Meeting the IPs

Yesterday was the big day. I was okay until we started getting closer to the restaurant and then my nerves started to get the best of me. I was thinking to myself that I didn’t know what to say to these people. Did I have all the right questions? Was I ready to answer all of their questions? What if our personalities don’t click? You get the idea.

As soon as we turned the corner to the table in the restaurant I was greeted with warm, friendly faces. I instantly felt better. I was still a tad nervous though. From the moment we sat down the conversation flowed. They are very personable and sweet. I talked to IM the majority of the dinner. I could tell she had been preparing for our meeting. She had lots of questions, understandably. They were very open to my questions as well. It wasn’t all business though. We had some laughs and shared stories about our kids. I could tell that they are great parents. Their love for their children is easy to see. Overall it seemed like we shared a lot of the same beliefs and expectations for the pregnancy. I really felt like this could be the perfect match. My questions was, did they feel the same way?

Before the meeting C asked me to call her and let her know how it went. She called me before I had a chance to call her. I love her enthusiasm for what she does. :-D She told me IF had left her a message saying the meeting was wonderful. That sounded promising! She asked me how I thought it went. I told her that I really liked them and could see myself going forward with them, but I did have one thing I needed to be clear on before we proceeded. I did not approach the subject of selective reduction in our meeting. That is a big detail to leave out and I needed to be sure we were on the same page with that. She agreed we needed to discuss that before we moved forward. She let me go so she could speak to IF and see how they felt about the meeting and the reduction issue. An hour or so later she calls me back to say that they would not want to selectively reduce(Yay!) AND they liked me and want me to be their surrogate! I was thrilled to hear this! I told C I would be honored to do this for them. I am looking forward to getting to know them better and be able to share in this journey with them.

C gave me the run down of what we need to do next. She is going to call and get me an appointment for my psych test. Then it will be on to the fertility specialist. I’m not sure what happens after that. She did say things are going to start moving quickly from here. I should have my first appointment within the week. I will do my best to post updates. Stay tuned! :-)

Written 3/27/09

I had my meeting with the surrogacy attorney on Tuesday. Overall I think it went really well. I can be kind of shy when meeting new people but I felt instantly at ease with C. She was very nice and down to Earth. I never felt like I was being interviewed. It felt more like chit-chatting with a girlfriend. Too bad I can’t have her as my lawyer too!

Did I mention we brought our kids to the meeting? C’s daughter is adorable! I was hoping her and M would play together. They barely said two words to each other the whole time but they did both agree that the are new best friends. Lol. Kids are so funny. D, on the other hand, was a wild child. Those of you who know her would not be surprised. I normally don’t let my kids run around in restaurants but it was a kid friendly place and there was hardly anyone there. D took the opportunity to run amuck. She was climbing everything and even ran in the kitchen at one point. I was embarrassed but everyone else thought it was hilarious. It’s a wonder C and I were able to talk at all. Luckily C was understanding.

We did manage to go over some important issues. C asked me what my expectations were of the expected parents, how involved I want them to be and what type of contact would I like to have after the baby is born. We touched on the subject of selective reduction and termination. We discussed my insurance issues again. We are both still a bit unclear how to handle that. She said she is going to let the IPs know where we stand on that and see how they feel. I really want to be upfront about everything. We also talked about how my family feels about me doing this. She was happy to hear I have their full support.

C wanted to know if I was prepared to answer questions from strangers. I have thought about this a lot. People are going to see me PG and assume it is my baby. I have no problem telling people I am a surrogate, a fact that I am very proud of. I realize that some of the reactions may not be as positive as others. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I am not easily offended and I know in my heart I am doing a good thing.

C told me a little more about the couple she wants me to meet. She seems to think we will hit it off great. I hope so! She asked if it would be okay to have IM(intended mother) call me to set up our meeting. Of course! I couldn’t wait to talk to her!

I received a call from IM yesterday while I was away at a birthday party. I was disappointed that I missed her call. I called her back and got her machine so I left her a message. It really was not that long from the time I left the message to the time she called me back but it seemed like an eternity. I had a flurry of mixed emotions, excitement and nervousness. I tend to have one of two reactions when I am nervous, I can clam up or I will become a chatter box. When IM called back she got the chatty Diana. Lol. Hopefully I didn’t scare her off. She sounded very sweet. Unfortunately I did not get to talk to her long. Her battery on her phone was dying and she was afraid it would hang up on me in the middle of our conversation. She had to call me back but we did get our meeting set up for Sunday afternoon!

Moving on?

Still no word from the agency. I have not completely given up on them but did decide to start looking into other options. I was given the name of a local surrogacy lawyer by another hopeful surrogate. I was hesitant to contact her at first but finally took a leap of faith and emailed her. She called me back a few days later. She asked me some basic questions and then sent me some forms to fill out. I had some questions about my insurance that she was able to help me sort through. Turns out I might be covered for the surrogacy after all! I am still waiting on the final answer on that but so far we can’t find anything that specifically states that the insurance company will not cover my pregnancy if I were acting as a surrogate. My case is currently being reviewed by the company. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one! I have to be honest, I am a little disappointed that the agency did not look into the issue further since that was suppose to be the hold up all along. :-/

After several phone conversations with the lawyer(we will call her C) we decided to go forward with meeting some of her clients. I guess I should add that she is working for the IPs. I will still have to retain my own lawyer before we finalize the contract. C and I will be meeting this week for lunch. It’s a formality and I completely understand why. Of course she would want to meet me before sending me out to meet her clients. Makes sense. :-) I am looking forward to meeting her! I have really enjoyed talking to her on the phone over the past couple of weeks. It will be nice to meet face to face finally. She is bringing her little ones along too. They are M and D’s ages. The plan is to let the kids play while we chat. That’s the plan anyway. You know how unpredictable these little monkeys can be. ;-) Then if this meeting goes well I will hopefully be meeting with the potential IPs next weekend. C has told me a little about them and it appears we already have a lot in common. The best part is that they are close by!

Even if this doesn’t work out with this particular couple (fingers crossed it does!) I am excited to feel like I am finally moving forward with this.

Monthly email update

It's been close to a month since my last contact with the agency. I sent K a message asking her how things were going. I admitted to her that I was becoming a little discouraged. I am seeing all these surrogates moving forward rather quickly and I am still here at a stand still. I know you can't rush finding the perfect match. I am trying to keep that in mind. I am just ready to start moving forward with this. It's like making the decision to try to conceive. The second you make up your mind to have that baby you want to skip the rest and just be able to hold that baby in your arms. Then there is all this waiting. There is the waiting to get PG. You wait to ovulate each month, wait to test, wait for that first doctor's appointment to confirm the PG, wait to see if the baby is healthy and find out the sex, and let's not forget the 10 long months of waiting to meet this little person you created. That's a lot of waiting! Through it all you looking forward to that finish line. My journey will take a completely different path but there will still be lots of waiting involved. I will still be sharing in a lot of the anticipation but from a different point of view. I would just be happy to start the race at this point. ;-)

I want to be able to see this dream through and I am willing to wait as long as it takes. I know God has the right couple in mind for me. It is important to me to find that perfect match. After reading some of the message boards and sorting through the classified ads I found there to be quite a few questionable characters out there. It's kind of scary really. I want my IPs to feel 100% at ease with me. I want them to trust in me to take the best possible care of their baby and myself throughout the pregnancy. I not only want to carry their baby but I also want to be their friend. I do want them to be as involved as possible in every aspect of the pregnancy. That means I have to be able to trust them as well.

I am getting distracted. Back to the email. Here is the response I received from K:

Diana,
Actually, things are just beginning to pick up and in fact, we are seeing a client today. Hardly anyone signs up on the spot, but, that means they may in a few days or so. I will keep you posted on how things are.

We have signed a few new clients, but, they all picked surrogates with insurance. I think lowering your fee to bring their expense to an equal place will help. You and several others have done that as well.

Don’t get discouraged. Hang in there, and, I always push you a little because I think you will be easy to work with and great for couples.

Please feel free to check with me anytime.

K

Sorry it has taken me so long to update. I did hear back from K shortly after I sent the email, just did not have a chance to write until now. K is always great about getting back to me right away. Did I mention before how much I like her? I feel like I am in good hands with the agency and she is one of the reasons why.

Back to the update. K said she was surprised that I had not been matched yet. She said I “seem to be a very good surrogate.” She explained that it probably has a lot to do with the economy. All the agencies are being affected right now. Surrogacy is expensive enough as it is and with the couple needing to take out a separate insurance policy on me it is not helping my chances. My insurance company will not cover expenses related to surrogacy so the IPs (Intended Parents) will have to take out a policy for me. Because of the added costs many of the IPs are holding out for surrogates with insurance coverage. I hate that it all comes down to money. I don’t think anyone should have to pay to have a child but for some it’s the only way.

After many emails back and forth I have decided to lower my costs to the couple to help offset the additional costs of insurance. As I told K, I am not doing this for the money. She was sweet and wanted to make sure I was properly compensated. Because of the issue with the insurance and the fact that I am a first time surrogate I am already getting paid a lot less than most surrogates. She did not want to see me go any lower. I told her I was fine with it and was happy to help. She went ahead and updated my profile to reflect the new terms. We shall see what happens from here. This may be a longer wait than I thought.

This blog is getting pretty boring huh? I wish I had an update. I've got nothing!

I thought for sure I would hear something by now. I have been asking other surrogates how long it took them to get matched and most of them were within a month. Some within days! Really?? So what's the hold up over here? If I don't hear something soon I am going to start to develop a complex! Lol.

I emailed the director again this morning. Hopefully I will hear something back soon. I will update when I do. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Email response

Here were are at the start of a new year.

Now that the holidays have come and gone and life is settling back into a somewhat normal routine, my mind is set on making this surrogacy happen. I am as anxious as ever to get started. I am giddy at the thought that this could be the year I get to make someone's dream come true!

I was debating on whether or not to call the agency since it had been awhile since I have heard anything. With some encouragement from the great women on the surrogacy support boards I decided I will call on Monday. While emailing another hopeful surrogate last night I decided that I couldn't wait until Monday. I needed to hear something NOW. Remember what I said, I am not a patient person! Lol. So I email the agency late last night. I was so excited to see a response from the director first thing this morning! Here is what she wrote:

Diana,

You are on the database. We have the most surrogates we have had in a very long time, so it may take a little while. We were very slow during November and December and did not add a lot of new clients. We have, however, this last week, started really picking back up. So, I don’t think it will take that long. A good deal of the surrogates on the database currently will not give the couple the option to terminate, so I think that helps to match you sooner a lot. I have two clients coming in next week and I think you are a good match for one who is from Arizona. They are ready to go now. Check with me after Wednesday to see how it goes. I also have two clients waiting to be matched. One only wants a Georgia surrogate, the other one won’t be back until the end of this month and will pick someone then.

Thanks much for checking,
K

To clarify about the "termination" issue K mentioned, I gave the couple the option to terminate if there were something wrong with the baby. While this is something I could never do myself I felt like this was their baby and their decision. It is a decision I know would be very difficult for all parties involved but I would support whatever they decide and do my best to help them through their difficult time. I did not, however, agree to selective reduction.

To increase the chances of pregnancy the doctor will implant 2 or more fertilized eggs. It is rare that they all take, but possible. They can implant 6 and all 6 of them will take! There are many factors involved. I won't bore with all the details. I just want those that may not be familiar with the process to have a general idea of how it works so you can know where I am coming from. Selective reduction means that the couple has the ability to terminate one or more of the embryos to achieve the number of babies (or simply, baby) they desire. I cannot see terminating a perfectly healthy pregnancy. At least give them a fighting chance is my take on it. As just so you know, they will not be implanting 6 embryos! Lol.

It may sound like I am contradicting myself. You may be saying, well then why terminate for health reasons? Why not give the baby that's there a fighting chance? Believe me, I would! But the way I see it, this couple has obviously been through a lot of heartache already if they are having to turn to surrogacy. I can't imagine that this would be an easy decision for them. Everyone has their breaking point though. If they are told their baby had little chance of survival outside the womb and they felt like they couldn't handle it emotionally to have this child die in their arms then why put them through that? God forbid anything like this actually happen, but if it did I feel like the couple should have the option to decide what is best for them and their family.

I hope that makes sense and I apologize if this upsets anyone. I had some difficult decisions to make when i decided to go through with the surrogacy. This certainly was not an easy decision to have to make.

If I hear anything later this week I will be sure to update. Keep the prayers going and the fingers crossed!