As many of you have read, our first attempt at international surrogacy was unsuccessful. To add to this news, Michele and I both lost a dear relative in the last two weeks, I lost my aunt and Michele lost her grandmother. It was just another low in the roller coaster ride of 2008. 

Today being a pall bearer brought about a great deal of emotions. Grief came over me, not just of the loss of Michele’s Grandmother (who loved me even though I am a Dallas Cowboys fan), nor the loss of my dear Aunt (who, along with my Mother, was one of the strongest women I have ever known) but grief of the loss of  our own chance of a child. 

I know the Lord does not give us more than we can handle and I have faith that we will get through this.  However, it breaks my heart when I see my wife hold on to our Nephew T.J., and I know she would be so awesome as a mom. I cannot wait to hold my other nephew Cade for the first time and see his jolly grin. Right now, this is our way of healing. Seeing our family members beautiful children growing up so quickly.

To everyone out there in Blogland this holiday season, cherish your family, both young and old. Do not take them for granted. Notice the little things about your children and what they are learning. Take time to ask your  parents or grandparents about their past. Open the lines of communication and break down any generational gaps. You will find that you are not so different than they are. You will cherish this time more than you know.

I know I would do a million things differently if I had the chance to see my grandparents again. I also know that I miss seeing my family at Christmas and will not take for granted the limited time we get together any more.

With that being said, Michele and I will be taking some time to rest and recover from 2008′s wild ride. I don’t know what the next ride will be but Michele and I will let you all know in 2009.

With all my heart….THANK YOU.

-Steve

We really hoped that this would be the last Christmas without children in our home, but it appears that is not meant to be. We don’t really know where we will go from here since we really do not have the financial ability to attempt this again. We plan to take some time to regroup before making any decisions.

Thank you all for your support and prayers, which have meant so very much to us.  

- Michele

We have spoken via email to our doctors at Rotunda, the doctors we met from Surrogacy India, and the manager of the JW Marriott in Juhu, and are happy to report that all are safe and accounted for.

Many of you have asked us if we visited any of the places affected by the terror attacks. The answer is yes, we visited nearly all of them, some multiple times. While reading an internet news report yesterday I came across a photo of the attacks on the Taj and was almost positive that I had taken a photo in the exact same spot when we were there. I found that photo and am posting both of them here.

Please include the people of India in your prayers.

- Michele

Pool area at the Taj Hotel approx Nov 12 2008

Aftermath of terror attacks at Taj - pool area photo Nov 26, 2008

Thank you for all of your continued prayers.

- Michele

We will get the embryo grading report tomorrow by email as we will be on the plane. Please keep on praying….

- Michele

I should probably pause for a moment to clarify my prior post about non-Indians adopting from India. This is done, just not usually with infants, and this is the case with this couple, Kevin and Carmen, who have adopted an adorable 3 ½ year old girl named Anjali. We had the good fortune of spending some time with them at the pool on Sunday and learned about Anjali and how they came to choose adoption in India. They are truly remarkable people with three biological children who felt God’s call to adopt another child. It was a long process for them, nearly two years total from the time they turned in their adoption application. Anjali has lived in an orphanage nearly her entire life after being abandoned as an infant by her parents. Unfortunately, it is quite common in India to abandon infants, particularly girls.

Like most hotels in the USA, there is a bible in the nightstand in our hotel room. Because we are in India, there is also a Quoran, Book of Mormon, Teachings of Buddha, and my favorite book which is a multi-denominational daily devotion book called The Book of Prayer that has passages from all different religions. As I spoke to Kevin yesterday he encouraged me to pray about our surrogacy and our quest to have a child, and also asked that I read the devotional in the book for November 14^th, which is the day that they picked up Anjali. Here is the entry for that day:

A prayer for children sent by email; author unknown:

We pray for children:

Who sneak Popsicles before supper,

Who erase holes in math workbooks,

Who can never find their shoes.

Who like ghost stories,

Who shove dirty clothes under the bed,

Who don’t like to be kissed in front of the carpool,

Who squirm and scream on the phone.

And we pray for those:

Who watch their parents watch them die,

Whose nightmares come in the daytime,

Who will eat anything,

Who have never seen a dentist,

Who aren’t spoiled by anybody,

Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep.

We pray for the children:

Who want to be carried and for those who must,

and for those who will grab the hand

Of anybody kind enough to offer it.

Kind of gives you goosebumps, doesn’t it?

In the end we exchanged blog addresses and emails and took a few photos, one of which I have posted below. I have spent the morning reading their blog and have added it to my blog list if any are interested in reading it. Steve and I are praying for safe travels for Anjali and her new parents as they return to the USA. Kevin and Carmen, if you are reading this, it was a pleasure meeting you and Anjali. You are truly an inspiration, and we hope that God will continue to bless you and your family!

- Michele

My procedure went off very smoothly, though. The docs were great, especially the anesthesiologist, who was a very funny guy. One minute I was talking to him, and the next minute they were waking me up. I experienced no pain (and I still don’t) and woke up questioning whether or not they actually did anything to me at all. I am definitely impressed with the doctors here and the care I received at the Rotunda clinic. Also, I had the opportunity to see many of the surrogates and egg donors, and they all look quite healthy and definitely do not appear to be among the poorest of the residents of Mumbai.

Steve and I were also able to meet our surrogate today. It was very emotional for me, and for Steve as well though he was able to control himself until we were in the taxi leaving the clinic. It helped that he was told not to speak to her as she would be uncomfortable being addresed by a man who is not her husband. So, I did all of the talking. She spoke very little english so one of our doctors (a woman) translated. I gave her the gifts we brought for her and her children; a Minnie and Mickey doll for each child, and a music box/snowglobe from Disney that plays “It’s a Small World”, which I thought was very appropriate. I attempted to explain the significance to her but I’m not sure if it became lost in the translation. At one point I saw her wipe away tears too and she kept telling me that I shouldn’t have gone through the trouble to bring her and her children gifts.

Our clinic was unusually busy today. After I woke up from the anesthesia I realized that there were news crews at the clinic interviewing Dr. Allahbadia. He stopped to talk to me while I was in the recovery area and I asked him about this. It seems that two of his patients made the front page of the India Times today as they just returned to Israel with their child who was conceived from an egg donor at the Rotunda clinic.  The reason that this was so historic was because they are gay men…and they were featured as the lead story on the front page of the paper in a country where homosexuality is still a crime.  According to Dr. Allahbadia, there has never, ever been a gay couple featured as the lead story on the front page of the India Times, so this is huge. If you are interested you can read the article here: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Israeli_gay_couple_gets_a_son_in_India/rssarticleshow/3724754.cms

Dr. Allahbadia also recommended that before returning to our hotel we check out a historic site called Mount Mary, which is a shrine and catholic church close to the clinic. Apparently the shrine is viewed as a holy site that brings luck to those who pray there. Steve and I visited the shrine after our appointment and lit three candles, one for each of my eggs that were retrieved. We then went to the Taj Lands End Hotel and had a wonderful lunch overlooking the Arabian Sea.

We have just made arrangements to leave Mumbai a day early, so it looks like we will be home on Thursday, November 20th. I cannot wait to see my dogs, my house, my friends, and cook in my own kitchen!! Thank you again for all of your prayers and support. We love you all.

- Michele

As I washed said poop out of my hair at the pool shower, I recalled reading somewhere that a bird pooping on you is good luck. Kind of like rain on your wedding day, which it should be noted that I also experienced. Questioning whether this might just be wishful thinking on my part, I Googled this bit of folklore when I returned from the pool. Alas, professor Google confirmed that it IS good luck to be pooped on by a bird! While I realize that this might just be something that someone made up to make those of us on the receiving end of bird poop feel a bit better about it, I’ll take it. I could use some good luck right now.     

- Michele

I have not devoted many posts here to the subject of surrogacy and how it has affected me. For the most part it is very difficult for me to discuss this time in my life with anyone without becoming a big ball of blubbering emotions. Some people say that infertility is one of the most stressful things a couple can face, though I can think of many worse things. After all, no one has cancer and no one is dying, so this is just one of those “sucks to be you” moments in life, right? It is true that there are many worse things than being infertile, but the treatment for infertility, like many diseases, has a way of taking over your entire life, thrusting you into a myriad of doctor’s appointments, schedules, invasive and uncomfortable medical procedures, and financial issues. Now add to this the complexity of emotions that arise when you throw in the issue of commercial surrogacy, a situation in which you entrust a woman that you don’t know to carry your child for nine months, to take care of herself and that child and do everything in her power to ensure that your child is healthy and well, and you have a situation which at times can be down right emotionally overwhelming.

As I reflect on the past year I realize that the only way I have been able to deal with my emotions is to break my life down into a few days at a time. I continuously stop my husband from envisioning a time in the future when we are expecting a child, telling him that I just want to get to next week. As we arrived in India, Steve was already thinking about the embryo transfer while I was simply concerned with whether or not there would be ovarian cysts found when I underwent my ultrasound scan the next morning. When there were no cysts, I paused momentarily to rejoice and then promptly concerned myself with how many follicles I would have and whether or not they would properly mature. Today I am trying my best to assure myself that I will actually have eggs in those follicles, and if there are eggs that they will fertilize, and if they fertilize that they will survive, and if they survive that they will implant in our surrogate and she will have a healthy and uneventful pregnancy. That’s a whole lot of things that need to go right in a situation where statistically things are likely to go wrong. I realize that these things are completely out of my control and while I’m okay with that, it is frustrating and somewhat surreal to live like this. So, I find myself feeling very relieved to be on the brink of closing this chapter of my life and moving forward.

When we met with our doctor today we mentioned to her that we had gifts for our surrogate and our surrogate’s children, and were wondering how to get these gifts to her. We had previously been advised that our clinic does not usually arrange meetings between the surrogates and the intended parents, so we assumed we would simply leave the gift with our doctor to give to the surrogate. Well, as soon as we brought up the gifts our doctor’s face lit up, and she immediately offered to call our surrogate to the clinic so we could meet her and deliver the gifts personally. This was quite surprising to me, and I suddenly found myself terrified at the thought of what I will say to our surrogate if this meeting actually takes place. I am not terribly good with words in difficult circumstances as it is, and being strung out on fertility drugs does not do much for one’s ability to be rational and eloquent, believe me. As I pondered this I suddenly found myself overwhelmed with emotion, and I spent the next 20 minutes or so in the waiting room of our clinic fighting back tears as I imagined this meeting in my mind. How do you thank someone for doing something so personal and life changing, something which you are simply unable to do for yourself? It was in these words that I found the source of my tears and the ultimate irony, for I am a person that takes pride in self-reliance, yet here I am in India relying on a stranger to bear my child because it is something that I am incapable of doing.

This is the cold reality of infertility, which can transform a completely capable, self-assured person into one that is helpless, vulnerable, and somewhat of an emotional wreck, if only for a moment. I know that I am not defined by my fertility, and like many struggles in life, this too shall pass. I just wish it would hurry up.

- Michele