Happy Holi!

Holi will always be a special holiday for us. Before we had kids, we would spend Holi with our friends, partying it up and having a great time getting really messy! Two years ago, we threw a great Holi party while keeping the secret that on the day before, at a nearby hospital, the doctor had transferred the embryos that would become our boys into our surrogate. I remember being more nervous and more excited than I ever thought I could be. Fast forward two years, to our boys second Holi. Life has changed dramatically, and we are so much richer in so many ways because of our boys. Happy Holi to everyone!

Peace, 

Douglas and Chad

Metaphor of the Day

Sometimes beautiful things come from non-traditional methods.

Love and Peace,
Douglas

Are You Seeing Double?

Most IPs are well aware that transferring multiple embryos means that you'll have a greater chance of conceiving twins.

However, did you know this:

But there are other factors at work as well. The increase rate of twins may be one of the best examples of how food choices can affect you hormonally. In 2006, a study demonstrated that women who ate two or more servings of non-organic dairy per day were five times more likely to have twins as women who ate no dairy at all. Other studies have shown that the growth hormones given to dairy cows can stimulate a woman’s ovaries to release more eggs at the time of ovulation. In fact, Britain banned the use of these growth hormones in their dairy farms. British women are about half as likely to have twins as women in the U.S.

Here's the link to the rest of the article. It's scary how the body responds to the environment!!

Cheers,
Douglas 

Difficult Reading

Chad forwarded this NYTimes article to me the other day with the message "Don't read this until you're OK with crying for a while."

Fortunately, we didn't have to go through fetal reduction. Our surrogacy journey didn't take us down that particular road. We know we've had it easier than most so far. But, if you are going to pursue surrogacy, you have to be willing to answer some difficult questions for yourself. This is a particularly well-written article about one of the very difficult choices that accompanies pursuing a pregnancy through ART (assisted reproductive technologies).

Then, a few hours later he sent me this Slate article, which also got my wheels turning.

So, since neither of these articles are directly related to our surrogacy journey, why post them?

I post these articles because the idea of increased ethical implications due to so much freedom of choice that the Times author describes resonates with me. The more options people have for reproductive therapies, the greater the potential for ethical conundrums. Makes sense, right?

I post these articles because it prompted me to reflect on the ethics of our surrogacy arrangement. I hope it will make you reflect as well.

I post these articles because I want people to learn about their options, but to always be reflective about the ethics of their situations. In the end, my opinion about egg donors or fetal reduction doesn't matter to anyone besides my family and me. What's more important is that people do their best to be informed of the implications of their decisions.

And perhaps, for me, the most important reason I post these articles is to say that I am 100% A-OK with the ethical circumstances of our surrogacy. I am confident that our surrogate and our babies are receiving excellent medical care. Having met our surrogate, talked with her and her husband, gone to scans with her, I am confident that there is no coercion, and that she has freely entered into this arrangement. I am certain that the benefits her family will accrue from our agreement are phenomenally positive.

Perhaps you are thinking that there is no way for you to achieve your dream of having a family. Maybe you have an opinion about what surrogacy is, and you need to revisit how those opinions were formed.

These are not easy questions, or thoughts, but they are worth considering.

Namaste,
Douglas