We first posted about our initial steps along the Bumpy Road on January 21 2019. A mere 1,198 days later, we’re ready and excited to share that our already-much-loved-and-adored baby is on the way and arriving mid-October 2022. We could not be more thrilled.
Continue reading “Our Bundle of Marjoy* is Coming in October!”
It was in January of 2021 when we had to agonisingly part ways with our initial surrogate who we lovingly referred to as Monstera. We posted about her and that experience at the end of that same month with some well-trodden fatalism around things happening for a reason…and just maybe they do? We would have of course loved for things to have worked out with Monstera, but if it weren’t for that struggle, we may not have found our way to Erin.
Continue reading “Meet our surrogate!”
To our future little one,
First, a promise. We want you to know that no matter how many hours of sleep you deprive us of, no matter how many tantrums you throw to get your way, no matter how moody (and probably rude, let’s face it) a teenager you are at times, we will never guilt trip you with the temping line ‘do you have any idea what it took us* to bring you into this world?!?’.
Continue reading “Oh, the places you’ll have been”In our last post we wrote about some of the challenges we’ve been facing with domestic surrogacy and that we’d opened the door to exploring international surrogacy via an agency in Canada.
It’s been a while since our last post, so we wanted to update everyone on where we’re currently at. As always, these words are our honest truths…we didn’t call this The Bumpy Road for nothing.
Sorry, we couldn’t resist with that title, it just felt like a given for this point in our journey.
In a nutshell, we have an egg donor and we’re hoping to have embryos created over the next month or so. We’ve known about this for a while and have been going through all necessary steps in the process (counselling, bloods, paperwork etc.), but wanted to withhold the info until things became a bit more certain. Continue reading “Some eggciting news and a conference”
As we mentioned a while ago, back in January we signed up for a new support service that Surrogacy Australia is providing called SASS, whereby intended parents (IPs) and surrogates submit profiles independently, with SASS facilitating introductions between the two parties. This is a really significant step for all involved in surrogacy and will hopefully allow for IPs and surrogates to meet each other in a more structured way.
Over the past week we have been to three events involving surrogacy and egg donor communities. Whilst the online forums are highly useful, many of them offer intermittent meet-ups across the country to facilitate more conversation and face-to-face introductions.
We love our little life. We recognise what our privilege has afforded us and we aim to live with a strong set of values and continued gratitude for all that we have. A lot of people feel the pressure to start a family; they feel it’s a missing piece in their puzzles. That’s not us. We appreciate that the road we’re starting to go down may/will be a bumpy one at times and we have to continue to tell ourselves that if things don’t go as hoped that we can/will lead extremely satisfying and fulfilling lives being childless. Some people don’t get the choice. But having a child is definitely a desire and we are hoping to give ourselves every opportunity, despite having to take a less conventional path.
Whilst we are only at the very first steps of looking at egg donation and surrogacy, we are already amazed by what we have seen and learned. To think that there is a community of women out there willing to donate their eggs and/or bodies to potentially give the gift of a child to someone they don’t yet know is extraordinary. No matter what transpires with our story, it will always be humbling to have discovered this. It’s a feeling that will no doubt grow stronger as we meet more people in this space and get to know them better.
We’re going into all of this with an attitude grounded in openness and honesty, which we try and apply to all facets of our lives. No question is off limits, no option is off the table. We’re a bit apprehensive about sharing everything publicly – it’s not necessarily our style – but we think for something like this it may be fruitful to do so. So if you know us well, or you’ve stumbled upon this page somewhere, somehow, and you want to reach out, please don’t hesitate.
We’re doing it! We’re hitting the bumpy road to growing our little family.
So what’s happened so far? Plenty.
Dec 2018 – We found a free consultation advertised by a US company, Circle Surrogacy, about international surrogacy for Aus/NZ couples so we figured we’d give it a go. What they offer is pretty amazing, and as we’ve said, no option is off the table and so this one isn’t, but we feel exploring local alternatives to their fullest extent first is optimal. This is for a range of reasons, but predominantly for us, practical and financial ones.
The Bumpy Road 