Tuesday 21 August 2012

The journey begins

Hi, we hope you enjoy reading our story, we are a gay couple from Melbourne Australia, we have been together for almost 8 years, and although only 32 ans 25 we are both at the stage in our life where we want nothing more than to have a family.
After many emails, discussions, reviews, thoughts, feedback, and emotion things seem to be starting happen. We could be a family this time next year.
We had decided that commercial surrogacy was not the right option for us and for years had searched and hoped we would find  a wonderful lady wishing to co-Parent and create an alternative family unit. Big family, mums and dads, uncles and aunts, a large family network and the resources of more than just the two of us. But after 3-4 years of little interest and negativity and a large percentage of people only wanting a man to be the "donor" and receive the occasional picture each year, we lost hope. Commercial surrogacy for us Always seemed out of reach cost wise, we are financially secure but not so much so that we have large savings accounts. upon further investigation and research we learned that surrogacy was actually affordable for us in India. We sent off an email and were sent a lot of information, prices, possible donors and process details etc. the realization and the excitement about what we are doing is finally setting in.
We decided that we wanted to share our surname so that we would both have the same surname as our children. But the question was whose surname as hyphen-ating our surnames would mean my name in full would be this long
########### #########-#######
And his would be
####### #########-#######
Looooong names. We contemplated the idea of creating our own "new" surname but felt that not right. So we looked at who's name would be the most difficult to change, and the winner was me. I get to share my name with him and I am very happy that he is happy to take my surname.
Anyhow I got an email this morning informing us that our number 1 selection for egg donor is available in early September and we are very excited.
So to give you an idea, we looked At both Caucasian and Indian egg donors. Initially we thought Caucasian was the way to go but there were several factors to consider we were told. First the cost. It was about $13-20 k just to have a Caucasian donor fly in and donate. Secondly you really only get one bite at the apple so to speak. So all that money spent with no guarantee. We stopped and though logically about this situation and recalled the realization of our situation, that we can not become a family without an egg donor and surrogate and that in the grand picture we dream of having a healthy and happy family regardless. Allocating all that money to have aCaucasian egg donor could limit additional tries should we not be successful the first time.
We received a couple of hundred Indian donor profiles to review. The very first profile we looked at ended up to be our number 1 choice. Coincidence or meant to be. Not only that we both independently selected her without the other knowing that to be the others first choice. Without being small minded the profiles don't give a lot of details apart from a picture, height, weight, skin complexion, hair and eye color. But she was beautiful. Very attractive with fair complexion, dark hair and eyes. We didn't have a great deal of hope that this donor would be available and as instructed picked a further 5. We sent them along with our enrollment form to confirm our definitive interest in taking this route to achieving our dreams. We heard nothing! Was something on our application wrong? were we selecting donors that were not available? It was odd that almost 5 days to respond when we expressed a firm commitment to proceed but in the investigationstages emails were responded to almost immediately. Where we paranoid? YES we were.Patience is something that e are going to have to develop more of with this process. I finally sent a follow up email offering more information and confirming our details had been received. I got an email back almost instantly saying that they are working through our list of donors to confirm availability and that many had been put on hold for others. I was asked if the list was in our preferred order which it was and that number 1 on the list was our favorite and the first one we both opened andagreed to be perfect one. They told me they would get back to me as soon as possible. That they did and it was couple hours later they told us that our first  choice was available and wait for it available early September. (the date specified is a coincidence again as it is my mothers birthday) I like to believe that these things are positive signs for what we are doing.
So great things are happening and the realization that 2013 could mark the year that we become a family and dads.........

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