There I was, waddling around Old Navy, 40.5 weeks pregnant for what very well may have been the last time. I was solo, my three girls with my Mother-in-law in East Texas while hubby and I stayed behind in case I went into labor (no pressure there, kiddo). As I strolled past the baby section to check out the skinny jeans for my 3-year-old, I tried not to let my hormones get the best of me. There was no need for adorable onesies or footed pajamas. This sweet boy, growing in my belly, belonged to someone else.
That's right. I spent the bulk of 2016 pregnant as a gestational carrier, or surrogate. Willingly, I chose to go through the journey that is pregnancy only to leave the hospital with the full boobs, floppy tummy and wicked-crazy hormones but without the baby.
I had talked about being a surrogate for years before I actually had the courage to submit an application to a reputable agency. I discussed it with my husband early on in my second pregnancy, when I realized that I was one of the fortunate women who handles pregnancy well.
I always thought I wanted five kids. Two boys, three girls. Seemed like the perfect brood. And then I had three kids. Three girls, to be exact. In four years. My youngest two are 17 months to the day apart. Three girls that close together... Well, it isn't for the faint of heart. My husband was happy with one kid. He was happy with two kids. When we (unexpectedly) hit kid (and girl!) number three, he was done. While I lived for several uncertain years in the land of "maybe I'd like another," my husband stayed resolute in his belief that our family was complete and told me if I wanted to be pregnant again, I should be a surrogate. So, ladies and gents, here we are...
Let me stop here and clarify the difference between a traditional surrogate and a gestational carrier. Several times throughout my journey people asked me if I was the biological mother of the child in utero. A traditional surrogate would, in fact, be the biological mother of the child. Traditional surrogacy occurs when a woman becomes pregnant via artificial insemination with the sperm of the intended father or other donor. A gestational carrier, as I was, becomes pregnant via IVF. In this case, the egg and sperm meet in the lab to form an embryo, which is the transferred into the gestational carrier at the fertility clinic.
The road to delivery of the sweet little dude I gave birth to in December 2016 was incredibly long and bumpy. In fact, if I were to give a potential surrogate advice on starting her journey, it would be this: Be patient. The process is long. Before you are able to be put on a roster and matched with potential IPs (intended parents), you have to show the agency that you are a stable, reliable person with a clean bill of health. I had to gather my health records going back seven years. My husband and I both had to submit to background and credit checks. I had to drive to Dallas to undergo a 1.5 hour psych evaluation. Lastly, we had to have an agency representative come to our home and meet our children, just to be sure (You are required to be raising at least one child of your own in order to qualify to be a surrogate)... Well, to be sure that I lived in a safe environment in which to be pregnant for nine months with someone else's child. This process took about six months.
Once I was approved medically and ethically to be a surrogate, I was placed on a roster where IPs got to read over my profile and determine if we were a good match. It's tricky, the matching process. As I was filling out my profile, I found myself pondering questions I never thought I would have to. For example, under what conditions would I terminate a pregnancy? This was, luckily, not something I ever had to ruminate seriously during my own pregnancies. But what about when the child in question isn't mine? If the child is sick, perhaps terminally so, would I be okay with terminating if the IPs wanted to? And what about multiples? Most fertility clinics transfer two embryos to increase the chances of at least one little guy sticking around and simultaneously increasing the chances of twins. But what if both stuck and one egg split- triplets! If the IPs really only wanted two babies, would I terminate? What about life insurance? If the IPs are interested in taking out a life insurance plan for me and the baby, and then we both die at some point during the pregnancy, how does the money get divided up? See. Tricky. And then there is the delivery. Would they be okay with an epidural? I'd had two previous c sections, would they just expect me to have a third? Or would they be okay if I wanted to have a trial of labor? I also preferred midwife care, an issue I was passionate about. I prefer midwives who operate out of a hospital, but midwives all the same. Would IPs be okay with my preferred care provider?
Some of these questions were answered in the profiles I was given to review. Some I knew the answer to right away- no, I wouldn't terminate if you had three healthy babies but only wanted two. That's the risk in transferring two embryos. Yes, I would be okay terminating if the child was incompatible with life. But what about our relationship during the pregnancy? How much contact did I want? And how about afterward? How much contact then?
The woman whose child I gave birth two in December was actually my second match. My first match fell apart after a long, drawn-out affair. We matched. I went through extensive testing in Colorado to make sure my body was ready for a surrogate pregnancy. I even underwent a mock cycle, in which I took medications each month to prepare my body for an artificial pregnancy- a trial run before we actually transferred embryos. It was costly for them, and taxing on me. But the clinic was happy at every step, my body responding appropriately to each patch and pill. Then it came time to draw up a contract and everything spiraled into madness. They claimed I never told them I preferred midwives, and they adamantly desired an OB-GYN. I tried explaining why I loved my care providers and how comfortable they made my pregnancies. They responded with their concerns, chiefly that midwife care was not the level of care they expected for their child or children, and they called off the match. There were tears, lots of them, and I seriously doubted whether or not I could go through another match like that.
The woman I carried for ended up being nothing like the IPs with whom I initially matched. She was a wonderful, bitty thing who was advised by doctors not to get pregnant for health reasons. She and her ex-husband (yes, ex!) already had a four-year-old son for whom they both wanted a sibling. She is Chinese, and splits her time between Seattle and China. For me, this meant I wouldn't see her much. In fact, I had one Skype interview with her before agreeing to carry. I met her at the Fertility Clinic in San Diego when we transferred two embryos and then didn't see her again until the 20-week ultrasound during which she found out she was having another sweet boy. The next time I saw her was at 42 weeks when I was in the hospital in labor. We texted and emailed a lot during the pregnancy, but she trusted me (and the legally-binding contract I had signed) to make my own decisions regarding the pregnancy. While the contract stipulated many cans and can'ts (I was only allowed the caffeine equivalent of two cans of soda per day; no soft cheeses; no alcohol, no traveling more than 125 miles from my home without prior consent), she still bravely put a lot of trust in me! Looking back at my first match, I feel confident that it fell apart for a reason.
Once the contract was in place, the fun really began. And by fun, I mean the pain and torture that is fertility drugs. To all my friends that had to undergo fertility treatments, you are incredible. They are torturous. I don't know if I would have had three kiddos if I'd had to go through all those shots each and every time... I found the whole process of preparing my body for an artificial pregnancy interesting, though, once I figured out how mentally manage the physical pain. I started with Lupron, a drug that stopped my ovulation. For about two weeks, my husband gave me a shot of Lupron every day to stop my body from releasing any of its own eggs. About a week before transfer, I started on Estrogen patches and pills. This is what a woman's body produces to prepare to sustain a pregnancy. Since the Lupron stopped my body from releasing an egg, I had to be given artificial estrogen to prepare my body. After transfer, and then every day until I reached the 12th week of pregnancy, I had to endure progesterone shots, to help my body sustain a pregnancy it may not have otherwise wanted to. If you've never taken progesterone, rest assured, you are missing nothing. Progesterone shots are given in oil form and administered in your rear end. They are slow to be injected. After about week six, I had welts the size of baseballs in a less-than-ideal place (the shots go in at about hip level, making wearing jeans difficult). By week 10, I would literally start crying as I prepped the shot, and my husband repeatedly asked if I could give it to myself because he hated inflicting the pain (although on the days I was a moody nightmare I'm sure it gave him some sort of satisfaction, if only for a moment!). And yes, as if the physical pain of these shots isn't enough, they give you mood swings, as well.
But I was one of the lucky ones. We transferred two embryos and one stuck immediately. Oftentimes surrogates go through all of this (or women trying to get pregnant with their own babies) and then the embryos don't take. Once I survived 12 weeks of fertility drugs, it was smooth sailing. My pregnancy with sweet surrobabe was incredibly uneventful.
When friends and strangers alike found out I was a surrogate, they often asked how I was going to be able to give a baby away after bonding with it for nine months. As I type, I'm four weeks postpartum, and I feel that I am finally able to accurately and fully answer this question.
Nothing about this pregnancy was similar to the pregnancies I had with my girls, at least from an emotional standpoint. With each of my sweet girls, I grew excited from day one. I would talk to my belly and dream of what each baby would look like. I'd make lists of names in notebooks. I'd stroll through the baby section at Target for hours, delicately examining each baby outfit and gadget. I'd pack and unpack and repack my hospital bag. And I knew, each time, that the end of the pregnancy would be the beginning of the rest of my life as a mother of one, then two and finally three. While the end of each pregnancy was always a bit bittersweet, I knew each time it was really the beginning of the rest of my life.
But this time I knew. I knew that little boy wasn't mine. From the very first flutter, first kick, first hiccup. As cool as it was, I knew. There was no pausing in the baby section to pick out something adorable. No stocking up on diapers or onesies. There were no lists of names my husband would ultimately veto. And I was okay with that. As I would tell everyone, if my husband and I wanted another baby, well, there was a certain way we would go about making that baby. Nothing about making this baby was anything like making my own babies. It was different from the start. My agency caseworker, during one of our early conversations, compared being a surrogate to watching a close friend go through pregnancy, and I find this a decent comparison. You are excited for her, each step of the way. But it isn't the same excitement you experience when you yourself are pregnant. There is a certain disconnect, no matter how close the friend. And so it is with surrogacy. An exciting, wonderful time that you are a part of and yet disconnected from.
Even as I approached delivery, I didn't have, not even for a second, any sadness or disappointment that there wasn't a baby at the end of this rainbow. I have three wonderful, incredible, healthy, happy little girls. And that's enough. While I'll always being a bit melancholy that I'll never again need to shop in the baby section, that I'll never again need to debate which brand of diapers to buy, that I'll never again need a bag the size of Texas to haul around all the paraphernalia that babies require, I know we are moving into the next phase of parenting. So I went to the hospital ready to give birth to a little boy who had a family ready and waiting for him.
My girls got to meet the baby before he left for Seattle with his mom, and even they were okay with letting him go. We talked from the very beginning about this little boy belonging to someone else. While my oldest is still sad each and every day that she won't have a brother, we reminded her over and over again that the little boy in my belly wasn't ours. She still begs my husband now and again for a brother, but he just reminds her that she would probably wind up with another sister, and I'm pretty sure she feels that she's had enough of those.
Recovery for me has actually been pretty good. I wound up with another c section, which was the most scarring part (literally and figuratively) of the whole experience. I decided, for a number of reasons, to let my milk dry up rather than try to pump for any length of time, and that was the worst. I nursed all three of my girls, so I never had to deal with that before. It was incredibly painful for about 10 days after delivery. My c section scar is healing nicely, likely because my body knows exactly what to do. And I haven't had too many hormonal issues. Recovery from child birth is significantly easier when there isn't actually a child to care for because you can focus on yourself. Aside from the baby weight, which, after four babies, is more of a permanent battle scare than a passing imperfection, I'm doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.
To those of you wondering how money plays into all this... Yes, I was compensated. I don't tell people I was paid to be a surrogate because, quite frankly, I wasn't. The money I received was for the use of my body, time and so on. We were fortunate enough to be able to use my insurance for my prenatal care and baby's delivery because there was no surrogacy exclusion in the policy. Had we been unable to, my IPs would have been expected to provide a policy for me for the duration of my pregnancy. I was given a stipend each month to cover the cost of prenatal vitamins, gas to and from midwife appointments and any other small, miscellaneous items relating to baby boy. The IPs paid 100 percent of any out-of-pocket medical costs pertaining to baby, including portion of my insurance copay. I received an allowance to pay for maternity clothes. I received an extra amount for the pain and inconvenience of a c section. Let me be honest- I could have made more money had I gone and gotten a regular 9-to-5 job. But I didn't choose to be a surrogate for the money. I chose to be a surrogate because I'm the crazy one who likes to be pregnant. Being compensated for it was just a bonus, as was being able to be home with my sweet girls in the process.
Would I do it again? Let's just say this... I'm not saying no. So if you know anyone looking for an experienced surrogate who is ready to have a baby in 2018, well...
