Notes Of An Uninteresting Event

There was no ribbon cutting to acknowledge the official beginning of our journey and after all the pre-planning, meetings, discussing, saving, waiting and talking some more, it properly kicked off the last week of January. We’ve been busy since then with a set goal to action tasks each week, so to keep us on track. As a recovering procrastinator I now have the biggest to-do list ever and consequently have become a bit OCD. Anyways here’s what we have been up to over the past five weeks:

• Created a project plan (sounds formal but there’s a lot to do)
• Budget review
• Financing review
• Insurance (we’re international intended parents so our new born won’t be covered by Canada’s health care system)
• Sign contracts with the egg donor agency, surrogacy agency, clinic and legal firm representing us through the process
• Sending updated medical info to the clinic so everything is ready for the next steps in that process i.e embryo creation
• Created an Intended Parent Profile so a surrogate, who would like to help us, can find us (we need to create a video too)
• Picking an egg donor
• Create a will for us both (with details outlining who takes over the journey in an unlikely event we both die)
• Travel review (cost of flights, accommodation, etc)
• Miscellaneous items; like finding out how to transfer money the best / cheapest way to Canada, emailing each company for updates to push everything along.

The most rewarding experiences my husband and I had have come from completing the written Intended Parent Profile and Picking an Egg Donor.

Intended Parent Profile

With it taking up to six months to match with a surrogate, filling in the Intended Parent Profile form sooner rather than later was important. We realised we were formalising the principled moral approach we’d spoken about so much over the past eighteen months or so on our nightly walks around our neighbourhood. For the surrogacy related questions of the profile it was really important for us to express our flexibility and how we’d align with the wishes of a surrogate whenever necessary e.g bodily autonomy. Through answering the 50 questions we really connected with each other on our personal reasons for choosing to start a family and our shared expectations for the journey. The final request asked us to; provide a summary of your story for potential surrogates. So as to succinctly capture what we wanted people to see when they come across our profile we really took our time with this part, in the hope it would engage them. We also need to create a video which is outside our comfort zone but I feel this whole process is changing us both for the better ☺︎

We’re an English Irish same sex male married couple living in Cork, Ireland who met eight years ago by chance, whilst ***** was studying for his Chemistry PhD. It was love at first sight. A few years later we got engaged whilst on holiday in Malta (2017) and eighteen months later, we got married in a big house in West Cork in front of all our family and friends (2018). I’d previously bought a house in Cork City close to where I work and we currently reside here with our two cats, but one day we hope to move to the countryside.

Picking an Egg Donor

Over this past weekend we devoted time to picking an egg donor from the agency in Canada, after the clinic advised using eggs of someone we knew meant we could only avail of the single package (which didn’t suit us). I wrote about our initial mixed emotions in Tinder Egg but we actually felt good after completed the task. We’re going to check out a few more donor companies this coming week to see if there’s any other women’s profiles we ‘click’ with. Ultimately we’re going to be telling our kids the story of how they came to be and how it took an egg, a sperm and a uterus to make them [What Makes a Baby by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth].

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll complete a few more tasks including flying to Canada to visit the clinic to provide our DNA, hopefully match with a surrogate, find an egg donor we both connect with so the clinic can the create embryo’s, and starting the important legal bits.

RM x

When we began our journey we knew it was going to be complex — with big decisions to make, big costs involved, emotionally arduous and thats even before there’s a kid! Mr. Stork flying in our window with a baby would’ve been far easier than what we were about to undertake. Anyways having spent over a year researching and now being at the point that we’re about to dive in, here is what we’ve done since we asked ourselves the question:

Would we like to start a family?

Early on in our discussions, we said no to going the adoption route, and after a meeting to satisfy our curiosity it turned out to be the right decision for us (for now). We didn’t feel ready to adopt a child and although everything is in place for adoption in Ireland it was when we asked; ‘How many same sex male couples have been able adopt a baby in Ireland?’ that we got our answer (hint: there hasn’t been any). We looked at options outside of Ireland and were limited to only the US if we went intra-country. Fostering and co-parenting was mentioned to us too, and even a rambunctious relative gleefully said we should go up to the pub to find a woman who would carry a baby for us. None were what we both wanted, especially the last gem of advice, so we began researching surrogacy.

On a Saturday at the beginning of October 2021, when I would’ve preferred to have been with my extended family, we attended our first seminar on surrogacy. In a conference room full of resilient and tenacious couples I scribbled notes on an iPad and tried to take in as much as I could of what was a very complicated process. Towards the end of the long seminar they’d corralled the ‘gay guys’ away from the other couples into a smaller room where we were lectured by a bitchy queen who’d probably done alot of drinking and drugs, that we needed to stop drinking and taking drugs if we wanted to start a family (Note: we’re not that hedonistic). That uncomfortable final engagement mixed with the drizzly cold weather in Dublin in October really dampened our mood. When the seminar finished we decompressed on the train journey back to Cork and exhaustingly talked about what we’d both learnt. Agreeing it was a disappointing first experience and to leave it settle for a few weeks until we picked it back up in the new year.

By early February, we were looking into going via the UK, where altruistic surrogacy is practised but it turned out himself had to be domicile there for us to be eligible. Our desire was not to go a commercial route and with our avenues limited due to our legal marriage not being recognised in many countries, we began looking at Canada. They had a solid system in place built on an altruistic surrogacy model (like the UK) where we’d need to be chosen by the surrogate and not the other way around. They’d the legal frameworks in place for foreign intended parents and Canada was being viewed as an example for Ireland to follow when we would eventually legislate for domestic surrogacy (see Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022).

We had gathered some information about surrogacy in Canada from the seminar back in October but reached out to NISIG first to ask for help and following a consultation we were added to an intended parents Whatsapp group. This group turned out to be a guiding light of sorts in lining up what we needed to do, as many had gone through surrogacy or were in the middle of their journey or were new starters like ourselves. If I wasn’t asking questions then someone else was picking them from my brain and the free advice was flowing. We’d need a lot of free though, because after I began engaging with the different groups, agencies, etc we’d need to work with to estimate our financial obligations for an entire surrogacy journey the costs began to built. It wasn’t going to be cheap and we’d known that but we were both not expecting what the Financial Coordinator at an agency we’d spoken to, told us how much it cost her. I remember showing himself the spreadsheet I’d created with the estimated costs for:

• Surrogacy Agency
• Surrogacy Insurance
• Fertility Clinic
• Egg Donation
• Solicitor in Canada
• Solicitor in Ireland

Back in October 2021 we decided to take a break after the seminar because it felt like we needed to climb a mountain to realise our dream and after this revelation it felt the same, and put us back a bit. We began to ask and say, ‘Why is it so expensive? This is unfair. If we do this, we won’t have any money to raise them. The universe is against us’. During the pandemic we’d begun walking within a two kilometre radius from our house and when restrictions were lifted we’d wore a 6.4km route around the area where we lived. This habit was locked in so during our nightly walks we used the opportunity to talk about how we both felt and gradually worked out how we would move forward. We kept pulling in our imagined future closer to us and as we did a few things started to give us hope.

The € to CA$ exchange rate improved so it didn't feel as financially burdensome and in 2023, I became eligible to qualify for a substantial reimbursement of surrogacy expenses from the company I work for. The legislation to recognise and regulate domestic surrogacy in Ireland was scheduled to be brought before government for discussion in the first quarter of the year (and hopefully enacting in law). Although it may take a few years to setup, part of the legislation should help in us both being recognised as legal parents when the time comes. So, that’s where we are as of January, 2023 and we still have a long way to go. We will need to start making some big decisions, spend some money and support each other on this, the most arduous part of our journey.

RM

Blogging about a surrogacy journey my husband and I began in 2021.

I was watching a Family Guy clip recently where Peter is asked by Lois to give the nurse the birth certificate, after Meg is born. This cutaway scene comes after Meg is referred to as Megan by school friends:

Ruth: Hey, Megan.

Meg Griffin: Oh, hey, guys. Wait, did you just call me Megan?

Ruth: That’s your name, isn’t it?

Meg Griffin: Well, actually, “Meg” is short for something else.

[cutaway to Lois giving birth]

Lois Griffin: [giving him the birth certificate] Peter, would you give this to the nurse?

Peter Griffin: Uh-huh.

[changing her name to “Megatron”]

Peter Griffin: [with a giggle, he hums the Transformers theme] Robots in disguise.

It’s a funny bit and besides me going down the YouTube rabbit hole looking at old Transformers cartoons (I used to watch them in the 80’s), I remembered a conversation with friends after their baby boy was born. They were talking about a similar moment as in the Family Guy clip where they’d agreed on the name, and whilst mum lay resting in bed dad had for a brief moment considered the opportunity he had to bestow their eldest with a hip hop artist inspired middle name.

Through our journey my husband and I have been discussing what we’d name our kids. Now I don’t think we’d name one Megatron or Ye but it sure has been a lot of fun thinking about ones that we could bestow on our future progeny. Having already pondered a few (we’re both from different countries, himself is from England and me from Ireland) we’d love a combination of names from our two cultures, an old English name with an unpronounceable Irish name that will be a challenge to any American (no offence ^_^).

RM

#surrogacy

Blogging about a surrogacy journey my husband and I began in 2021.

Back in September last year we were given access to a Canadian egg donor database following a consultation with a surrogacy agency. We had had a series of weekly calls which included talking to a solicitor, a clinic and I remember during a chat with the CEO of Egghelpers, he said to browse the database and see what you like.

At the time I didn’t think much of it because we would need donor eggs to create embryo’s and I was more focused on finding out how much everything would cost. When we eventually got around to looking through the profiles two things struck me; 1. We were choosing who are kid(s) could look like, and what would turn out to be disappointing for us; 2. We wouldn’t know them – maybe only what was written in her profile – family history, characteristics, likes and dislikes, education, etc.

In my pragmatic planning I’d assumed it was an inconsequential choice we had to make, pick from a list we both ‘like’ but the more we talked about it, it was a fundamentally important decision we needed to make. After that my husband and I began having nightly discussions on our walk and asked questions like:

• Should we ask someone we know?
• If we went with a Tinder Egg, how would we feel about it?
• Should we use an egg bank in Canada or try one closer to home?

Right now, we’re taking our time to find the right one and I’m really glad we’re taking this time to make the right decision. I think it will mean everything in the long term.

RM

#surrogacy

Blogging about a surrogacy journey my husband and I began in 2021.

I remember reading about the Latte Pappa’s or Latte Daddies a few years ago, a phenomenon in Nordic countries and imagined bringing my own kid to my favourite quay side café for an oat flat white, and a baby chino, to meet up with other dads. A dream at the time but as we’ve begun to work out the complex and expensive path to start our family via surrogacy I expected there to be an equivalent to the 26 weeks’ maternity and adoptive leave. Time enough to form a bond with a new born and interrupt an eight hour a night sleep pattern.

As it turns out here in Ireland we’d only be entitled to up to six weeks Paternity Leave. With both of us working it’s something we’ll need to work out but the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill 2022, that’s due to go before government this year, may change that. Back in December, I was on a webinar hosted by a group of surrogacy advocates and who were answering some open questions when a Senator involved in the campaign, mentioned that changes might be introduced by the Department of Social Welfare after the AHR legislation is eventually enacted. Hope!

There is already a few companies stepping up and recognising the many different ways to start a family, and offering similar time away to maternity and adoptive leave in their benefits packages. I’m hoping for the same at work and have come out advocating for it. Unusually for me I’ve never been as forthright about anything so much in my life up to this point. Maybe it’s the idyllic imagined future of me sipping an oat flat white from my thermal Keepcup whilst guiding a pushchair with kid on board that’s spurring me to go outside my comfort zone.

RM

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/nov/18/swedish-latte-pappa-shared-childcare

#surrogacy

Blogging about a surrogacy journey my husband and I began in 2021.