soooo, after endless red tape with a new zealand ethics committee, the FDA, some psychologists, some doctors and of course the lawyers we were ready!!! we then went to america and made embryos. while we were there we stayed at sherril and phil's house - good friends who became surrogates to our surrogate.
of course we could not have done this without the love and support of our family - who were with us every step of the way.
we were very fortunate to have a successful IVF procedure and had four embyro's to choose from. here is our first picture of simone. 5 days old (exactly)
next came getting our little embyro (which we called "Mo" because we had no idea if it was a boy or girl) from the petri dish into harriet. to prep harriet's womb she endured several months of hormones (mostly in the form of injections" which her partner Brian (aka the big BK)) dutifully administered - apparently relinquishing him from his fear of needles.
we received a text message from harriet two weeks later that she was in fact pregnant. i was with my mother on waiheke island. we both cried.
holy shit - let the worrying begin. harriet kept us posted weekly on her progress via a hilarious website that made reference to the size of baby based on common foods. we went from lentil to cabbage.
fast forward to july 2012 - we arrive back in portland, oregon to be there for the last part of the pregnancy and get ready for the birth. sherril and phil host a modern baby shower with activities organised by moneeka and kimberly. everyone wrote haiku, decorated onesies for babe and prayer flags for harriet. the food was amazing. we relished being reconnected with good friends.
harriet's deal was that she would have our baby, but she had zero interest in labour - so an elective c-section was scheduled for august 13, 2012. josh set off for smith rock state park for some rock climbing. anu and sherril continued shopping for baby gear... is it possible that something so little needs so much stuff????
then low and behold - in the early hours of august 1, 2012 harriet text to say there was a bit of blood.... we text back and forth a couple times until i realised that this is no time for texting - this is time for action. harriet rang labour and delivery at the hospital they said come in. with that, harriet packed up esther and came to pick me up (i'm sure jerry seinfeld would say it is a bit tacky for a heavily pregnant surrogate to pick up the intended mother - but we had no car). in the meantime, i rang josh who had just turned on his phone after a weird dream of snapping climbing ropes and umbilical cords. he managed to hitch hike to the nearest town and watch the bus drive by (they refuse to stop unless booked). luckily the manager of the local super market released an employee to give josh a lift to the next town over so he could rent a car. we dropped esther off at good friends leiana and rachel. i took over driving.
at hospital harriet's water broke all over the triage room floor. we all remained very calm while the folks at kaiser took great care of us. a frenzy of texting and emails began. josh arrived just as harriet and i were off to the operating theatre.
needless to say, we were instantly besotted.
