Taking the Plunge

Hello, readers - Andrew here.  Welcome to my (our) first foray into the world of blogging!  As many of you know, I've been talking about starting this blog for weeks and weeks - and after spending an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to use Blogger, I'm finally sitting down to write my first entry.  I SUPPOSE I will let Alan contribute to this blog as well...but will make sure that if/when he posts something, he identifies himself as the writer (just in case his witheringly dry wit doesn't give him away).  :)  My apologies in advance for the length of this first post - there is just so much that we want to share with you!

Well, I guess the secret's out - A&A are going to try to make themselves a baby.  It's hard to believe that we're leaving for India in just six short days.  We are experiencing a ton of different emotions right now - eager anticipation, anxiety, and a little bit of trepidation being some of them - but what we're feeling more than anything is pure and unadulterated excitement.  I think we are both so ready to embark on this new journey - and with just a little bit of luck, this surrogacy adventure will be just the first chapter in a lifetime of new experiences. 

Since the very early days of our relationship, we've known that we want to be parents.  We initially thought that going the open adoption route would be the best decision for us - but after almost two years of waiting for 'the call' that we'd been selected by a birthmother, we found ourselves getting more and more frustrated and upset with each passing day/week/month.  Some people have asked us if we think that being a same-sex couple put us at a disadvantage as far as the adoption went.  I think that may have had something to do with it, but the biggest disadvantage was something we created for ourselves - there were some factors that were show-stoppers for us (high risk of medical/mental issues, drug/alcohol use during pregnancy, etc), which meant that our adoption profile was only getting shown to 1-2 birthmothers each month.  Not a good statistic - especially when you consider that in those 1-2 monthly instances, our profile was being shown alongside hundreds of other adoptive parents.

We started looking into surrogacy at the end of last year.  At the beginning, we didn't think this would be an option for us from a financial perspective - the average cost of surrogacy here in the US is well above $100,000.  However, some friends told us about the option of surrogacy in another country, which is something we hadn't even thought of at that point.  We did a ton of research, located Surrogacy Abroad (a US-based surrogacy agency that works with fertility clinics in India), met with the agency's president and contacted their references, and decided to sign up with them at the beginning of February.  Fast forward six weeks or so, and here we are - about to head off to Mumbai to get the process started, and (hopefully) get a confirmation of pregnancy by the end of April!

We know that you probably have tons of questions.  Here are some of the most common questions we've gotten, as well as our answers:

Who will be the biological father?
I (Andrew) will be the biological father this time around.  Alan very generously said that he thought I should father this first child, since 'there are already a lot of Dubovskys, and not that many Perlsteins!'

Who is the egg donor?
We've been working with Fertility Journeys International (a US-based egg donation agency) to select an American egg donor from their donor database.  They have TONS of information on each egg donor (23 pages of info, to be exact) - everything from basic donor characteristics (height, weight, hair color, eye color) to more specific details (family health history for self/parents/siblings/grandparents), to even more ridiculous measurements (size of nostril flair?!).  Egg donation is a lucrative business - most egg donors receive between $5,000 and $10,000 per donation, and you can donate up to six separate times. 

The donor we selected is in her late 20s, lives in Florida, and is of Colombian and Irish descent.  She and a companion travel to India for the actual egg retrieval process - in fact, she is already over there getting her pre-retrieval hormone shots to stimulate egg production.  We don't know who she is (we don't even know her last name), and very well may never meet her in person.  We don't feel strongly like we need/want to meet her, but aren't opposed to it if it happens while we're in India.  If we do happen to cross paths while we're over there, I will certainly blog about it!

Who is the surrogate (carrier)?
The surrogate will be an Indian woman who works with our fertility clinic in Mumbai.  We don't get to pick the surrogate - the doctors at the clinic will select her based on a number of medical factors (complimentary blood type to me and the egg donor, overall age and health, etc).  The surrogate will actually live at the clinic for the entire duration of the pregnancy - part of the fees we pay to the agency cover the costs of the surrogate's food/medicines/clothing for the full nine months.  In addition, the surrogate will receive about $8,000 in compensation - which in India, is enough to buy a house or put a couple of kids through school.

Is this a big business in India?  How do they feel about same-sex couples?
Apparently this is a huge business in India - it brings in more than $450 MILLION a year (take a look at the ABC World News story under "Favorite Links" for more details).  India is fairly progressive when it comes to same-sex couples - especially in the big cities such as Mumbai.  In fact, our agency specializes in facilitating surrogacy arrangements with same-sex couples. 

How does the whole retrieval/fertilization/implantation process work?
Once the egg donor has finished her hormone shots to stimulate egg growth in her follicles, the doctors at the clinic will retrieve as many mature eggs as they can using a procedure called trans-vaginal oocyte retrieval.  They can typically get anywhere between 15 and 25 eggs at a time.  All of these eggs will be fertilized with my sperm in the lab through a process commonly known as IVF.  The newly-formed embryos will grow in petrie dishes for a couple of days.  At that point, the embryologist at the clinic will identify the embryos that have had good cell division, and will select up to three to be implanted into the surrogate's uterus.  We will freeze the remaining 'healthy' embryos, just in case the first attempt at implantation fails or the surrogate has a miscarriage.  We'll know whether or not the process was successful about two weeks after implantation, which means we should know by mid to late April. 

So you could end up with multiple babies?
Yes.  Since they will implant the surrogate with up to three embryos, it's possible that we could end up with twins or even triplets.  Generally speaking, there is about a 30% chance of multiple births when IVF is utilized!

What's the overall success rate for this type of thing?
Success rates vary pretty widely depending on a number of factors - age of the egg donor, number of eggs retrieved, age of the sperm donor, etc.  Since our egg donor is young and has a strong 'ovarian reserve indicator' (meaning the number of eggs remaining in her ovaries), that bodes well for us - as does my youth and incredible athleticism.  ;)  The agency has told us that based on all of these factors, our likelihood of success is somewhere in the 85-90% range.

What happens when the baby (or babies) is/are born?
The clinic will generally perform a scheduled delivery, which will allow us to be in India for the actual birth.  Once the baby is born, we will need to stay in India for about four weeks so that US citizenship can be established for the baby - and besides, who wants to get on a 16-hour flight with a two-week old?!  After US citizenship is established and the baby gets an American passport, we'll be cleared to come home. 

I think those are most of the 'big' questions we've gotten so far - hope that I answered them thoroughly enough!  As always, don't hesitate to ask us anything...we're very open about every aspect of this process.  We can't thank you enough for you ongoing love and support - we are so excited, and can't wait to share all of our adventures with you.