Our Final Surrogate Match
I think we finally found ‘the one.’
We are officially matched (again) with a surrogate!
Matching has been the most complicated part of our journey so far. We have interviewed 4 potential surrogates and matched with 2 others before, but this one feels ‘right.’
I have written about the experiences of matching, unmatching, and rematching with each of these potential gestational carriers (GCs), and through these experiences we developed a list of ‘must haves’ for the final match:
Must be under 40 years of age due to newborn insurance for international intended parents (IPs).
Must be in an abortion friendly state so she can get care if needed.
Must be in a pre-birth order state so we minimize the delay in getting back to Sweden.
Must not live in one state and work in another, as this adds complexity, cost, and delays to the parentage documentation.
Must have great social support from family and friends nearby as we are a world away and want them to feel as good as possible throughout the process.
In addition to all the necessary medical, psychological, and social requirements for GCs in the U.S. (1), we have found that our additional requirements made matching more challenging than we had expected.
However, our previous matches and interactions with our American and Swedish legal teams validated that we absolutely needed all these requirements. Also, we had already waited so long to get to this point that we weren’t comfortable compromising anything.
The main takeaway from this experience that all IPs should remember: Don’t compromise what you want to speed the surrogacy journey along.
Our current match not only meets our requirements, but we had a great connection, easy conversation, and a fun time meeting her and her husband. They are great people with an incredible family of their own that they are so proud of. They love their children so much, and they are both so excited to share that gift with us.
As an added bonus, the husband has had a vasectomy, and so we won’t be in the same position as before when our surrogate got pregnant with her husband.
It’s really refreshing that there are no concerns or unknowns with this match.
There was actually no discussion needed between my husband and me. Immediately after the call, we looked at each other and said at the same time that we 100% wanted to match with her.
We did sleep on it. We wanted to ensure that no other concerns crept into our minds, and to alleviate the fear that we would suddenly learn of some new potential problem right after matching. We also didn’t want to feel rushed, even though we were jumping out of our skin wanting to email our agency and say, ‘YES! YES! YES!’ to the match.
It felt good to wait. To take a breath, and to be absolutely, positively sure. We woke up the next day with even more confidence in the decision, and we wrote the email confirming our choice.
Of course, there was a slight delay afterwards. The initial meeting occurred on a Saturday, and we wrote back on a Sunday. Understandably, not everyone is working 24/7 like we are for this, so we had to wait an excruciating 24 hours until Monday to hear back. Fortunately, on Monday morning California time, we got the email that she and her husband would ‘LOVE’ to work with us.
It was a match! Hopefully, our final match.
It felt like an anvil had been lifted off my chest, and I could finally take a deep sign of relief. For months, we had been carrying the weight of our previous unmatched surrogates, the delay this has caused, and the added pressure of learning how ‘restrictive’ our requirements are. The stress of having so much out of our control and things not going according to plan was at a tipping point.
However, we held fast to our standards and to each other, and we have made it through.
Surrogacy is hard. But not doing surrogacy the way that you want to do it is impossible. It’s important to really believe in your journey because this is the story that you will tell your children for the rest of your life. It is a story that will become a core part of their personhood and shape who they will become. It’s a story you have to tell proudly. There is no room for uncertainty for anyone involved.
I believe we have found the GC to help us tell that story, and we cannot wait to move through the pregnancy, delivery, and life of our child with her and her incredible family.
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