After speaking with my lawyer DH and I have decided not to go ahead with the illegal use of M’s eggs in her womb. Although the Dr at the clinic will allow it, the problems come at the other end when a baby is born and I have to obtain parenting rights. It is complicated and I’m not going into it here, but suffice to say neither of us could live with the very real spectre of prosecution hanging over our heads, which would mean DH’s being struck off the medical board and leaving us with no income.
Ironically, although the RTC and the legislation give legal provision for using a surrogate’s own eggs (Traditional Surrogacy/TS), no clinic in Australia will take that on. So, our clinic is willing to do something illegal, but not something legal. How fucking retarded is THAT?
We are having a phone discussion with the RTC on Monday, to discuss what our options might be. If we can apply for, (and get), an approval to do traditional surrogacy then a baby born through that route will not lead to prosecution for us. The hard part will be getting a baby born through that route because no clinic will take our case. We could do home insems. Or we could do a cycle with M’s eggs and me as a recipient. Meaning do the whole ‘egg donor’ counselling and three month wait with the clinic. (And then once we had ‘donor egg’ embryos, there may be a small chance that we could hoodwink a clinic into using M as a carrier, if we didn’t tell them who the donor was).
This is the quickest way to getting the clinic to allow us to create some embryos with M’s eggs, so we are going to do it. I have booked our counselling sessions for October 17th. Three months will be up on Jan 17th, so a follow-up session then, and after that we can get started on a donor cycle. I haven’t actually tried donor eggs in my womb, simply because we haven’t been able to get any eggs out of three donors, and time is ticking and I don’t trust my womb enough to waste embryos in it.
But. If this is the only option we have, I’ll try it before giving up. I need not to regret giving it every chance before we say we’re done. M’s last egg donation four months ago resulted in the pregnancy of a 48y/old recipient, so we know her eggs are still good. I don’t think the chance is high that they will stick in me, but it is a chance, and one we may as well get on with while we wait to see if we can go down the TS path.
So there you have it, in a nutshell. Ever more complicated and still going.
Meanwhile, DH has two weeks off at the start of November and we are planning a trip to the Blue Mountains (NSW) to get away and recharge our batteries. My wrist and back are on the mend enough that I can do housework and mowing again (if I take it easy…), the wwoofers finally left this morning [it was GREAT to have them and we got so much done, but I do love my space], so I have the place to myself again after two weeks, and my weight loss program has been a success, so I can fit into my old clothes again without feeling revolting. The sun is shining after a week of rain. My spirits are lifting and I feel like I have the strength for another round in the ring. I don’t quite know where it comes from, but I am grateful that it does.
Frankly, I am please not to be in the black hole at the moment, however that has been made possible, and I’ll take it any way it comes.
4 Responses to More limbo