turned out that they were going to be 1 state away in just a few days so they decided to fly over for the day and have a face to face meet to make sure we were a positive match. After that meeting we felt like family. These men were amazing with Emma and they were down to earth, funny, caring, and kind.  We seriously love them both. 
 
They are going to be amazing fathers and we are blessed to be able to help them have a family.

5 comments:

Mark said...

Love it!
You are dream makers!
Your Friend, m.

paradykes said...

Thank you Mark, our IF's called us all (us, them and the egg donor) the Dream Team.

Anonymous said...

It's a totally amazing story. I've long felt like I'd want to be a surrogate too. But it's taking us so long to get to our kids that the idea is on the back burner for now.

You guys are doing something completely amazing! Thanks for sharing the story.

Anonymous said...

Wow! What an incredibly selfless thing you are doing. Those are some lucky IFs!

Anonymous said...

I think this is awesome. Seriously awesome. It is something I would do were pregnancy not my arch enemy!! This couple - are they from London, UK? I could meet their kid one day. hehe.