Free Dads: A gay couple's surrogacy journey in India by Hans M. Hirschi Page A

instead of having implantation today, we have a bad harvest. Not the way this was supposed to go.
    But at least you can go back to THIS post to see what happens next and then continue to THIS one in a couple of days.
    IVF treatments really are nerve-racking. Particularly compared to your Friday night binge drinking fuck leaving girls pregnant… Some people really are lucky! 
    Oh well…it is what it is. We knew going into this process that it wouldn't be easy.

 

July 30, 2012: The difficult questions of life and parenthood…
     
    First the good news. This morning, we received an e-mail from the clinic with regards to the development of our embryos, three of which are to be transferred into our surrogate today. I expect to hear the results later today. After that, the wait begins.
    I'm still learning about the development of the embryos, but it is interesting to see that from two women and my sperm, some embryos are already at the eight cell stage, whereas others are only at six or four cells. Although they had the same amount of time to develop (more or less).
    So here I am, “father” of 19 embryos, three of which will be transferred into the surrogate today, the rest will subsequently be frozen.
    What does that mean? When does life begin? Alex and I were talking about this the other day, and his reply was (being rather tired at the time): this is a question for philosophers, not us…
    Well, what is a philosopher? What qualifies anyone to have thoughts about life and death? Aren't we all uniquely qualified to think and ponder about that which makes us human? Makes us alive?
    To me, ever since last week, five days ago, when I thought (wrongly) that the insemination would take place, the bio-bug has been gnawing at me. I've been gripped by this sensation that I might actually become father to my very own biological offspring. As a gay man, born in the 1960s, becoming a father has been impossible, physically, for the longest time. When I was a boy or teenager, IVF was not yet a science to reckon with. Louise Brown , the world's first in vitro baby, was born in 1978. I was already nine. At the time, and for many years to come, treatments were so expensive, and knowledge of its existence so limited that it just never seemed possible.
    It is only in these past 10 to 15 years that IVF treatments have become mainstream, and even more recently, available to gay men & women. I won't discuss the ongoing controversy about our “ability” to love and nurture children or whether we are suitable to become parents. I just accept that we are where we are now with a certain degree of gratitude. After all, it's not just me. I've been 'ready' for 20 years. You also need a partner, someone to share this with, someone to help you share parenting with. Alex, being 12 years younger, needed time to catch up. That is MY life, but now we're here!
    The feeling of possibly being a father biologically is strange. It's new. Previously, it had never been even on the radar screen for me. It was inconsequential. And it still is, to a degree. I mean, if child protective services called today, offering us a foster child to care for, I would consider it just as seriously as we did four months ago when last they called (screwing with our hearts and mind). I might be more relaxed, as not 'everything' hinges on that call any more. We have options we didn't have back then.
    If you look at the question of parenting from a societal point of view, it's grim. Many more women get pregnant than needed. Many children face a life in orphanages all over the world. Children in many families suffer from abuse, many even face death by the hands of their parents. On the other hand, you have all these families that aren't able to become parents, couples and singles who would give their lives for the chance of becoming parents, who would lovingly raise children and give them the best possible chance in life, but for some odd reason they cannot. 
    Our society does a