Dads: A gay couple's surrogacy journey in India (19 page)

Family can be a lot of things, but to me, family is based on love, mutual respect and it is the nest where kids could find the best start in life. What they look like is not important. Whether it's mom & dad or mom & mom or just a dad, or grandma & uncle. Who cares, as long as the children are loved, nurtured and protected?

For 60 years, we've been carrying the heavy cross of “traditional family.” It's time to make this the shortest parenthesis in human development!

Nothing seems to be crazier than people expecting children…

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook that they were decorating the nursery (although they are “behind” us in terms of when the baby's due…)

Needless to say that we've been asked, too, if we had already decorated the nursery. It's probably one of the most frequent questions, right along up there with the name of the baby (which usually comes right after the sex question…)

Let me be blunt. The 'nursery' is still our office and will remain our office for at least one more year!

In order to be able to follow our pregnancy and understand roughly where we're at (since we can't touch any tummies or feel the little one kick inside us), I've downloaded two very good apps from the Apple Appstore (both apps are available on Android, too.) One is in Swedish from our local
government
 and the other one’s from Baby Center (with a lot more detail, though much of it irrelevant to us). It is available in a number of languages, and here's the link to the English
website
.

These apps include a lot of information about the baby's development stages and allow us to stay connected and somewhat up to date.

The second app currently suggests (in more than uncertain terms) that it's time to start writing a budget for your baby, because of all the stuff you have to buy, complete with links and tips and where to buy.

We already bought the most expensive item, the car! Our new Volvo will allow us to transport the baby safely while we're on route from home to wherever, and still have enough room for the stroller, grocery bags and whatever else needs to be dragged along on a trip to buy a liter of milk.

Cars require child seats (or a baby seat). We went to our local Volvo dealer to have a look at different seats and I think we'll opt for a seat with
Isofix
fixtures. Seems the quickest, easiest and safest way to secure the seat (unless you roll over in an accident they say at Volvo, not that we ever drive that fast that we could).

The baby seat then brings you to the next item on the list, the stroller, because if you have an Isofix baby seat, you'll need a stroller that can accommodate said seat. So you can lift your baby into the seat at home, fix it on the stroller, lift it into the car and back, very easily.

So off we went to a baby store to look at strollers. I was in shock. That's like buying a frickin' car!!!

There are a gazillion different brands, different models, different wheel sizes, not to mention colors and “special equipment” (including mug holders). The lady at the store told me that she could not advise me on a stroller, that I had to advise her, based on our lifestyle.

Here's the thing. I know what kind of life we live today, how much of our time we spend on asphalt, how much on the beach / in the forest and how much (mostly) in the couch. But how am I to know just how the child will affect our lives once it's moved in? Seeing all those moms and dads push their strollers for hours on end, sipping lattes in coffee shops, is that what we'll do, too? Will we be fine with small asphalt wheels or will we need the cross-country wheels? Where are we going to store the stroller at home? I honestly haven't got a clue…

Then there's the added complication of maybe having a second child (my 16 embryos in cold storage will need to be thrown out by July 2013, so we either use ‘em or start all over again, at much extra cost) soon after. That would imply either a second stroller or to buy a duo/twin stroller from the beginning. But who wants to walk around with a stroller for two and only one baby? Luckily, there are combination strollers, e.g. from
Bugaboo
which can be converted into all kinds of things. I think I've found my 'brand'…

We started this post talking about furnishing the nursery, yet we've not even come home…

So what do you really need for a baby, when push comes to shove?

•Clothes (pajamas, bodies or whatever you wish to call it, along with socks, hats and layer on layer sweaters)

•Diapers (did my mom throw away the washable diapers she used when my brother and I were small? I guess today it's all about
Pampers
/
Huggies
/
Libero
or whatever brand is available in your country, and I read that a newborn will need 10-12 changes a day!!!) along with wipes and rash creams.

•Bed/Crib (makes sense, we'll put it in our bedroom, right next to our bed to keep tabs on the baby at all times). Btw, with the bed comes a mattress, bedding materials, etc.

•Bottles and pacifiers to feed the baby (along with baby food of course, the latter being another philosophical challenge for two vegetarians to tackle in the weeks ahead, as I've yet to find vegetarian baby food in any store...)

Early on, that's really all you need! At Baby Center, they have a 
checklist
that goes way beyond necessary, but at least you won't forget anything, although much isn't really necessary.

Sure, you can buy a baby bath and sure, IKEA and others have great changing mats, but initially, you'll be fine putting a soft towel on a table (a towel you'll need to wash frequently, but if you're squeezed for cash, that's certainly a solution).

But I doubt that you'll need a changing table. I think that we'll figure out eventually what it is we need, and I'm sure there are plenty of things we haven't thought of yet (or not thought 'through' yet, e.g. a travel bag for diapers and clothes), but in any and all cases, we intend to keep things simple!

Back to the nursery. 

While we have made plans (mental sketches, really) of how we'll change things in the house over the next ten years with children growing up here, there really is no need to decorate a room with elephant or bunny wallpaper and useless furniture for a long time yet. I don't know when we'll put the baby in its own room, if that is after 6 months or after a year or when #2 arrives, I don't know. That will depend as much on the child as it depends on what we want. 

To put some paint on the wall and buy some storage furniture shouldn't take that long. Seems we have plenty of time.

But the first item on our list certainly would be the stroller, quite simply because with 10 week delivery times, it really IS like buying a car and we have to make a move straight after the holidays to ensure a timely delivery before we head off to India. Time really does fly!

A final remark. I'm not being paid to mention any of the brands here on this site (I only wish, god knows we could use the money given the costs of surrogacy). The brands are simply listed because I think they offer clever solutions to the challenges of parenting.

I've now answered the second or third most common question we get: have you decorated the nursery yet. Soon I'll try to answer the most common question of them all… Stay tuned! 

As for the baby's name, I've already
answered
that a while back, since it really never was an issue for us, and since I've
known
forever what the names would be.

As our pregnancy progresses, we have the “privilege” to experience more and more things that can go wrong. I might almost be inclined to name our baby Murphy, in honor of the famous person who fucks up everything s/he touches…

Last week, another ultrasound was performed in Mumbai and we were eagerly awaiting the results. Sadly, the pictures we received were less than perfect, but they'll do. The worrying news came attached to a thing called “
cervix
,” the small bit of tube connecting the womb to the vagina (and the outside world.) Apparently, in a normal pregnancy, the cervix is supposed to be around 3 to 3.5 cm long, our surrogate's is only 2.37 cm.

This, of course, means that our surrogate has to be hospitalized for ”a procedure in which the surgeon stitches a band of strong thread around her cervix to reinforce it and help hold it closed.” However, there’s a lot of controversy about whether cerclage should be used in this situation. Here's the
article
from which I quoted.

Needless to say, this has us sitting on the edge, but we hope that all things will turn out fine. After all, it's worked out so far. In other news, the mass rape in India is wreaking havoc on the country and while I don't want to comment politically in my surrogacy posts, tougher legislation on abusing women certainly would be in its place. We were saddened though by the Swedish government's recommendation to avoid travel to Delhi. Seems like a bit of an exaggeration. Friends in Delhi tell me that it (i.e. the riots) isn't as bad as the press suggest.

Anyway, other good news on the baby front is that they've moved the date of birth a whole week up, from the 20
^th
of April to the 13
^th
, which puts us in week 25 (or 24 weeks gone - this distinction can drive you bonkers). It seems that a tall father and a tall mother make for a big baby…

Naturally, this means that we have one less week to get ready and still so much to prepare for. With me being unemployed again, and Alex looking for a new job, who knows, I might just be taking the first stab at parental leave after all, becoming a latte dad full time! :)

Have a great rest of 2012 and may the new year be as blessed for you as it - hopefully - will be for us. This was the last Christmas we celebrated as adults. Next year, a new life will be center stage in our celebrations…

Dear Sascha / Pascale!

This is your dad, your Bappi, sitting in my office. The weather outside foggy, gray, dark. You're much better off in the warmth of Mumbai, trust me.

Your surrogate's short cervix, the latest scare that has been fixed now,

thanks to the expert skills of the pediatricians in Mumbai...

I just came to think of you. We got another set of ultrasound images from India yesterday, displaying some of your internal organs, liver, and kidneys I believe. You are healthy and if all goes according to plan, we should be able to take you into our arms by April 14th, moved back again one day.

I'm currently writing a novel, doing really well, and in the chapters I'm working on right now, my heroes undergo a similar procedure that your dads did to make your wonder possible. That's how I came to think about you, and I felt a bit lonely.

No, lonely isn't the right word, but I can't think of anything better to say, I'm sorry. It's just that the wait is becoming harder and harder on us. While the average pregnant couple can literally see (not to mention feel, and in the case of the mother, carry) their baby every day, talk to it, feel it move and kick, see the growth on a daily basis, we rely on the e-mails that reach us from Mumbai.

I'm no expert and glad they put the text in to explain it all,