Issue 03: Have we found a surrogate?

Saturday June 30 2018

I am sitting in the White Horse pub in Soho, central London, with my colleagues from Elle magazine, where I’m the beauty director. We’ve just had a busy press week and we’re nursing a bottle of champagne (it’s cheaper than prosecco here, so we casually take advantage).

My email pings. It’s the agency in Chicago telling us that after a full three days of searching, they’ve sent us the profile and photographs of a wonderful woman in Florida who, essentially, would like to offer us her womb. To rent. After a heartbreaking year of not getting pregnant we’ve signed up to a surrogacy agency and, despite being warned that the matching process could take up to six months, we’ve had good news after only a few days.

I hold my breath and look at the photographs before I skim the profile. At this stage we are presented with a detailed document, one we filled out in tandem that forms the basis for the match. Apart from the usual small talk — age, profession, education, etc — we can read about her views on multiple or abnormal pregnancies, her reasons for becoming a surrogate, her relationship with her other half and what his thoughts are on all of the above. It’s a lot to take in, but the photos make it more tangible, more personal. She has a huge family already, and I think she looks kind (I’ve got preconceived ideas that she must be kind to do this) and like someone I’d be friends with IRL.

Now it seems perfect that my colleagues and I are drinking a very reasonable bottle of Moët, because this is the definition of a celebratory moment. They must be finding my suddenly watery eyes a little out of context because we’re talking about how Ryanair has stopped all its mainland domestic flights. And while I’m disappointed that I can’t fly to Cornwall for £30, it doesn’t warrant actual tears. They don’t know about our surrogacy plans just yet — I’m not sure how to tell people — so I surreptitiously text my husband, who is in Vienna for work.

“OMG. LOOK AT YOUR EMAIL!!! OMG.”

It takes him less than a minute.

“F***. I’m wordless.” (Clearly.) “F***.”

We exchange a few frantic emails (Are you absolutely sure? Yes, I’m sure! She looks a bit like our friend Debbie! I love Debbie), then send one back to the agency to press “go”, and then I’m drinking a second glass of champagne with much more significance than the first, grinning with leaking eyes in the company of my oblivious colleagues. Tom pats my knee. “Um, babes, you can still use Easyjet.”

I need to talk to my husband, and as if by marital magic, he knows. I get a text: “Am a bit emosh.”

“Me to!”

“Me too*” he replies; he is always on hand to correct me.

“Am too emosh for grammar” (clearly).

Not quite the poignant conversation that you’d expect on the brink of one of the most important kick-offs our lives, but a genuine one, nonetheless. And with that our journey begins. “Project Oven.”

In the briefest of summaries — since I will expand on it all later — this project follows a year of hellish IVF, using donor eggs, in Russia. I travelled there eight times in ten months and fell pregnant twice, but, even with a 90 per cent success rate, it was not how my story was supposed to go.

The recipe for this particular route to parenthood is three women. One, the intended parent, is me — a 38-year-old beauty editor left unexpectedly infertile after breast cancer treatment five years ago. Two, the donor. And three, the surrogate.

Add some eggs, donated by an anonymous woman with similar brown hair and brown eyes somewhere in Miami.

One womb, donated by an generous woman in an entirely different American state, called Laura, with the support of her husband and her six children. Six!

Three administrators from Chicago who helped to find and facilitate this relationship.

And finally, one man. The sperm donor. Aka, my husband.

(Let’s not forget the financial adviser, Craig. He was pretty instrumental in getting this whole journey off the ground, but his work here is done.)

What next? Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve never met a single other person who has had a child through surrogacy. I’ve spoken to a lovely gay couple on the phone, I’ve had numerous conversations on what to expect when you’re expecting another woman to have your child with the help of some other woman, but this is a whole new ballgame for me and my husband.

We are beyond excited, terrified, amazed, thrilled, sad, awe-struck — sometimes all of those things at once. But we’re on the road to our ultimate goal and we’ll need to talk about it on the way.