We talk about it openly and honestly. My wife loves being pregnant. Her skin glows, her hair thickens, she doesn’t have morning sickness, and this is her way of contributing to the world (the quality, if not the population). Other than the occasional, “You’re crazy. I would never,” everyone has been incredibly supportive. I may or may not have joked a few times that my wife was pregnant, it wasn’t mine, and we weren’t keeping it, and then just left it at that. At least for a little while. Let them ponder. Let them think. Let them come up with their own theories. I would always correct them when they assumed the worst, and it was almost always met with, “Oh, I’ve read/heard/seen something about surrogacy, but I’ve never actually met someone who is willing to do it.” I think the funniest reaction came from our then 14 year old daughter. We were driving back from Florida and asked her if she knew what surrogacy was. She said she did. We asked her what she thought about it, to which she immediately replied, “WHAT?!?! I’M NOT DOING THAT!!!” Teenagers are fun.
The funny thing is, though, that as time went on, surrogacy became less and less of a strange concept to everyone around us. It became normal. It became something we talked about at dinner, something our friends asked questions about, and something our daughters understood as just another part of our family’s life. Even now, with the surrobaby being a year and a half old, our friends and family still ask how they’re doing. They ask for pictures. They care. And I think that’s one of the things that surprised me the most. Because, at one point, that little baby was a part of my wife. Hell, most of them met the baby. They met the intended parents. They watched the whole thing unfold. They knew the story from the beginning. They knew how excited we were, how nervous we were, how strange some of the moments felt, and how emotional the whole experience could be. So even though the baby was never ours, in a weird way, the experience became part of all of us. Our friends and family became invested in the journey. They wanted updates. They wanted to know how the pregnancy was going. They wanted to see pictures after the birth. And now they want to know how the baby is growing up.
It’s funny how something that started as, “My wife is going to be a surrogate,” eventually became, “How’s the baby doing?” Not our baby. But a baby we all knew. A baby we all watched come into the world. A baby whose parents we had gotten to know. And a baby who, for nine months, was quite literally living inside my wife.
I think that’s one of the hardest things to explain about surrogacy to people who have never experienced it. You can understand the logistics. You can understand the biology. You can understand the legal agreements and the medical appointments. You can understand that the baby belongs to the intended parents and that the surrogate is carrying the baby for them. But emotionally, it’s a little more complicated. Because you can’t spend nine months talking about a baby, feeling a baby kick, watching a belly grow, going to appointments, preparing for the birth, and then just pretend that none of it happened. The baby isn’t ours. But the experience is ours. It belongs to my wife. It belongs to me. It belongs to our daughters. And, in some strange way, it belongs to everyone who was along for the ride.
I think that’s why, even a year and a half later, people still ask. They ask because they remember. They remember the pregnancy. They remember the excitement. They remember the birth. They remember seeing the pictures. They remember meeting the intended parents. They remember that little person who, for a brief but incredibly important chapter of their life, was part of our family’s story. And honestly, I think that’s pretty special. My wife didn’t just carry a baby for another family. She carried a baby for another family and somehow, along the way, she brought a whole bunch of people into the experience with her. Including me. The guy who, at the beginning, wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about any of it. The guy who wondered how you could carry a baby for nine months, love the experience, feel all those kicks, go through the birth, and then hand that baby to someone else. The guy who wondered what it would do to my wife. The guy who wondered what it would do to our family. And now I’m the guy who gets asked, “How’s the baby?” And I smile. Because the answer is always the same. They’re doing great. And I’m pretty sure that’s exactly how it was supposed to be.
-The Bus Boy-
