One of the songs (among many) that has been a staple in our relationship is The Rainbow Connection. We played the Weezer cover at our wedding during our ring-warming ceremony. Our rings were tied together by a piece of yarn and passed up and down the rows of guests. Each person in our community held the rings in their hands and offered silent hopes and prayers, they cast spells and magic, they meditated and blessed these symbolic pieces of jewelry that have since become permanent fixtures on our left hands. We stood behind an arbor that was covered in bundles of dried lavender and strips of purple and blue fabric. This process actually took much longer than we anticipated. We giggled. We kissed. We hugged. The third time hearing the line, “What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing. And what do we think we might see?”, we got pretty teary and just held each other while whispering our own private vows. It’s a great song. I mean, it’s definitely cheesy too. In essence, it’s about creating, discovering, and believing in yourself. It’s about following your dreams.
The thing about dreams is that sometimes they have to dissolve in order to make space for new dreams. Sometimes we need one foot in the dream and one foot in reality. Since the moment we met, we pretty much always shared a vision of parenthood. We imagined raising our kiddo in a radical and queer way. Parenthood as a fantasy allowed us to muster up all the magical ways that we would do it differently. How blissful it would be. No doubt, it also encouraged us to dress rehearse tragedy and even wonder about all the ways our own struggles would inevitably put our future child into therapy. It’s a perfect illusion when it’s not real.
But shit is about to get real.
Let me back up a little. In January of this year, Golden Surrogacy called us with concerns about moving forward with a GC (gestational carrier) in the state of Oregon. At the start of 2019, most Oregon insurance companies began to write surrogacy exclusions into their policies. This meant that we would be on the hook for all of the medical costs associated with pregnancy, in addition to compensation for the carrier, the legal fees, and the various other costs associated with this kind of a journey. Juan (our case manager) encouraged us to open up our search to out of state candidates. He asked us to think it over for a few days and get back to him.
It was interesting to get this call, because we had spent the first part of last winter, wondering about when it was time to call it quits. We had several conversations about what it would be like to let go of this parenthood rainbow vision. Both of us were growing in our careers, we had recently moved to a new house, we had tons of flexibility to go dancing or to see art. We’d been living a pretty awesome (kid free) life. It almost seemed more tolerable to just start the grieving process and embrace a childless future filled with creativity, friendships, house projects, travel, and self-indulgent pleasures!
We went back and forth for a day or two. It was kind of grueling actually. One of the biggest reasons we had pursued this specific journey was to be nearby and around for the pregnancy. Having a GC several thousands of miles away didn’t really fit that vision. We sat with so many questions. Would a GC come to Portland? If she did, would we be responsible for all of the travel, lodging, and lost wages? Would we have to ship our embryos to her? How do you even ship frozen embryos!? What about all the other things that we could do with our time, capacity, and resources?
We cycled through the lists of pros and cons. The planet is over populated. Climate chaos. Crumbling democracy. There were obvious rational reasons to not have a baby. But something about baby making and becoming a parent seemed to transcend logic. Around this time, I actually had a dream about our child. A curly haired toddler raced down the hallway towards a snowy front yard. “It’s booooootiful” this little one called out and followed up with “I’m on the way.” It was clear that this kiddo chose us and we didn’t really have a choice but to start preparing to receive this gift. So we agreed to open our search to find a GC some place outside of Oregon, but still in the United States.
We were officially matched with Anna on March 12.
Anna lives in Illinois with her husband, Paul, and their two sons. She said that one of the main reasons she decided to become a GC was that pregnancy and birth had come fairly easy to her. She described an awareness of the very real challenges that some folks go face to start their families. She also shared our value of communication and relationship building during the process. After several emails, texts, and phone calls it became clear that we would do the entire journey embryo transfer, pregnancy, legal process, and birth in Illinois. In April, we shipped our 7 frozen embryos via a service called CryoStork. So, yeah. Shipping frozen embryos is actually a thing.
We had a successful embryo transfer on July 3.
We flew to Chicago to meet up with Anna and Paul. We’d never really spent any time in Chicago and fell in love with the city, despite the intense heat and humidity of summer in the Mid West. Something about Chicago’s distinct personality and soulful essence spoke to both of us. We met Anna and Paul on the morning of the transfer, at a place called Brunch on the corner of N. Orleans and W. Erie. This was the first time we had met in person. She seemed so confident and poised for success. We navigated conversation like an elevator ride. It was a mix of staying high on the surface with “get to know you” questions and also dropping down into more personal and intimate disclosures. After brunch, we headed to the fertility clinic together for our embryo transfer. It’s still wild to think about how much work it took to get us to this point and all the efforts of so many caring individuals who helped along the way.
Our 20 week ultrasound was on November 5.
The last several months have been filled with moments of disbelief, apprehension, excitement, and curiosity. Last week we were able to fly to Illinois and spend time with Anna and her family. We went trick-or-treating with her kids, ate some awesome food, got mani-pedis, and talked into Anna’s belly. We also had an opportunity to tour the hospital where our baby will be born.
It’s still feels surreal to say it: we’re having a baby. We’re having a baby. After over four-and-a-half years, these two beards are finally going to get to meet their baby.
