What to tell the children?

John and i have been talking about this for a long time, even before Max & Lily were born. It is one of the questions that we are continually asked  " what will you tell the children?"

Right now, we have a few  children's books on surrogacy and have conversations on  special days and whenever it is appropriate.

I have been very much influenced by the writing of Suzanne Midford, who wrote and presented at the Surrogacy Australia conference:   "Disclosure: How, why and when to tell your child about their origins?

We have started two books each for Max and Lily. In my previous life i did lots of life story books for chidren and teenagers in care and i don't believe that any commercial book will fit our family, so we will go for the personal touch.

Each  of our children will have three versions of their story, each will have the same starting  verse, what we tell them on birthdays, Christmas and whenever we can:

Mummy and Daddy desperately wanted you, but Mummy's tummy was broken.

Daddy said we would pray to God to find a way and we found Dr. Shivani. We had lots of other help, from Grandma  andPapou, Avo' &Avo,Rosie, Helen, Kathy, Robin, Pammy and Meg .

We had special help from two wonderful women from India, who Dr. Shivani found for us,neither who wanted babies, each helping us have you in a special way.

You grew in our hearts, not in Mummy's body. We are so lucky to have you.

The most important thing for John and i, is that this is not a story of loss, but one of hope, of blessings,of dreams come true, of miracles. of help,of generosity.  of a Mummy and a Daddy who went to the ends of the world to make their hopes and dreams come true and have our own special, much wanted, very much loved children.

This is a story of hope and help from two special women in India, each, who didn't want to have a baby and of our special Doctor,  Dr. Shivani, who brought all the bits together to help us have our family. This is a story of the prayers, hopes and help we received from our on line community, secrets kept and disclosed from our family  and friends.


Our three books are:

• their baby/ children's book - a simple version with small amount of text, including photos  of our surrogate helping Mummy& Daddy, Dr. Shivani & the hospital and lots of photos of Max & Lily with their family & friends.
• The second is more detailed, will have the profile of our egg donor, along with copies of scans, reports etc from SCI along with tickets, stubs etc etc/ We are also including stories from close family &friends and Godparents, about their thoughts on surrogacy, egg donation our pregnancy and birth. Our babies were not born in isolation, but as part of our broader community and their stories should reflect this.
• a book made from our blog. The latter two will be for when they are much older.

The research on this is very clear, the more this is normalised and supported within our family & community, the more you are open with your children, the less likely that there will be issues later on.

So our children will know that they are one of many families who came together this way. Through hopes, dreams, through savings ( i hate home brand) and loans, (through some serious heart ache and despair, but that is for much, much later), through longing and prayer. Most importantly for us, the start, the begining of this story came through India, in a place called New Delhi and a part of India will always be a part of all of us.

It is important that our children know this and that they are not alone. Out comes the scrap booking tools and paper and a prayer that this is true.