It has now been just over a month since I last posted. I’m still not smoking, as of now, but there have been a couple slips along the way. Mostly it was just me in my old habit not paying attention. Over the course of the last few months there has been something going on with Kim that (I think) I have failed to mention on here. It was mainly due to the, “Let’s see what happens with it before I say anything” kind of thing. Well, I guess now is a good enough time.
In the past 7 years, Kim has been pregnant 3 times. She is one of the odd women that enjoys the pregnancy time. She says it is almost “magical” time. In that same time we have come to the agreement that 3 children of our own is all we wanted. This kinda bummed Kim out a bit, but since I got snipped just over a year ago, yeah, it is sure not going to be mine. Introducing, Surrogate Kim.
She started researching surrogacy quite a while ago, and really started researching late last year. At least that’s when I really started noticing it. She talked with quite a few agencies, requested information, and just made general inquiries. Then she came across a few that she really liked. From there she did their questionnaires for potential surrogates. After all this time she narrowed it down to one that she really liked. I’ll stick with her abbreviations for simplicity. CS has gone through all the medical records for Kim as well as background checks (criminal and bankruptcy) for both of us. We did the phone call “interview” with the social worker from the agency. Then we were told we’d get emails for potential intended parents (IP’s for short). Well, while on the phone with the social worker I made it clear that I’d prefer someone in the USA, but Kim also let it be known that she was not opposed to an international match as well. Kim also talked about the time she spent in Germany as a child, and it was brought up that my family had once had a German exchange student. Yeah, so “K” (the social worker doing the interview) dropped a little tidbit for us. There was a couple in Germany that has been waiting for 6 months to find a surrogate. That’s it. Dangle the carrot.
Now, again, I didn’t want an international match, but really, something just felt okay with this one. We rely on our gut instincts for some things around here, and this seemed like one of those times. C.S.’s legal department went through to make sure the laws between here and Germany were complimentary, and apparently they were. Once they cleared us legally, they sent us the info on the couple in Germany. Now, keep in mind that the couple had already seen our information and said they liked us and wanted to move forward. Then we got their info. Kim was taking Paige to school when I checked her email (knowing something should be arriving very soon) and when I saw that email with the subject line reading “Potential Match”….yeah, I tried calling her to tell her to hurry up and get home. We then both sat and read through the information and looked at the included pictures. I don’t know why, but we didn’t send the reply immediately saying, “We like this couple. We’d like to move forward.” We figured we’d wait and do it the next day. So Friday morning we talked about it a little bit more after Kim got home from work. Then she went to bed. I should have emailed while she was sleeping, but didn’t. This poor couple had to sit and wait all weekend to hear an answer that we knew pretty much immediately after reading their profiles.
Monday morning they heard the news that we would like to move forward. Next up, a conference call. AWKWARD. Kim likened this to a blind date. Thankfully, I’ve never had to go on one before, but I can figure the uncertainty. So this morning Kim pulled up a chair at my desk and we pulled open Skype. After a few technical difficulties we had a video call underway. However, there was some bandwidth problems and eventually we settled for a Skype voice call. At least we got to see their faces for a few minutes first!
About the couple. One of the things that Kim and I both agreed on was that the ideal couple would be composed of two gay men. Why? Not to discredit women, or anything like that, but the thought of being able to help a couple that could in no way, shape or form carry a baby themselves was ideal. These two guys seem very happy, have a very stable support group consisting of friends, parents and I believe “Grandma” was tossed in there as well.
Once the call was done we sent an email to C.S. saying, yes, we like these two. So, N & Y, we hope you liked us too.
