Monday, December 19, 2011

Some BIG NEWS!

So I've taken a break from blogging because this thing is about to go into a whole new direction. John and I are going to be gestational surrogates for a family that can't have their own kids. OK, so are your jaws on the floor? I'll give you a minute......ready to move on?

John and I talked about doing this before Brooks was even a thought, but you have to have given birth to be a surrogate. Duh, oh naive one. Once Brooks turned one year we opened the door and reached out to an agency. After 5 months, we are ready to get knocked up. Here's the process so far.

Contact agency and fill out paperwork akin to getting top secret federal security clearance. This is of course necessary to make sure you are not a total weirdo. Then send all of your medical records from kindergarten through birth. Since I'm fat, I also had to do a glucose test. Once you pass all of this, you go for a medical and psychiatric evaluation, I was concerned about the medical eval, but my friends were apparently more concerned with my psych eval, I don't know how good these friends are when I think about it. Once I found out that I passed all of these, we were sent the profile of a couple, on paper they seemed great, so our profile was passed along to them. Then we met.

I can't even begin to tell you how awkward the meeting was. It was like a blind date and job interview at the same time. Have to figure out in an hour all the nitty gritty of what we both expect during this journey, as well as legal stuff, and then of course are we even going to get along. Fortunately, we seemed to get along swimmingly. After the formal meeting we went to a coffee shop and talked about our family lives, careers, and other bullshit fill in the blank stuff.

Before chronicling any of this I wanted to make sure it was OK with the parents first, but I am going to give them pseudonyms, something cool like spy names like Boris and Sebastian, but maybe that's just pretentious, but we'll go with musical names since that's more true to my form,  they will be referred to as Kander & Ebb (totally a musical theater geeky reference).

A few last things, this child will not be genetically mine or John's. They will be using an egg donor and one of their sperm will be used to fertilize. I'm just the oven, the vessel to grow the babe. I've been asked how am I going to be able to hand over the baby? That's easy, it's not my baby, again, I'm the vessel, the oven only. I'm excited to go through pregnancy again, and help out a family that can't conceive on their own.


OK back to convalescing, I have strep throat and Brooks has an ear and throat infection. I'll keep ya'll posted on details.







9 comments:

  1. Can we name them Paco and Hernandez instead?

    ReplyDelete
  2. you are an incredible woman. Can't wait to hear about your journey!

    ReplyDelete
  3. no, MODG musical theater references are more appropriate for everyone

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm SURE there is a musical somewhere featuring a mexican gay couple

    ReplyDelete
  5. What an amazing gift! I can't wait to read along!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hmm this is Interesting...i am currently considering becoming a surrogate myself. Where did you get information about becoming one? Im looking at The Surrogacy Source right now...

    ReplyDelete
  7. I've been considering being a surrogate for a while now. Can't wait to follow your story :) What a strong mama you are!

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is awesome and I can't wait to read your story. Thanks MODG for the link.

    ReplyDelete
  9. you guys are a.maz.ing. in the back of my mind, i've always been interested in doing something like this. there are few gifts you can give a person that are as great or greater than this (left kidney = as great). i look forward to reading the story!

    ReplyDelete