Dads: A gay couple's surrogacy journey in India (23 page)

Bappi

Sometimes I really do believe that we suffer from information overflow. Half the conditions “we” have encountered so far in our pregnancy were completely unknown to friends and family. Some women we've spoken to just looked at us with big eyes and empty stares, kinda like “say what”?

Our latest photo of Sascha. What's with the nose? :-)

Taken Feb 14.

This week brought a new ultrasound, new images and new worries. Sascha seems to be doing fine, yet our surrogate now has too much amniotic fluid in her system, a condition called 
polyhydramnios
, and her value of 23.7 is relatively high.

Needless to say that we've asked for a more detailed explanation, but haven't heard back. She's being hospitalized for treatment and care. Thing is that there are a great many things that can lead to this condition, several of them related to the baby. The only one we can be reasonably sure is not the reason is that Sascha doesn't suffer from Down's syndrome. He passed a test done early on in the pregnancy.

Most likely, it's nothing serious. This condition also occurs as a result from the pregnancy diabetes (our most recent scare before this one), or multiple pregnancies. I don't know really what it is, and apparently, judging from the article, very often the cause cannot be determined. BUT, we are worried, of course…

Otherwise, our preparations for India are complete. We spent a good hour yesterday working through the extensive list of documents we need in order to get our boy home (that is before we get even started on registering him here and having Alex adopt him). A total of 16 different documents, tests, letters, affidavits, powers of attorneys, forms, photographs, passports & ID cards, most of them supported and either approved by a notary public or verified by two independent witnesses, must be presented at the Swedish consulate (to get a passport) or the Mumbai Police (to get an exit visa). We'll need a suitcase for all the stuff, but most can only be obtained on site in India, so we're well off.

We also bought four baby bottles for Sascha's feeding and today we indulged ourselves in another two sets of clothes for him, one pretty pink body and something in dark blue, the first non-one piece. He'll look dashing, no matter what.

I also got us some Vitamin D and something against gases (which should keep him from suffering from colic), but we're not quite sure yet what formula to buy. It seems he'll eat quite a bit and I'm not sure I want to carry kilos of formula to India. On the other hand, I'm unsure if we can get the same stuff there as one mother has warned me not to switch formulas because some kids don't adjust well and stop eating. Lots to consider…

It seems we have two choices here in Sweden, either Nestlé or Semper, the former obviously a global brand, whereas Semper is a purely Scandinavian show.

Did you know that it is frowned upon to advertise formula? Governments are so adamant about moms breastfeeding that any alternative may not be advertised, once again discriminating against us and mothers who, for whatever reason, cannot breastfeed. Don't get me wrong, I think that mothers who can, should be encouraged to breastfeed, but if you don't have boobs, it's kinda hard, and far from all women can breastfeed.

There is NO information on Semper's websites on any formula for kids between 0 and 6 months of age. Quite disturbing. At least Nestlé informs what they have, although it's not super easy to find.

I noticed that Nestlé gets a lot of bad
press
due to their past, when they pushed formula to people who really didn't need it, and it seems that a lot of people are rather unforgiving. At least I've learned now that Nan is available in India, so we'll probably go with it, supplemented by the
drops
from Semper I bought.

In two weeks, we've organized our
baby shower
, and after that, we're good to go. I mean we're good to go now, if need be, but I'm sure Sascha would benefit from another four weeks in the womb, growing stronger, bigger and fatter. The longer he stays in there, the better for him. It assures him a better start in life.

Yet, given all the conflicting information we receive, we all but wonder if it might be possible that he'll be born even sooner. The latest ultrasound also moved up the due date by another four days. Sascha is growing faster than I'd have thought possible. So we'll see what happens. Hopefully, by the beginning of next week, the beginning of our 34th week of pregnancy, we'll know more.

Until then, have a great week!

Have you ever flown?

Have you ever flown with children, specifically other people's children?

Has this unnerved you? Pissed you off?

Have you even been in that situation? Well, I have, and I hated it, I still would. But you can always tell the parent or a flight attendant...

I might as well admit to being one of those passengers who would have applauded any airline who banned children from their planes, airlines who would put these small, crying, yapping menaces behind sound proof compartments, ideally downstairs with dogs, cats, and other pets.

Yes, I was one of those hateful businessmen flying around the world, caring about nothing but my own comfort, and I readily admit to still getting pissed at slow people at security check-points.

I’ve spent hours having my seat kicked by a child's feet or the constant “are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet…” followed by more kicking of my back seat, yanking at my seat when said child wanted to talk to me, or maybe just yank at the back of my chair (I guess that's what you do on a flight), etc.

Well, I apologize.

To all the children in the world!

I've changed my mind. In these past months, ever since I realized that I'll be the parent of such a child, I've come to re-evaluate my views on children on board.

Why? Well, my husband and I love to travel, and if our children were banned from flying, so would we, as I cannot even fathom flying anywhere without my family except for work. Over the last months, ever since we found out we were pregnant, I've been acting differently on flights. I watched families differently, saw the nervousness in parents' faces, the anxiety of having to brace the confinement on board for two to eleven hours with an infant, toddler or child (or more), how afraid they were of what could happen. I watched the kids, their smiles, excitement, or just a sleeping face.

And you know what else? I'm not bothered any more, not in the least, and that's not just because we usually fly premium classes (which is not about kids but about space).

In four weeks, my husband and I will fly to India to pick up our son, and a few weeks after that, we'll fly home, first class, with a baby. We asked and checked with Lufthansa if it was okay since several airlines (e.g. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia) have
restrictions
on children in first class. Thankfully, our airline doesn't. Dankeschön Lufthansa!

And it got me thinking. How would I feel about paying so much money for a ticket and then have a screaming child eight feet away from me? Well, I guess we'll find out. We'll try and make sure to keep our child as happy as we can, and I don't foresee any issues because Sascha will still be so young that he'll likely sleep most of the time anyway. Later on, as he grows older, we won't be able to fly first for economical reasons and the problem will go away all by itself.

I think part of the problem has to do with parents and how they prepare their children for the flight, but also how we raise our children. We flew a lot when I was a child, and I can't say that people ever complained. We had been brought up to be quiet in public, crowded spaces. We could always run, scream and be wild outdoors, in the woods. But not in public.

So here's a heads up to you boys (we never see many women in first…) flying from Mumbai to Frankfurt on LH on weekends in the second half of April. If you don't like children, fly via Munich! We don't know exactly when we’ll fly home yet...

Love & Light!

Alex says he's nervous. I had to take a sleeping pill to sleep two nights ago, and last night, I barely slept at all but didn't want to drug myself again. I can't seem to find the irony in that. People have been warning us about sleepless nights after the baby is born, not before...

After yet after another worrying e-mail from India, our nerves are frail, and it is frustrating not to be able to do anything to help.

Sure, I washed all the baby clothes (did we really buy so much..?) and in terms of documentation, I think we're good to go so there’s not much left to prepare for.

We have an official date for the
c-section
on March 21, which is my dream date because it's the centennial of my grandma, but, as the agency wrote:

“...we can try to delay her delivery till 21/3/2013 but it will depend on her daily medical assessment. If she goes in labor before 21/3/2013 then we need [the child] to be delivered. Please make a note of the same.”

Right!

There were two things that got my brain going out of whack. Mainly the “delay” part, because Sascha's EDD is April 9, based on the most recent USG, which means that even a delivery on the 21 March is three weeks early, so I don't really see why they would want to deliver him even earlier. Then again, we're in week 34, which means that medically (so I read) the doctors no longer keep babies from “coming” if labor sets in… Sascha, it's all up to you now!

Second, we're worried about Sascha being born and us not being there, of course. I can't fathom the little one having to spend a single minute alone without us being there to hold him, comfort him, to do the whole critical bonding thing. And even though we can leave at a moment's notice, it would still take us at least a day to get there. Today's flights are all but gone (our last flight out is at noon), so if we were to leave, say tomorrow, we'd get there Friday, very early in the morning… Sux!

We've changed our flights to reflect the changed date of delivery, one week earlier than what we had previously been told, but I guess the complications are more severe than we're led to believe. We also changed the hotel reservations.

In two weeks (unless…), we have a date with a midwife to talk about our questions and worries here locally, and to set things up for our return. We have an
LGBT-certified clinic
here in Gothenburg and we're going to give them a try, see how they treat us, if that certification is worth more than the ink it's printed on…

We're also meeting once more with the family court on 13/3 (unless…). Well, you see, lots of ifs and buts right now, which kind of explains the anxiety, nervousness, and worrying we're stuck in.

Seems that our theme for the coming days is and will be March 21, unless… :-) One thing's for sure, no matter when Sascha meets the light of day, the only thing we really care about is him being healthy!

I think this isn't the first time I’ve raised this topic, but the recent debate about allowing surrogacy in Sweden and
today's
recommendations by the ethical committee looking into the whole thing has me somewhat stupefied.