PMS and Birth Control Pills
Topic: Womb For Rent
You know, for most people involved in surrogacy, the term “womb for rent” is offensive. I’m not different, I don’t like it, thus I use it as a category to make fun of it and take away its power.
I have come across a number of different attitudes regarding my choice to become a gestational carrier. Most of the time, people say it is a wonderful thing to do. I suspect that even then, those people have their own thoughts but here in MN, we are hard wired to not say unpleasant things out loud. (I was born in California through some weird fate and evidently missed much of that hard wiring as I am a downright rebel in the MN-nice category.) Some people (while still being very nice and friendly) have asked about my motivation and hinted at financial considerations. One person, whom I blogged about and happens to work as an allergist, was ignorantly rude in that she didn’t know that what she was saying was stupid. Anyway, of all the people that I have interacted with regarding my gestational surrogacy journey, none of them have been as outright dismissive and upsetting as the very person working with the agency to coordinate the surrogacy journey for me. She and I have been clashing horns from the moment we met and it is just now occurring to me why. Womb For Rent. To her, I am a uterus. I am not a person that needs to be involved in the process, nor am I someone that emotionally or intellectually is worthy of the partnership concept. I’m a uterus that is along for the ride and I will be told when I need to medicate and when I need to show up and that is about all there is to it. For that matter, I’m lucky to get advanced notice on that front really. It seems ironic to me that the very agency that is supporting this surrogacy is doing so in such a cold manner. The serendipity of it all is that while I was unlucky enough to have fallen into this agency, it is through them that I met and matched with P and J who are the most amazing people. (I was going to say, Intended Parents I’ve ever met, but I have only met them so really, that’s not saying much for them.) I would not have traded the events for the world as I am ever so happy to have matched with my boys. Plus, thick skinned as this native CA girl is, I’m mostly more amused than buggered by the juxtaposition of this agency, their role, and their attitude towards the people in it. The other side of that is that once P, J and I are actually pregnant, I don’t think there is much more of the action that they get to coordinate. There is just one thing that it leaves me to wonder. If *I* am just a uterus that is in it for the money, what the heck does that make them???
BTW - after MONTHS of badgering them to tell me what kind of meds they want me to take and when and being told there will be NOTHING until mid July OVER and OVER and OVER, I e-mailed them today to notify them of my day 1 and they told me TODAY that I’ll be starting birth control pills and they will be… yes.. overnighting them to me. *eye roll* What the FUCKING FUCK IA*C? (I’m not sure, legally, if I can flame this agency all over the internet. As such, the 3rd letter is *’d out. Feel free to search with every letter of the alphabet though in Google. Tip: Adding ’surrogacy’ might help too.) (Also BTW, why the hell would someone KNOWINGLY be so crappy to someone they KNOW has PMS hormones coursing through her veins this very moment and has access to the internet and a semi-large vocabulary?)
Posted by robynanne
at 1:40 PM CDT
