Dads: A gay couple's surrogacy journey in India (15 page)

Sascha? Pascale? We don't wanna know, but we love you!

I have been busy getting ready for my new job, which officially starts on Monday, and Alex has been getting busy with his new job. I'm sure you get the idea, add to that my herniated disk, and you have a couple of very busy parents-to-be!

You seem to be doing just fine, you are growing beautifully. You were at 10w4d gestation Friday, which puts you at 12w4d in terms of the 'normally' used pregnancy count in weeks. This means you're growing like crazy! :) You're about two days ahead of schedule! Great work. LOL

Gotcha!

The pictures we got aren't amazing. We can see you fine, but there's not much detail. However, the hospital was kind enough to add some explanations. Yet I look forward to a sharper image, not because I want to know your gender, but because it would be really awesome to have a nice pic to show you later on in life, not to mention your Grosi, your grandma. She is aware of you, having already made it pretty clear to my dad that she'll never watch the child, a typical reaction of a grand mom before actually having held the little bundle of joy in her arms. I have a hunch she'll change her mind…

Then there's the sex thing. It is the number one question from everyone we talk to. It is amazing how limited we still are as humans. I'm not judging anyone, because we are who we are at this point in human development, yet I find it limiting and sad that we haven't evolved more. That is also the reason why Alex and I don't care if you are developing into a girl, a boy, or if you're born intersexual. We really don't. No matter what, we are going to love you to pieces. Being gay, we have been through all of the negativity, the judgmental attitudes, the hatred even.

There is a fairly good chance that you will be a boy. As it is your father's genes that determinate the sex of a child and my paternal grandfather's sons both only had boys, my dad had two, my uncle had four. You never know, because my mother's genes also influence me and my maternal grandfather had four girls and only one son… So whichever way you look at it, it's going to be interesting. Meanwhile, your dad and I will continue to answer the questions people ask us.

I'm glad they point that out… I would've picked the one to the right!

I was going to write about something specific which came up today on the way back from town, but I was in so much pain that I already forgot what it was. Sorry for that.

There is so much going through our minds. We never forget about you, but as we approach your birth, we still have plenty of things to prepare for. From the insurance questions, to adoption issues, etc. I've already been in touch with our
hotel
in Mumbai to see if they can offer us a good rate. It's one thing to stay there for a few nights, but we're looking at a month! :) So please, Mr.
Tata
, make us a good offer, will ya?

I've started to read baby books, one that is. It's an American e-book I found on iTunes. It's neutral and not so much centered around the 'mother', although it's implied. But some of the books I've looked at were extremely sexist, at least seen from a father's point of view. Maybe I'll have to write one on my own eventually, but I'm glad there is literature to read about umbilical cords after birth, and what that means. I'm sure the good doctors in Mumbai and the nurses will take excellent care of us and explain everything in great detail, but still…

As someone who's about to become a parent for the first time, I want to be prepared and make sure that you, that tiny life, will be taken well care of. Normally, I would talk to my mother, or my mother-in-law, but my mom's illness makes it difficult (if not impossible) to ask, and my mother-in-law is not what I would call a reliable source of information. So we read up…

Anyway, we are five days away from the second trimester, almost through the woodwork as they say in pregnancy terms, as most spontaneous miscarriages happen in the first trimester. In the coming weeks, Alex and I will record messages to you and send a care package to India including our voices on a CD, soothing music for you, pregnancy “
speakers
“ (that you put on the belly), and some gifts for our surrogate mother's kids, a small but inadequate gesture of gratitude from our part. We appreciate that not only the surrogate is making a sacrifice on our behalf, but also her family, particularly her children, as their mother was away during the first weeks of the pregnancy, disrupting their normal family routines.

Until I have more to tell you…

Love,

Bappi

No, this isn't a marketing post (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can read up
here
).

Yesterday marked the beginning of our second trimester and thus - at least theoretically - the end of the first one (duh…) and with it the biggest risk of miscarriage. Naturally, we're both thrilled that we've come this far in our first attempt, yet somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm still saddened by the loss of 'Fetus A', who stopped developing at week 5 (at the staggering size of 0.31 cm) and whose heart stopped beating shortly thereafter and whose cells are slowly being absorbed by the womb.

For mother nature, it's a daily procedure. For us, as weird as it may sound to some, it's a loss, and while it seems odd to be grieving for a lump of cells of 3 mm, we will always mourn our unborn child.

There were eyes, a brain, a spine, arm and leg buds, and a heart beating like nuts. It was also the first sign of trouble, because while your heart is beating steadily at ~180 beats per minute, A's heart was only beating at 80 bpm.

It is what it is and apparently as many as half of all pregnancies start out with two embryos, but because “normal” pregnancies don't get to do an ultrasound until week 14-20 (which also is our next appointment), most parents are never even aware of having 'lost' a potential child. You can't grieve what you don't know, right?

Instead, your dad and I try to focus on you, just as they all tell us to, but we'll never forget your sibling to be, it just feels like the decent thing to do.

I've been at my new job for a week now, and already I'm busier than I could have imagined, but it is heaps of fun, it really is. Your dad is still in a holding position to start his new job, being stuck in the odd limbo of having to focus on the old one until a successor is appointed and being thrown into the thick of the new one without really having started. But he's happy and at the house we have this calm expectant feeling that is really fun.

I have a hunch that the next three months (of the second trimester) will fly by really quickly, simply because we both are busy at work, we travel a lot (I will anyway) and before you know it, it's Christmas and 2013, the year of your birth. I think that is going to be a good year, because it will be 100 years since the birth of my beloved 'Grosi', who is one of my biggest idols. She was born to gypsy parents (where my Indian heritage comes from) and was immediately taken away and put into foster care, where she was raised on a farm.

She had to work hard even when she was a child. Eventually, she met my 'Grossbappe', the grandson of a German Baron, who refused to join the German army in WWII, and who spent the entire war in an encampment, while Grosi struggled to feed their first four children. Grandpa wasn't always the nicest person (he mellowed when he grew older), and life wasn't easy in post-war Switzerland. Although neutral, being literally in the middle of battle fields, bombs fell and food was scarce for the poorest in society.

Having you born 100 years after Grosi is something to be very proud of, because she was an amazingly strong and loving person, and I hope that you will inherit many of her qualities.

Love,

Bappi

“notes from a baby farm..”

(In effect, surrogacy is being compared to breeding cattle or pigs)

“with the help from a poor Indian woman's womb…”

(creating the appearance that the surrogate has no say in this and needs to be pitied for being poor)

“to remove a baby from her womb…”

(another blow under the belt...)

“50K SEK is not getting these women anywhere…”

(applying western standards to eastern realities)

“nine months of pain”

(come again..?)

Every now and then, someone in the media picks up the trail about surrogacy. Sweden, being as “progressive” as it thinks it is, is no exception. Just last week, in a
program
by our state radio, the horrors of surrogacy were once again portrayed, with all the quotes above coming from that segment.

Being 14 weeks pregnant through a surrogate mother in India, I can't help but feel attacked. Am I a bad person? Am I the monster who's exploiting a poor woman in India against her will? Am I a modern day slave owner?

As “intended parents” (that's what we're called in the official nomenclature in India), we have a huge responsibility in terms of how we choose the companies/agencies we work with. Alex and I had been googling and searching for some time before we decided on the
company
we finally opted for, primarily because of the amazing feedback they had received on online forums.

Sadly, talking to surrogate mothers isn't possible, as most of them do not speak English and most of them aren't online or easy to find. When I was in Mumbai this summer for the IVF procedure, I met our surrogate, her husband and her youngest daughter for the contract signing. She was beautifully dressed in a traditional Sari, and both she and her husband were quite shy. Needless to say, so was I. But I never once got the impression that she did this (for the second time) against her will.

But here's the deal. If you need food on the table, you'll work. We all have to, and in India, with no social security systems in place outside the family ties, you will work. And what kind of work will you do if you can neither read nor write?

I've seen new arrivals in the great city of Mumbai, living in the gutters along the streets, just outside the gated properties that are the luxury hotels where western and rich Indian visitors spend their nights. Many western visitors are disgusted by that sight, by the dust, the filth, that is omnipresent.

Many of us come to India with the expectation that it'll be just like the streets back home: green, clean & quiet. Instead, Mother India is violent, dirty & loud, at least at first sight. Yes, many Indians are incredibly poor, living on less money per year than we spend in a week. But they have hope for a better life and they work hard, breaking their backs to provide their families a better tomorrow.

They live in stinking rat holes after moving away from the streets, tiny apartments with no running water (but a roof over their head), sharing their space with cockroaches and other vermin. That is the reality for hundreds of millions of Indians.

It's not much different than the reality for most Europeans 150 years ago. They left 'their' stinking rat holes to work in mines or factories, living in miserable conditions. My own grandparents would tell stories of what they had to endure as children. We seem to have forgotten, and the journalist (whose report I once listened to) who visited an apartment where a group of surrogates spend the first weeks of their pregnancy, is appalled at seeing a cockroach (something I know exists in the most luxurious properties in Mumbai.)