I don’t typically blush at the following words:
Vagina
Cervical Mucus
Sperm
Scrotum – although this word does make me immaturely giggle a little too much.
The point is, we decided long ago to talk about the blushy type things that do make people uncomfortable. This includes our thoughts and of the nit and grit of our not-so straight forward journey to parenthood.
Naturally, people are very curious of “what’s next” for us. Do we move forward 2 spaces or play it safe and not roll the chance dice of climbing that oh so steep mountain of a second child. My love/hate relationship with social media, in this case Facebook, helps me break down the complex process of the beginning steps in a surrogacy.
Relationship status – SINGLE.
Have Bun need Oven, pretty much sums it up. Finding that special someone or in rare cases that special someone finds you.
Relationship status- Talking to Someone
You have a gestational carrier. AMAZING or at the least you have been matched or someone has found you. You are talking, planning, checking temperatures to make sure that at the end of the day “shit doesn’t get weird” and that all parties involved are on the same page. < — that’s important
Relationship status- In a Relationship
The Surrogacy contract is signed, sealed and delivered. All parties involved are feeling good. Like really good that this is the right thing to do. Everyone met in the middle and all of the uncomfortable conversations have been had.
The rest at this point is up to the doctors, fate and some prayers sprinkled in-between.
I remember those pitting feelings I had when we were in the first years of trying to conceive. Facebook was just a masochistic place I would subject myself to from time to time when I wanted to give the ol’ knife a twist in my broken lady bits. Certainly not a place I would refer to when describing where I am at in my surrogacy journey.
When Jellybean turned one I looked at Chris and said, why is it still so hard? He knew exactly what I was talking about. What was hard is we do not have a choice like many do. Simply stopping the pill or deciding to have an unprotected romp in the ol’ hay stack is not how people in our circle have a child. Those friends who announced their first pregnancy years ago have long since had number 2 or 3.
What a lot of people do not realize about secondary infertility (or being completely infertile in my case) is that just because we may have our beautiful miracle baby, it still does not remove the sting of how I envisioned my family to grow. It simply doesn’t negate that feeling that wow, I wish I had a choice but my body took that choice away.
Chris and I have been contemplating for some time over whether to pursue adoption or a surrogacy 2.0. It is something that involved a great deal of late night talks, bean counting, and prayers…lots and lots of prayers.
I got a message a few months back from a friend. OK not just a friend, ever know that person who you think to yourself, man I REALLY want to be her friend when you first meet? Not in a woman crush type of way, maybe phrase it as a “friend crush” type of way? We all just click, and that’s really good because sometimes there are couples who you may have in your friendly circle, that end up being a 50/50. You like the wife maybe not-so-much the hubs (or vice-versa). They are a whole package she’s cool, he’s cool, we are all frieeeennnnds.
The short, she asked me to tell her about surrogacy. Kinda in that “hypothetically speaking if a “friend” were to carry for you, how would that look?” She asked GOOD questions, she did her research and asked more questions again. I loved that someone would put so much thought and care into a decision. I mean this is a decision that would not only impact my future family but it would certainly impact her current family and that is a big sacrifice. Especially considering she has a loving husband, two amazing children, and an entire lifestyle that I am nearly 100% confident that she would like to return to after being a potential gestational carrier… hypothetically speaking of course.
Then there was a short silence. {queue Jeopardy music} A week or two went by and I got a call from her. This is how it went: “Hey, so I tried to Google all kinds of creative ways to tell IP’s (Intended Parent, if your new to this wild world of Surrogacy language) that you will be a Gestational Carrier for them and decided let me just call her…”
That said, she asked “Will you be my IP? and we said Oh HELLLL YES… yes, did I mention yes? The answer is yes.”
In the terms of Facebook, our status is now- Talking to Someone. Which is pretty freaking amazing.
