Once you choose an egg donor, you then have to choose a surrogate. The steps are different. There are many, many egg donors to choose from--because donating an egg is remunerative, and it's not a massive inconvenience, in the grand scheme of things. But being a surrogate *is* a massive inconvenience. And so surrogates are harder to find. They might live fully one continent apart from where you live. It's an advantage--if you're a gay male couple--according to some people. It's an advantage because some women are happier to work with a gay male couple than to work with another woman. There's this idea that there will be less potential for irrational competitiveness, less emotional "stew," if you're talking about one woman and two gay dudes. This is wrong and unfair to women, obviously. It's also something I was eager to profit from.
Surrogate "profiles" are a bit like on-line dating profiles. Well, they're more thorough. You hear about the person's medical history, about concerns regarding "reduction and termination" (and "reduction" seems to be a euphemism, it refers to taking triplets and making them twins, it actually seems to be a synonym for "termination," so that "reduction and termination" might more accurately read: "termination and termination"). You read about the surrogate's hobbies, her college major, her job, her family, her reasons for wanting to give up nine months. Sometimes, you read a kind of "general philosophy statement," and it is, invariably: "Life is what you make of it." And who could argue with that?
Various etiquette guides suggest that, at parties, it's best to: (1) listen more than you talk and (2) keep your answers fairly short. I was raised in front of the television, I ate my dinners in front of "Wheel of Fortune," and so etiquette guides are helpful to me. Yesterday, Skyping with a potential surrogate, I found myself wanting to indulge a nervous tic. That tic is: going off on a rant, speaking a mile a minute, so that I quickly lose the person I'm ostensibly speaking to. So, for example, the person on Skype yesterday mentioned her daughter's name, and it happened to be the name of a great American novelist, and the name of the heroine in "Angels in America." And I *almost* felt compelled to point this out, and yet my invisible guardian angels said: "Shut up and listen." Thank God for those guardian angels!
The stories are so varied and plentiful. My potential surrogate described a friend having a baby for a single businessman in China. This billionaire would fly from Asia to Oblong, Wisconsin, and meet with a semi-stranger, a single woman, who was carrying his child (for reasons known only to these two). The man now sends photos from China. A wary neighbor overhears these stories: "Well," he says to his own wife, "*You* would never want to do that, would you?" But he continues to ask questions. And then: an epiphany. "You mean your friend was just the provider of the womb? She didn't provide the egg?" And, suddenly, two lives have changed.
I'd always thought, if I were giving birth, I'd demand the epidural. The whole kit and caboodle. Every available drug. I think, still, I would demand this. And yet, yesterday, I learned that the epidural can knock you out for a month? The surrogate was saying--with her first kid--she went in for all the drugs, then had trouble moving, for around thirty days. So many new things under the sun! She talked about her family's proximity to the Mississippi River--who even knew that it extended all the way into Wisconsin? Oops!--and I began to imagine the maps my kid would need. Maps in the bathroom. Maps next to the crib. I thought of Huck and Jim on their raft: "Look out for me! Ol' muddy water!" I remembered steering that raft in a children's theater production. Again, this was a nervous digressive memory that I (wisely!) kept to myself.
Another thing the etiquette guides say: Don't take something you're interested in and frame it as a faux-generous question. So, it's tempting to drag your obsession to the dinner table and make everyone talk about it, whether people want to or not. ("Who watched the Tony Awards this weekend?") A maybe more sincerely gracious question would be: "What did you do this weekend?"
The end of the Skype call is like speed-dating. The third party, the host, having pumped you for your interests and then, abruptly, having demanded you name all of the cases in which you would terminate the pregnancy, draws things to a close. "You have twenty-four hours to decide whether you want to 'go forward' with Surrogate X. And, Surrogate X? The same for you." There is some teariness; everyone is at pains to emphasize that this is about a human bond, this is not one party just renting a random womb. You have to call once a week and shoot the breeze: "How are things at Scout's elementary school?" You do not have to discuss politics, or God, or climate change. You have to know a few things about life in Oblong. People need to feel gratitude; they need to know that you are regarding them as human beings.
We passed our test. She liked us, we liked her. Our lives are different, after a forty-minute phone call. It's a bit stunning. There's weird pride, as if you have landed a great job. "They like me! They really like me!" And then: Quite a bit of waiting. And I'm off for the weekend. Memorial Day! See you on Tuesday.
Surrogate "profiles" are a bit like on-line dating profiles. Well, they're more thorough. You hear about the person's medical history, about concerns regarding "reduction and termination" (and "reduction" seems to be a euphemism, it refers to taking triplets and making them twins, it actually seems to be a synonym for "termination," so that "reduction and termination" might more accurately read: "termination and termination"). You read about the surrogate's hobbies, her college major, her job, her family, her reasons for wanting to give up nine months. Sometimes, you read a kind of "general philosophy statement," and it is, invariably: "Life is what you make of it." And who could argue with that?
Various etiquette guides suggest that, at parties, it's best to: (1) listen more than you talk and (2) keep your answers fairly short. I was raised in front of the television, I ate my dinners in front of "Wheel of Fortune," and so etiquette guides are helpful to me. Yesterday, Skyping with a potential surrogate, I found myself wanting to indulge a nervous tic. That tic is: going off on a rant, speaking a mile a minute, so that I quickly lose the person I'm ostensibly speaking to. So, for example, the person on Skype yesterday mentioned her daughter's name, and it happened to be the name of a great American novelist, and the name of the heroine in "Angels in America." And I *almost* felt compelled to point this out, and yet my invisible guardian angels said: "Shut up and listen." Thank God for those guardian angels!
The stories are so varied and plentiful. My potential surrogate described a friend having a baby for a single businessman in China. This billionaire would fly from Asia to Oblong, Wisconsin, and meet with a semi-stranger, a single woman, who was carrying his child (for reasons known only to these two). The man now sends photos from China. A wary neighbor overhears these stories: "Well," he says to his own wife, "*You* would never want to do that, would you?" But he continues to ask questions. And then: an epiphany. "You mean your friend was just the provider of the womb? She didn't provide the egg?" And, suddenly, two lives have changed.
I'd always thought, if I were giving birth, I'd demand the epidural. The whole kit and caboodle. Every available drug. I think, still, I would demand this. And yet, yesterday, I learned that the epidural can knock you out for a month? The surrogate was saying--with her first kid--she went in for all the drugs, then had trouble moving, for around thirty days. So many new things under the sun! She talked about her family's proximity to the Mississippi River--who even knew that it extended all the way into Wisconsin? Oops!--and I began to imagine the maps my kid would need. Maps in the bathroom. Maps next to the crib. I thought of Huck and Jim on their raft: "Look out for me! Ol' muddy water!" I remembered steering that raft in a children's theater production. Again, this was a nervous digressive memory that I (wisely!) kept to myself.
Another thing the etiquette guides say: Don't take something you're interested in and frame it as a faux-generous question. So, it's tempting to drag your obsession to the dinner table and make everyone talk about it, whether people want to or not. ("Who watched the Tony Awards this weekend?") A maybe more sincerely gracious question would be: "What did you do this weekend?"
The end of the Skype call is like speed-dating. The third party, the host, having pumped you for your interests and then, abruptly, having demanded you name all of the cases in which you would terminate the pregnancy, draws things to a close. "You have twenty-four hours to decide whether you want to 'go forward' with Surrogate X. And, Surrogate X? The same for you." There is some teariness; everyone is at pains to emphasize that this is about a human bond, this is not one party just renting a random womb. You have to call once a week and shoot the breeze: "How are things at Scout's elementary school?" You do not have to discuss politics, or God, or climate change. You have to know a few things about life in Oblong. People need to feel gratitude; they need to know that you are regarding them as human beings.
We passed our test. She liked us, we liked her. Our lives are different, after a forty-minute phone call. It's a bit stunning. There's weird pride, as if you have landed a great job. "They like me! They really like me!" And then: Quite a bit of waiting. And I'm off for the weekend. Memorial Day! See you on Tuesday.
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