Hello world, we’re Bryan and Chris. We met online almost 10 years ago and got married in 2016 on our 5 year anniversary. We currently live in San Diego, California, and have two beautiful fur babies named Minnie and Dolce. A few fun facts about us: we love to travel, have a loving and supportive family, enjoy red wine, and are currently expanding our family tree through surrogacy!
Our baby adventure officially began back in June of 2020. After months of discussion and soul searching, we decided surrogacy was the path we wanted to take when it came to starting a family. We knew very little about how the process worked and what the overall cost would be, and so, we chose a local agency, Surrogate Alternatives Inc., to help guide us on this newfound journey. Over the next 7 months, we experienced a number of hurdles and delays which have taught us to let go of the things we cannot control. Our first step to parenthood was finding an egg donor within SAI's database. With such a huge list of donors, finding the right one was a little daunting at first.
Luckily, our case manager helped narrow the search based on the criteria that we asked for. For those that don’t know, when selecting an egg donor or a surrogate that you like, both IP (Intended Parents) and the donor/surrogate must mutually agree to work together. This can be somewhat difficult for LGBTQ+ couples as not all donors or surrogates are willing to work with them. After matching with our first egg donor, we began searching for the perfect surrogate.
Shortly after interviewing and matching with our surrogate, our IVF doctor informed us that our egg donor could no longer proceed forward based on her last retrieval a couple of years ago. At this point, we were required to pause on our surrogate paperwork until a new egg donor was confirmed.
Approx. 45 days later, with matching and legal paperwork complete, we had ourselves a new egg donor. Luckily, she passed all required screenings and was ready to start her hormone and injection procedures. During this time we bonded strongly with our first surrogate. We knew in our heart of hearts that she was the one to carry our future babies.
After passing her psych evaluations and meeting with her OB and our IVF Doctor, it was brought to our attention that she had a heart condition that could jeopardize her role as our surrogate-to-be. After another 30 days of medical screenings, paperwork delays, and an array of emotions, we were devastated to hear that she would no longer be part of our journey. To say we were crushed was an understatement.
At this point, we had already spent a large sum of money and we were too far in to stop or delay things even further. We both agreed it was best to move forward and to have SAI search for another option. About three weeks later, we interviewed and matched with a surrogate. Over the next couple of weeks, she completed her psych evaluations and passed them with flying colors. Bringing us to the present date, she has her medical screening scheduled with our IVF doctor next week. Fingers crossed all goes well. If everything checks out, we can finally move on to legal contracts followed by hormone and injection procedures to get her on track to have successful implantation in April.
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