We're Having Babies
During the pandemic, Anthony and I spent a lot of time thinking about what we want out of life. Something that we both came back to was our deep desire to be fathers. After much deliberation, we decided to go for it. We have signed a contract with a surrogacy agency to help project manage the journey for us and plan to interview IVF clinics in the coming weeks. It’s an exciting journey for both of us and we can’t wait to go through it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
One of my goals with this blog is to shed some light on both the surrogacy journey and to do it in a way that is honest, open, and informative manner. We are at the beginning of a long arduous journey and there are bound to be moments of difficulty. I want to share that part of the story in addition to all the joy and happiness we’ll experience.
Men Having Babies
Anthony and I began our surrogacy journey when we attended a surrogacy conference hosted by Men Having Babies. This virtual conference walked us through what the process could look like. We met with different providers and learned about their services. In the end, we walked away with a ton of information and even more questions. What we learned is that no two stories are the same. Everyone has a unique path to parenthood.
MHB is a great resource for information on clinicians and other providers. They also have a ton of great resources answering questions around cost, insurance, and legal questions.
Another perk of working with MHB is that they offer their members discounts at clinics and agencies nationwide. There are two rounds of support, phase 1 is open to everyone, and phase 2 is largely income based.
Choosing a Surrogacy Agency
At the end of the MHB conference, Anthony and I talked about the process and how we wanted to tackle it. We agreed that it was far too complex for us to coordinate on our own and began interviewing surrogacy agencies to act as project managers and connect us with the providers and surrogates we will need.
There is a pretty big range of services provided by different agencies. Some agencies only help you find the surrogate and leave everything else up to you or someone else to figure out. Other agencies, like the one we chose, are more hand on. What is important is feeling comfortable with the team you’ll be working with. IVF and surrogacy can have issues and if something goes wrong, you want to be comfortable having difficult conversations with these people.
For us, working with a full-service agency was most appealing. Anthony works full time, I’m in grad school and run Cabbage Island Clambakes in the summer. The idea of navigating a project we know nothing about was not something we were interested in entertaining.
When Anthony and I met with Steve Snyder from IARC Surrogacy, we knew we had found our guy. Steve is an attorney and former English teacher. He is funny, witty, and direct. His frank demeanor and wit put us both at ease immediately. We signed a contract and made our initial deposit this spring and met with our intake coordinator over the summer.
The Cost
Nothing worth having is ever easy or cheap, surrogacy included. Once it is all said and done, we will be spending almost as much on our surrogacy journey as we did to buy our home. It won’t be easy but there are resources and we are always drumming up ways to save money and bring in more money on the side.. Are we going to end up saving enough to have kids simply by thrifting and ditching avocado toast? No, don’t be silly. But any little bit does help in the long run. We are also considering setting up a gofundme after several friends and family have expressed an interest in helping us in some way. Some people are funny about crowd-sourcing money for personal uses so if you’re not into it, no hard feelings.
What’s Next
Next on the list is a series of interviews with IVF clinics that IARC helped us to set up. Over the next month, we will interview four clinics to create our embryos. This is a very exciting time for us and I can’t wait to share more when the time is right!
