Issue 58: Divorce, decisions and doubt, oh my
Saturday July 20 2019
If I tot up all the things that have gone wrong for us — the bumps in the road, as it were — I’d probably need to take the nearest exit and pull over for a couple of years. So I don’t. I focus on smoothing the latest bump. I pretend all the earlier bumps were someone else’s unlucky story; I’ll process them when I get some good news. Or if I need to take incompetency legal action maybe . . . Brakes! Not ready for that kind of thinking, just keep going, just keep going, we’ll be at a service station soon for a rest and a cuppa.
So this latest issue, hmm. Not exactly sure how to deal with that one. The impending divorce of our surrogate Lydia and her husband, Jesse. Ooph. Still trying to untangle the emotion from the objective. I’m also still smarting from the agency bringing more problems than solutions as far as I’m concerned. I tried reaching out to our co-ordinator Jane for advice, but it was somewhat lacking. “Lydia told me that she told you guys. I’m here for you both. Hopefully we can find a way to make it happen.”
Weellll, that’s the thing, though, Jane, that’s what we want advice on. Is it in everybody’s best interests to still “make it happen”? Not just blindly push on because that’s how you get clients out the door. We discuss whether telling Dr Y will make him pull the plug immediately.
Jane “reassures” us. “Don’t worry, it’ll be our little secret, ha ha.” FFS Jane. My finger keeps hovering over “exit group” in our WhatsApp chat. Every interaction is making me that bit angrier. I think it’s best if Mr B takes over on the agency comms.
So here we are again, ready to Skype with a remote someone-in-scrubs. I’ve decided not to mention the divorce. It feels duplicitous, but just put yourself in my shoes here. We are a year and a half into this surrogacy journey. Lydia is our fourth — I’ll say it again — fourth surrogate. We’ve doubled our debt, seen the second half of our thirties out. We can’t bear the thought of starting from scratch in the States again with this infuriating agency. Cannot bloody bear it.
So look, we’ve met the amazing Rebecca. At this point she represents a meagre flicker of hope that if we have to start again, we could do it in England. Rebecca also represents waving goodbye to a huge emotional and financial investment in the States. All that, for nothing. It’s such a conflict. Goodbye to the opportunity, goodbye to lovely Lydia and the angry-making agency and humongous disappointments, the ludicrous lack of service and the extortionate bills.
What a strange position to be in. It’s like we leave the UK (topical) because of a severe lack of buses, and then years later, two come along at once, both going to the same destination but via different routes. And now the more direct bus has got a puncture. But! The mechanic is on the phone . . . clearly I could keep going with this analogy for ever, but instead I’ll talk to the mechanic.
Dr Fernando is pragmatic. He wants to update us that there isn’t much more we can do to ensure success with Lydia; sometimes it just doesn’t happen. “Could exhaustion have anything to do with it?” I ask. He tells me it’s important that she’s taking care of herself, maybe she could take some time off work etc. If only he knew. No, really, if only he knew. We can’t get half-advice from this guy. Is it even my place to tell him? It’s not my news per se. And Lydia really wants to keep going. For her nothing has changed. It’s just that we have the information because it’s being made official. Knowing how he operates (pardon the pun), he’ll immediately call it quits with Lydia and so, with one precious embryo left, it seems obvious that I need to ask him about Rebecca.
“We have a friend in England who wants to help us,” I say. “In theory, is it possible to travel to your clinic and transfer the embryo to Rebecca, with all the pre and post care done in the UK?”
Essentially it’s how I did my whole Russia donor egg IVF journey. I did all the prep with my wonderful obstetrician in London, who I know and trust. When the date was right I’d fly to Russia — where the embryos were — for the transfer. I tell Dr Y that he has worked on plenty of international IVF and surrogacy cases, my own included.
He thinks for a moment. “I don’t work with other doctors like this. I need everything controlled in my clinic . . . But I think I can do it for you. I think you’ve suffered enough.”