LABOR

Over the past few months, I've occasionally gotten nervous messages from nice people who follow this blog: "hey, you disappeared, assume you had the baby, how is everything?", "How are you? I've missed your posts lately. Did you deliver yet?" I'm very sorry if I alarmed anyone, or caused them to conclude that I was scarred by giving birth to a breech hedgehog and experiencing intense surrogacy remorse. The truth is I've just had better things to do with my new freedom :D

The short of it is: on August 16th, my uterus tried to kill the baby. The doctors stepped in with a last minute c-section and saved the day! Winchester and Wolfram now have a lovely little girl (if I do say so myself!) no worse for wear, and I recovered quite swiftly.

The long version goes something like this:

Q: I'm considering volunteering for a family member, and it would be my first. Like you, I don't want children any time soon. Were you able to find resources about the possibility of losing your own fertility? I truly think I would be okay with it, but I obviously have no way of knowing for sure.

Hi there! Thanks so much for asking this question. I had frankly no idea how to answer this, so I asked for the help of Certified Nurse Midwife Colleen Kennedy, who was kind enough to offer her expertise! She writes:

As a Certified Nurse Midwife I think about only two things when it comes to fertility - age and underlying issues that cause infertility.  With that in mind, when I first heard that there was a question about future fertility when a woman chooses to be a surrogate for her first pregnancy I thought there wasn’t a whole lot tying the two together.  However, upon further thought and research these are the issues that could come up if surrogacy was chosen for your first pregnancy.

First Pregnancy Surrogacy: fear of the unknown

Many surrogates, when asked about their motivation, list how much they love being pregnant or how easy their pregnancies are. For first pregnancy surrogates, this is obviously not the case. I had no expectation that I would love pregnancy (though I was interested in experiencing it) and I was prepared for it to be a major annoyance. To my delight, it’s only been the most minor of annoyances. And really, that best sums up my feelings about being pregnant: it’s a lot like not being pregnant, plus a few minor bummers (not drinking is the main one at this point).

First pregnancy surrogacy: fertility loss

I've been scanning surrogacy forums looking for other women who have been surrogates for their first pregnancies, because I believe there are some unique and very interesting aspects to our experience. In my search, however, I've found that people, especially those with experience with surrogacy, have VERY strong feelings against first pregnancy surrogacies. I knew it was ill advised, but it seems people are personally, as well as professionally, against it. This post is the first in a series that will explore the arguments against first pregnancy surrogacy.

I think the very best argument against it is that among the many medical risks involved in any pregnancy, is fertility loss. Any woman who wants to be a surrogate must accept that this pregnancy could be her last.

I've said before that I want to preserve my last fertile years for myself, but I don't mean that to imply that I don't recognize how real the possibility is that I might lose my fertility in this first pregnancy, the fruit of which is not mine. This didn't stop me largely because I'm gay, and so my relationships all have two uteri!

Ignoring and acknowledging pregnancy

Reason #53 why being a surrogate for your first pregnancy is different: my current lifestyle.

Sooo... you never see pregnant chicks out at bars. And definitely not at clubs. Ok, yeah, fine, we can't drink -- but I don't think that's why. People go out and don't drink all the time: they're driving, have to work early, they're broke... whatever. So why does pregnancy suddenly make them stop? 

A lot of pregnant ladies already have kids, and people with kids go out less, so there's one possible factor. But what about first timers? My only guess is that they're nesting -- getting ready for the Parenthood. I can see that happening with Winchester, even. He who used to stay up all night drinking whisky and smoking cigs is now in bed knitting at 10pm.

I'm not knitting, and I most certainly am not preparing for the Parenthood. So where does that leave me? As the only pregnant chick at the club. And it's kinda awesome -- going out sober is a totally worthwhile experiment (though I probably wouldn't make it a 9 month experiment if I had my druthers!). First, people watching becomes 1,000x funnier: drunk people are so silly! Second, dancing sober allows me to incorporate my work out routine into my social time: you see my awesome new dance move? Yeah, it's a hindu squat with calf raises. Drunk Deputy never would have pulled that off.

Q: Why did you choose to carry someone else's baby before having your own?

Oh hey! Thanks for asking!

This is a pretty big deal because I haven't run into any other surrogates on the internet who are having their first kid (I know you're out there!!! contact meeeee!). One big reason for this is that in order to work for a surrogacy agency you MUST have already had your own kids. I haven't seen any reasons given explicitly, but I assume it's because a) they want to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into and b) in theory this should lessen the chance you become attached to the kid? (Any pro surrogates want to chime in here?)

So, I guess you're assuming that I want my own kids... and you'd be very RIGHT. I've always wanted kids, and not for a moment -- in the midst of screaming children or bratty teenagers -- have I doubted that desire (despite being a member of a yuppie demographic that rejects the idea that a normal life trajectory requires kids).