50 First Dates

It's been an interesting few weeks since I last checked in. As of my last post, the agency that I'm working with sent my profile off to the first set of potential parents, and we all sat back with bated breath and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Spring break came and went, and the agency called to say that all of my medical records had arrived, and everything looked good. In my usual, impatient style, I spent a great amount of time combing through the threads on various surrogacy forums. I tried my best to not think about what the potential parents could be considering - I mean, it's a Skype call, not a marriage proposal! But alas, my impatience won out once again, and I leisurely perused the classified ads of the aforementioned forums.

I find them intriguing, both from the standpoint of a potential stork, as well as wondering what potential parents must think of some of these ads that other storks post. I had visited these ads many times, and always thought that if there was an ad from a set of parents that really jumped up and grabbed me, that I would go ahead and send them a reply. That never actually happened, but it made me wonder if there were some awesome parents out there, hovering over the ads everyday, thinking "If there was an ad from a stork that really jumped up and grabbed me, I would totally send them a reply." And so it was; a relatively fleeting thought that manifested itself into an ad placed on one of those forums. An ad that emphasized that I was looking for parents to share the adventure and excitement of the journey with.

I'm not sure exactly what I expected, but the responses were numerous, and varied in their approach. I heard from several couples at various stages of their surrogacy journey, from just finding out that they would need to use a gestational carrier to having previously used a carrier and looking for a carrier to bring a sibling into the family. Interestingly enough, all of those emails came from intended mothers. I also received several from agencies trying to recruit me, but I simply deleted those. I love the agency I'm working with and have no desire to switch. Then there were the weird ones: A single middle-eastern man that wanted to have a child to aid him in securing a wife, and offered "double what the agency will pay" while writing to me in a tone that indicated that he believed that I was a commodity to be purchased for this period of incubation. There was also an intended father that emailed to ask a host of standard questions, along with a thorough list of questions probing every facet of my religious affiliation and activity level, which seemed a little too assertive for the first interaction. Oh, and I can't forget about the intended mother that asked me about my stance on termination, and when she wasn't happy with my response, sent me a reply stressing that my opinion was wrong and I needed to adopt hers. When I failed to reply, she emailed again a week later with an additional attempt to persuade me into her opinion. I politely responded to her, noting that it seemed that we were not on the same page with that issue, and that I had emphasized in the ad my desire for a strong relationship with the parents, which it didn't seem like we were developing, so I would not likely be her best option for a carrier. To my surprise, she responded again to say that, like the previous point, on this, too, I was wrong. That there is nothing in a surrogacy contract that requires parents to have a relationship with their surrogate, and rarely do surrogates get any contact after the birth of the child. Me choosing not to respond was the only way to stop that madness. But in the midst of the myriad of emails, there were a handful of gems.

There were emails from 5 different intended mothers that hit right on the bullseye. These women were exactly what I had envisioned: watching the ads, hoping for a stork to place an ad that really grabbed them, and looking for someone that they could really develop a relationship with throughout the process. We've spent the past couple of weeks emailing back and forth. Three of them live in the same state that I do, one is a plane trip away, and one is abroad. Over the course of the email conversations, the more finite details of each of our goals and wishlist items have come out, which has allowed me to encourage three of them on to finding a slightly better stork for their wishlists, and left me with two sets of parents that I know that I would love to work with. In a matter of a couple of weeks, I went from impatiently waiting for one set of parents to respond to having more parents than I have womb space for.

In the meantime, the agency called to say that they have a different set of parents that they think would be a good match, and sent me a profile to look over; no mention of the first set of parents, but that's probably a good thing at this point. The agency director asked if I would have a phone meeting with them later in the week, to which I agreed and figured that it would help me to make some final decisions on which set of parents to work with. So at the end of the week, we had a phone meeting that went really well, and these potential parents want to set up a face-to-face meeting in the near future. Just to recap, after what has felt like 50 first (email/phone) dates, I am now looking at a set of potential parents that I've had great casual email communication with that live abroad (parents A), a set of parents that I have only met through the agency, but have talked to and really like their personalities (parents B), and a set of potential parents that I've had very in-depth bonding email communications with that live several states away (parents C). I have no idea which way I'm leaning at this point. At any given moment, I oscillate from one to the next for one specific reason or another. All 3 sets of parents would be amazing to work with, and I sincerely wish that I could help all of them. As of today, I'm not sure which direction this will go in, but I'm sure that by the next time I sit down to blog, a decision will have be made.