There is something so incredibly gratifying about being able to join in the ‘sisterhood of surrogacy’. As professionals in assisted family building we get to stand witness to the coming to be of alternatively formed families – that never grows old. At Gifted Journeys we have collectively close to 4 decades of experience in donor and surrogacy family building. We have traveled the journey of great success and we have mournfully walked the path of disappointment with so many who hoped for a baby. The dynamic we share with our intended parent clients is complex and beautiful and exhilarating. But beyond that parent relationship, we too, get to experience what goes on within the donor and surrogacy community. We get to marvel at what we see as a beautiful sisterhood.
Donors to some extent and surrogates, to a greater degree are communal. These women celebrate their connectedness, they support each other, the advise and inform each other, they are sounding boards and shoulders to cry on, they are cheerleaders during the two-week wait and they are virtual labor coaches as we all wait for a new baby to arrive.
Our mental health colleagues tell us that it is natural for women to gather, for women to form affinity groups and that it is of great benefit not only to the gestational carrier but also to the family she is helping come to be. They are a welcoming group. Newcomers, for the most part, are embraced (it is interesting to see where the bar is set for being informed, though…these women take being a surrogate seriously and if you want to join in, your commitment needs to be obvious).
Some surrogates form private groups where professionals can join but only under certain conditions. In surrogacy communities, mostly a virtual or on-line phenomenon, surrogates are very weary of professionals who have come for direct business interactions and, of course, at Gifted Journeys, we respect that. In fact, it is respect that is at the core of these groups, respect for the process, for each other and for the families-to-be.
Sometimes surrogates come together to rant or share gripes, we are particularly grateful for the opportunity to continually learn how to be all that a gestational carrier hopes for in an agency. We read posts about misunderstandings or disappointments and we, as an agency, are better for it.
Infertility or the need for assistance to build a family carries a heavy veil of secrecy, of privacy. How wonderful it would be if more intended parents were able to come together in the way we see surrogates commune. We understand the desire for anonymity, for wanting to keep private this journey parents find themselves on but we also see, within the surrogacy community a pride in their status as gestational carriers and it is from that stance of pride that they gather.
At many fertility clinics the management team will host parties, usually annually, for former patients, for all the families that have been born with the assistance of their medical team. Parents come with newborns and parents come with older children, one east coast clinic recently welcomed the first baby to be born through their practice, 25 years prior. It is lovely to see and if invited, we are glad to attend. In the meantime, as the journeys for so many others continue, we graciously and grateful accept the invitation to be sometimes a passive, sometimes a more active member of the sisterhood of surrogates, to marvel at these women, these gestational carriers and to learn from them and to join in their enthusiasm and their joy.