A reader writes:
I'm not sure I feel comfortable having the all the details shared on the website, but I wanted to give you another story, this time from the point of view of gay fathers.
We had had a difficult road with our surrogacy, but by the 20th week, everything looked great -- all of the tests and previous ultrasounds on the twins had been fine, the pregnancy had been easy, and we had (and have) a wonderful relationship with our surrogate and her family. We had flown halfway across the country to be with them for a week to celebrate, and plan the baby shower.
Then out of nowhere, a nightmare. The technician brought us into the doctor's office, where he delivered the news that one of the twins had a grievous birth defect, one that would not only doom her to a short life of pain and suffering, but also one that would endanger the development and delivery of the other twin and the health of our surrogate. We were in the Midwest, and the specter of having to brave the protesters in Wichita was more than we thought we could put her through (or take ourselves). So we made arrangements to fly everyone home with us for the procedure, and hope that our other child would be OK.
I grieve every day. I agonize over the decision we made, yet I know it was the right one. I know because as I bring this to a close, my infant daughter is waking up and needs her bottle, and seeing her smile up at me lets me focus on the now and the future, and not the sadness of what might have been. As one of your other readers who shared her story remarked, it's an intensely personal choice best made by individuals; we all had that same primal feeling that as painful and as heart-wrenching as it was, the four of us (my partner and I, our surrogate and her husband) had made the right decision.