What do we miss out on with surrogacy?

J wrote a really sweet post recently on her blog expressing her wish for us to not feel inadequate as parents because we are using surrogacy to have children rather than a traditional pregnancy (link to the right of the page). She had noted that a lot of "intended parents" (what people in our role are called) feel somewhat inadequate sometimes due to not being the ones carrying the baby. I thought I would respond with a post on the same topic - what do we feel we miss out on with surrogacy vs. a traditional pregnancy?

First and foremost, I have to say that as far as people can be suited for a situation like this, B and I are (luckily for us, given our situation!). I am well aware that a lot of people would be very troubled by "having" to go this route and not carry the pregnancy themselves. Having been on infertility message boards for the last few years, I have seen many women go through miscarriage after miscarriage after miscarriage while a doctor recommends surrogacy and they would rather keep trying indefinitely themselves (even though in several cases they have had friends offer to help them like J offered for us!). I've seen first hand how important it is for some women to experience pregnancy, and I respect that completely. But unlike a lot of women, I've never had the desire to be pregnant, so that was never something I have "grieved" during this process. To be perfectly honest, it's sort of a relief to me to not be pregnant because I have an issue that would make it very unpleasant: I am extremely claustraphobic...not just in terms of small spaces, but in terms of situations I can't get out of (e.g., when I have to go under anesthesia I completely panic those first few seconds where you can feel the effects of the medicine but have no control to get out of it...you're stuck!). When we were doing IVF early on, I remember asking the doctor if I could get a "note" from a psychologist for the OB saying that I HAD to have a c-section because I simply couldn't deal with the claustrophobia of labor and delivery. It was top of mind for me and I often wondered how scared I would be not being able to "get out of" pregnancy for 9 months. It's hard to explain - not that I would WANT to get out of being pregnant if I were, but I would be terrified to be "stuck" in any situation for nine months. It would actually cause me panic attacks and I'm sure the anxiety could hurt the baby/ies. So, the combination of no overwhelming desire to be pregnant and my claustrophobia issues make it perfectly fine in my head to not be pregnant at the big picture level.

On B's side, I would say he is the most pragmatic person I know. He is all about solutions and not getting emotional about things you can't control (yes, this made things very fun for me during the years of infertility ;) ). Because he is very unemotional, I am pretty sure that he has never even considered what he is missing from me not being pregnant - in his mind, this is just the way it is, so why be sad?

In terms of surrogacy, we couldn't ask for anything better than our situation - we have a close, trusted friend carrying the pregnancy, she has a wonderfully supportive husband and family, we see her every week, she lives 10 minutes away, we get to go to all the appointments, and throughout everything J has done everything imaginable to make us part of it all. We were fortunate enough to have this work on the first try, and we were fortunate enough to have TWINS...an instantly complete family (not that one child wouldn't be, but we always wanted two children). Add to that the fact that her insurance covers this all (the cost would have been prohibitive if we had to buy a separate policy) and it's nothing short of winning the lottery, as far as surrogacy goes.

I realize in retrospect that throughout all the IVFs I had completely lost hope. I did the additional cycles to know that I had done all that was possible but at NO point did I forsee it working and me getting pregnant. I instead spent that time grieving the children I was convinced we would never have. Every failed cycle reiterated that. I had been grieving the loss of biological children for more than a year by the time we got to surrogacy...not grieving failed cycles. I think this is why my reaction at seeing the first positive test was shock rather than elation. No tears, no jumping up and down, not even smiles. Only pure shock, because my mind had counted it out long ago. It's like finding out something terrible has happened and then one day you find out it actually DIDN'T happen and all your dreams come true again. That something terrible for me was always the loss of children, and never involved a loss of being pregnant. So when I gained back the dream, there wasn't a second thought in my head of sadness for not being pregnant!

All of this addresses the conceptual level of accepting that someone else would carry our children. At purely that level, I can truly say I haven't spent a second bemoaning the situation and instead feel the utmost joy at being given a lost dream back. It may be an untraditional 9 months, but we will have a very traditional rest of our lives being parents! I always have that perspective in mind.

Aside from the conceptual level, however, is the more micro level of the day to day. There are a few things that in this realm have crossed my mind as a slight tug on the heart of "missing out" or "inadequacy":

1) The pre term labor class we went to. For some reason, this was by far the biggest feeling of inadequacy for me. We sat down and then woman after pregnant woman came in with their husbands. I suddenly felt really sheepish and uncomfortable around a group of pregnant women at the same time. I am sure if I were in a group environment like that again I would feel the same way. There's something about having it put right in front of you that just about everyone in the world can achieve something you can't that is humbling. I wanted to shout out, "but I have accomplished a lot of other things!" :) I felt REALLY inadequate there.

2) Now that I have thrown myself into the baby world of stores, websites and magazines, there is one image that periodically will pull at my heartstrings: the image of a husband with his hand lovingly on his wife's stomach. There is no doubt in my mind that must be a really special time between husband and wife that we will never share. There is a small part of me that feels I have somehow deprived B of that experience but I know that he would never think that way. It's just sort of the ultimate thing that women for thousands of years have done for the man they love - carry their child - and it's not something I can do for B. I would love for B to feel the babies in my tummy, for him to pamper his pregnant wife lovingly, for him to talk to my tummy. That would be neat. I really don't think of it much until I see an image somewhere and once in a while it bugs me a little. But it's so small to me on the scale of achieving our dreams of a family that I just move on.

3) Feeling the babies move. OK, there is no doubt that I would love to know what it feels like to have babies INSIDE you! That would be really cool. Feeling Sara for the first time from the outside was amazing! And I can't wait to feel Nathan too. But I have to admit...the biggest reason I would want to feel them is the constant reassurance that they are OK! I can't possibly email J every 2 hours to ask if they are OK (I do refrain from it, though I would be capable of it! LOL)...but if I could feel them kick myself, I could constantly analyze. We all know how much I love analysis at this point! :) I would love access to the "data" on a constant basis...how many kicks, how often, by whom, what time of day, etc. It would be really fun to follow along like that. I have to say that the first week in my pregnancy book that said you may be feeling them now was the one time I felt a little sad about it. But that's how all these things are...you get confronted with something that sparks a little moment of "hmmm...that sucks" and then you move on because the joy is so much greater.

4) Voice recognition. Last week the book said that the baby now recognizes your voice and gets to know you from here on out...and that in a hospital room you can do experiements where if two people say the baby's name, the mom (carrying mom) will find that the baby will identify her. I think this, of all things, made me the saddest. Like, what if after the babies are born they feel lonely or scared because the "mom" who carried them for 9 months is not around? What if when J comes over, they are much happier being with her because they "know" her? I think if the babies rejected me in the delivery room it would make me REALLY sad.

5) Private time with the babies. I love these little ones so much already and if I were pregnant I would tell them all the time. I do wish from time to time that I could talk to them. I would never in a million years actually talk to J's stomach though - that would be SO embarrassing! LOL I just can't wait to have them and be close to them and finally bring them "home"...and able to share lots and lots of those special moments.

The bottom line is that there are things here and there that can make me a little sad that our situation is different, but I always have the perspective that this is only temporary and that I have the rest of my life to be a "normal" parent. And my joy at having the dream back is so gigantic that everything else absolutely pales in comparison.