Surrogacy pains

Did I tell you that i believed my parents and sister (yes the ones in all the photos, the grandparents who visit x3 per week and the sister who lives 800KMS away and has already visited x3 and planning her fourth visit) would never accept our choice to do surrogacy, or never accept a grandchild/niece & nephew from an egg donor?

That I agonised and tormented myself for months, keeping secrets, not telling them knowing the grief and disapproval I would receive. I made myself sick with the anxiety and worry, I grieved over the potential arguments’ and loss of family support- I was wrong

Did I ever tell you i thought we were cursed? That i was being punished by our miscarriages, dead sperm and negative results, failed cycles. That there was some cosmic plan which said CC& John will never be parents.  - I was wrong

Did I ever tell you that we didn’t tell anyone till 16 weeks because I was convinced that we would lose these babies as well – I was wrong

Did I ever tell you that I thought the curse continued when at 24 weeks I truly believed that we had a dwarf with no legs and a baby with a giant head ( not based on any actual evidence) just my own paranoia, causing Dr. Shivani a huge amount of grief - I was wrong

Did I ever tell you that I didn’t believe that we would actually ever hold our babies in our arms, or of the Gods were kind to me they would leave me with one baby ( when I talked to John,  always said baby, not babies, the basis of many arguments) – I was wrong

Did I ever tell you that when we got the phone call letting us know our surrogate was in labour, I spent the time thinking about what would go wrong – Nothing went wrong.

These are our surrogacy pains. They are longer, more drawn out than any birthing process. They rob us of the joy and wonder of being pregnant. We are constantly reminded that getting pregnant is hard, staying pregnant miraculous; that this process is not fair, just or kind. Some of this is of our own making; some of this is about surviving the process.  Unlike any other pregnancy, our support comes from strangers from around the world. 

When you have your baby, everything becomes easier (even surviving shingles and being in quarantine in Delhi and not being able to see your babies).  The last bit of madness is getting home, with every hic cup being magnified as something that might stop us from going home - It doesn't

But, and here it the big But, when you have your babies and when you finally are going home, everything else fades (it doesn’t disappear, the stains are always there, on your soul). The miscarriages, the missed attempts, the failed attempts, the exotic flus and whooping coughs, the dead sperm, paying for surrogates & egg donor we didn’t use, the grief of using an egg donor, the hurt, the sorrow, the anxiety, the fights, the worry, the bureaucracy – these are our birthing pains.

Like all birthing pains, no-one’s is the same as anyone elses and you can’t compare journeys, but  there are consistent themes that run through our stories. Anyone who thinks surrogacy is the easy option, think again and read some of these blogs from the beginning.

We, who do surrogacy are a brave, resilient tribe of people, we believe that miracles happen and we are privileged to be part of a community who gets to see these miracles being born every week. What i know to be true is that in one of those weeks, the baby being born will be yours.