My Wife Is Pregnant, And The Baby Isn't Mine...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…but I’m not concerned.

No, really, it’s fine.

Since it’s not hers either.

Hmm? Backstory? Oh, fine…

As I may have mentioned once or a thousand times, we have a little girl who is the absolute light of my world. And as much as I want to have another one day, we’re really not ready right now. However, my wife loved being pregnant.

Add into that the fact that it took us years to become pregnant (it wasn’t until my wife had uterine surgery that she was able to conceive – wish we’d have known that when we were spending good money on unnecessary condoms). Infertility is an issue that hit very close to home, so my wife started talking about becoming a surrogate. We talked about it for several months, did all the necessary research, and decided to go for it. She started becoming active in the online surrogate community, and eventually we met up with a gay couple from New York (M&M, hereafter).

M&M had an egg donor in place, so two weeks ago my wife had two fertilized embryos (one fertilized by each of the guys) transferred. And over the weekend, the tests started coming up positive – she’s pregnant!

There is, of course, a lot more to this, but I’ll save the specifics for later. For the moment, I just wanted to “Woohoo!” a bit. :slight_smile:

Coincidental Fact: My wife and I are both from the same hometown as Mary Beth Whitehead.

2

That’s awesome. What a selfless thing to do (even if she DOES like being pregnant). Wishing all parties a happy waiting period.

3

Wow! I wish the best to you and your wife. Its a wonderful thing for both of you to do for another couple.

4

What a wonderful thing to do! Congragulations to M&M, and to the both of you!

Will your wife have any contact with the baby after birth?

5

That’s really wonderful! Lucky you, to have a sexy pregnant Mama around and no extra college tuition to pay for! :smiley:

[del]Have you thought about how you’ll explain the situation to your daughter?[/del] That was kind of a dumb question. Of course you’ve thought about it. Would you be willing to share your plan with us nosy dopers is what I meant. :wink:

6

That is absolutely wonderful Hal. Good luck to your wife and** the little M&M**

7

Cool.

But, seriously… she likes being pregnant?

8

I can understand that – I’m pregnant right now, and so far I’m really enjoying it. I commented to my husband a couple of weeks ago that it’s too bad we’re not planning on having a passel of kids, because (so far, at least – I’m nearing the end of my 2nd trimester) my body seems to do pregnancy really well! I’d gladly become a surrogate in the right circumstances.

Hal, that’s a great thing for the two of you to do! Good on ya! And I hope this pregnancy goes smoothly.

10

In case you didn’t bother to read the OP - the parents are a gay couple. Many, many places will not adopt to a gay couple.

11

I’m sure this is a stupid question, but… she had two embryos transferred as kind of a safety net, right? Not so that they could have twins? (would that even work…?)

edit: also, congratulations. you’re doing a wonderful thing. :slight_smile:

12

Woohoo! Way to go, guys!
What a wonderful thing to do for someone! :slight_smile:
If I ever decide I want a kid, could I get you guys to be a surrogate for me? Just for the first 8 years or so? I think I might be able to handle it then. :stuck_out_tongue:
If not, what’s your return policy? :wink:

13

They do it as a safety net, but there is nothing ruling out the possibility of twins. Which would be twice as cool for M&M, I am sure, since they would be one form each.

and ETA, Congratulations to all parts involved.

14

Congratulations, but…

Ditto.

(Lissla, six weeks or so pregnant, and absolutely miserable with all-day-morning-sickness)

15

Wow, that’s really big of her!

Oh, all right, I’m sorry. But I should say it’s awfully nice of her – and you, too!

16

What’s good about it? I have never heard anything about pregnancy that made it sound like anything other than nine months of hell you get through hoping against hope that it’s worth it.

17

I felt great when I was pregnant. I don’t know if it was the vitamins or what, but aside from some tiredness in the early stages, I was fit as a fiddle.

18

Thanks for the well-wishes, all.

We certainly hope so. We won’t be able to force M&M to include us in their baby’s life, but we’ve let them know we’d like to be, and they’ve expressed that they want the same. It’ll be up to them if they eventually want their child to know what my wife’s role was, but for the time being she’s basically have the “Aunt Linda” honorific.

Shouldn’t be a problem – Shayla is only 18 months right now (<checks calendar> – hey, she’s 18 months today! Happy year-and-a-half, kiddo!) She’ll realize that mommy’s belly is getting bigger, but won’t understand the how’s and why’s of it all. When the time comes we’ll explain that mommy had a baby in her belly, but that she was just growing it for Uncle M&M.

Well, it’s not sunshine and roses every second of every day, but overall, yeah, she loved it.

As SCL noted, many places won’t adopt out to a gay couple. However, that’s not the reasoning here. Yes, adopting orphans is a wonderful thing to do. But to our way of thinking, M&M have the right to have a biological child just like any other couple in the world. And besides, in many cases people stay on waiting lists for years waiting for a child. Many of those adoptive parents turn to surrogacy because they can’t wait on adoption any more.

Correct – they went with two embryos to double their chances to one of them taking hold. There was certainly the chance of both of them implanting, but even with two embryos the pregnancy rate is only 47%. So we’re not talking twins being impossible, just a little bit unlikely.

Of course, my wife is very active on a surrogacy message board, and we’ve seen many examples of things going…ummm…not quite the way you would expect. For example, they have two separate instances going on right now where a carrier had two embryos transferred, and they each wound up carrying quadruplets! You would think two sets of twins, but in both cases it was one singleton and one set of triplets.

The clinic we’re using generally transfers three embryos, but we made it clear from that start that M&M could have as many embryos transferred as they liked – however, they had to be prepared to take home as many children as embryos transferred. If all three took, then they’d have triplets. We refused to do what is known as selective reduction – transferring, say, three embryos and terminating one or two if they all take.

I’m tempted to say “Anything for you, harmy!”, but then you might take us up on it. :slight_smile:

Thanks again for all the kind words. Any other questions, feel free to fire away. I have no problem with making this an “Ask The (Husband Of A) Gestational Carrier” thread.

19

Hal, my English just isn’t good enough to convey what I think about this without a rainbow of colors, size=26 and blinking lights. Sticking to non-MMP conventions, coooooooooooool!

Implanting one embryo from each father also means that if they’re indeed twins and if the parents are the same color, it will probably take several years and/or a paternity test to figure out “which is whose”. A same-sex couple sounds to me like the good old “your kid, my kid” could be even more of an issue than for hetero ones, you know? (yeah yeah, I said “sounds”, it’s a wag) Plus if there’s one case where trying to get two with one stone makes perfect sense, it’s for something so delicate, complicated and costly!

Those kids are getting four wonderful parents, whether you and Halwife get to be in their life after birth or not :slight_smile:

20

What a delightful thing to do, you should feel proud for helping to make the world a happier place for M&M (and their much-wanted child).

I hope your wife is happy and healthy all the way through, in l & d, and beyond. Cheers!

21

Well, I had almost no “morning” sickness, and the first-trimester fatigue was manageable for me (I just fell asleep on the couch at about 8:15 every night!). Since those have gone away, it’s been pretty easy – I feel good, I’m pretty healthy, I’m enjoying feeling the baby move – I’m just having a very easy pregnancy. And it’s really interesting to see how my body is changing!

I still have about 3 months to go, however, so there’s still time for me to change my mind. :slight_smile:

erm… time for me to change my mind about how much I like pregnancy, that is!