fertile or futile?

a gestational surrogacy story

A little over a year ago, I spent an entire afternoon filling out an application that rivaled the type of paperwork you tackle when getting a mortgage. I wasn’t applying for a job, or to get a loan, or anything like that, I was applying to rent out my uterus.

An acquaintance of mine had recently delivered twins as a gestational surrogate to a couple in NYC, and I was inspired and moved by her journey. I had three children of my own, the youngest being ten, and was fairly certain that, barring any accidents, I was done having children of my own. But my pregnancies were extremely easy, no morning sickness and very simple deliveries, so I began entertaining the idea of becoming a gestational surrogate myself.

I began reading everything about it that I could get my eyes on. I read countless surrogacy stories, I began following surrogacy blogs on Tumblr and googling everything that I could think of. I knew that she had used a surrogacy agency, so I went to their website to see what the first step would be. The initial application was understandably thorough, asking everything from my relationship status to my medical history (including extensive details about each of my three previous pregnancies and medical releases so they could obtain my records from each of the three delivering doctors) to my reasons for becoming a surrogate. After I filled it out, I took a deep breath and hit submit.

It wasn’t even a full 24 hours later that I got an email from an agency coordinator, letting me know that I had passed the initial screening and they wanted to move forward. I was excited and apprehensive about the process, but my desire to see if it would be possible to help make a family overshadowed any doubts that I had.

There were a couple of reasons why I wasn’t an ideal candidate, starting with the fact that I wasn’t in a serious relationship at the time. I had been divorced for almost a decade and though my ex-husband and I have an incredibly amicable relationship, I didn’t have a boyfriend or anyone like that. I know that the agency was initially concerned about that, but I wasn’t worried about it at all and when I explained that I didn’t need a traditional “support person”, they accepted that. When I told my friends and family about what I was planning on doing, the support I received from nearly everyone was absolutely overwhelming. I knew I would never feel alone at any point in the process. Another reason why I wasn’t an ideal candidate is because I’m overweight. Not obese by any stretch of the imagination, I’m a size 12-14. But the agency had BMI limits, and I was at the very top. But I was otherwise very healthy, reproductively speaking, and I reasoned that overweight women get pregnant all the time. It obviously wasn’t a reason for me to be rejected as a candidate, so I didn’t worry about it.

I went to my OB/GYN for a Well-Woman exam and general labwork, and they sent the results to the agency and the insurance company that would be covering the pregnancy. I completed a three-hour phone interview with a social worker from the agency, wherein we discussed pretty much every aspect of my life and my motivations for becoming a gestational surrogate, and we also discussed my fee and every other expense that would be covered by the Intended Parents. She also wanted to make sure that I would be okay with the fact that the Intended Parents may want to do selective reduction in the case of multiple embryos, and that I would not protest if something went wrong and the parents decided to terminate the pregnancy. It was my body, but ultimately not my decision.

I decided to broach the subject of surrogacy with my children, since things were really starting to move forward. I had a little bit of apprehension about the conversation, but my kids weren’t babies, and were all fairly intelligent, so I was confident that the conversation would go well. I had discussed it in a very general way when I first considered starting the process, just to sort of gauge their reactions, so I knew that they would be open to it, as kids often are in a way that adults sometimes find difficult. I explained the basic physiology and my reasons for doing it, and they were enthusiastically supportive. I reiterated that the baby would not be ours in any way; we would not be taking a baby home. My oldest daughter simplified it down for her ten-year-old sister, “It’s someone else’s bun in Mom’s oven.”

When I told my mother about it, she took it better than I expected. She was slightly concerned about me becoming emotionally attached, but I assured her that I had thought all of this through and was well aware of all aspects. I didn’t anticipate having any kind of emotional issues when it came time to deliver a baby into someone else’s arms, but I acknowledged the fact that I could not predict my feelings. I have always been pretty good at compartmentalizing, and I’m not an overly emotional person. The baby would not be genetically tied to me in any way, I knew that if I formed any emotional attachments at all, it would be for the parents, knowing how much they wanted it.

I spent a few hours one evening via Skype with a staff psychologist from the agency, answering questions and completing an MMPI exam. Then the social worker that had been assigned to my case sent me what they call a commitment letter. It basically outlined all of the expectations for all parties involved and the fee details that we had discussed in our phone call. I tweaked a few things, signed it, and sent it back.

It wasn’t long before my “Journey Coordinator” started sending me profiles for potential Intended Parents. I passed on the first few that I received, for various reasons. One couple already had one biological child, and I really wanted to help someone who didn’t have any children at all. I was also rejected by a few couples, one because I was a single mother and another because they were concerned about my higher BMI. It just wasn’t meant to be. Then my coordinator sent me the profile for a gorgeous foreign couple who were both the same age as me. Reading their profile, which detailed their lives and their six-year struggle to become parents, which included six miscarriages and four failed IVF treatments of their own, I felt like this was the couple I should try to help. I decided to speak to them via Skype and see how I felt.

The Skype call went very well, and it wasn’t long before I received a congratulatory email from the agency letting me know that I was officially matched. The legal portion of the process went quickly, and I was making plans to travel to the fertility clinic that would be retrieving and fertilizing the mother’s eggs, where I would undergo my own medical screening. Her egg retrieval would coincide with my own visit, which was very fortunate considering the fact that they were traveling from Europe.

I decided to take my oldest daughter with me to meet them, mostly because she was by far my biggest supporter in all of this. I arrived at the hotel, full of apprehension about meeting the Intended Parents, but after spending an evening with them, I was absolutely convinced that I was doing the right thing and I wanted so badly to have a baby for this sweet, earnest couple. We sat for hours at dinner, shouting at each other over the cacophony of other diners in this tiny Italian restaurant, laughing, crying, and basically falling in love with each other and the idea of this little person that we would all be coming together to make. I was honored and privileged to be a part of this amazing experience.

The screening appointment went well, and I returned home with medications and instructions on how to prepare for the first transfer attempt. I committed to three embryo transfers, but I hoped that I would become pregnant the first time. All of my monitoring appointments went perfectly, and the transfer was scheduled. The Intended Parents would not be present, but daily text messages and weekly Skype calls kept us connected, and everyone was so excited.

The transfer itself was painless for me. The most uncomfortable part of the entire process had been the saline ultrasound at the very beginning, and maybe the blood draws. I knew that if it was successful, the real pain would come later. The doctor at the fertility clinic transferred two of the six fertilized embryos that had been successfully retrieved from the mother, and I was wheeled into a recovery room, where my friend Leah sat next to me for an hour after the transfer, making faces and helping me liveblog my impregnation. She had willingly traveled from the wilds of Montana to support me, and had always been one of my absolute biggest cheerleaders. We spent the next two days holed up in a hotel, blissfully ordering room service and watching trashy reality television.

When I returned home, I didn’t feel any different. I couldn’t tell if the procedure had actually worked or not; the cues that might have given me a hint were thrown off by all the hormones that I had been taking. My breast tenderness was also present before the transfer and I was bloated from my cycle being delayed so the embryos could have as much cushion as possible, so I had no idea if I was pregnant. I was scheduled to take a blood test two weeks after the transfer.

I had been working at a pharmacy benefits manager call center for about six months at that point. I was only a contractor, but when I began the whole process I informed my supervisor, and he assured me that as long as I obtained doctor’s notes, I would not be penalized for taking time off of work for my weekly monitoring appointments, where I had blood taken and an ultrasound completed each time, or for the actual trip, for which I had to take three days off. But then about ten days after I returned from my trip, he called me on a Sunday at home and told me that I could not return, I was being terminated because of my attendance. My notes meant nothing. The fact that I was trying to do something good meant nothing, and I found that particularly frustrating. But I was a temp, and had no recourse. The only thing that I could do was start searching for another job, and hope that my pregnancy test would come back positive, so losing my job would not be for nothing.

I took somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-five home pregnancy tests in that first two weeks, starting about four days after the transfer. Every single one was negative. Everyone kept telling me that it was just too early, but when I called the monitoring clinic to get the results of the beta test, I was not surprised to hear that it was negative. The Intended Parents wanted to try again immediately. But I was unemployed, and nervous. I told them that I needed to focus on getting my life back together and that it might be a few months before I could try again. I found employment again after only three weeks, but it was about three months before I felt secure enough in my new job to ask for a couple of days off. I started meds again, and started monitoring appointments again (which I scheduled outside of work hours), and I went back to the fertility clinic for a second transfer of two more embryos.

It was also unsuccessful. My meds were the same, but my bed rest afterwards was truncated a little bit because I was nervous about taking any more time off of work than absolutely necessary. I only took one day off this time, taking the redeye and arriving absolutely exhausted, but the clinic said it would be fine. Nobody knew why it didn’t work, but they assured me that it wasn’t due to my shorter trip. The parents’ disappointment was overwhelming this time, but after a couple of days, they contacted me, eager to try one last time.

I started the final cycle almost immediately, but the clinic changed my medication regimen a little bit. For the first two transfers, I took Estradiol orally and Crinone gel vaginally. But for the last transfer I took Estradiol and also began daily injections of progesterone in oil. I never considered myself a squeamish person at all, but the first time I had to give myself an injection, I filled that syringe and proceeded to have an anxiety attack the second that the needle came near my hip. I was sweating and shaking, and I have literally never had a reaction to anything like that in my entire life. It was so bizarre to be out of control of my own hands. I eventually managed it, but only by pressing the needle against my skin and easing it it, instead of in one quick motion.

I took my sister with me for the final transfer attempt. I was hoping so hard that this third time would be successful, but for some unknown reason, neither of the final two fertilized embryos attached. Six tiny, frozen embryos, an entire year of medications and doctor’s appointments, the efforts and hopes of so many people, all of it erased with one email from the monitoring clinic. I could feel the parents’ crushing disappointment and could barely express my regret that I was unable to help them in their desire to become parents.

It’s been about a month since the last transfer, I have discontinued all medications and will not be pursuing gestational surrogacy again. I don’t regret anything about the past year, but I’m not willing to emotionally invest in attempting it again with another couple. I’m ambivalent about being done with all of it. On one hand, I wanted so badly to help them become parents, to be able to tell them that it was positive instead of yet another negative, but on the other hand I feel like I did everything that I could do and that I can move on, back in control of my own life again. I haven’t spoken to the Intended Parents since the email from the clinic, but I hope that they are eventually successful in their journey, and I will always think of them with great fondness.