And as for my take on this idea, well…….

Huh? The picture? Hey, it’s MY blog! I’ll choose whatever picture I like. You do a blog….you can choose the image.

 Personally I think it’s a fairly good likeness.

 So back to that Sunday morning so long ago…..

 As we were watching this story, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Michelle was staring intently at the screen. She’d gone quiet and was zoning in, cocking her head and concentrating on every single word. I could hear the gears whirring and clanking in her head.

 ’Oh boy,’ I thought. ‘Here we go.’ Because I had seen that look before. It’s a combination of curiosity and determination. Coupled with a sly, calculating kind of furrow of the brow. It’s a look that says: I’ve got the start of an idea. A wonderful, surprising, amazing, intriguing idea.

And here. We. Go. Again. That look means business. Serious business. When she had found a house she liked. Or an idea for her business or new career path. Or a way to decorate a room. Or deciding to have a child.

Now just having a particular look on her face doesn’t guarantee an outcome but it does promise action. Of that I was certain. We were on the start of a journey.

The Big Bang!

While this idea of surrogacy was a completely new idea, it did revolve around a very familiar topic of debate in our household. The subject of children – more of them, that is — had been a semi-regular topic in our home. The topic would resurface every year or so. Completely out of the blue. Triggered by God only knows what. But certainly not by me.

Because I was oh so very certain in what I wanted in this way. I was done. Fin. Add your own favorite way of saying ‘no’ in any language on the planet. That was my position.

I hate to equate having children with gambling on a game of chance, but: I figured we had beat the house twice on Emma and Sara. Blackjack and Royal Flush. Happy. Healthy. Smart. And I had already backed away from the table, and seemingly cashed in my chips.

How so? At the risk of sharing too much information, I had made the decision to..be…well….fixed. Yes, I’m comfortable with the slang associated wtih vetinarians rather than the human medical term. My squeamishness knows no bounds. Rest assured you’ll read not one more detail about this experience in this blog.

So I was mentally and now physically finished with the whole idea. To think about getting ‘un-fixed’ wasn’t an option. And still the topic kept creeping up, like a persistent weed that recharges itself from deep buried roots.

As for Michelle? Well, it turns out she wasn’t so sure. Even after she had enthusiastically offered me up to be the one to seek the ultimate birth control solution. A little TOO enthusiastically for my liking now that I recall, but it made sense at the time. It still made sense. And yet about every year or so, she’d restart the discussion.

‘Wouldn’t it be fun to have another little one’. Or: ‘What if we would try to have a boy’. Was she just thinking out loud?Or was she trotting out ideas to guage my reaction? I’m not sure.

When the subject would rear its (baby) head, I would quickly move to block/blunt/quash it. I had a list of reasons and issues ready to go at merest mention of little ones.

Take a deep breath: Diapers. No sleep. No social life. Cost of college education. Really poopy diapers. Braces. Ear infections. My mother visiting. PTA meetings. Elementary school fundraisers. And god don’t forget those frangrant diapers.

These functioned as my babymaking herbicide, my weed spray to keep those ideas from sprouting. And the topic would soon dissolve and be forgetten….for awhile.

This Sunday morning, however, I didn’t recite my list. Why? I really don’t know. Maybe it was the look on Michelle’s face. Or the hope reflected in her eyes. I’ll pick up that subject another time.I get a lot of questions about why I agreed to this project. It was a pretty simple decision and I have a lot to say about that. Later.

For this morrning I just nodded and agreed with Michelle’s idea. Maybe she’d look at the website. Maybe she’d give them a call and just investigate it. It did sound interesting. Who knows…….

I often wondered what would have happened if I had chosen to try to squash this idea. Would we be here now?