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I just saw that Rice Krispies now comes in a GF option!! The GF cereals are disGUSting, so I can't wait to try these, hopefully I won't be disappointed. I wanted to share with any other Celiacs out there who read my blog...
Now back to waiting for the hurricane to strike, but we're ready with tons of supplies. I just hope the power doesn't go out for too long (let that be the least of our worries, right?)
So, I’m starting to enter a whole new dimension, and it’s a little odd. Two times this same situation came up, and I actually didn’t know how to answer. I just went “uhhhhhh” as I was trying to come up with something that sounded plausible.
As everyone knows, I’ve always been very up front and “in your face” about going through IF. To me, it’s like any other disease, and there is no reason to skirt around it. If I had diabetes or something like that, of course it would come up in conversation, the way Celiac often does when I am out somewhere and there is food being served. So, I was at my friend Jane’s house and we all went swimming. I met Jane through Lisa, as Lisa and I were cycling buddies a few years ago (she was successful with twins on that cycle, I had a BFN.) Turns out, last year Lisa moved out of the City and near my house, and I recognized her name on the Moms of Multiples forum so we re-connected. Jane was one of her cycling buddies from that previous, successful cycle and we are all friends now. It’s comforting being in those environments- we are all moms, all have kids, and all of us went through IF to get those kids. We can talk openly, use abbreviations and acronyms, and everyone gets it. It’s like visiting your home country where everyone knows the language and you don’t have to explain anything, you don’t have to explain that yes, my kids are biologically ours, or no, twins don’t run in our families, etc.
But then Jane’s son had a first birthday party and I met this awesome, hilarious couple that we hung out with most of the day. Of course, it’s only natural for someone to ask, “So, how do you know Jane?” At first, I was like- hmmm, but then I simply said, “Through my friend, Lisa. Do you know Lisa?” She responded she had no idea who Lisa was, and she thought it was strange. So then she asked if Lisa was a City friend or a suburb friend.Then I was stumped. What was I going to say- well, actually Lisa and Jane met while sitting in the waiting room of Cornell, which technically is in the City so I guess yes, they are City friends? I know that I am upfront with everything, but I certainly have no clue how open my IF friends are to other people, and it’s obviously not my place to hint anything of the sort. I really had no clue how to answer if she was going to dig deeper! It was an odd feeling.
And then it happened again with another new friend. She saw that we had a mutual Facebook friend and she said it’s such a small world, Sara is her neighbor and she gives her tons of advice on having two boys! How in the world do you know Sara?? Well, I know Sara from IF, and I met Sara through Lynn who I met at the RESOLVE Advocacy Day in Washington, DC! Urggghhhh. It’s just so weird, you know? Anyone else experience these things?
BUT- at the same time, it’s really sorta kinda cool. As much as I enjoy and appreciate being in a comfortable social environment with fellow IFers, it’s also a little refreshing to be around non-IFers, who have only met me POST trauma, they never knew me as the bitter, broken down, shadow of a woman. They only know me as a fun, peppy, (thinner) mother of twins. Hmmmm…imagine THAT. Weird, eh?
I still can't stop thinking about all of this. My head is just swirling. Instead, I'll point you to two excellent blogs that I read every single night now. They lay it all out there for you. I'm beginning to understand how all of this worked, which actually makes me feel a little better. I had to get inside it, and I feel a lot better.
The first one is from lawyer Andy Vorzimer, who I met earlier this year during the whole SPCT/Merritt Patterson ordeal. He always has our backs, and to me, is invaluable in this field. If you go over there, go read all his blog posts from the last week, since last Tuesday. He actually represented three of the surrogates and has known about all of this for at least one year.
http://www.eggdonor.com/blog/
The second one I found from a link to a link from a blog. It's written by a father who used a surrogate and has very clearly laid everything out, almost like a research paper. It helps break everything down. This link will bring you to the home page, but click on the links to the right to read his previous posts.
http://ivflandonsurrogacyworld.blogspot.com/2011/08/white-collar-black-market-surrogacy.html
I still can't get over that I was *this close* to parenting one of these babies. I have all these emails, I wonder if I should give them to the FBI? The more I read about surrogates and IM's experiences, I catch my breath because it's the SAME story over and over- and my story, too.
(If anyone reading this doesn't know my background, here is a link to it.)
See that comment above in the title? That’s a text I received at 8AM this morning from a friend of mine who saw a segment on Theresa Erickson on The Today Show. I’ve spent five years trying to turn every single possible moment into a teaching moment, always talking about IVF and using a surrogate when strangers ask if “twins run in my family,” patiently explaining what A.R.T. is, etc etc. And after five flipping years of this, I get a text from a friend who KNOWS what we went through and how our children were conceived, and she asked if Kelly had to fly to the Ukraine, even though I have never mentioned that country’s name to her, ever. omgareyoufuckingkiddingme. WTF have you DONE, Theresa and Hilary and Carla? What have you done to us??
Where do I start? I really didn’t want to post about this because my thoughts have been so scattered since reading the articles about what these women did to our community, but here I am.
Both Theresa and Hilary were part of our legal team when we decided to use a gestational carrier. There was a ton of positive press about these two and it was an easy decision, and our surrogacy agency is the one who recommended them. I had even worked with Hilary three years earlier when she represented my first GC. I had nothing but praise for both of them. In fact, Kelly and Hilary got along so well that once our contracts were all completed, Hilary sent Kelly a little gift. She was so supportive of us, knew everything DH and I had gone through, was always there. Theresa’s assistant, who was really my main contact at her lawfirm, was wonderful. She had adopted twin boys and when Kelly was pregnant with the twins, and we would have these long, twin conversations. We became Facebook friends. We enjoyed speaking to each other. I sent birth announcements to both of them. I didn’t know they knew each other.
At the end of Kelly’s pregnancy we had a couple of problems with getting her payments from my escrow account at Theresa’s lawfirm. I began calling and leaving messages as well in addition to Kelly’s messages. Eventually, she called me back and explained that they had switched to a new phone system, and all voicemails were lost. She didn’t explain why she never answered our emails. We both thought this sounded…not quite right. Eventually, Kelly was paid but both of us thought things were still just really odd, especially because in the past their response would be immediate. I asked for the final statement showing all the withdrawals/checks written from the escrow account to Kelly, and I had a question about a $120 charge. I called and emailed twice, but never heard back. Again, I thought it was strange, but at that point, I just couldn’t put more energy into it. I knew something was off, but it brought back too many heart-searing-painful Merritt Patterson/SPCT scamming memories of us trying to get our money back. (f*ck you still Merritt!) So, we knew something wasn’t right, but I got over it.
Now it all makes sense. They were under FBI investigation at that time.
This means that I have personally come into contact with four criminals (that I know of) in my five years of IF. This is disgusting.
I am tired of defending IF and third party reproduction. I am tired of sensational stories like these setting us back to the dark ages. Again. (Thanks Octomom! Thanks stupid ass ugly Kate Gosselin! Here’s raising a glass to ya!)
What if Kelly was pregnant right now and my money was still with her Theresa’s firm. Could I have survived THIS blow? On top of the hell we experienced for five years? What are current IPs doing out there? What about the GC’s that Hilary was currently representing?
Why did they do this? Why did they get so greedy, when they were doing so much good, in their legit professional life?
I do believe they did good work, and that these illegal activities didn’t necessarily impact their work. People can be duplicitous. Look at all these politicians out there who publicly fight for a certain cause or bill, but privately engage in the exact activities they are fighting against?
I can’t stop thinking about this. Also, the story sounded so familiar to me so I went back to my email history and did a few searches. And yep, in October of 2009, Hilary contacted me about her “friend” named Carla (who is the third defendant in this case) who had a baby who’s IPs backed out, and the baby needed to be placed asap. The cost was $100,000, and DE/DS was used. The donor profiles were just one single page with only basic physical characteristics, and this Carla lady (contacting me via Hilary, I never spoke to Carla even though both Hilary and I didn’t want Hilary being the middle person) refused to provide additional information. The GC would have to travel to California to give birth due to their flexible laws (that’s the reason we were told, now we know it’s because that’s where Theresa worked. Oh, and we were told that the IVF clinic was located in CA but she refused to tell us which clinic), and I would be responsible for all medical expenses, the GC’s living costs, etc (all of this on top of the $100K fee.) I was not permitted to fly to Wisconsin to meet the GC, where she lived, prior to the birth. It goes on and on. And guess what- I would have done it in a heartbeat. I had just completed my 8th IVF , which worked, but then the baby died for no reason when I was 20 weeks pregnant. I would have done ANYthing- this was a slam dunk! Absolutely we knew we were being taken advantage of, but we sure didn’t care. Absolutely everything sounded sketchy and alarm bells were ringing, but we didn’t care! You are simply not in your right mind.
I can’t believe I was possibly this close to parenting one of these Ukraine DE/DS children created to be sold.
Interestingly, though, Hilary actually advised me not to follow through with this opportunity. She agreed that there should be more donor information, especially medical information. Hilary mentioned that she had worked with this Carla in the past and when I point blank asked if she had seen first hand a baby being born and placed in the arms of parents she said yes, she had. (ugh, makes me sick thinking of all the things going on behind that sentence, you know?) Hilary told us not to pursue, and I believe it was for one of two reasons: 1) She and I really bonded, she knew our awful traumatic history, and she didn’t want us to be one of the scammed couples placed with one of these children; perhaps she’d prefer to use fresh blood and not a couple she had worked with for three years; or 2) the option DH thinks is true- she realized I’d ask too many questions, raise too many flags, and she just wanted to shut it down. I have an email to her to forward on to Carla with a list of 8 specific questions that I demanded MUST be answered by a certain date, and they were pretty damn good questions. I had been around the block a few times, and the way DH sees it, they just didn’t want to get us involved in their ring. So perhaps they had Hilary advise against it, yet it would seem like our decision and we’d drop it. Which we did.
This is kind of a nuts and bolts type of post. I’m not really talking about my emotions, how I feel personally since we were clients of them, or really getting into the ripple effect they will have on our community. I think some other bloggers out there have done a better job, so I’ll leave you with some links if you want to read more about this:
Mel’s blog/The Stirrup Queen
"My Thoughts on the Theresa Erikson Baby Selling Scandal"
Kym’s Blog (a former surrogate)
Erikson Scandal- We All Fall Down
Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed
Betraying The Community
Baby With a Twist (a fellow IM who also used a surrogate)
And if anyone wants to read the actual legal plea agreements, here they are.
Lately I’ve been finding myself thinking back to the early days with the twins, and how I felt about them. I really was distancing myself from them- not on purpose, but I think I just didn’t know how to process everything. I was also really nervous that I was going to do something wrong. I still kind of feel that way, actually. But there are a few things I wrote that I totally feel the complete opposite these days. For example, I remember reading in someone else’s blog that even at 2 am when her son was fussing, she didn’t want to put him back down after he was quiet. I blogged about how I just couldn’t understand that concept- you are with him ALL day! You see him and play with him ALL day, don’t you want the night time hours for you, for you to sleep? But now I can understand this frame of mind. I’ll go in their room after I get out of the shower to check on them before I go to sleep, and it’s one of my favorite times of the days. And, yes, there is a small part of me that wishes one of them would stir just a teensy tiny bit so we could have a few moments together. I can totally understand the concept of wanting one of them wake up and I have to quiet them down. But, I also think it is SO DIFFERENT when you have two. You are always thinking in the back of your head- well, as much as I would love a little moment with Peanut, there is a chance that he may wake up Princess and then I’m dealing with two babies at whatever time it is, and I would have been better off just letting them be. It’s hard.
I also get the whole “missing your kids” concept now. Months ago I blogged about how at the time, I just couldn’t get how moms miss their kids when they go to the grocery store or do other errands for a few hours. I was like- huh? Again, you are with them all the time, isn’t it nice to have some time away? Well, now, seven months in, I can see how both ideas are true, it doesn’t have to be one or other, it’s not that extreme. Yes, I absolutely love when I can get out and run errands by myself (although it is never ever relaxing, as the clock is always ticking and I find myself driving really fast to get to Point A and Point B. It stresses me out.) But by the time I pull into my driveway I am bouncing out of my car to get inside and see what the kids are up to. I hope they are awake so I can snoorgle with them. Sometimes, I actually feel an ache in my chest when it’s been too long. It’s like an actual, physical feeling. And to be perfectly honest, it reminds me of when I was going through IF- it’s that same physical manifestation of a mental feeling. It even feels similar, like my heart hurts. I just think it’s so interesting in that the feelings are for two polar opposite reasons, yet feel so similar. You’d think those two feelings would feel different, but nope.
Princess is extremely generous with her smiles and laughs, and sometimes when she is giving me crazy smiles I can’t even stand it, I can’t believe these smiles are for ME.
On a totally different note- it’s done, my DIJ embryos are no longer mine. I received the requested letter from Cornell confirming that the embryos are gone, or “disposed,” since it was an Embryo Disposition. The unopened letter sat on my desk for a week, I just wasn’t ready to open it. I finally did it today, and it’s just a short, concise, four paragraph letter. Of course, all the words ran together because I started crying. Damn it already, it’s amazing how fast the tears come on when I think of this!
It may be more raw because…August 15th is around the corner. I hated even writing that date. I hate seeing it. I drew my breath in when the calendar changed to August. Yes, I still have a very visceral reaction to that date, DIJ’s due date. He would have been two years old next week.
More on that later….
