Notes Of An Uninteresting Event

[originally posted on Medium on Jan 13, 2023]

It’s 2023, a new year and one when we begin our journey to start a family through surrogacy and I am so fucking scared. My anxiety has me imaging a humungous mountain ahead that we’ve to climb and all I’m thinking is ‘How the fuck are we going to get to the top of that?’ Last year, we did a fair bit of research to understand how we might want to start a family and surrogacy was what my husband and I settled on as our best (chance) option to realise a shared dream. So naturally, for me, I became obsessed with learning about the surrogacy process, how long it takes and how much it costs (A new house anyone?). There’s going to be up’s and down’s and I’m glad I have someone to support me through it. But I still can’t shake this scary feeling, this anxiety or is it trepidation for what we could have – a child of our own? RM x @greentothebone@mastodon.ie Blogging about a surrogacy journey my husband and I began in 2021.

I’d just sat down after buying a package of chocolate pretzels and three small bottles of Canadian Maple syrup from the Relay gift shop across from our gate in Terminal 3, at Pearson International Airport in Toronto. The incoming Aer Lingus flight from Dublin was pulling in after having just landed and an announcement came out over the tannoy from the gate crew calling on young families to get ready to board the plane and I glanced up to see two men with what looked like a baby in a carrier. ‘Harry!’ nudging him, ‘Gay couple with a baby!’ and I gestured with my head in their direction. He looked and said he recognised one of the men who he saw changing a baby on the changing table in the toilet earlier. We said to each other they must be bringing their baby back home after a surrogacy journey here in Canada although we didn’t know this at the time. Still watching them, we saw them take a family photo at the gate before going through and later I would see this photo re-posted on the @irishgaydads Instagram story a few days later.

We’d flown to Toronto earlier in the week to attend an appointment at our fertility clinic on Bay Street, to draw blood and collect our semen samples for analysis and freezing. It was the first tangible event on our surrogacy journey we’d undertaken so we were both excited but also nervous. The previous thirteen weeks had been dominated by email exchanges with four of the five companies we had to deal with, sending money, signing forms, GP appointments to get medically cleared to travel to Canada and more, so this trip felt like the real start to our surrogacy journey. A day after our clinic visit we got the good news from them that everything was ok which was a sigh of relief and meant we could enjoy our stay. I’d been pushing the ‘project’ aggressively when we began at the end of February and with himself working alot too, we were both tired so needed the break.

On top of the earlier update we got some more good news by email from our coordinator at the Surrogacy Agency with the subject ‘Surrogate Wants to MEET YOU!’ It was such a surprise that this women wanted to connect with us so soon because we had only pre-approved her surrogate profile, on our way to Dublin via bus from Cork earlier in the week. We were both so happy with all the good news and hoped to meet her in person but understandably it was too early in the process for that to be organised in time. We would eventually connect later in the week over FB Messenger and a Facetime call to begin to build a relationship.

The rest of our stay was lovely, a day trip via Amtrak train to Niagara Falls was amazing although the area around the falls were not what I had expected and visiting Casa Lomo to see where they’d filmed a scene for the 2010 romantic action comedy, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was a treat. A walk around a Wolfgang Tillmans (photographer) exhibition at AGO, the Art Gallery of Ontario, one evening was a wonderful surprise but the rest of Toronto, though nice, was too much city from what were used to. A doppelgänger stand-in for New York in many America made TV shows and movies, had a few million people living in and around it but sure it wasn’t Cork, like. This had been our first trip out this way, a first to North America for himself, so we missed the opportunity to visit ‘big country’ Canada, the mountains, lakes and forests further inland which we’ll save for a later trip. Anyways, our kids will be half Canadian so we’ll be out this way for the rest of our lives.

Back in the airport, our seat row had been called so we achingly arose from our seats, it had been a long day, to make our way to the gate entrance with our backpacks and passports open on the photo page. All checked and ready to board, we walked down the sky bridge to the awaiting Aer Lingus plane. I was looking ahead of us to see if I could see the couple we saw earlier and there they were in the two window seats, close to our middle aisle seats, with the new born in one of their arms. I whispered with a smile under my mask as I passed them ‘Hello dad’s!’ and gestured to himself to where they were. Throughout the flight we could see people going over to the couple, smiling and the stewards being very attentive to the new family. When landed a few hours later in Dublin we were racing to get our connecting Air Coach bus to Cork but we managed to steal a few minutes to see the moment the new family came through the arrivals gate of terminal two. It looked like a group of people were waiting to welcome someone, it was 6AM so a bit of odd to see anyone at this hour but a screech of joy from someone who looked like an expectant granny was heard as they came through the automatic doors. We stuck around a bit eating some food before our bus journey but it was so wonderful to see this couple at the end of their journey and us hoping to be them this time next year if everything works out — two men and a baby.

This is a place for me to reflect on everyday life, both past and present. It’s a place to explore events, my emotions, and various happenings.

So, here we go. I’m Ross and thanks for tuning in!

RMx