A GENDER AND NAME REVEAL FOR BABY DAY
🌷This week was momentous. Let's be honest, every week is momentous during this pregnancy because every week feels so profound, surreal, "pinch-me-we're-pregnant-exciting!!!" This week we shared the gender and name of our baby, and we officially heard her heartbeat.
We invited our closest family and friends to share in the ever-so-trendy "gender reveal" at our home. The cake was decorated, the house was cleaned (multiple times by Phil), the champagne was poured (and spilled), and the house was filled with music, laughter and so much love. There were people from all different parts of our lives - those we have known for decades, family members, the woman who introduced my dad to Kimmy (who then was introduced to us), friends that have been with us through the absolute toughest years of our lives - all chatting and excited to celebrate this lime-sized baby! But one person in particular took my breath away. Kimmy. She arrived with her cute-as-a-button-ready-for-a-dance-recital daughter. Kimmy chatted with everyone and EVERYONE knew who she was and her role in this whole wild ride.
I am at a loss for words to describe what I feel for this woman. She is literally carrying a piece of me and Phil inside of her. She is the most selfless, caring, hilarious, kind, generous human. I owe my entire family to her. I owe her my future. I owe every future memory to her. And yet, she is the kind of person who would thank US for letting her share in this experience.
Gestational surrogacy is by no means common, but it is becoming [slightly] more so and people are becoming more aware of its existence. A lot of this awareness is coming from celebrities sharing in their GC journey. Thank you, Kardashians and Hiltons. While I am grateful people are sharing and chatting about gestational surrogacy, especially those with a platform that can shed light on this, I also find myself cringing when I hear their commentary. Many people don't have the resources for gestational surrogacy. Even with scientific advancements, and higher success rates, it is an extremely difficult experience - not just emotionally, but physically (IVF) and financially (the average total costs are in the six figures for gestational surrogacy, and insurance rarely covers any of this. Many people take out additional mortgages on their homes or go deep into debt to afford this process). Even if you have the physical and financial wherewithal to undergo IVF and go through the GC process, it can take YEARS to find a carrier. The emotional toll is so heavy. Most of us going through this are doing so after profound loss, sadness and medical trauma; couple that with the intensity, stress and often additional loss that accompanies the GC process, and it's no wonder that for many, the prosect of embarking on gestational surrogacy is unimaginable.
For those of us that do take the step into the wild world of surrogacy, we are not going through this by choice, but because we are physically unable to carry babies ourselves, and this is the only way to have our biological children. No one (bare the exceptional few) would choose this journey to parenthood.
It is never lost on me how fortunate we were to find Kimmy (thanks to my dad and his ability to have conversations with literally any person about any subject - even his daughter's infertility and mission to find a carrier.) However, when I hear comments (from "those" celebs) that the process felt "transactional," I want to scream. There has been nothing transactional about our experience with Kimmy. Yes, there were hoops we were required to jump through (medical screening, FDA screening, legal clearance, psychological clearance, spousal clearance, insurance clearance, etc. etc.,) but never once did this feel like an "exchange of goods." We would never treat the experience like a transaction because Kimmy cannot be bought; what she is doing does not have a price tag. Kimmy is the most important person to us. She is the reason we have a baby girl on the way in November 2024. She is the reason that just a couple days ago, the three of us crammed into an ultrasound room, and watched our little girl kick and yawn and wiggle. Kimmy is the reason we got to hear the sound of our little's heartbeat. Without Kimmy, my parents never get to be grandparents, my brother never gets to be an uncle, and Phil’s parents never get to have a granddaughter.
To say we feel connected to Kimmy is an understatement. To say Kimmy is, and will forever be, part of our lives, is an understatement. See, Kimmy isn't "just like family," she is family. She will forever be part of our lives.🌷
