If you haven't read the piece, it's about a couple who couldn't get pregnant. The wife was a little older than her husband and after years of IVF, they were told she probably wasn't ever going to conceive. They felt adoption seemed too long a process with no guarantees, especially because the wife was older and had a chronic pain disease, so they decided on using a surrogate with donor eggs, and the husband's sperm. However, they really wanted twins but were told by their (responsible) doctor that there was too much risk with multiple births. Next they decided that they'd find a second surrogate, and implant the two surrogates at the same time. This resulted in babies being born 5 days apart: twiblings.
The egg donor was the only one in the story who isn't involved in the babies lives, and the only one whose identity was not revealed. Melanie Thernstrom, the wife/mother/author of the story is extremely confident in her position, even allowing one of the surrogates to occasionally breastfeed the baby she carried.
I applaud this woman for sharing her story, that many people might find controversial. It brought the surrogacy process, shall I say, out of the the closet. It's pretty clear that surrogacy is so expensive that it's cost prohibitive to most folks, while simultaneous surrogates, is surely only possible for the very wealthy, which seems kind of unfair, since I'm sure there's many gay and infertile couples who would also love to have this option. They were also very fortunate to find seemingly level-headed surrogates who didn't change their minds halfway through, or do any of the other possible horrifying things a stranger could do while they're carrying your baby.
At any rate, it made me think of how far I would have gone if I weren't able to conceive. Maybe we all start out the same: telling ourselves "if it happens, it happens." I remember that one day my husband and I were saying "maybe we'll start trying" and the next day having sex and then lying with my legs in the air for 15 minutes after. Was that over sharing? I guess what I'm saying is, it's so easy to let baby-making become all encompassing. A friend said that having children isn't what makes you a woman, and you can certainly have a magnificent life without kids. I think that if I hadn't been able than it would have been quite okay with me, but I haven't had to struggle with this dilemma. What would you do?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/magazine/02babymaking-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine
