Am I too old for this now?

So after talking things over with my wonderful husband, he said he was totally onboard if that is what I wanted to do, and he would support me all the way.  I started to check into surrogate agencies.  At this time I was 40 years old with 2 recent pregnancies within the last 5 years. According to the agencies I was finding that many fertility clinics would not work with a surrogate over the age of 38 and even most couples did not want to work with a woman that old.

The whole agency thing gave me a weird feeling anyway. Not that they are bad or anything, it made it feel more like a "business" and I just do not feel that way about surrogacy.  I did some research on my own, and came to find that there are clinics out there that work with surrogates up to age 45. So my next step was to find a couple that I could connect with and one that was not concerned about my age and that we could find a clinic to work with me and my age.

I found a few surrogate sites online to join and talk to other surrogates and couples who are looking for surrogates.  I learned new internet lingo for this experience, IP's are intended parents, a TS is a traditional surrogate (one that uses her own egg), a GS is a gestational surrogate (what I wanted to do).  For just over a year I talked and chatted with all different types of people.  Nothing seemed to be falling in place together.  I was beginning to feel that it was just not in the cards for me to take this journey.  I had actually stopped checking the surrogate sites, and was really just trying to forget about the thought.

Months later I had a email show up asking me if I was still interested in becoming a surrogate...

Getting to where I am today...

So after learning all that I did 20+ years ago, I decided to put the surrogate thing out of mind, and I did for quite a few years.  I had one more daughter 5 years after my first, and then was not planning anymore children.  I had a friend who was having a hard time trying to have a baby.  I was by her side through a number of miscarriages.  It was a rough time.  She wanted a baby so bad, and while she could get pregnant, she could not stay pregnant.  I joked with her that if the doctors could take her eggs and daddy's sperm and put them together I would carry it for her.  It really wasn't a joke and I really would have done that for her if it came down to it.  I had read about that type of surrogate and things were really changing in fertility compared to how it was when my first daughter was born. After some time and the right doctor for her, she finally was able to have her own baby, and since then has had two more. :-)

 When my second daughter was 9, I met the man of my dreams and didn't even know I was looking for him.  There is no doubt he was meant for me and I was meant for him.  We have been together for over 7 years now, and still have not had one disagreement, argument, cross word etc... We are so in sync together it is absolutely awesome!  Well we had two more children, 2 boys 15 months apart.  After the second we were not going to have anymore, but I started to give the surrogate thing a thought or two again. Started to check into the "the gestational surrogate", which is not my baby at all.  They use egg and sperm from couple and implant the embryo.  This is really something I think I could do for someone.  My weird way of looking at it, is I am just the incubator for someone else who is not able to carry a baby for whatever reason.
So on to the search for more info about gestational surrogacy.

Wow, I am really going to do this!

I have debated for a few months as to write about this journey or not.  It is a personal one, and I am not normally one for sharing real personal things on the net.  After much thought I came to the conclusion if my story helped one other person to make this decision, to help complete a family than it would all be worth it.

So since I am already into this journey, I will try to get my story caught up to date with a few posts, so that there is not one very long huge post.

Lets start at the very beginning...
My oldest daughter is 21 years old, after she was born I had thought about being a surrogate for someone who could not have children.  I loved being pregnant, it was easy and fun.  I was overwhelmed by the intense feelings after having my own child, I felt horrible for anyone who wanted to have a baby and could not.  I truly believed no one should be deprived of that totally awesome experience.  I started to do some research into surrogacy.  Being 21 years ago, about the only option was what is called a traditional surrogate.  The procedure is to use the sperm from the intended father, and artificially inseminate the surrogate.  So essentially the baby would be half mine and half the other couples'.  After really giving that a lot of thought and seeing some media on surrogate cases, where the mother changed her mind and did not want to give up the baby, I started to think I would not be able to give the baby away either.  I knew how strong my motherly feelings and instincts were, that I felt I would not be able to give a baby to another couple that was partly mine.

With a heavy heart and as much as I wanted to help someone else who could not have a baby, I really thought being a surrogate was not for me.