Issue 42: Could you do it?

Saturday March 30 2019

I really don’t want to bore you with the details of what happens next, because let’s face it, we’ve all been here before. I have, Mr B has, you have, it’s just our new surrogate, Lydia, who is new to this process.

She’s on her way to the clinic in Miami for The Medical. There was a time I would have gone into the ins and outs of getting it booked, how weird it feels to wait nervously for the results of someone else’s body MoT, the tinges of jealousy, the blah blah blah. However, I for one have had enough of dwelling on something that I’ve already dealt with once, so poor Lydia is going to have to brave a little second-child syndrome. Aww, you’re saying your first word, that’s cool, but it was definitely more heart-stopping the first-time round. (I’m a second child by the way; I have no lasting damage.)

So the space in my head freed up by not dwelling on the medical process has been neatly taken up by something else. The big questions: Why be a surrogate? What does it take? And the soul-searching — because it’s amazing what experiencing someone else’s altruism will do to you.

I have concluded that . . . I categorically couldn’t do it. Nope, absolutely not. Not even for a hefty wedge of cash. I’m pretty sure I’m too emotional; definitely sensitive, not selfless enough.

There is no part of me that thinks I could endure an entire pregnancy and all the miracles and intricacies (and hormones, let’s not forget hormones) it throws up, and then hand a baby over at the end. My reasons vary from liking caffeine and wine too much, to never knowing what it is to experience pregnancy and therefore not being able to imagine offering my longed-for experience to someone else. I guess in that respect I have no possible way of knowing if I could do it. Since I can’t physically be pregnant, it’s almost like asking a man if he thought he could carry a baby for someone else. Almost. So, Mr B, any thoughts?

“What? What do you mean? Like Arnie in Junior?” he asks, but fair play to him, he sips his coffee thoughtfully and gives me his rambling, sorry, running commentary.

“You, as someone who can’t have a baby, have said you couldn’t do it. But I think me, as someone who can’t have a baby, could, but only for someone I loved. I think.’

But that’s not the question. Could he imagine doing a Lydia and handing over nine months in the life of his body to some strangers in another country? Another long sip of coffee.

“Actually no. I am many things, but I’m no Arnold Schwarzenegger, but . . . I’ll be back.”

And he runs upstairs to full-stop his joke, and the conversation. At least he is already qualified in dad humour.

Of course he doesn’t think about it in the same way as me. Because he hasn’t spent time thinking about it in the same way as me, a woman with all the correct parts who spent her life assuming she’d be pregnant at least once. All that time watching your body change, and feeling the fluttery kicks and giving birth, and then just nothing at the end? Wouldn’t you have to love that bump for nine months to look after it properly? The most monumental bit for me is that, after it’s done, you go home and get into bed and it’s not there any more. Normal service resumes. I don’t think I could wrap my head around that bit. And when I think of Lydia and the fact that it will — all being well — happen to her one day, it makes me wobble.

This is where I suspect most people sit on the scale of Surrogate to hell-no, because it takes a special kind of person to be able to do it.

A very old friend with whom I reconnected recently spontaneously offered to be a surrogate for me, should we need one in the UK. “It would be my honour to help you,” she said.

“It’s not a small thing you’re offering here,” I said. “You’ve got to really, seriously and properly think about it.” And so she did. As I gently suspected, she retracted the offer the next day. Her husband didn’t feel that they could handle it as a family.

I didn’t have my hopes up thankfully, because I had assumed her family would have concerns. Surrogacy cannot be reduced to a spur-of-the-moment kind of outpouring. It takes serious consideration, careful thought and a unified stance. It takes a certain kind of person, and man, they are hard to find. Could you do it?

First off, there are general qualifications. The practical criteria, according to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, form quite a long list, including having had one successful pregnancy, but no more than five. You have to have been off any antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication for a year before surrogacy. And have no felony convictions. Or new tattoos or piercings. And no smoking or illicit drug use.

Then there are personality types. It undoubtedly requires selflessness, commitment, a specific kind of strength, and tendencies towards angeldom and/or saintliness.

The money is obviously a factor, in the US at least, but think about it. Would you put yourself through a pregnancy, essentially a year of your life, for 30-odd grand? Sounds attractive until you consider it properly, everything it entails and what it means to the intended parents you’ll ultimately bond with.

Aside from Lydia, we have a surrogacy veteran on our team, someone who has loved being a surrogate so much that she has done it three times. Jane, our surrogacy co-ordinator, is pregnant on a “sibling journey” for her intended parents. Could she do with a relaxing Saturday to herself, without a badgering client WhatsApping her out of hours? Of course she could, she needs to put her feet up — but she can look at her phone at the same time, so I badger her anyway. Sorry, Jane.

“As a surrogate, we take on a godparent’s role,” she says. “We’ll do anything to protect the baby. We love it, but we know it belongs to his or her parents and we are so happy for the family. We fall more in love with the parents than with the baby.”

This suddenly makes sense to me. The connection we form with the surrogate is an additional relationship that conventional pregnancies don’t experience. It must be like having a constant friend and guardian in your pocket. A pregnancy omnipresence that is there for you through every step. I love that Jane articulated this simple logic in such a way that something clicked in me.

As for the first night home after delivery, she says: “It’s always a bit rough, but it only lasts a day or so. I go between extreme happiness that I’ve created this beautiful family, and sadness that the journey is over. By the way, your hormones are also going crazy, which doesn’t help. It’s not so much that you love the baby and you’re going to miss it, it’s more that you’re going to miss the parents and the relationship you’ve built with them.”

I’ve always known that I have a responsibility to include Lydia in our lives for ever, but Jane just shone a new light on why. This surrogacy thing, it’s like walking on the moon for us clueless mortals. It’s an emotional minefield. The knowledge that I wouldn’t have it in me to be a surrogate makes the women who do decide to do it seem even more incredible. It’s not going to be hard to make space for that kind of woman in my life. Lydia, we hope it’s you.