As part of the whole process that is the Ethics Committee submission, everyone involved needs to attend 2 counselling sessions plus one group one. In our case, that was me, Egg Donor and the Dads. Our joint session was a very crowded affair with 2 counsellors, 2 dads, ED and her partner, and little old me.
So, what do you talk about?
In my first session, we started talking about the ECART process through to the implantation. The mechanics and science of the process we had embarked on was discussed in some detail. I had done plenty of research and I had a basic understanding of what would be involved for my part at the back end of the IVF process so I was pretty comfortable and didn’t have many questions.
Then, however, we moved on to the part I really don’t like. Feelings. Feelings are something that you shove down into a tiny ball to be released at an appropriate time (usually in tears walking home from the pub on a Saturday night). I am not a fan of talking about them. But there we were.
Unlike most women who choose to be surrogates, I have not had any children of my own. I didn't know what being pregnant would be like. I didn’t know what childbirth would mean (I mean, intellectually I understood what was involved but emotionally, no freaking clue). I had no idea how I’d feel at the end handing over a baby that I’d gestated for the better part of 40 weeks to their parents. But I had thought about it. I assumed it would be hard. Hard on me. Hard on my sainted flatmate who had pledged to support me through it all. And ultimately, I thought it would be worth it.
I went into this fully prepared to need more help after the baby was born as well. I’m not averse to seeking professional help should I require it (and think it takes incredible strength to admit you need help and seek it out).
We talked quite a bit about that. The counsellor had a few articles from other surrogates with their stories that she gave me copies of to read later. Then we talked about after the baby is born. What’s the plan / expectation about what this child will know about where they came from? First off, once the facts of life become known (babies come from mummy’s tummy) and they have two daddies, there’s no way to hide that other people were involved in the conception / gestation / creation of this incredible person. I know that in some cases, the surrogate / gamete donors don’t have contact with the child produced. For us, that wasn’t going to be the case. We’ve all been friends for about a decade and that wasn’t like to change. I’ll be Auntie Michelle (like I am to their first child). This wee one will know that she has two other half sisters biologically. It’s a pretty complicated family tree, in the end, but one grown with love. In the end, normal is what you make it though.
Then the counsellor asked me a question that made me pause. Paraphrasing: children, as they figure out their place in the world, will try to map their context to their friends and the world around them. Their friends have a mom and a dad. So, they must have something similar … where’s their mom. Mom is the one who gave birth to them. Therefore Auntie Michelle = mom. What if they start calling me … Mom?
I’d never considered that. In all my thinking about this, I’d never considered that word as part of what I was doing and it threw me that this would be something that could happen. I mean, none of my DNA was involved. I am “only” gestating. (Yes, I know “only” gestating is a big thing to some people but still. It’s how my brain thinks about it) I’m glad that she brought it up. It was good to think about and something that the dads and I discussed so hopefully if it ever happens, I won’t freak out and they’ll be able to talk to Jim about where she came from.
Once we’d rolled over that minefield of thoughts and feels, the rest of our chat was pretty straightforward. The next challenge was to make sure that we all knew what our rights / responsibilities / feelings were on a variety of the awful things that come up in conception and pregnancy and make sure that we were all on the same page. The counsellors gave us (me and the dads) a worksheet with questions for us to answer ourselves and then discuss among ourselves. The second counselling session would involve going over our individual answers and anything else we wanted to discuss. The group session would then go through them as a group - again making sure that we all understood where we were at.
What were the questions? Well, they largely were around the conception and pregnancy. Because of the way the law is written, until consent to adopt is given by the birth mother, she is the one who is responsible for making decisions related to the foetus and for her own health. The nice thing to do is to include the wishes of the intending parents, but by law, their choices do not need to be considered. This is very important for all parties to be aware of and I cannot stress the importance of this enough. When you are discussing the health issues that could come up, you need to be sure that everyone is on the same page. If your beliefs do not line up, it will end poorly. You cannot just hope that everything will go smoothly and that in the heat of the moment you’ll be able to make a decision that you’ll agree on. A lot of time and money and heartache has gone into this from the intending parent side, and your physical and emotional well being isn’t necessarily going to be their first thought. It’s not necessarily something you want to think about - especially if its friends you’ve known forever - but you should absolutely talk this through in advance.
So, that means talking about views on abortion, chromosomal anomalies, pregnancy complications, twins or triplets, failed implantations, miscarriages, trying again, involvement during the pregnancy of the intending parents, the care of the birth mother during pregnancy, vaccinations, lost wages, death of intending parents, change of circumstances for intending parents (stressful times can break up relationships), plans for the birth, if you don’t get permission to take the baby home before the 10 day stand down before consent to adopt can be signed - what’s the plan, what about post birth - care of birth mother + involvement of birth mother, what will the child know about where they came from, plans for adoption of the child, how do you intend to handle disagreements.
If you have disagreements on any of these topics, you need to sort them out before you start. It’ll give you a starting point should disaster strike while you’re in progress.
For us, in our submission to ECART, they specifically commented on the thoroughness of documentation from our counsellors. It was clear that we had talked through all the issues and they were careful to write everything down. Where the ethics committee would have had a concern (I was single, in my 40s, never had kids of my own) we had clearly talked about how we’d handle the issues that might come up from any of those things plus all of the other things above. I am thankful to them for the hard work they put in to make the ECART deadline and ensure that we were successful through that hurdle.
And once all the counselling was done, I could finally go back to ignoring my feelings, right? :)