Lecture on Surrogacy

My good friend and doula, Mitsy, just happens to be teaching a course this summer on the Sociology of Human Reproduction at the university where she and I are grad students. She invited me to come talk about surrogacy (because how convenient - I happen to be a surrogate!!). She was just asking me talk a little about my personal experience, but the academic in me took over and I delved into the topic in a little more detail than... uh... she was expecting (I TALKED FOR 2 HOURS!!!).

It was a fantastic experience. I love the perspective I get from reading surrogacy blogs, but there's a part of me that yearns for large scale surveys and the numbers they produce. It turns out, these are out there. I strongly encourage anyone interested to check out the papers I list on my last slide (or contact me if you have trouble finding them).

Also, the response from the students was great. Mitsy had clearly nurtured a great academic environment, because the students were engaged, well-informed, interested and never hesitant to ask (even quite personal!) questions or express their opinions.

I'm indebted to several bloggers who let me use materials from their blogs:

Jeni, at Love Makes A Family
Michelle, at My Belly, Their Baby
Tiffany and Natalie at A Belly For Me, A Baby For You

Q: How and/or Do you plan to co-parent in any way? What you're doing is incredible!

Right - I meant to address this at some point!

Winchester and Wolfram have the best attitude about my role that I could possibly hope for. They are open to any degree of involvement I want, and don't care when I decide. So, if I see that baby and decide to run for the hills, they won't come chasing me. Alternately, if I decide to move next door to them in Western Home State and be a third parent, they're cool with that, too.

Neither of those options appeal to me at all. I'm picturing something of a glorified aunt role - glorified really only by my initial contribution. But you can bet your ass I'm gonna give the best birthday presents!

So the short answer is no, I don't intend to co-parent. There are some things that I expect to change, though. Our really close friend Crono likes to talk about how friends are the family that you get to choose.  He, Winchester and I became 'family' a while back, but it seems likely that a little genetic gift will cement that bond (barring the possibility that Winchester and I end up hating each other).

Hey -  thanks a bunch for your support!