Probably not. In this region, there’s a real prejudice against adoption. “It’s not really YOUR child.” And they’d probably think that a surrogate is bizzare if not outright “unnatural.”
Hubby hadn’t told me that he’d told the women at work that I was infertile. (He just forgot.) For weeks, I was wondering why they were treating me with such sympathetic consideration: “How are you feeling, Lissa? Are you okay?” I’ve had other health problems, so I didn’t really think too much of it, but once Hubby told me about it, their actions made a lot more sense.
At first, I was a little unsettled by using such a sad medical condition as our “excuse”, but it really was the only thing that stopped the harassment. If I had a dollar for every time I was told that I’d be sorry for not having kids when I was old and lonely, I’d be rich. But it was the smug, patronizing attitude of some of them which got to me the most-- “You just don’t know what it’s like. You don’t even know what you’re missing.”
Ironically, it seemed that the people who complained the most about their kids-- their behavior problems, how much of a pain they were being, etc-- were the ones who were the most intent on badgering* us* into having kids. I figure misery loves company.