Two Dads are Better than None

The adventures of two very adorable gay men trying to become fathers in a crazy ass world

In a little over a month since I last updated this we have been going through a slightly different path: surrogacy; only this time we were the ones who backed out based on professional advice.

Interestingly, this one does not feel as upsetting as the failed adoption. And I am guessing it is because, thankfully, no life was ever created.

For those unfamiliar with this segment of the baby business, there are 2 types: Traditional and Gestational. For traditional surrogacy, the woman's own egg is used. For gestational surrogacy, a third party (typically and unknown egg donor) is used and another woman carries the child to delivery.

In March after our failed adoption, I met what I thought would be the perfect traditional surrogate. We opted to go the traditional route because 1) it was much cheaper and 2)we were not as concerned about who the mother was, just that she was healthy and would relinquish rights when asked.

I met this potential surrogate, let's call her Khris, on this surrogate website and thought she sounded great. She was local in Texas (important for cost and legalities), had already had a child (never do surrogacy on a woman's first baby) and had what I thought was a stable life and support network. Also, she was willing to go the traditional route, which very few surrogates are, since it would have been her genes in the mix.

While poking around on this website, we met a gay couple who had been attempting to have a baby for TEN years. Yes, that is right, 10 freaking years! The good news is that they finally had their baby and their friendship was the one good thing we managed to get out of that failed surrogacy. These two had spent a lot of time and money and had gone through several failed matches, so we felt an immediate connection. They had also given us advice on how to proceed with Khris.

The gay people I know who are parents are some of the best parents you will ever meet and the reason why is that they try to do things right and learn from others. So we learned very early that in spite of the cost and time, we were going to do this right, which meant before proceeding with this seemingly perfect surrogate we were going to go through all the right steps: hire a good attorney, get background reports and have a psychologist who specializes in surrogacy evaluate her. If everything came up rosy then we would proceed with the *ahem* insemination.

I will tell the story of how our relationship unfolded so that other couples can possibly learn from us. I believe there are 2 ways to learn things: From experience and from others. Experience is the best teacher but also the most expensive. Really smart people learn from watching other who do it right.

Going the independent route is scary, so when Khris said she wanted to be our surrogate, we made it very clear that we would do this the right way. After exchanging emails and phone calls the next step was for us to meet her and family, so we did one weekend and drove down to San Antonio. Our hope was to get to know them a bit and see what we thought. We had dinner with them one night and breakfast the next day and we left feeling like they might be OK. There was nothing special or extraordinary about the couple and their baby. They were a bit reserved I thought and not *quite* what I had hoped for, but as Greg pointed out, they really are just providing a service (albeit the most important one in the world for a couple) and who were we to judge another couple from the outside, right?

So we were left thinking "maybe" and she was very anxious to start (flag #1). Oddly enough, they did not want us to see their apartment, but I understand that, so we headed home excitedly thinking of all the steps we had to go through. Medically, she was fine. That was really the first important thing for us; that we feel medically confident that she is fertile and can carry a healthy baby full term, so I got her on insurance and started having her screened. All the steps are also telling because only a woman REALLY interested in "seeing someone fulfill their dream of starting a family" would jump through all the hoops needed, so to her credit, she was willing. She was 33 and had told us that she wanted to donate her eggs too but had been rejected "because of her age" (flag #2). As I got to know them, they seemed like a nice young family. Her fiance was in grad school and she stayed home and took care of their 9 month old. He was on scholarships I guessed, but I did wonder *where* their income came from, but I could not really pinpoint that (flag #3). We gave them a bit of slack since we are in a recession and hey, maybe they were doing it for financial reasons but really wanted to "help" us. We presented ourselves as an open book. One of the fist things they got about us was a 20 page report from a licensed social worker stating why we be good parents. For me, I was very much about giving them EVERYTHING about us, and in hindsight probably a bit too much, since this report told our salaries, net worth, savings etc. Yet oddly enough, when I inquired about their financial stability, suddenly that was something they were not really comfortable discussing (flag #4). Fair enough. I can accept that. They looked clean and presentable and would never begrudge someone for struggling to get by.

Next I lawyered up (did I tell you how much I hate lawyers?) and started working on a contract (albeit an unenforceable one through the judicial eyes of Texas) but still, contracts gave you a path and outlined expectations. We got the background check from police back and there were a *few* more items on both of them than we had expected (2 arrests for him and 3 arrests for her, Yikes!). Dear reader, far be it from me to judge. I too have a thing out there as well from when I was young too, so I am going to be quite forgiving when it comes to that. Hey, we all screw up and anyone who has not spent at least one night in jail is pretty boring in my book. So as I inquired about each incident, the excuses seemed odd and I could not quite piece together what had really been done wrong in some of the arrests. Also, she had plenty of chances to tell me about these but waited until after we met to come forth with these items in her past. That caused me to start questioning her honesty (flag #5). I was expecting 1 item so when I got the report back from my lawyer, I was a bit miffed to see 3 arrests for her and 2 for him. I think this is where I started to have my doubts.

When you are trying to start a family like us and have been put through the emotional and financial wringer like us, you learn to accept a lot. Her excuses sounded plausible and I was all about giving people another chance. As I said earlier, I was no angel when I was young, so I could forgive someone with an item or two on their wrap sheet. Once all this had been spelled out, my legal counsel warned me that she too was concerned (major flag #6) and she was a paid professional who focused in surrogacy, so she had seen a lot.

Uh oh, this was not going in the direction I had hoped. The next hoop for them to jump through was the psychological screening for both of them. By this time our relationship was becoming a bit strained. She seemed too anxious about all this and called, emailed and texted me too much (flag #7). I never quite trusted her emotionally, but she sent poems and wanted to chat with me so we would "bond". Part of the "journey" doing it this way is the connection you have with this person.

After we presented the contract to them, they wanted to use a very expensive attorney that we had to pay for. This hacked me off a bit since even my lawyer does not bill at $300/hr, but ultimately I said OK, but very quickly I was getting concerned. If I am paying for your lawyer and he or she is better than mine, I am quite the dumbass, right? (flag #8).

By now we decided the psychologist was going to make or break this. And I wanted to be sure that this person knew all the same details I did, so I communicated all the facts I had to the psychologist.

A short word about the social workers and shrinks in this process: They are worth EVERY penny and are the best money you will spend. In our failed adoption it was not the attorneys or the mother or anyone who could give us clear direction but rather it was this little California social worker who told us what we needed to know "the father does not want to terminate his rights". So with the psychologist, her job was to tell us a) what her true motives were b) how fit she was emotionally for this and c) any likelihood that she would try to keep the child after birth. Anyone doing a surrogacy will tell you that THIS is the biggest fear any couple has.

I received a text from them after the meeting that said they had been asked to leave the psychologists office by security. WTF!! Are you kidding me? When I got the text I thought the whole thing had just blown up. Obviously if your surrogate and her partner are asked to leave the psychologists office by security, they are not fit to carry your child. Turns out, they thought it would be "funny" and they wanted to "joke" with us. We asked a lot of people about that stunt and no one said it was funny. Not even remotely. Interestingly enough the fact that they thought they did so well they could joke about it and the fact that I so quickly believed it is actually quite revealing. In my mind it was totally plausible that they got into a shouting match with a psychologist. (Flag #9)

The next week I received the nail in the coffin. Flag #10 came from a licensed psychologist who specializes in evaluating these young ladies to see if they are for real. She told me what I feared; that there were red flags all over both of them. After much time and money, I finally got the answer I needed to hear in my myopic state: run away from them! In summary, it turns out that their motives were actually based more on their financial situation than anything else ( I had feared this as well) and that they both had, how shall I put this, a bit more psychological baggage than we had hoped. Many things did not add up and in the end, they had taken us for a bit of a ride, even though they "promised" early on that they would not hurt us. And actually maybe it was our rejection that hurt them. Come to find out that as an "independent" surrogate, she would have NEVER been accepted by any agency. After all the dirt came out, it became very apparent to us that we had funded their little experiment and they had both failed horribly.

Once Greg and I made the decision and told them, their response was actually quite telling. They were not really sad or devastated emotionally, just belligerent and insisting they get all these reports. This failure was actually easier on us emotionally than the adoption, obviously because there was not a life out there already that we hoped would be ours.

Dear readers, especially the same sex couples pursuing a child, please learn from my mistakes. The take aways here in surrogacy are as follows:

1. Trust your instincts. If you do not feel a level of trust between you and a surrogate, DO NOT PROCEED. The TRUE surrogates are the ones who do this to help people, not because they need cash. In fact, if a surrogate is too focused on the compensation, walk away, else you stand the chance of being held emotional and financial hostage by someone carrying your most precious cargo in the world.

2. Hire professionals! ESPECIALLY if you are dealing with these independent surrogates. The money we spent on the lawyers and psychologists was well worth it. Many want children so badly that they are blind to the faults of these people. Professionals provide logical unbiased decisions.

C'est la vie. We will be fine and I am sure that we will meet our child one day, it just sucks that you have to wade through so much shit to do it.

Live and learn, hopefully from the mistakes of others. Now let's see if we can still find that perfect match. Maybe next time we will try gestational surrogacy, so wish us luck!

We have not given up yet!

About this blog

We are a committed gay couple of almost 10 years who are trying to start a family of our own. This is our story.

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