A New York Times Article: A Surrogacy Agency That Delivered Heartache

This is a New York Times article that basically sums up what we have been going through. I was a little vague in the earlier postings of this blog but the article has names, company names and what not in it.

It's sickening how one person can really f*ck up peoples lives - but this fool did it to us as well as others who got scammed.

NY Times:
http://nyti.ms/1nO2mys

Still Nothing

We did it. We moved out of our beloved San Francisco a couple days after we got back from Mexico. We moved into a tiny - what they like to call a "Jr One Bedroom" in Pleasant Hill. It's between Walnut Creek and Concord (if you are looking at a BART map). We are here until we can find a bigger place like a house to live in. The only problem is, is there isn't much inventory out there to rent at the moment. Especially not in SF and especially if you have dogs. Even though we have the best most well-behaved dogs in the world! 

Anyway, back to the task at hand, we still haven't heard anything for a few days and are atill waiting on a thing or two. But really, a few weeks after a great meeting with the folks at the clinic, nada.

We know it's not a easy thing to go through and we know it's a VERY slow process but we just want everything to happen right away. We have been trying for awhile now. 

More updates soon to come. Hopefully. Stay tuned! 

First Trip to Mexico City

Hello, Aaron here!

It's our first trip to Mexico City. This is where it all starts. The clinic we are working with is about a 15-20 minute drive without traffic. That's hard to come by here. We arrived late Saturday night so we basically just went straight to the hotel - Room Mate Valentina. Sunday was basically our free day. We walked around the area we were staying. It was pretty cool. They closed down the main thoroughfare to cars and it was open to bicycles and pedestrians only until around late afternoon. The first picture is of The Angel of Independence.

This next picture is what I believe to be a TV news crew shooting a standup. We didn't stick around long enough to find out for sure. 

Monday was a pretty big day. This is where we went to the clinic which will facilitate our surrogacy. We went with our coordinator and also met with another couple there working with the same agency we are. We got to meet just about everyone at the clinic, got to talk to them one-on-one and toured it as well. 

This is Scott and I suited up for a quick tour of the lab. 

There was an embryologist getting things prepared to do a procedure for the doctor to implant embryos. We were not able to stick around for that. We did see current samples of various stages of embryos via a new device called Primovision. It's where they have the little newly formed embryo under a camera/microscope that takes magnified pictures every 30 seconds or so, so doctors can watch the cell division and choose the strongest to implant in the surrogate. It's actually really interesting to watch. 

Like I said, Monday was a big day. So after a few hours at the clinic, we were driven back to the hotel. In that time at the hotel waiting for a meet and greet for later on, the World Cup was on with a match between Mexico and Croatia. Mexico ended up winning towards the end with three goals - with what seemed to be one right after the other. It was pretty exciting to be right in the heart of the country that won this particular match! Our window to our hotel room was open at the time and all of the bars and restaurants and just about every place that had a tv was tuned in to the match. We heard the roaring cheers each time Mexico scored a goal. Soon after the game, we hear commotion (celebratory) outside and see these "patty wagons" ready to go - you know, just in case. There were more across the street but I couldn't take a picture of all of them because the streets were crazy. Our meet and greet was at a different hotel so we make our way from our hotel and we pass through the boisterous crowded streets and a TON of police in riot gear barricading the street to get to The Angel of Independence statue with only a small pathway. I guess to regulate how many people get through? In any case, we moved it along as fast as possible to get past all that mess. Tuned out to be a nice and "quiet" night with no violence that we heard or saw. Seemed as though everyone behaved for the most part.  

Tuesday was sperm donation day at the clinic. I only had to do it since Scott's sample is being shipped over from a previous attempt at a different clinic. We were scheduled with the other couple in the morning. We all ended spending the rest of the day together at a mall recommended to us by one of the doctors at the clinic. Why not, since we didn't really have anything planned so we killed some time walking around. With no ride back to our hotels we thought we were close to them. Wrong. We ended walking about three miles back to our hotels. So we really got to see parts of Mexico City you wouldn't normally see by driving. Though we did have to cross major streets. That was a bit of an adventure. We finally made it back ok. I guess the walking was good. Got to work off some of the lunch and gelato we had earlier. Thankfully it didn't rain as well while we were walking. Otherwise, we would have hailed a cab pronto. The rain here is no joke. You get it all. Pouring rain, LOUD thunder, lighting. 

One more trip in the morning to the clinic for another round of samples and then it's straight to the airport for our flight home. Hopefully the next time we are here in Mexico City, it won't just be Scott and I. Fingers crossed! 

Picking a donor

It's been a few weeks!
Scott:

I'm happy to say we picked a donor! We have decide to celebrate every step and victory no matter the size.  Out of all the times we have done this, this was probably the fastest we've chosen, just a few days. Maybe it was because we didn't have as many to choose from this time? Or maybe because we already knew what to look for. In any case, we ended up with a top four list. We knew better by now to submit more than just the first choice. We learned that it is best to "cover your butt" and choose at lest 3 better 4.  The past 3 times we gave just 2 or 3, I think at some point we ended up having to go with our 3rd. The choice is not an easy one, you always, I think want more information than is provided. And at lest for me a tiny little voice in the back of my head keeps saying that she could be secret drug user or smoke a pack day or have a terrible diet. But that silly little voice is also the one telling you you can not do something We have decided that that voice should be ignored contrary to any real evidence of the alleged drug use or poor diet. We were lucky to choose a beautiful donor of Spanish ancestry. So now the process is, well now we pay. Sorry folks id love to sugar coat this. And make it all flowers and sunshine and beautiful altruistic egg donors and carriers but thats not a true picture.  The cost of that, or amount due is a big part of this journey at lest from this side of it. So pay and then move on to the next step. With our donor chosen, and available, and paid for for. We move on on our journey. 

The First Post...

Hello folks, welcome to our blog! A funny thing happened on the way to parenthood.... 

This is our story about starting our family. 

It's been quite a journey so far! Let me introduce myself. My name is Aaron. I am married to Scott. We are both here to share our experience to a exciting and never dull journey into fatherhood. I'll provide you with a little background information to fill you in on the ups and downs. More downs than we anticipated or wanted. Hopefully, the outcome after this next leg in our journey will be a good one. 

It all started back in March of 2012. Scott and I both have always wanted to have kids for as long as we can remember. So, we started researching and figured the best way to have kids would be to go on the international surrogacy route. Doing surrogacy in the U.S. would cost us well over $100,000 - which is not an option for us. For those of you who are wondering, why didn't they look into adoption? We did. We did a ton of research and decided, for us the best fit was surrogacy. We found Surrogacy Abroad which is a U.S. based company working with clinics in India. 

After months of figuring things out with this and that, we finally made our way to Mumbai, India at the end of November 2012. We stayed about a week and later ended up with two unsuccessful pregnancies. When we received word of our second unsuccessful pregnancy in February 2013, we started to hear about the unfavorable laws going into effect in India stating that only heterosexual couples that have proof they have been married for five plus years are the only ones allowed to go through with surrogacy or adopt. So with that news, we started more research which leads us to the present time where we are now. Sort of. 

We found another surrogacy company here in the U.S. that started working with clinics in Mexico. We met with one of their coordinators and we went with them in hopes of starting a family right away since India was out of the question. Well, lets just say that was a HUGE mistake. We will not publish the company name on here since they do not EVER EVER deserve to be mentioned on this blog or anywhere else for that matter. They had a lot of stalling tactics and excuses. Long story short, they stole a lot of money from us as well as many others who had put their hopes and dreams of starting a family with that company. 

Here we are. May 2014. Two years later from the start of our baby journey, we have decided to try again! We have made some close connections with great great people from our previous journey with that other company. They are helping us with this third leg of this  journey to (hopefully) parenthood. I hope the saying "third times a charm" holds true this time!!!!!

We have the best family and friends two guys could ask for. We thank them for the love and support. We are excited to get this going! Don't hesitate to ask questions and we can try to help out anyone thinking or going through a surrogacy process.