I have never filled out an application for online dating. OK, I'll admit having checked out match.com when I was single, but I never even contacted anyone from there. And now Aaron and I had to fill out an application to help pair us with a surrogate. Oy. I mean, what do you call EHarmony for babies, ECooing? The idea behind the app is that the surro-matchmaker will read it, and then in all of her glorious wisdom read through all of her gestational surrogate applicants and miraculously match us with the perfect GS. She then sends the GS' application to us. If we approve and decide to go forward she then sends our application on to the GS. If the GS agrees then we meet. And zap! the chemistry flies, Aaron and I adore her and she adores us and in about a year we all have a baby together. So this is important. We have to capture our personalities and how cool we are in a couple of typed pieces of paper well enough that the GS is going to adore us and want to work with us. No pressure. Yeah, we can sum up ourselves in 5 pages of less. riiiiiiiiight.
So the first part is easy, vital stats. Name? Got it, and I've even been able to spell it since preschool. Social Security Number? After several college applications I had that one memorized! Have you ever been arrested? Nope! At this point both Aaron and I are thinking, "No sweat! We've got this covered!" Then things get significantly trickier.
What has led you to this decision? Well, I can think of a variety of answers. The internet? The Holy Spirit? Desperation? But somehow we decide those aren't quite what we wanted to share. So then how to sum up: my medical condition and the challenges it presents + being unable to adopt= Surrogacy? A simple equation and yet so complex. I mean, we're supposed to sum up everything we've been going through around this for the past 4 years in a few sentences? Oh man, Reader's Digest never had it this hard!
OK, moving on....Do you wish for the Gestational Surrogate to carry multiple fetuses? Wish for her to? You mean like, do we want a two-for-the-price-of-one deal? If it happened that way I'm sure we would figure out a way to make everything work, but wish for? Like, on a star? Um, no.
The next one is easy: What is your time frame for being paired with a Gestational Surrogate? Yesterday! ;)
Of course, that easy one lulls us into a state of ease that is quickly shattered by the next (essay) question: Please list the characteristics you are seeking in a Gestational Surrogate (i.e. personality, hobbies, occupations, etc.)Oh boy. I mean, what's a person supposed to say to that? BMI less than 25? A strong preference for leafy green organic vegetables? Great birthing hips? Willing to read the dictionary to her growing belly and play Mozart symphonies for it? All kidding aside, how do we say we want someone who would take as good of care of herself when pregnant as I would when this person is not me and is not going to do 100% of the things that I would do if I were pregnant. I mean, I don't even know all of the things I would do if I were pregnant, since I've never been pregnant! And, frankly, I want someone who would take even better care of herself than I would take of myself! But this is a person on the other end. A person we want to respect and show respect to, and value in, what she can bring, womb aside. We want a relationship based on trust, mutual respect, communication, and a healthy sense of humor. So I, now being a Blogger Extraordinaire, write the perfect paragraph extrapolating on those themes.
Then, another tricky question: Please describe the kind of relationship you hope to establish with the Gestational Surrogate (before, during, and after, the pregnancy): Um, hello! How the heck are we supposed to know that? I mean, ok, we can talk about what we think we'd like before, that's pretty easy, because that's pretty much where we are right now. And we have some idea of what we think we'd like during the pregnancy but I'm sure that's going to change throughout the pregnancy and what we think we'd like right now may be way off from what we actually want and where it actually goes. But after? Come on, I have no idea! Who knows where our relationship with this person will be? Maybe we'll be really good business partners and once the project is finished yearly Christmas cards will suffice. Then again, maybe we'll all become BFFs and see each other several times a year. Or, maybe we'll just be Facebook-type friends where we catch up with each other through reading status updates and that's enough. Isn't this a little bit like asking someone before a first date where they see the two of you a year from now? Ay yi yi! The panic sets in. Sweat drips down my brow. OK, slow deep breaths. We can do this. Somehow, I can write all of the above in a way that makes sense. I don't know how, but I am a Blogger Extraordinaire! I will not back down from this challenge!
OK, we're to the last essay question: Please write a personal note which describes you and your family. Here it is, the in-500-words-or-less-sum-up-everything-you-and-your-husband-are-in-life-and-to-each-other-and-those-around-you-ok-ready-go question. Because how am I supposed to describe how amazing Aaron is in less than a novel? How he'll get up in the middle of the night to warm up a heat pack when one of my muscles cramps up even though he has to get up at 5 am to work and he really wants to sleep? And how is he supposed to describe my quirky sense of humor that takes all of the craziness in my medical situation in stride and decides to laugh 95% of the time and cry 5% of the time instead of the other way around? And how do we describe the 4 grandparents who will pour everything they can into this child (and spoil him or her rotten if we let them!)? How do we write about how we feel so perfectly complete and content right now, yet at the same time we would be a thousand times more complete and content with a child? There's no way to sum up everything we are on paper. It can't be done. So we do the best we can. And we know with God's blessing though our answers on this application are woefully incomplete in describing everything we are desiring in a relationship with our GS, everything we are looking for in the woman who will carry our child, everything we are to each other, and may even include typos on something like our social security numbers, He, the Matcher of Matches (I'm sure that falls under one the domain of one of the names of God in the bible) already has the perfect GS picked out for us.
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