I ran away from home a couple of weeks ago. I’m not sure why, but it seemed like a very attractive idea at the time. I have been thinking a lot about whether or not to resume IVF down the track, or how can I go about reconciling myself to having just one child. I felt that in order to sort this out, I needed to exhaust all my options. So, I started researching surrogacy to see if we would be viable candidates. There is a lot of appeal in trying surrogacy, it might have presented us with the ability to have more children before IVF sends me crazy. I tried to wheedle information out of the clinics down south over the phone, but as soon as you say you are from Queensland (and they always ask), they say they can’t help you.
So I went to see a couple of doctors, one in Sydney and one in Canberra, under the pretense of recently having moved and wanting to transfer my embryos to their clinic blah, blah, blah. And the Readers Digest version of what occured is that, we would not be considered suitable for the surrogacy program beause we have a child already. Which as far as they are concerned means I have a viable chance of bearing more children as I am ony 33. Due to my young age (in fertility stakes anyway), they do not believe that we have exhausted all other options. Apparently, we could still apply to access surrogacy facilites, but it is extremely unlikely that we would be approved through the various ethics and legal committees that they require you to be vetted by.
It is all good and well for them to say that I will mostly likely have success on IVF eventually, but it is the EVENTUALLY that I am not coping with. I am tired of thinking about it, and depressed about the fact that we have stopped and I feel like we are marking time – doing nothing and as such, have no hope of achieving a result. Wasting time really.
My father in his lecture before I went away, was adamant that surrogacy would all end in a nightmare, and no matter how much I tried to tell him that I didn’t even know whether it was going to be an option that was available for us, he make it quite clear that in his opinion, I shouldn’t even be considering it, as it was fraught with emotional turmoil. My sister who seems so keen to stick her two cents in, felt that heading down this path was going to ruin my marriage, and that if I didn’t accept my little family the way it was, I was risking losing Hubby and all. Mum tries to make out like she understands what is motivating me, but I can tell that she doesn’t really get it either, but at least she isn’t making derisive commentary along the way. Why can’t they see that this is just something that I had to do. As it turns out, it has all been for naught, but at least I know that now, and am not sitting around saying ‘What if…?’
.