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.