Sickening

I am sure that many of you (certainly if you are in Australia) have heard what has happened to 'Gammy'.  For those that don't - Gammy was born to a Thai surrogate, using Australian eggs and sperm to create the embryo.  Four months into the pregnancy it was discovered that the boy twin had down's syndrome.  The Australian couple asked the surrogate to abort the child but she refused on religious grounds.  The Australian couple took the healthy girl but left the little down's syndrome boy, Gammy, with the Thai surrogate who is looking after him.  It hit the news media last week what had happened because Gammy is sick with a lung infection and is in desperate need of heart surgery.  In response, the Thai government has basically locked down all surrogacy for internationals - leaving in limbo many couples that have a surrogate baby in progress.  A charity campaign was also set up and at latest count, they have raised AU$210K for Gammy.

There is not much about this story that doesn't make me sick.  For one, I don't know how any parent could leave their own baby - full stop.  However, to leave their own critically ill child to a woman who is very poor and cannot afford to medically or financially support the child is beyond belief.  We have some of the best medical care in Australia and yet your leave your biological child in an extremely poor country with a woman who has no responsibility to care for your child (there are some that suggest that the surrogate assumed responsibility when she refused the abortion but at the end of the day, isn't this still your biological child?).

I have a hard time understanding how it is okay to leave a down's syndrome baby and take the healthy twin with you - how do you justify this in your mind?  Also, how short sighted is this?  Didn't they realise that it would mean that they are lying to their child for their whole life, that they will be afraid constantly of the child finding out, that they have deprived their daughter of a sibling, that they have deprived themselves of another child?  Many people have commented that this situation is just the same as the 95% (not verified) of down's syndrome babies that are aborted in Australia but I find both situations an anathema to me.  We did have the blood tests for down's syndrome for both babies (at the request of our OB and not us) but we had already agreed that we wouldn't abort the baby - they were our babies, full stop.

There is an element of selfishness here that is abhorrent.  Basically, they have put their own needs ahead of their daughters.  Anyone who has seen siblings together know how precious the bond is, I can't comment on twins because I don't have them but I imagine this bond is much, much greater.  Will this child grow up feeling like something is missing?  Will she find out and how will she feel towards her parents?  These questions are haunting to me.  I am haunted about the questions that my boys may have for us one day too.

Unfortunately, some of the comments that these articles have been getting have been disturbing to me and made me assess our own situation again.  There were the usual 'this just goes to show that if you can't have kids, it is meant to be' - discounting the many, many, many biological kids that are abused by their parents but whatever.  I also know that I was meant to be a mother - since having JBB, I have felt at peace with who I am and what I mean to them.  Many people have been very harsh on the Australian couple for taking advantage of the Thai surrogate and it has made me think - did we take advantage of a poorer woman for our own gain?  I hope not.  She had told us originally that the first cycle would paid for her university education and the second cycle helped her with a deposit for a house.  I hope that this is true but I cannot put a price on what she gave us - it is priceless.  I still remember her walking towards me in the clinic, I had wondered previously whether I remembered what she looked like but when I saw her, she looked like JBB and she walked into my arms and we both cried.  I cried with gratitude for the enormous gift that she had given us - I thank her in my mind every day.  

In a post I wrote a couple of months before we went to Thailand for the first cycle - I wrote:

"I didn’t bring up the donor eggs in Thailand proposition with JourneyMan until after our fifth failed IVF cycle because I didn’t think that he would be willing to consider this option. He totally surprised me and was supportive right from the word go. I found a ex-pat Aussie woman who had had the procedure done and went back and forth with her about all of my questions. I have asked myself many times why I would rather go to Thailand and pay for the donor cycle rather than advertise in Australia. I am strangely comforted by the fact that it is a business transaction (but also disturbed that this comforts me). When thinking of my sister-in-law being the donor, my thoughts went to a situation where one of her children needed a kidney transplant and because my child would be a match, they would have to do it because ‘they owed’ my sister-in-law’s child. Very complicated. I know that there are complications this way as the child will have little opportunity to find anything out about their biological mother, morally – I feel it is in a strange zone but if the Thai woman is willing to donate her eggs, then I am willing to give her money for it. I once asked JourneyMan what he thought about the moral issues of us paying to use someone else’s egg and he said ‘the child is going to be completely loved – isn’t that the most important thing?’ – I say YES!"

A pretty simplistic view in hindsight and I guess that you could say that we took advantage of the Thai donor.  I hope that we haven't.  I hope that she is living a wonderful life because we helped provide that opportunity for her.  I hope that she thinks well of us and does not resent us.  I take some comfort in the fact that she came back for a second cycle - she knew what she was getting herself into that time and she still came back, surely you wouldn't if you had a terrible experience.

The Australian government has some culpability here.  Why is there not commercial surrogacy in Australia?  Why is there not commerical donor egg agreements in this country?  Then there could be proper regulatory requirements to protect the donor, the surrogate, the parents and most especially, the children.

The piece of hope that I have gained from this story is that people have been so generous.  The target for Gammy was originally $50K but they have exceeded that 4 times over.  Gammy is now in a private clinic in Bangkok hopefully getting the best medical care possible.  I would adopt Gammy in a heartbeat, as so many others have stated but I know that even though Gammy's mum is not hers biologically, she loves her son with all her heart.  I know this, because I am in exactly the same situation. I couldn't love my boys any more, end of the story - they are my life, my light, my reason for every day.

More of IVF past....

Over the past few days JourneyMan and I have been discussing surrogacy. This has come about because a 39 year old friend of a friend’s sister died when a blot clot went to her heart. There was now warning, she was healthy so it was quite a shock for them. This has brought the factor V Leiden clotting disorder to the forefront of my mind again. Especially because the risks don’t end once I get pregnant – pregnancy is a pretty big risk as well for those with mutation with 1 out of 100 having a serious clotting episode during pregnancy. I was telling JourneyMan about my previous adventure with a blood clot in my lung - I hadn’t really spoken to him about it in a whole lot of detail because it was quite a long time ago now. I remembered the month I spent in hospital crying from the pain, I remember sleeping sitting up for around 4 months afterwards because of the pain when lying flat. It was not my favourite time, I can tell you that.

I am finding it hard not to speculate about what the haematologist will say but I am now considering the risks in more and more detail. I am hoping that anticoagulants will be the answer but as I say, it is best not to speculate. I suspect that it would reduce the risks by having Clexane which is an injectible anticoagulant that I have had before when I have travelled overseas. We will see in a couple of weeks, I guess.

Okay – so on with the IVF past story. After the first cancelled cycle, I was devastated but was picked up a lot by the girls at an IVF forum that I visited, their advice was wonderful. The first cycle was really an experimentation by the doctors because they don’t know how you are going to react to the drugs and it was this advice that I hung my hat on. We had Christmas that year and went away to our beach spot like we normally did in summer and had a relaxing time. When we got back, we were ready to go with our next cycle. They increased the drugs that I was on in that protocol and put me on a boost cycle so at least it was a quicker one. I approached everything with a lot less enthusiasm this time, I was extremely cautious. We did get to the first scan and found that there were only 3 follicles of a reasonable size. We were pretty upset but our fertility specialist still allowed us to go to egg collection – he outlined the risks and gave us the choice.

As an aside, during the first cycle, I wore the same pyjamas every night to bed. They were orange because I had read an article about orange being the colour of fertility. During the second cycle, I resurrected these pyjamas (which had been kicked unceremoniously into the spare room when the cycle was cancelled) and wore them but not without a touch of dubiousness. I mocked myself mercilessly for this wearing of the orange pyjamas. Fast forward to now and the orange pyjamas were jammed into the bin long ago.

On the day of the egg collection, both JourneyMan and I were having procedures because he had to have the needle biopsy to retrieve his sperm from behind the vasectomy. The clinic was in an uproar because it was the first day after they had moved the day surgery so it took awhile to get everything sorted. We sat in the waiting room both in our robes and gowns smiling wryly at each other. He went in first and was having a local anaesthetic. After awhile, the doctor came out and said that they had to use a general anaesthetic because of the pain so I would need to find someone to take us home (JourneyMan was going to drive us home because he was only have a local). I asked the nurses to call my Mum and she agreed that she would come and pick us up and my Dad would drive our car home.

I didn’t see JourneyMan again until after my surgery. After a lot of waiting and reading trashy magazines (a guilty pleasure of mine – generally reserved for plane trips and hospital visits, they have graduated lately to being a pick me up when I am feeling like a treat) I went in to the operating room. Of course, the next thing that I knew, I was waking up in recovery. I always read every piece of literature from the clinic, the specialist and the hospital religiously so I knew that my clinic writes the number of eggs retrieved on the back of your hand. As soon as I woke up, I surreptitiously was trying to get a look at the back of my hand. After waking up a bit more, I looked at my hand and there was nothing. At the time, I wasn’t worried at all, after all – they could have changed their policy or they might have forgotten in the confused state of the clinic on that day. Looking back now, I can’t believe that I wasn’t worried at all – I wasn’t even worried when I asked the nurse how many eggs that they retrieved and she said that the doctor would come and see me soon. I mean come on there is naive and there is just plain dumb!

After a cup of tea and a sandwich, I was moved to the recovery lounges and JourneyMan joined me there – still in a bit of pain. After an interminable wait, the doctor came and told us that they did not get any eggs at all. I started crying and they pulled the curtains around us. Nurses whispered, everyone stayed away for awhile. I don’t remember much of the day after that. I know that Mum and Dad came to get us, I know I barely spoke all I remember is getting home and crying like I have never cried before in my life. I felt like I was howling like a wolf, the pain inside was so great – I just needed to get some of it out. I now know that that was the day that I lost the hopeful, cockeyed optimist in me that felt that I would absolutely, 100% have a baby of my own. A more cautious, more weary, more bitter girl has taken her place.

Don’t get me wrong, I am still fighting, I am still planning and I still believe that we will have a baby one day. The main effect has been that I have turned inwards, I don’t talk about it as much anymore with people, I am having trouble seeing my fertile friends and I have a constant pain inside that I try to replace with love for Journey Man and Journey Dog that is Woolly. Sometimes I grieve for that more happier, carefree version of myself, sometimes I despair that she will not ever come back. One thing that I have still though is hope, I hope to see her again.