Defined

This experience has taught me a lot about definition. Definition, being defined, in so many senses of the word.

I have given birth to two children. I have had two children slip from my body never to take a breath, or a step, to have my arms to hold them, or my body to nourish them. However my body has produced eggs that were fertilised that resulted in pregnancy. Therefore, I am technically considered fertile. The first definition.

My darling is able to create life. He is able to pass on his genetic makeup, to provide the building blocks from which a child can grow. He is considered fertile. Another definition.

Together, we can not have a child. My body has succumbed to the insidiousness of a disease that slowly destroys, and had to relinquish it's reproductive organs one painful operation after another. Am I still considered fertile? No. My new definition, my newly defined status as a woman is now INfertile.

That means that as a couple, we are infertile.... yet we are infertile with children. In a world where definitions are so important, we didn't seem to fit in either camp. The infertile world found it hard to accept us because I have given birth. The fertile world found it hard to accept us because as a couple we dreamed of being parents together, from the beginning of our child's creation, but we couldn't.

Having already come to terms with my own definition of what it means to be a women when I went through my hysterectomy, and subsequent removal of ovaries etc, it was a jolt to the senses to once again have to establish who and what I was in my own mind. In some ways, not having reproductive organs made my journey easier than some, as there were simply no other options for me. If I wanted to give my husband a child, to have a child with him, to bring this long awaited soul into the world, surrogacy was my one and only option. I didn't have to go through years and years of heartache with failed IVF, or the bewilderment of my body not doing what it was designed to do. I was saved all of that time, pain and loss, and because of this can have nothing but the utmost empathy for those who do have to go down such a long road before coming to surrogacy.

My pain was quickly administered with a surgeons knife, and long healed, leaving only the odd emotional twinge to remind me of my loss. However, my grief, which defined my infertility, however that came about, is equal to those who have travelled a different path.
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This particular art work, while soothing and beautiful, carries with it a hidden voice that few will truly hear.

The true meaning of being defined, that I experienced in this surrogacy world, is that Intended Mother's are defined by their inability to produce a child and therefore require a surrogate. Surrogates are defined as the women who choose to carry a child for a couple who can not carry a child for themselves. Without surrogates there would be no Intended Mother's (as such), without Intended mothers there would be no surrogates. Each requires the other to define who and what they are in this equation.

This work expresses that in a very literal way. The ocean meets the land. The elements are also expressed with texture on the land, the flowing brush strokes of the ocean. Even these can be further broken down to express the journey's which brought both parties to this place, the meeting place of need.

Without the land to define the edge of the water, there would be no way to know where it starts and finishes. Without the ocean to sit along the edge of the land, there would be no definition to the edge of its form. However, this definition, the defining of where the two elements meet, can so easily be altered by the ocean. One of the challenges I faced as an intended mother, was to adapt to the presence of another element in our lives. Both sides in this situation are completely at the mercy of the other. Whether that sense of power, or the magnitude of what control is actually held by the surrogate is conscious or not, the mere fact that they carry your child, and you have absolutely no control over what happens, is an immense, and often overwhelming experience. Equally, how many emotions, fears, concerns must a surrogate have... will she be left high and dry? Will her chosen IP's be good parents? Are they who they say they are or is she giving a child to strangers after all?



Like the powerful ocean which surges and wanes, ebbs and flows, so much of the journey is determined by the needs of the surrogate. The ocean has the power to define or to erode the landscape.... a surrogate has the power to do the same. I should add in here though, that I have seen situations where the reverse is also true. Where the parents have changed the lay of the land, and left their surrogate with no support with which to define their part in the journey.

This is why the line, the all important line, is so essential. That unique place where the ocean and the land meet and create with purpose that which defines both elements.
.... a precious child.

It can not be understated how important that focus is... that both are focused on 'the line'. Afterall, that is what both parties are there for. To define each other in this context, to give that line its definition in reality. So much can be lost when one side or other ceases to be the defining point for the other.

This particular work can be experienced three ways. It is my way of paying homage to the essence of a surrogacy journey.... two equally essential parties coming together to make a third party, all the while the focus being on that which sits in the line... the defining point.

The ocean runs into the land within the curve of the pregnant belly, because a part of the surrogate will remain with us for all time. The life she gives, the genetics she gives, will be in our world, sheltered and nurtured by us... the land.

From the ocean comes all life. From this ocean, this special woman, came our child.