Applying With the Surrogacy Agency Was the Start

This article originally appeared on: http://offbeathome.com/surrogacy-part-two/

Applying with the Surrogacy Agency triggered an avalanche of truly time-intensive work. Agencies are very thorough, and for good reason. IPs (intended parents) want a Surrogate who is going to give them the best possible chance at a healthy pregnancy, safe birth and financially smooth and stable journey. That means they want the cream of the crop, so to speak. I supplied medical records, took a psychological exam, completed a medical screening, and both my husband and I underwent background checks and interviews with a psychologist. Saying it was stressful would be an understatement.

After about two months, I got the long-awaited news that I was finally accepted as a carrier in their program and the next step was matching. Oh, the book I could write about the matching experience and how incredible it was to feel so connected to someone I had never met. I will summarize it by saying that I was matched with the most awesome gay couple. Two men who share a deep desire to be parents and look forward to enriching this child’s life in every way possible.

I did not originally think I would carry for a same-sex couple, but after talking to them, our fates were sealed. They are who I was meant to do this for and they deserve to be parents just as much as anyone else. It hurts me to hear people say that they should “just adopt” without understanding how difficult or impossible that can be for a gay couple, or that they may also have the inherent desire to have biological children just like any heterosexual person.

The next step in our journey was to actually get to transfer day. The guys had chosen an egg donor and I would be doing IVF in order to conceive a baby or babies created from the donor eggs and my Intended Father’s sperm. This is another seemingly never-ending process. In reality ours was short compared to some — the time from match to transfer was about five months, and thank the stars that it worked on the first try. Others aren’t so lucky and will go through two, three or even more transfers before getting pregnant, if they ever do.

I won’t lie, the process is hard, physically and emotionally. Anyone who has been through an IVF cycle can attest to that. I was on all sorts of hormones and injections for months on end. It can wreak havoc on you if you let it but I fought hard to stay positive and enjoy the process. We went through a canceled cycle, two different egg donors, poor quality embryos and a crash transfer to get the remaining three inside me before they expired in the petri dish. Then? We crossed our fingers and hoped like mad.

And after all that? More waiting. Waiting is definitely a common theme in surrogacy.