My daughter turns three this month. I can hardly believe it – three years since I was in a delivery room watching a woman labor for the first time in my life and truly marveling at the miracle of childbirth.  I haven’t written much about my surrogacy experience yet, so I am taking this as an opportunity.

There are so many aspects of the process that I can and will expound upon but let me start by thanking the woman who was our superhero.  I am only partially joking when I say superhero. I did get her a shirt for my (our) baby shower that said, “I create families. What’s your superpower.” But more than that, I don’t know if I would have formed such a lasting relationship with another gestational carrier.  I didn’t go into the arrangement expecting, or even wanting, a lasting friendship. Only someone with superhuman loving powers could have changed this. 

So, how did we get here, let’s go back to the beginning…

After our 4^th loss we began the IVF process, though I was already mentally and physically exhausted.  I knew I didn’t have much more ‘in the tank,’ so I wanted to begin considering other alternatives to starting our family.  We had informational phone calls with parents who had built families through adoption and surrogacy.  Together we decided that if IVF didn’t work, surrogacy would be our next step.  And after our 6^th loss (which was so disappointing that I still have not mustered the resolve to write about it), we took that step. 

There are different ways to go about finding a gestational carrier (GC).  Someone you know can carry the child for you (this is called a “compassionate carrier” because you often don’t pay them), you can find someone independently, or you can use an agency to match you with a carrier.  This third option is often the most expensive, but it is also the most hands-off (in my opinion), because the agency screens their GC candidates for mental, financial, and physical fitness before matching them with a family. After everything we’d been through, I really wanted to de-risk the process and have someone else in the driver’s seat.

That was the first decision.  Then we had to choose an agency.  Did we want to use one in US or internationally (often less expensive)? Did we want one that was local or nationally renown? We ended up choosing a local agency because I wanted to be geographically close to our surrogate.  It already felt like I was giving up so much not to carry the pregnancy, I at least wanted to be able to attend appointments and see my baby growing (albeit in someone else’s belly). 

We contacted an agency about a month after our 6^th loss and had an initial conversation about the process, pricing, etc. But it felt so overwhelming that we ended up sitting on the decision for about 6-months before moving forward. I distinctly remember when the agency representative was sharing their success rates.  “Don’t talk to me about statistics,” I said.  “We’ve already been burned by statistics.”

When we finally signed-on with the agency the first two steps were to write our profile and complete an intake interview.  I couldn’t write our profile.  I mean that literally, I asked my mom to write it.  I couldn’t muster the ability to ‘market’ us to potential surrogates when I felt such resignation about the process to begin with.  It just felt so contrived, “Look at us! We’re such a loving couple who have been through so much.  But we will make the BEST parents because we have a loving family, and a nice house, and a nice dog, and please, please, please let us put our baby in you. We’ll be nicer and better than all the other families who have also been through hell and are using this process as a last resort…” 

The intake interview was equally discomforting. Its purpose was to ask us questions about our preferences in a gestational carrier.  But it was a small torture to answer 90-minutes of questions about how we’d handle a pregnancy.  It felt like a reminder of my own failure. I just kept thinking, “Can she carry a pregnancy? If so, I don’t care how many hot dogs she eats, we’re good.”

After those initial steps, we waited for about six months, and then one day we got an email with a GC profile for our consideration.  The woman was about five years younger than I was.  She had four kids; she was a stay-at-home mom who sometimes helped with her husband’s business; she’d had easy pregnancies, loved her family, and wanted to help another couple have one of their own. She seemed perfect, so we said yes right away. 

Our first interaction was facilitated via Zoom.  My husband and I met with her and her husband for a two-hour conversation led by an agency coordinator.  We each shared our reasons for, and feelings about, pursuing a surrogacy agreement.  We talked about our families and our jobs and spent some time getting to know one another.  They were a lovely couple.  They felt like people we’d have wanted to hang out with independently if we’d met outside of these circumstances.

Then we discussed some very technical and awkward topics.  The important thing to recognize about a surrogacy arrangement is that it is YOUR baby, but THEIR pregnancy.  This means that the GC gets final say about every procedure that involves her body.  The intended parents can state their preferences, but ultimately, it’s her decision.  Amniocentesis?  Her call.  Tylenol during pregnancy?  Her call.  Natural childbirth vs. an epidural?  Her call.  Whether or not to terminate in the case of a life-limiting fetal anomaly?  Yep, her decision there too.  That’s why it’s critical to be aligned before entering into a surrogacy agreement. 

Ultimately, we all agreed to move forward.  We negotiated and signed a contract and began preparation for a transfer. 

We met in person after her assessment at our fertility clinic (she’d had a medical chart review by the agency, but our fertility clinic liked to do their own physical examination).  This was 2020 during high COVID and I wasn’t allowed to attend the appointment. So afterwards, we stood outside sipping lattes, eyeing one another and trying to fast track an emotional relationship commensurate to the physically intimate journey upon which we would soon embark. But it was good. That Mother’s Day I remember being so hopeful – for the first time in years.  We spent the day at Golden Gardens in Seattle, watching the boats in Puget Sound and marveling at the Olympics.  I remember texting her to say how grateful I was to be going through this process with her.  It felt like the beginning of a potentially beautiful friendship. 

Then, very unfortunately and unexpectedly, things changed.  The IVF medications triggered Chron’s disease in her, and – for everyone’s benefit – we had to stop the process.  I blogged about this before, but it was devastating.  There were obviously no hard feelings towards her as an individual, but it felt like another loss, another false start on a road already riddled with missteps.  We texted for a while afterwards, but I couldn’t maintain the relationship.  It wasn’t that I didn’t like her, it just felt like too much amidst everything that was going on.

The agency told us that what happened was a rare occurrence and promised to rematch us as soon as possible, but I felt pretty detached from that point forward.  “Fool me once,” I remember thinking.  I wouldn’t be so quick to form a relationship next time. To be continued…