Issue 32: Are we breaking down?

Saturday January 19 2019

As far as emergency medical holidays go, Miami isn’t a bad place to find yourself. I say “holiday” — obviously flying to have a build-up of fluid aspirated from your uterus is a million miles away from a holiday, but that bit takes an hour at most. And it isn’t painful; it’s just the anxiety around it that must be weighing heavily on our surrogate Melissa’s shoulders. It’s positively crushing mine, so I feel for her. And I’m glad she gets a bit of bonus sunshine to take the edge off. London, on the other hand, is particularly bleak today.

She is there as a safety measure after a worrying scan that showed fluid on the uterus. As Dr Fernando explained to us, attempting an embryo transfer with fluid present would be like dropping an ant in a swimming pool and expecting it to find its way to the sides. Possible, but highly unlikely. It’s also not a common occurrence, which means we don’t really know what will happen next, but our doctor is confident we can go ahead with a slight delay at worst. Everyone made the necessary arrangements and Melissa is there with her husband, Chad, to remove the fluid gently and try again.

Since we hit this latest bump in the road, Melissa has grown quiet. She’s not responsive to our messages and I don’t know how to make her feel better. Telling her everything is fine and that this is not her fault doesn’t seem to be having any effect. To the point that it’s the morning of the appointment and she seems to be blanking us on WhatsApp. Am I being paranoid? I don’t think so, because those two blue ticks mean she’s reading, but not responding. A rising panic starts in me and I vaguely recognise it, since, look, if I’m going to be honest with myself now, I’ve been seeing a lot of it lately, but really trying very hard to pretend I’m not.

I’m going to be real with myself as much as with you — I’m increasingly anxious about our relationship. It’s such a strange and tenuous thing, but so vital for surrogacy, and if I break it down for brutal clarity, I can see why it’s important to acknowledge. In the real world you would struggle to forge a genuine friendship with someone you had never met, whom you were paying to take your place in a fertility triangle, whom you would otherwise have little in common with. This is not a simple, shiny pen-pals scenario, but exactly because of her place in my life and her intention to do this amazing thing, the relationship is precious to me. So I do think of Melissa as a friend. I have to.

When you break down what we need from each other, it adds up to friendship. I trust her. (OK, we’re contractually obliged to do so, but take the paperwork out and it’s still trust.) I care enormously about her mental and physical wellness. I talk to her regularly via Skype, which is more than I do with my family. I know so much about her and her family. What music she listens to, what her kitchen looks like, what her moral compass looks like. Just like our route to parenthood is a roundabout one, with some vital “normal” bits missing, this friendship is still a friendship. It has just taken a different path, right? Only, if I really take the warm glare of desperate necessity away, I’m not sure it is. I don’t know if she cares about me or trusts me, and that increasing awareness hurts.

It’s also starting to affect my trust in her, and that hurts even more. Trust is the holy grail when it comes to surrogacy. It’s true that the commercialisation and legislation in the US protects us both, so it takes the “implicit” trust part and downgrades it to “reasonable”. But for me trust is still everything in a relationship, and this is a really monumental, forever friendship.

It started with the WhatsApp decline a few weeks ago, when Mr B spent ages trying to make Melissa feel OK and I noticed that no one asked how we were doing. I stamped it out, thought I was being selfish. But hang on, when I think about it now, this is a two-way tango and we’ve already arrived at it with a broken foot. If we’re really in this together, a little mutual sympathy is natural, right? Since then, I’ve felt a pang of dismay with every abrupt answer or ignored message.

I know that in writing this down I’m giving it weight — a realness that is probably as uncomfortable to read as it is to write — but I’d be an idiot to think this relationship is more bulletproof than any other. Surrogacy breakdowns happen, I know they do. I was told by our agency that it’s a fairly common part of the process, but it’s not something I’m willing to be OK with. I hope it isn’t happening here and I’ll do everything I can to get us back on track.

Forget “needs”; Melissa wants my friendship as much as I want hers, surely? I’m a good friend. I care about her feelings because I’m ever aware that, with or without money, I’m asking a lot from her. And she must be a good person to be doing this altruistic act in the first place. Only I don’t really know her. What if . . . what if she’s motivated by something else entirely?

And there you have it: the crux of the surrogacy debate the world over. Where money is concerned, does altruism even come into it? The thing is, I viscerally believe it still does. The right people will have the right motivation, and Melissa is the right person. She’ll show me when she’s ready, I’m sure of it. For now it’s a difficult time and, as I’m reassured by everyone I’ve let into my worries, it will pass when we get good news.

And we got some! Dr Y emailed to say he managed to get rid of most of the fluid, and the progesterone she is due to take between now and the transfer would likely dry up the rest. The transfer is back on. And it has only been delayed by a couple of days. We’re T minus one week, and it feels as if all our Christmases have come at once. Jubilant, excited, feeling as though we’ve swerved a bullet, we send Melissa all the thumbs-ups, WOOHOOs and how are you feelings that we can type at once. The two blue ticks come up to say she’s read them and then . . . “OK,” she says. Oh.