rigabamboo

There were some other things like travel and boarding reimbursement, but the total cash compensation came to around $50,000.

Not hard at all. The couple I delivered for are wonderful people, and it makes me happy knowing that the baby I carried is going to get loving care from them.

I didn't breastfeed. Many surrogates will elect to pump, freeze, and ship breast milk, but I don't like pumping, so I didn't do this. I did pump a little while at the hospital, but after that, the baby was fed formula.

I stay in touch the mom through texting. I check in every now and then to see how she and the baby are doing.

Their current plan is to not let the child or anyone else know they used a surrogate, but that is rare. Most are open about surrogacy use. And I wonder if they will change their mind and tell the child years down the line. I hope they do!

Oh yes, there's something about a pregnant woman that seems to encourage strangers to ask questions and/or make personal comments. I usually just smiled and said thank you for the congratulations, or answered whatever question, without bothering to correct the assumption that it was my baby because it wasn't worth going into the details with every grocery store cashier who wants to ask me if it's my first, is it a boy or girl, etc etc. My boyfriend would always get a kick out of being congratulated when people would assume he's the father.

You're in the middle of the surrogacy process? Are you on the parent side or the surrogacy side?

He was amazingly supportive. And as someone who had been through the surrogacy process on the parent side, he understood a lot of what I was going through and was a great source of information and guidance.

I had started the application process before I met him. It was clear after our first date that we were going to be serious, so I disclosed it to him to let him decide whether he wanted to continue to date a woman who was going to be pregnant with someone else's baby. He stuck around... ;)