It was August 6th we began what has now been many pleasant conversations regarding our plans towards our future. We are so happy with KIC thus far. Dr.Samit Sekhar and our case manager Anjani have been wonderful answering every question and concern we have at any time of the day. We recently have been given an awesome case manager here in the United States
I accepted several years ago that I will love the baby that God choices for me. It isn’t about what others think. I could give a damn what other think. Until the day those casting stones walk in my shoes and know what this life feels like, I don’t want your opinion or preaching to be given to me. Let me tell ya something, yes there are several out there that have spoken their opinion. I had to grow thick skin to educate, converse and reject the harsh thoughts that come with my infertility and choose of ethnicity.
As for Kevin, he too was in agreeance with an Indian egg donor. We had our donor chosen and extremely excited to take the first steps towards our family. That’s when both sides of our family got involved.
First let’s start with my side of the family. There was much hesitation upon the idea of a half Indian child, but in the end everyone supported us on our Indian egg donor...so we thought.
Next, Kevin called his parents to tell them that we were moving forward with starting our family. We have our egg donor, and she is Indian. There were several people that were very nervous and extremely on edge about this whole thing. They was concerned for us. The concern was, when we do go out in public with our child, what would society think? What would our community, friends and family think? The next concern was the child. How were we to explain to the child that he or she looks different then us? How were we to counsel our child when other kids at school make fun of him or her when the parents are white? And then there were those that didn't speak their mind too much about this process. We got the "you need to watch out for this and that.... and be careful for....", suggestions. Over all most had trusted our judgement.
Next, Kevin called his parents to tell them that we were moving forward with starting our family. We have our egg donor, and she is Indian. There were several people that were very nervous and extremely on edge about this whole thing. They was concerned for us. The concern was, when we do go out in public with our child, what would society think? What would our community, friends and family think? The next concern was the child. How were we to explain to the child that he or she looks different then us? How were we to counsel our child when other kids at school make fun of him or her when the parents are white? And then there were those that didn't speak their mind too much about this process. We got the "you need to watch out for this and that.... and be careful for....", suggestions. Over all most had trusted our judgement.
The difference between our family is, mine had to watch me struggle through this battle of illness my entire life. They were next to me, there for me, seen it all. Struggled with me. My mom, dad, sisters and brothers know my challenges and my hopes to one day become a mother.
Then there is Kevin’s family. Unfortunately they are not educated about infertility or what it’s like to go through the motions of pain, frustration and hope..and possibly accepting other options of becoming a parent.
When Kevin told me there were those in his family that questioned us about our decision to do surrogate instead of adoption again we both became frustrated needless to say. That is when we decided to send an in depth email to both our parents that explained why we choose surrogacy, not adoption. The email informed them how surrogacy will hopefully lead us to a baby. We too attached several surrogacy links and forums for our parents review. For us, we thought surrogacy in its entirety and knew we were making the right decision. We thought this was too much to explain over the phone and email would be more informative. We wanted our parents to take the time to read, review and absorb the facts of surrogacy and to hopefully process of our future.
When Kevin told me there were those in his family that questioned us about our decision to do surrogate instead of adoption again we both became frustrated needless to say. That is when we decided to send an in depth email to both our parents that explained why we choose surrogacy, not adoption. The email informed them how surrogacy will hopefully lead us to a baby. We too attached several surrogacy links and forums for our parents review. For us, we thought surrogacy in its entirety and knew we were making the right decision. We thought this was too much to explain over the phone and email would be more informative. We wanted our parents to take the time to read, review and absorb the facts of surrogacy and to hopefully process of our future.
It was two weeks later we were at my moms house for dinner. Again, we were discussing our decision about our donor and what others thought about it. That is when my brother said to us” you guys, put this in Gods hands. Give it a month. If you still feel the same about your egg donor, then do it. Don’t let any of our opinions mislead you”. That was what we needed to hear. BUT..my mother had admitted that she thinks that going caucasionrather then Indian would be in everyones best interest. I know both our parents are "old school", I just dont understand how the lines of human nature and love become so refined to those that have these opions.
I must say that we did have Kevin's sister and brother in law to turn to. They have been super supportive of all our decisions thus far. I think on how difficult and long Kevin has had to gradually understand and except our future family situation. I think his sister has given him a shoulder to lean on and an ear to listen to. She is a great person with a kind soul. She has grown up in our time era where this has become more common then one would think. AND she comes with medical background..yes she is a nurse. We can talk to her and her husband about anything and everything, they will never judge us. They will only give suggestions if they think we need the guidance. My gosh how I wish we lived closer to them.
Around a month later Kevin came to me and said he did a lot of thinking and wanted to change our donor to Caucasian. He did agreed with most of our family. He thought it would be too hard on our child’s life down the road to question his.her life and color. He wanted to try to have our child look more like us so the questions wouldn’t come too early in his/hers life. I said okay. This is my husbands choose and I respect it. As much as I wanted to shout out loud that it doesn't matter..a life is a life, I let it go and accepted his choice.
We began looking at all the Caucasian egg donor. There were so many we were looking at so many looked promising. Toward the end of the week, I was confusing donor's A,D,H,J all together. Kevin said “okay, I will choose my #1 pick, and then you choose next week”. I agreed.
Wouldn’t you know it, we choose the same egg donor. We will call her Angel. We immediately contacted Lexi, our case worker and asked her if Angel was available to begin early January and if so how do we “reserve” her? I know reserve is so…weird when you think about it, but that is what it comes down to. Within one day Lexi said Angel was available and was extremely excited to be apart of our journey.
We were told by KIC that in order for us to have Angel available to us, we would need to put down the initial down payment. So, Kevin and I went to our bank on October 24th and wired KIC our down payment. Man, let me tell you how crazy scared we were. I had a panic attach and Kevin broke out in hives all over his head and neck, true story! We were taking our first step to become parents!!
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