Even Though I Am A Horrible Candidate, I’ve Offered To Be A Surrogate Because Creating Life Is Addictive
Yesterday I read Bethany Ramos‘ declaration that she could never be a surrogate because she hated being pregnant. I nodded with her every single concern and gripe, yet at the end I thought — aww I would LOVE to be a surrogate. That’s not my logical brain talking, that’s some deep weird thing in my delusional mind whispering: do it. Creating life is addictive.
Like that awful ex-boyfriend you want to call on a lonely night after a few drinks, I have totally and unabashedly romanticized pregnancy. Which is almost laughable considering my pregnancy history. It took me two years to get pregnant with my first and just a week after my first positive pregnancy test, I started throwing up before, during and after every meal. My “morning sickness” lasted until almost twenty weeks. Yet all of that was nothing compared to my second pregnancy when I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum (before the Royals took it public). I couldn’t keep down a sip of water. Anti-nausea drugs worked only if I went to sleep immediately after taking them and when I woke up I would throw up again. This lasted until I was 24 weeks pregnant. By then I was down to 92 pounds. Over the course of those weeks I was hospitalized many times and even when I wasn’t hooked up to an IV for hydration and nutrition, I was on complete bedrest. It was not a fun time to say the least.
Yet for some unexplained reason I have been fighting major baby fever for at least two years. I’ve finally come to the point where I realize I don’t actually want a baby to raise and support, but I still want to be pregnant and give birth. I’ve reduced myself to offering to be a surrogate at any dinner with friends, even to those who have been pregnant, have no interest in having more kids or, frankly, haven’t asked. I think being a surrogate sounds like the absolute perfect ideal. I get to be pregnant and give the child to someone who really wants it. Win-win.
As I write this I realize how completely insane it is. Even after my first/second trimester sickness passed, I was never one of those people who loved pregnancy. I never “glowed” and I always felt like my body was being overtaken by an alien I had never met. I slept terribly between the frequent bathroom trips, the kicks in the ribs and the general discomfort.
After years of negative pregnancy tests, health scares, sheer exhaustion and intense back pain (not to mention the annoyance of never being able to put on your own shoes) — why in the world would I ever want to go through the process of pregnancy again? The only answer I can ever give is that creating life is just completely, inexplicably addictive, despite all logic and reason to the contrary.
The mind is a fascinating place.
(photo: Vishnevskiy Vasily/Shutterstock)
