The surrogacy process begins with you standing at the opening to a long, pitch-black tunnel that you must negotiate. Only, you don't know what's inside, or how long it is, or what's at the other end. You have hopes, though, and they are your compass. And there are guideposts along the way, of course, revealing possible outcomes to possible scenarios, doing their very best to buff a sheen of scientific gravitas onto something that ultimately involves an enormous amount of inter-personal and intra-uterine uncertainty. But most of the time you don't let yourself think that way. Hope does its job and powers you through.
Except when you "lose" two surrogates in the same number of weeks. Then the chaos of it all nudges its way into your psyche whether you want it there or not. That's where we were after Jen. Dejected, rumpled, a little tired, and probably indulging in some self-pity. Just for a bit, then you dust yourself off and remember that, entropy aside, these agencies and clinics have actual facts and figures which exclaim loudly that most often, this stuff really does work out! And then you remember about that bouncy baby you want, how much you feel you both have to share with the little thing, and you right your ship.
For the next next eleven weeks though, there was radio silence from the agency. And while we weren't exactly waiting by the phone, we did want it to ring. Thankfully, we also had a torrent of amazing guests from October through December, visiting from all over. And we had a pretty great time with them all. Discovering and going to Isa in Williamsburg for dinner three times in four weeks may in fact be the culinary apogee of our collective time in New York. (Seriously, go, with an open mind and a sense of playfulness.) My point is, life went on with aplomb, even if in the dual-processor recesses of our minds there existed a tinge of dread, a wonder about what might next go awry.
As usual, work took me away for two weeks at Christmas and New Years, and at this particular point breaking up my routine was probably a good thing, even if I did miss Lin daily, sometimes hourly. We'd taken turns being moody and emotional about the whole process, and turns supporting each other through. Thankfully it was rare that we were both down and out at the same time. And we grew together, learning more and more about the deep thickets of each others' interior lives. It bonds you like the trenches, this stuff.
January 10, 2012. We got an email saying that two new profiles were ready to view. They'd said things would pick up after the holidays, and it was happening! And one of the profiles they were particularly jazzed about - one of their "absolute favorites" was available again, after having a surrogate birth eight months prior. She was experienced!
The email described her this way:
We love this carrier; she is one of our favorite GCs. We have known her for four years and have stayed in contact since her delivery last April. She lives in CT and is a stay-at-home mom. She is warm, wonderful and will be the best at communicating with you, it will be so easy to move through the process with her. She is well-educated and lovely to speak with. This carrier does have health insurance to cover the pregnancy costs.
Once bitten, twice shy, sure; but sounds pretty good, right? We felt okay enough to exhale a little, and stop worrying about when the other shoe would drop. The three factors that probably led Amy to back out - working full time, in school full time and being a single mom - this carrier had none of those, and had been through the entire process before. This was good.
I was at work when the profiles arrived in an email. Lin was home, and tore into them. The other profile seemed great also, but her fee was higher than we could afford, and she didn't have insurance, placing her completely out of reach. Fine, easy, moving on...
The first profile was good, though, really good. In addition to to the raves from the agency, she seemed really smart and compassionate, in her own words. She'd been through IVF for her own children, in addition to having recently been a surrogate. She knew the ropes, seriously.
I'd opened the profile on my phone and was scanning as much as I could on the tiny screen, when I got a text from Lin. "Call me." It was incongruous, given the moment. Normally even in the worst of times we include some little nonsense word or silliness in our texts, but this felt serious.
In getting to the end of the profile, Lin had stumbled on something.
Please, no.
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