Surrogacy - journey of a thousand tears...

The title of this work is self evident. What is not so apparent is the process I undertook to express the title in the work itself.
To provide some context to the work, I want to share some of the experiences of our journey with surrogacy. It was indeed, a journey of a thousand tears.
When we began our adventure, we had absolutely no idea where to start. It is not exactly something everyone talks about over a cup of tea... The online community that I had joined was a great source of information, and it felt so comforting to be amongst other women who also couldn't have a child. We were bonded by our joint desire to have a baby.

Our next step was to contact the fertility clinic, and to make ourselves known to CYFs. The sum total of our knowledge at that point was that any child born via surrogacy had to be adopted by us in order for us to be that child's legal parents. Current law states that the woman giving birth, and her husband if she has one, are the legal parents, even if we were the full biological parents to that baby. It took such a lot to get our heads around. That was going to be our baby, and yet by law, it wasn't. This was just the first of many reminders along the way that we were not having a child in the 'normal' way. There was so much prejudice out there. All of a sudden our private lives were open to public scrutiny.
Just for the adoption process itself, we were required to have medical checks, police checks, financial checks, the children were interviewed, references were required from multiple sources as to our fitness to parent, home visits from a social worker, courses to teach us the adoption process, assessments on all aspects of our relationship and then, if all that was ok, we would be allowed to adopt our baby. Far from the normal way a husband and wife might create their family.

We were fortunate to meet with a very lovely Social Worker who supported us with our endeavour. She gently led us through the many hoops required to be jumped through.

We were approached by a potential surrogate via the Internet. Our hopes soared. Here was a woman who wanted to carry our baby for us! It was the start of the biggest learning experience of my life. We spent months getting to know her via phone and email. We felt so close to this person, and when the time came to meet, our excitement was hitting a peak. We were closer to finally meeting our precious child.
To say that the meeting did not go well would be an understatement. In the course of our weekend together, she felt that it was probably a good time to let us know a bit more about herself that she had not yet shared.
She smoked heavily, and was not prepared to give it up in order to undertake the IVF treatment, she drank (socially) but said that having her wine was none negotiable, although she would 'try' to cut down. Her family was not supporting her, but she didn't see that as a problem because she didn't like her family anyway. She was currently on antidepressants, but reckoned that the baby would be OK anyway. When we questioned why she had not discussed these things earlier, she just said that other people had babies all the time while they were on medication, smoked and drank, and besides, I didn't have a uterus, she did, and we needed what she had so what was the problem?. She then went on to declare that her and her 5 year old daughter would be quite interested in moving in for the pregnancy and a little while after, and she had some suggestions for names for the baby.

This was not at all what we expected. While we had no expectations of someone completely putting their lives on hold for our pregnancy, we did think that perhaps the person wanting to undertake this pregnancy might have considered the impact of going through IVF treatment, and the subsequent pregnancy. Crushed, devastated and overwhelmed at realising just how little control we had in this situation and over the care taking of our child, it became apparent that I had ENORMOUS trust issues with someone else carrying my precious child. Was this how surrogacy worked? Did we as IP's (intended parents) really have to just accept what ever was offered because I didn't have a uterus?. When she went home from that weekend, we knew, that there was no way we were prepared to have a baby at any cost. It was not about 'any womb will do'. My grief at having to have someone do this for me at all was enormous. The only thing I could do for my baby was to try and find someone who would do their best for her, just as I would have done.

We ended our journey with her at that point, and were so saddened to have to hurt someones feelings by rejecting them. It was however, necessary.
Sadly she didn't see where we were coming from, and her bitterness was hard to endure. We had never wanted to cause someone else harm, but for every one's sake, what she was offering was simply not something we could put our child through.

So that was surrogate #1.

We had shared with our families what our intentions were, and sadly the support was not really forthcoming initially. It was such a hard thing for people to get their heads around. Thankfully that support was provided further down the track. It was, however, a very lonely road for my darling and I. All we had to hold on to, was the 'knowing' that our baby was just waiting for us to open the door. In the meantime, we kept looking for the hidden key. People seemed so quick to judge us. The other thing I found very telling was that because I had given birth myself twice, it was assumed that we were simply being greedy or irrational for wanting another child. What people seemed to forget was that my sweet man had never been a father. Did he not deserve the opportunity to hold his child in his arms. Did being a man automatically remove him from the realm of wanting children? Was wanting a baby only women's territory? I lost count of the thoughtless comments made to me, the hurtful remarks because I wanted another child. Apparently, only a woman who has never had a baby is entitled to want for one.
So I held fast to the same feeling that had been with me for over a dozen years. That quiet little voice singing to me in the night, that all would be well.

During a conversation with one of my sisters, I shared with her the distress we had felt about the first surrogate. It just didn't seem fair that we had to hand our precious baby over to someone who had no care for it. She shared in our pain and offered to carry the child for us. It was a perfect solution. I knew my sister would love and care for our baby and do her best to give it life. If you can't trust your sister to do this, then who can you trust.
It was all systems go.
We told our Social Worker that my sister was going to be our Gestational Surrogate. We began the process for getting Ethics Committee approval, which is required for all Human Assisted Reproduction. We began our appointments with the fertility clinics, and she had all her medical checks booked in. My darling checked out just fine. My sister was in good shape and should be able to carry a pregnancy even at 43. Then another blow. I still had one ovary left. I had had surgery several month earlier to make sure that the ovary was in a good position for egg pick up, and had all the endometriosis cut away so that it had a good chance of responding to the drugs to stimulate the egg production.
With everything looking as good as it was going to get, and with the older children fully on board, I went for the final round of testing, only to find out that my ovary had stopped working.
There would be no more children from me.
Once again we had to let someone down and tell my sister that she would not be carrying our baby after all. It was a hard time for her and her family because they had all become very excited about helping us.

There was such a wave of grief that I was almost crushed by it. My time had run out. I was too late. I had met this wonderful man just a few months too late. We would never have a child together. I would never know what it would be like to see him and me connected biologically for eternity. There would be no children, or grandchildren, or great grandchildren with his ears and my eyes.

That was surrogate #2.

What is parenting?
That was a fundamental question that I had to reach deep inside to answer. Is parenting having the ability to look at your child and see yourself in their faces? Is parenting about making observations that your child behaves like some distant relative? Is parenting about moulding your child with stories of how they carry the genetics of someone you love who has passed on?

Yes.... it can be these things, but it can be so much more.

When I was able to answer this question with truth and honesty, and with absolute knowledge that parenting, to me, could be so much more, we were then free to carry on the road to meeting our soul child.

Parenting is about holding your child in your arms in the dead of night, rocking them to sleep after a bad dream. Parenting is about all the firsts in their lives and being there to share them, to capture them, and to remember them. Parenting is about being prepared to lay down your life in a heartbeat without a thought if your child is in danger. Parenting is about your face lighting up when your child enters the room, it is about stealing kisses when ever you can, and sneaking in to their rooms at night to watch them sleep. Parenting is about making sure your home is safe and filled with love. It is about providing your child with learning opportunities to explore, to learn, to make mistakes, to find out what their limits are.... and how to overcome them. Parenting is about dedicating yourself to giving them a firm foundation from which to launch their lives.

Empowered with this awareness, we began the search for a traditional surrogate who would not only carry our child, but donate her own genetics.

This is quite an enormous concept to assimilate. I wrestled with the ethics of this. There was an old-school part of me that could hear people saying that if 'God' had wanted us to have a child, then I would have been able to be pregnant. How ethical was it for another woman to get pregnant with a child so I could be a mummy again? This decision was in no means a straightforward one. Somehow, a normal adoption of a strangers child was so much more socially acceptable to many of the people who we told about this, than to have a child born by another woman with my husband's genetics.

Something else that came to the fore was how this decision seemed to move us to a place where people, even people who we didn't know but knew of our journey from others, felt that because we couldn't have a child ourselves, our privacy was no longer valid. I lost count of the number of times I was asked how I felt about my husband having sex with another woman!!! What was worse however, was the disbelief when they were told that intimacy was not part of this process, that the conception occurs through artificial insemination. The next question was always... "How much do you pay her for her baby". Answering these questions was not the biggest issue, it was not having those answers believed that became obscene. When we said that no money passes hands, the babies are NOT bought or sold, and this is without a doubt, the MOST unromantic way to make a baby, so often we were met with bold scepticism.

The next question would then be... "So why is she doing it then?". Once again, to try and explain that some women are driven to undertake surrogacy purely because it is something they want to do, obviously was not 'juicy' enough of an explanation.

However, those are indeed the facts. For some women, it is about the opportunity to be pregnant without having to raise a child. For others it is the sense of achievement that they have been able to create a family for a couple who can't do it for themselves. For some it is about the close familial relationship that develops with the intended parents. Others undertake this incredible journey simply because they can...... obviously our previous experience also taught us that some turn to surrogacy as a means of filling gaps in their own lives to try and give themselves an opportunity to be important to other people, and to feel good about themselves for doing something so huge. Sadly many of these women also end up experiencing a tremendous amount of pain because of this approach, as being pregnant, and giving up a baby does not have the desired effect of filling those gaps.

Keeping the awareness of our soul child at the centre of our minds, we waited for our surrogate to come. We met a lovely woman who had wanted to be a surrogate for some years, and felt very comfortable with her. In due course we prepared to get underway, and the excitement of knowing that our child was soon to have the chance to be a reality, was as overwhelming as it was buoying.

There were so many emotions that I had been unprepared for. I thought I had cried all my tears by this stage. But I was wrong.

When the first insemination took place, I was hit with such a wave of sadness and grief that I dissolved into sobs. From that moment on, my husband would be forever bonded with another woman. Not emotionally, spiritually or mentally, or even physically in that sense, but genetically. For that moment in time, I grieved for all that we would never share together. It hit me that another woman was going to carry his child, all so that I could be a mummy. How does one process this?

I was so grateful for that realisation because it was vital that I fully appreciate the enormity of what we were doing. I was going to raise another woman's genetic child. I was going to look at that child and see my husband and another woman in her face. It was so important that I look at that head on, face it, own it, assimilate it. This woman was going to carry my husband's baby, she was going to give me this precious child, she was going to put her body through a pregnancy, a labour, a birth, and be a part of our lives from that moment on.

To not face these realities head on would have done her, and us, and the child a true injustice. There is no dressing this up. There was no hiding from those facts..... and yet we knew this was exactly where we needed to be. As incongruous as that may seem, it was the truth.

Our first round of insemination's resulted in a chemical pregnancy. The second round resulted in a pregnancy. Our relationship with the surrogate and her family flourished throughout this whole process. She was part of our family and our gratitude was just so huge. It was to become part of our lives that she became our first concern, and rightly or wrongly, I pushed my own feelings to the back and focused on her and her needs. It was the least I could do.... but my own sadness was bubbling under the surface. How I would have loved to have been able to do this for myself, for my husband.

At about 6 weeks in, I began to find the going quite tough. The txts and calls that I was getting each day from our surrogate brought such guilt to the forefront for me. She was really suffering with morning sickness and the pregnancy was hard on her. I didn't know what to do. There was nothing I could do to make that better, and she was suffering with the tiredness and nausea. It was so painful to know that now that she was pregnant, she was resenting it to such a huge degree because of the impact it was having on her life. I felt completely trapped. There was nothing I could do, and the guilt I felt that because of my inability to be pregnant another woman was suffering was crushing.

Each day became harder and harder to get through. Her family started to suffer the further along in the pregnancy she got. Her children's lives were made harder because she was finding it so tiring. We were beside ourselves with the impossibility of the situation. Even though this was a situation where we had all entered into it with eyes open, seeing her suffer, and the huge weight of the guilt I felt, was taking it's toll.

More was to come, however.

At exactly 12 weeks pregnant, she started spotting. I rushed her to the hospital for a scan. Our baby had died. I saw her on the screen. A perfect little body, but as I looked and looked, it soon became apparent that what should have been fluttering away in the centre of the screen, was motionless.

I was in shock. My baby was dead. Our hopes and dreams for that little soul were lost. I couldn't make sense of it.

The surrogate was beside herself. She completely fell apart, while I sat there holding her.

I held her. Soothed her. Wiped her tears. Helped her dress. Comforted her. Drove her home. I phoned my husband. I told him our baby had died. I made her cups of tea. I picked up her children. I bought her maternity pads for when the bleeding started. I organised for a friend of hers to be with her. I stayed with her, holding her hand. I would gladly suffer a dozen miscarriages myself before I would want to watch another woman go through that on my behalf. Having lost 2 babies, I knew the score. This was worse. My heart ached. My soul ached.

I kept thinking that any moment now we might be able to share the loss together. It seemed to escape her that we had suffered a loss too, but then, that was most likely because of the deep hole that I was in, that I saw it that way. It is so difficult to try and explain the difficulty of watching someone lose your baby, and having such huge concern for their wellbeing, while grieving for your child. I thought there may have been some space in there for her to acknowledge what this meant for us too. To go through it together, not just us on the outside.

She had the physical loss. We had the emotional loss.....

The baby came away the next day, which also happened to be my husbands birthday. We brought our little girl home. She was perfect. Her tiny fingers and toes, that perfect little head. Tiny.... and still.

She is buried at home and we walk past her every day.

Thankfully the surrogate recovered well. This at least was a huge relief to us. She was going to be ok. In the weeks that she was recovering, we came to a crushing decision. We had witnessed the enormous impact this whole experience had had on her children. The pregnancy had taken such a toll on her and on them, and then the miscarriage had caused them such grief that we just couldn't put them all through that again. This special woman had gone through so much, and because of the outcome had a deep sense of failure - she was very keen to go again. She was planning the next round of insems and getting all geared up, ready to move on. All the way through this, we had reiterated to her time and time again that the miscarriage was not a failure. Far from it. She had not failed. She had not failed us. She had brought us closer to being parents together than we had ever been and our gratitude for that was enormous. Still the focus was on what she saw as a failure. She ignored how hard the pregnancy had been for her, and on her, and that really worried us. The concern about how her circle of people who knew what she was doing would judge her as a failure was pushing her on, and to us, this was not going to be a healthy way forward for any of us.

I was completely drained by the need she had while pregnant and the weight of my guil. Added to this was our having to put our intense grief on the back burner about the miscarriage because the whole focus on the pregnancy and loss was on the physical needs, and we had not left any space for our emotional needs. I didn't have anything left to go through that again.

In amongst all of this, we still had our own household to run, jobs, renovations, wedding to organise, adoption process to go through and two children who we were trying to protect from the impact of all of this in their lives.

We tried to put things as honestly and gently as possible. We said that in good conscience we didn't want to be the reason that she and her family went through that hardship again. I knew I didn't have the reserves to support her to the same level of intensity as before and I couldn't' bear to see her suffer anymore.

Sadly, once again, we had to hurt someone. We had to say that we couldn't try again with her. We assured her as much as we possibly could that it had nothing to do with the miscarriage, in fact that was proof that she could get pregnant again. It was about us trying to look out for her and her children.

We wanted to maintain a relationship with her, after all we had been through together, but she drifted away, no longer wishing to know us. She felt hurt by our inability to proceed, which I can fully understand, but sometimes doing the right thing, means not doing the easy thing.

So that was surrogate #3.

There is of course, much more to the story, and many more tears.

I had to find a way to honour those tears, to express through my work those experiences both good and not so good. I can't say that the experiences were 'bad', because each step, each pain, each disappointment, each moment of stress, each difficult decision taught me something. I took all of those learning experiences with me. I think I am a better person because I had my soul laid bare, and had the opportunity to see who I am, and to gauge how far away that was from the person I want to be.

This particular work "Journey of a Thousand Tears" was a labour of love. This work was done slowly and painstakingly, giving myself space to honour each of these moments. The background is created with three colours, representing the three of us involved in creating our soul child. Greens for my husband and I, who identify with the earth, and blue for our 4th surrogate (whose story will be told later), who identifies with the ocean.

The paint was applied one drop at a time with an eye dropper. It was cathartic to take the time needed to apply thousands of drops of paint, to watch them flow and blend and create the foundation of this work. The paint has a metallic shimmer which can not be seen in the photographs, but in reality they have a depth, a truth that perfectly capture our intent.

Our surrogate is honoured, as are we, for keeping true to the dream of having this child - with the colours. The sum total of the experiences are honoured by the application of the paint. The child, our long awaited soul child, is represented by the line.

Catching the light is a glaze applied to represent the tears.

Like many of my pieces, the application, the thinking behind the piece is as important to the over all work, as the work itself.