Benefits?

So yesterday I panicked and bought a full fare airline ticket from Delhi to London. Since I work for a major airline, I travel for "virtually" nothing. I haven't bought a full fare ticket since 1996. Indeed, this is probably the best benefit about my job. Yesterday I panicked. Delhi is notorious for being extremely difficult to fly out of standby. A co-worker was there last year in February and was told to try back in June - there "might" be seats available then. The flights going over look ok in April but coming out they are starting to fill up... I couldn't handle the stress of being stuck in Delhi for days on end wondering if, when and how we would get out. British Airways had good fares so I broke down and bought 2 one-way tickets to London. Ruben says "forget about it - we're buying peace of mind." Regardless, this is how I will feel if there's an open seat on that flight to London...

Decisions, Decisions...

So I thought I'd write a brief post about how we chose this path and our clinic. I stumbled across Indian surrogacy from an ad on Google of all places. To be honest, I never gave surrogacy any serious consideration. Being male and being gay, I never thought I would have the opportunity to have my own child. It never really bothered me either - I had always considered adoption as a viable alternative. Unfortunately, the adoption process in the State of Florida is wrought with bureaucracy and inefficiency. It was enough to make us just about give up. Until I saw that ad on Google. The idea of actually being a father left both of us with such a feeling of excitement and happiness. I guess that Google ad changed our lives.

Now what? Where to go? What to do? I think I stayed up researching "surrogacy+India" until 2 or 3am the night I read that ad. All I can say is that it felt like the right thing to do for both of us. Immediately we said "Let's go for it." It became obvious very quickly that there are really only a handful of clinics in India with a good international reputation. I researched all of them. I then contacted all of them. The responses from the clinics couldn't have been more different. One sent a brochure without answering any of my questions at all. The other didn't get back to me for about 3 weeks. This helped me narrow the field down even further. I then requested references from the clinics - I also found a few on these blogs.  In the end, SCI was really the only clinic that met my criteria. Although I have not had any contact with Dr. Shivani, I like how the clinic is run from what I've experienced. Her client managers have answered all of my questions and concerns - usually within record time. I remember thinking - I just sent them an e-mail 30 minutes ago. It must be about 3 am in Australia and they are already writing me back. This is reassuring for neurotic people like me!

The next decision was picking a donor. This wasn't hard at all. I was sent about 50 or 60 donor profiles. Initially I thought it would be a much more difficult process. I was so excited to get the profiles. I looked through them all in about 3 minutes. No, No, No....No, She's The One! Something in her eyes drew me to her. Luckily she was available and will be ready for us in April. Fingers crossed...

I thought I'd leave you with a picture of my four-legged babies.

Pancho and Tito

Counting Down

We've been busy bees the last couple of weeks. We normally take our annual vacation during the month of January. Last year at this time we were heading back from taking a bus trip across Laos. We love, love, love southeast Asia. Since April and the India trip are right around the corner, we decided to stay home and work on the house.  Chinese takeout was as close as we got to Asia this year!

Since we had so much time off, I decided it would be a great time to get our Visas in order for India. Ruben and I are both flight attendants and fly to South America and Europe. We can't be without our passports since we need them for work. According to the agency that does Visas for India, we would be able to get the visa the same day if we made an appointment at the Houston agency. Great! I made an appointment and had the entire plan all set up - take the first flight of the day from Miami to Houston, land at 9:00am, rent a car and drive to the agency for a 10:45 appointment, hang out in Houston until the passports were ready at 4:30 and take the 6pm flight back home to Miami. Sounded good to me... Everything went great until we got to the little window to hand in our passports - "Would you like to come back in 2 days or have them mailed to you?" the woman asked. "Excuse me?" Ruben says in his no nonsense New Yorker way. She went on to explain that Visas are only done on the same day for special circumstances... "How about you make a special circumstance for me" Ruben barks as I'm trying to diffuse the situation. Long story short... we left with no passport and received the passports with our 5 year visas a few days ago. I'm thinking to myself, just wait, just wait until we get to India... this is nothing compared to what we will encounter!

Ruben building the deck (I'm supervising!)

On a more depressing note, things are not going good for me at work.  My company filed bankruptcy and big changes are coming - many not for the better. Our pensions have been ripped away from us, about 15,000 people will loose their jobs etc. I could go on but I'll spare you my sadness. Luckily I do not think I will be one of those loosing their job. Right now, I'm a little nervous and scared. This couldn't have come at a worst time with us planning to start a family. Thoughts have been racing through my head - Am I crazy having a kid now? Maybe I should wait until things are more stable? Is there ever a "perfect" time in life to start a family? On the other hand, I think everything will work out, many people get pregnant everyday without even planning for it - they somehow survive. As luck would have it, my company is ceasing flights to Delhi on March 1st. We've been flying the route for 6 years and they stop one month before my trip!!!! That means no first class to Delhi for me... I'll probably be stuck flying standby on British Airways in a middle seat in coach. Yikes! I guess that's really the least of my worries now...