If My Friends Could See Me Now.............

Once again our dear friend John has come through with yet another hysterical email. Tyke-Proof Décor . This email titled "I don't like to visit dirty homes", is all about decorating your house with children in mind. Choosing fabrics, colors and keeping it all clean. I love that he is showing his support for our process in his own special, funny, sort of annoying way. That's John in a nutshell though. We love him.

Our search for a surrogate has been interesting. I've been in touch with the woman in Idaho again who is just the sweetest, most honest person. She is a 1x surrogate already and is looking for two couples. One to start right away and another lined up for right afterwards. The other woman that we have been in close contact with is in Northern California. She is also a one time surrogate already for two dads in her area. I'll keep posting the status of these two.

After reviewing the surrogate laws here in WA state, it looks like we are going to lean more towards finding someone in California where the laws are more liberal when it comes to surrogacy. I just don't think that I can last 9 months wondering if our surrogate "may" change her mind. It's too scary. I probably wouldn't sleep that whole time and I would drive Tom nuts which I know he wouldn't appreciate.

I just got off the phone with a friend who had his daughter through a surrogate almost two years ago. He's now a single dad and he is just as happy as anything. I'm so glad that we have a community to share this experience with and who are excited for us to begin.

ooh baby, baby

So the other day I get this email from our good friend John, it's a forward with a bunch of jpegs attached and he says "I can't wait for your only emails to me to be like this." The jpegs are from friends of his in Los Angeles that just had their second child through a surrogate, a beautiful baby boy. So, there's the two guys with their first child and then their they are with the new born and then, well, you get the idea. It was fantastic.




Aside from this season of Six Feet Under, Gay families through surrogacy are almost absent. Even the friends that we have that have had children through surrogacy are somewhat invisible. It's understandable, of course and I don't expect that we'll be much different as our priorities change and our world will focus around that magic little person that will rule our lives. But, it is so re-assuring to see it and of course, it helps.

We continue to receive new responses to our ad every day and we are moving along here.

We'll keep you posted.

We met her on a Sunday and our hearts stood............

It's really amazing that the more we talk about this, the more people are offering up help and support. At two different parties on Sunday we were talking with friends about our plans and the process. At the first BBQ we talked with another gay couple who are also planning on a baby through surrogacy. They are going the agency route which is different than how we want to do it. Our conversation turned to how we are going to raise the kid, Jewish or not Jewish? We will be raising our child in a Jewish home which Tom and I have been discussing, negotiating for years. We also talked about how much we wanted to have our kids around the same time so that we could support each other and that our kids will have "similar looking families" around them.

Four months short of my 40th birthday and these are the things that I'm talking about at parties. YEAH!!! It's about time. I've waited so long for this. I think everyday how lucky I am that I'm doing it with someone so wonderful as Tom.

I put an ad on surromoms on Friday and received about 25 responses over the weekend. Tom and I read through them and decided to answer them by requesting the same information from each and giving the same information to each one about us. Our friend Julie came over Tuesday night and helped edit the final draft which I've pasted below:

Thanks for your email. We are both so excited to start our journey towards completing our family. We have received many emails and are responding to each one, moving forward in the best way that we know how at this point. We are new to the surrogacy process and decided to do this independently from an agency. We have talked about and planned for this for a long time and hope that the process will be as smooth as possible. As you know, we are looking for a traditional surrogate. We don't know how long the process of finding a surrogate, signing contracts, and working out the details will take so we decided to start now rather than later and feel rushed. However, you should know upfront that the earliest that we would consider insemination is the beginning of 2006.

A little bit about us:
Larry is 39 years old, born and raised in New York and has been living in Seattle for thirteen years. His parents are in New York and he has a brother living just north of Seattle. His other brothers are spread out throughout the United States. Some of his many cousins live an hour south in Olympia and just over the border in Portland, Oregon. He is currently working on his masters degree in psychology after a very successful career in the nonprofit world.

Tom is 35 years old, born and raised his whole life in Seattle. His family lives close by including his parents, grandmothers, brothers and cousins. He is an engineer and enjoys woodworking in his spare time. Tom is very close with both of his younger brothers. The brother that is married is expecting their first child this September.

We will begin our eighth year together as a couple at the end of June. We both enjoy the love, caring and support of our families and our friends. We have traveled extensively over the years visiting many places. We enjoy camping together and with friends and make sure to make the most out of living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Both of us have a love of children and a strong desire to parent one of our own. We have been surrounded by different aged children over the years by our families, our friends and our community. Serving as uncles and of course babysitters when necessary. We know that we can provide a safe, loving, caring place for a little person to grow up.

Now for the details:

**As mentioned at the beginning, the earliest we would inseminate is at the beginning of 2006. This is because of Larry's schooling and other responsibilities that we have this year. We intend to work closely with our surrogate and want to make sure that other obligations do not interfere with that connection before insemination and during the pregnancy.

**We are interested, at this time, in having one child.

**We would like to do home insemination

**We would prefer to work with someone in California, Oregon, Washington or Vancouver, BC. Those would be our first choices for travel sake. We would consider Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona as well if there is the right fit.

**As far as money goes we hope that our surrogate will be flexible, just as we intend to and that we will be able to meet each others financial needs in a respectful and caring way.

**Our surrogate should be open to genetic and psychological testing.

I hope you understand that not everything can be covered in one email. However we wanted to put things up front as best as we could so we don't waste anyone's time or energy.

If you would like to go to the next step with us, please email a picture, any other information about yourself, your family, your interests that you want us to know, any other questions that you may have and your phone number and we'll go from there.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Larry and Tom

So, that's where we are at for now. We'll keep you posted on the responses, or maybe not. Hopefully we'll find some time to figure out how Tom can get on here and add his two cents as well.

Someday she'll come along....................

This will all happen in time. That's what I keep telling myself. Last night during the break in class, one of my friends came up to me and asked, "What we were looking for in a surrogate?" I told her, openness, a willingness to be genetically and possibly psychologically tested and of course a 9.5 or higher on www.hotornot.com. She told me that her roomate was possibly interested in being a surrogate. At that moment, I had to contain myself and remind myself not to let myself get carried away with each situation otherwise I will set myself up for some serious disappointment. We'll see how that goes. I'm going to follow up with her this week. It would be fantastic if it worked out but, hey, who knows?

Tom and Larry, Hong Kong - 2005 

The beginning - sort of......

Well, we're not really, actually at the beginning. Technically that was in November when we went to have our sperm tested to make sure we were able to do this. It worked out fine, I don't produce enough and Tom's are...well, let's just say irregular.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago in April when I started emailing surrogates from www.surromomsonline.com . I have corresponded with a few, one from Idaho who was very sweet and very helpful and then a woman from Fresno who sounded wonderful and perfect only to find out after two weeks of correspondance that she is only willing to be a gestational surrogate. I guess this was our first let down. According to everyone we talk to there are going to be a lot more disappointments. Bring it on!!! We want this kid and that's that.

This past weekend we met a friend of my cousin Larry's in Olympia who told us that she dreamed of being a surrogate. We'll stay in touch with her and see what happens. Right now she is just finishing her bachelors degree at Evergreen.

Okay, that's the update so far. We will try and keep this up with the latest news and information.