She said whaaat?

As I walked into the living room this morning a game show was airing on the TV. It caught my attention because the host was asking a question regarding "test-tube" babies. The first successful "test-tube" baby was born in the late 1970's in Great Britain. The host was saying how it just happened so I imagine the show was taped in the late 70's. The contestants playing the game are asked a question that was previously asked to 100 random people (in this case, it was 100 women). This particular question was: "If you were paid $10,000 to carry a "test-tube" baby for an infertile couple, would you?" The host then asks the first contestant "how many women would carry the baby?". The first contestant was male and answered 50 out of 100 women would carry the baby. The second contestant must answer if he or she thinks the correct answer will be more or less than the first contestant's answer. The second contestant was female and she guessed the answer to be less. I would have guessed it to be less than 50 women, as well, even today in 2011. What gets me was her reasoning for this. She explained how she "found it hard to believe women would give up 9 months of their life for such a weary amount of money". What the... "give up"? I was offended by her words.

Maybe I could blame my excessive amount of hormones for feeling offended but here are my thoughts. What is giving up (I would word it "sharing") 9 months of your life for a lifetime of happiness for someone else? In no way do I feel I have given up anything. My life and family has not been put on hold because I am surrogate. I haven't missed out on anything because I am a surrogate. I was given the awesome ability to carry and deliver babies and I find I do it quite well. I know this decision is not for everyone and it's a pretty big deal but I found this woman's response to be so selfish.

As for the "weary amount of money" part, some women are surrogates solely for financial purposes. I find nothing wrong with that. For myself, I have deeper reasons for being a surrogate and it's a bonus to be compensated. I didn't want to go into this process and have it feel like a business deal. My preference was to have a friendship with the couple I was matched with. Luck for me, my relationship with the guys is just that. I can't say where we will be as life passes us by but I hope to remain in touch with them. I mentioned in a previous post how I feel no emotional attachments to the babies I am currently carrying. It would be foolish of me to think that I won't have any feelings toward them by the time I deliver. I will love them, of course. I will not love them as my own, though. I only assume it will be an Aunt kind of love. Not only because of the relationship I am building with Roy and Avner do I want to stay in touch but I will always wonder how the babies are growing and such. I don't plan to be a huge part of their lives as we are a half a world apart, a sliver of a part would be great.

As I reread, I see I took this post in a new direction (no longer talking about the game show) but I guess it felt right to go into more details.

I'll check in again soon. I have an appointment tomorrow for some screening which includes an ultrasound and the possibility of finding out genders is there. Yee haw!

Melissa