Surrogacy on TV

Does anyone else watch The Good Wife?  It's a favorite in my house.  Sunday nights, after the boys go to bed, Derek and I love the show.  I have been a fan of the lead actress since her ER days and I was thrilled that she got another TV show -- especially such a good one.

A couple weeks ago the show had a lawsuit about surrogacy.  I have to say that I spent half an hour yelling at the TV! 

The gist of the episode, called A Precious Commodity, was that the intended parents found out that their baby was going to have an 85% chance of a birth defect.  They wanted the surrogate to abort the baby and the surrogate refused.

I yelled at the TV because I had learned that, regardless of what my contract with my surrogate said, there are some federal laws that overrule it.  Every surrogate has the right to make decisions about her own body and state courts and state laws can't change that.  I remember my lawyer telling me, "It's your fetus, but her body." 

I also yelled at the TV because the surrogate was portrayed to be a candy-eating college student.  Illinois law says that to be a surrogate a woman must have already had a child.  I believe she also has to be raising that child.  It's true that this couple on TV might not have found their surrogate through a reputable agency.  There are certainly ways to get around the best practices and my guess is that could be a reason why they ended up in court.  There was no mention of an agency in the show.

I won't spoil the end, but let's just say that I think the writers realized they had 10 minute left to wrap up the story and they came up with something that wasn't very satisfying to me. 

So while I'm glad that surrogacy made it onto TV, I'm not sure showing this story really was portraying surrogacy in a good light.  Could this happen?  Yes.  Does it happen?  I'm sure it does.  I just know that if anyone asks me about this episode I'll emphasize the great relationship I had - and still have - with my surrogate and the support we gave each other during our journey.   

Where Are My Bloggers?

About two years ago I wrote a blog entry talking about my online family.  I have become Facebook friends with a few of them and have loved to watch their families grow.  A lot of my cyber-families have had success with surrogacy.  There are a lot of new parents out there and a lot of lovely surrogates who update me (and everyone else) on the beautiful babies they now have or carried.  There are still a few families out there who haven't had success and it's hard to watch these online friends go through so many ups and downs.  I'm still hoping these last few couples I have followed will find success and become parents. 

If you look at our lives today and compare them with a few years ago I have to say that the biggest difference, of course, is that we now have kids.  The second biggest difference is that I don't get as many blog entries to read. 

I usually log into my blogs on the two days I work.  A few years ago I was thrilled to get updates on so many surrogacy stories every time I logged in.  Now I only see a couple entries a week instead of a couple entries a day.

I'm busy too.  Life with kids is keeping me much busier (and much more exhausted) than I could have imagined.  I know my time is now spent making forts out of blankets and kissing bumped heads instead of blogging.  Still, I hope that I'll get updates on my online family for years to come.  There is something amazing about what we all went through together - the support, the tears, the ultrasounds, and the joyful endings.  The surrogates, IPs and babies really do have a special place in my heart.

Of course my surrogate is still in touch with me.  She hasn't seen the boys in a while and I really hope to change that.  I had said before that not a day will go by, for the rest of my life, that I don't think of her.  That's true.  I'm always thinking of her as I look at my kids.  My mind then often wonders what's going on with Jenni, Jesse, Doug, Allie, Jude, Baxter, and all the other people who I've met.  Keep in touch and know that I'm thinking of all of you.