DJ and I waited a few months before pulling the trigger to sign our surrogacy agency contract. I’m not sure why. It sat in our email inboxes taunting us. Maybe we were expecting the other to yell “Psyche!” and we’d laugh at ourselves for thinking this was a good idea. But in retrospect, I think we both wanted to feel 100% ready. So, when we finally felt we were there, we signed. And then realized, just because you’re ready doesn’t mean the universe responds in kind.
In my prior post I mentioned that IARC, our surrogacy agency, was upfront about the fact that they had an 11-13 month waitlist to match us with a surrogate. When we first learned about this, we were like, “that’s perfect, it will give us plenty of time to prepare!” But when you’re emotionally ready to get this baby party started, that time feels like an ETERNITY.
Every month, we’d receive this infographic from IARC telling us what number we’re on the waitlist, how many surrogates were in the pipeline, how many couples had been matched and how many couples had failed attempts and were back at the top of the list. I found this last part rather reassuring to know that if a transfer didn’t work out, you wouldn’t have to start from zero.
We started on the waitlist as intended parents #76. And at the end of every month, we would get an update that would show us how many spots we advanced on the list. Usually it was between 5-8 spots. We got excited as each month passed and we got closer and closer to the top 10. We’d send our moms exuberant texts proclaiming that their grandkids were mere months away. They in turn would egg us on and ask a bunch of questions about next steps.
This past spring, we were getting tantalizingly close to the top of the list and we started to ask ourselves, wait a minute – shouldn’t we have a bunch of stuff done before we’re even matched? We knew we had to pick an egg donor – that was a months-long endeavor. But, what about the legal paperwork? What about the fertility clinic selection? What else were we missing?
Our IARC coordinator, Jillian, did her best to quell our anxiety and gave us some tasks to do in preparation for an upcoming match. We busily got those things going – more on that later. She must have thought we were lunatics, but she did her best to talk us off our anxious ledge.
In May, things turned into what felt a glacial pace. The 12 months were up and we were still no closer to the Top 10 as we had been in the month before or the month before that. We were no longer moving up 5, 6, 7, 8 spots – we were crawling up 1 or maybe 2 spots. One month, we didn’t move up at all. We grew frustrated!
When we spoke to Jillian, it appeared they were not getting as many surrogate candidates in the pipeline as they had hoped. Usually, for every 100 women that express interest in becoming a surrogate, only 6 actually move to the matching phase. Why? Mainly, they either get eliminated from their medical history, physical exam or psyche evaluation.
There’s a long list of things that a surrogate needs to be considered a viable candidate. They need to have a strong support network. They need to have previously had a successful vaginal birth. If you’ve had a caesarian section – you’re ruled out because you’re likely to have a complicated pregnancy the next time around. You can’t just be in it for the money either – there has to be a greater desire to help a couple. And, you have to pass a series of medical tests and be willing to inject yourself daily with a cocktail of hormones. Net net – finding surrogates is a tough slog.
But, of course – you can’t rationalize with someone who has baby fever. All of this sounded like excuses. We were getting even more annoyed.
But that frustration quickly dissipated when we finally found our surrogate match last month. Yes, it took 15 months, longer than we had hoped. But, it was a great match indeed. I don’t want to spoil that part – I have a whole chapter dedicated to Ilsa, our surrogate.
The funny part about all this waiting, is that it’s just finishing one stage of the wait game only to start another. Now that we’re matched, we have to wait for additional medical screenings and contracts to be written up and signed. And once that is done, we need to wait for Ilsa’s cycle to align with the transfer date. Then we need to wait and see if our transfer is successful. And once that is done, we need to wait 9 whole months for our babies to finally be here. So, this is a patient man’s game more than anything.
The old adage, hurry up and wait is a perfect summation of our experience so far.
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