Baby Steps
Posted by Stuart on 03/02 at 06:35 PM
We decided to have a baby using a surrogate and an egg donor. For some of you, this may be entirely new so we’ll try to help explain things.
Stuart is one of the owners of a company that assists clients with the process and surrogacy and egg donation (http://www.growinggenerations.com and http://www.fertilityfutures.com). They have been doing this for 11 years and have helped close to 1,000 clients from around the world.
So, they found us an amazing surrogate, Lorisha, who is a young mom that wanted to help a couple create their family. In the picture, Lorisha is sitting and our wonderful case manager, Vanessa, is standing. Then, we selected an egg donor who is anonymous but we have pictures and video.
The surrogate and the egg donor take medications to undergo the IVF (in vitro fertilization process) at a clinic (http://www.lainfertility.com). They perform a surgical procedure to retrieve the eggs, usually harvesting 10-20 for potential fertilization. A woman is born with close to 500,000 eggs so the few we take do not harm her future for her own childbearing.
Then, we fertilize them with one or both of our sperm. Hopefully, we will be blessed with some embryos!
The old saying of “it takes a village” is so true. We have an amazing medical team headed by Dr. Guy Ringler, our surrogate Lorisha, our egg donor, our surrogacy and egg donation agency, our attorneys at National Fertility Law Center, and our psychologist Dr. Kim Bergman.
If all works out, this team of amazing and dedicated people will help us realize our dream—to become parents!