We had our initial consult with the DC fertility clinic and a social worker on Friday and I knew this wasn't going to be an easy process but man, I had no idea it'd be like this.  I'm glad I didn't write up the last blog regarding the timeline because that would have been a complete waste of time but to give you an idea of what I thought would happen vs the reality of it, I'll give a brief idea of what I had imagined.  We'd go to the clinic, thumb through their vast donor pool portfolio (I'll go into detail about this in a sec) and pick out our donor eggs and in 6-8 weeks we'd be ready for transfer.  We already had our surrogate/carrier lined up so most of the hurdle was out of the way.  This is the simplified version and may sound completely naive but I was hoping for the best.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  

First off, what started off as a great initial visit with the fertility clinic ended with both of us leaving with a lot of doubt.  We first met with the physician that does the IVF and he seemed like a highly experienced man that really enjoys what he does.  It was a lengthy conversion and we went over all aspects of the process.  Chris's sister had volunteered to carry for us (we would still use random donor eggs) but after talking with him he strongly discouraged us from going this route.  He said that the reproductive medical society (ASRM) recommends that a surrogate has previously given birth so that she's already aware of the chemical, physical, and emotional toll a pregnancy can take on her.  Since his sister doesn't have kids of her own and to avoid and potential family issues, we decided to take his advice.  This would now add several months to the entire process but we all agreed that it was for the best.  Using a surrogate will cost an additional $40K (on average) and to find a carrier can take anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months; there are so many factors that go into this.  Has the carrier recently given birth?  Is she currently at a time where she can dedicate 10 months to carrying?  Where does she live?  Will she carry for a gay couple?  Do we like her?  Does she like us?   You get the idea.  

So leaving his office we were feeling pretty confident but we then had to meet with the clinics donor program coordinator down the hall.  This was a joke.  This lady didn't know her info, seemed like she wanted to be anywhere but there and it felt like I was pulling teeth to get answers to the many questions I had for her.  I could tell Chris was already mentally checking out so I decided to ask to look at the potential donors and thought maybe this would get a more of a dialogue going.  Nope.  I had previously told Chris that most clinics had about 30 to 40 in-house donors (local women in the area that have been pre-screened) but they only had 6.  SIX!  I know this might sound odd but when I look at a potential donor, I want to feel a spark or some sort of connection to the woman.  These girls weren't necessarily undesirable and I don't want to be ugly or base my opinion on looks (oh hell, who am I kidding, I do it all the time) but I wouldn't look twice at these girls if I saw them on the street.  I knew this part wasn't going to be easy and that this was going to be the hardest part for us because, let's be honest, it should be....it's a big fucking deal picking out the "mother" of our kids.  I was hoping for a lot more from this clinic.  So we left there and went to grab some lunch before our next appointment with the social worker.  The more we talked about what had just went down, we decided that we were going to look at other fertility offices.  Now we've just added another month or so but we want to do this right, not hurry through the process and have regrets later.  

No matter what clinic we use, they all require future parents meet with a therapist or social worker that specializes in family planning for gay/lesbian couples.  Even though we left the fertility clinic discouraged, we decided to go ahead and keep our appointment that Friday afternoon to see what she had to say.  I'm so glad we did.  She's worked with couples using this clinic for 20 years and gave us some great advice on what our next steps should be and what other clinics to use.  She also provided us with names of a couple national egg bank companies.  Using a national egg bank adds another complete level to all this so I'm only going to go into detail about it if we decide to use one.  After about 10 minutes of providing us new contacts, she then spent the next hour and a half wanting to know about our parents, home life, growing up gay, etc.  For the most part, Chris has led a cookie-cutter life so I did most of the talking about my, um, colorful background.  She was extremely helpful and insightful and we both left her office feeling really confident about our decision to start a family.  

On the care ride home, we talked about what our next steps would have to be given that we would now have to change course a bit regarding our egg donor and our surrogate.  Luckily I've maintained a relationship with a woman who runs her own surrogacy agency so I knew who to call right away. 

Here's a bit of a rewind.  This past summer I went to visit one of my best friends in DC and we stayed with one of his college friends and his partner.  It was kind of a last minute trip but it was the weekend that got this whole thing off the ground.  As it turned out, the couple I stayed with were friends with another gay couple that went through the whole surrogacy process and now have two young twin boys.  Needless to say I had a LOT of questions for them.  They gave me the number of the agency they used and I called the moment I got back home from the trip.  I had already done some research online about surrogacy agencies and it's all very overwhelming so it was nice to talk to someone who came so highly recommended.  The phone conversation went on for about an hour and I could just tell I was really going to like her.  Jesse is a former surrogate herself and started her business because she loved helping couples start their families and knew she could take her experience and manage the process for others.  But let's not be fooled, there's money to be made in this business.  Agency fees can run anywhere from $8K to $20K.  Side note, I'm going to keep a running line-by-line breakdown of our expense on the right side of this blog.  Anyway, I met Jesse in DC (she doesn't live on the east coast) a couple months back to grab lunch and meet in person.  I have no words to accurately describe how much I like her and I feel completely confident with her guiding us along the way.  On Friday's phone call with her after the clinic meeting, I gave her all the updates on where we are with all this and we decided that we would be using her to find us a surrogate.  

And that's where we are today.  In short, we now have to broaden our scope on locating an egg donor and get going on finding a carrier.  We already contacted two egg banks and another clinic in DC so hopefully something will happen this week regarding that and once we pay the $12K fee to the agency, she will get started on locating our surrogate.

I'll keep y'all posted!!