Meeting our Surrogate and Egg Collection

A day or two before leaving India, we had the opportunity to meet our surrogate. Of course I jumped at the chance. I had been nervous for some time at the prospect of meeting her: what would I say and how could I ever express my true gratitude. Thank you seemed trite. When she entered the room with her translator, I could feel my knees get weak and had to sit. I'm not even really sure what I said to her. She has children and I think I asked her if they would be properly cared for during this ordeal. More important than what was said, was what wasn't said. As I stared at this woman, so obviously nervous and shy by my presence, I realized this meeting was not for her. She didn't need to meet me like I needed to meet her. The cultural divide between this poor illiterate woman from Northeastern India and us, two middle class white gay Western men, was thicker than a concrete wall. As hard as I tried not to, I began to cry and thank her for giving us this opportunity. I hope she was able to comprehend how much I truly appreciate her act of generosity but truthfully, I'll never know.

Yesterday was egg collection day. We left Delhi late last night. While transiting in London, I received this e-mail:

"We would like to inform you that 17 eggs were matured out of 19 collected.

We are very happy to inform you that the fertilization was very good and all the 17 eggs have fertilized.

We will get back to you soon with further updates."

Hey this sounds good to me. As with everything with this process, I have to Google everything to double check. Impatiently awaiting the next e-mail.

We just got home this afternoon. I'm exhausted: not sure if it's from the 20+ hours of flying, the baby drama waiting and uncertainty or the mentally taxing India visit. I think I'm gonna crawl into bed and stay there for the next few days.

Celebrating an interesting and hopefully successful India visit

Flight from London to Miami April 10, 2012