How to get pregnant with someone else’s baby — The process of IVF for surrogacy is very similar to any other kind of IVF, except the intended parents’ embryos are used. When I met my intended parents, they had several embryos waiting on ice, so the protocol that I followed was for a frozen embryo transfer. The first step…

★★☆☆☆: Necessary but disgusting — The first part of my FET (frozen embryo transfer) cycle is to turn off the part of my brain responsible for marshalling my ovaries into action. This is done through a nasal spray taken twice a day called Synarel. My first impressions of Synarel were not great. The little bottle…

I hope this doesn’t happen to every surrogate! — (To avoid publicly complaining about someone with a stake in a decision about my life, there has been a long delay since the events described in this article.) As a child-free surrogate, my fertility clinic was very cautious about accepting me. …

European folktale about premature burial — Tears poured down Molly’s face as she wailed and sobbed. Her mother and sister held her arms, supporting but restraining her. Molly’s heart split open with the pain of separation, both physically and metaphysically, as the woman she loved was buried a few dozen graves away. …

Finding out I have a heart-shaped womb and polycystic ovaries — When I first applied to join Surrogacy UK as a surrogate, I expected someone to run some medical checks pretty early on. I never had any specific medical worries, but it felt strange to offer my womb to someone when no-one had actually checked if it was in good working…

Finding the mental strength required to achieve my goals — It wasn’t my intention to spend the pandemic trying to achieve something but, since the start of lockdown in March 2020, I’ve been working towards three of my life-long goals: writing a novel, doing the splits and becoming a surrogate. And they’re similar in a way I didn’t expect. I’ve…

Why did I choose to help a straight couple instead of a same-sex one? — Choosing intended parents is a daunting decision for a surrogate. There are lots of people who want to become parents through surrogacy, so it makes sense to narrow down the list in some way. I already knew I wanted to be a gestational surrogate so I could rule out IPs…

What to do if you and your partner don’t agree on a shared level of COVID-19 risk — I’m very risk-averse, including when it comes to catching COVID-19. My nesting partner (NP) wants to stop socially distancing with his other partners. How did we manage to negotiate an agreement that both of us are happy with? It’s been difficult to be polyamorous over the last year and a…

An update on my surrogacy journey — It’s been a while since I posted to this blog — and that’s mostly because nothing has happened for a while. I always knew that surrogacy could take a while. I expected that joining Surrogacy UK would take several months. I was prepared for it to take multiple attempts, over…