One couple’s lament: ‘We don’t have a uterus’
Gestational surrogacy was the solution, but the road was not easy
Dan Neville-Rehbehn was sitting with his husband at a fertility center and filling out a questionnaire for in vitro fertilization when he came to this question: What’s your reason for infertility?
“His answer was ‘gay,’ ” said his husband, Will Neville-Rehbehn.
Will said Dan’s answer summed up just how complicated their situation was.
“We don’t have a uterus. We need to find friends who do, and sitting in a lot of waiting rooms at a lot of IVF clinics, it is a stark reminder that most of the people are there because their journeys have already been harder than ours has been,” Will said.
The couple recently had a child through gestational surrogacy, in which an embryo is created using an egg donor and the sperm from the couple. It has in no way been a smooth journey. There is a com- plex web of surrogacy laws making it illegal to use a paid surrogate in some states, like New York, where the couple live, and legal in other states, like California. To turn their dream of parenthood into a reality, the couple spent tens of thousands of dollars on in vitro fertilization, a surrogate agency, surrogate fees, lawyers, and travel and medical costs.
“The thing we didn’t know going into this was surrogacy is hard not only financially and in terms of a ton of complicated science and a hell of a lot of human compassion and generosity, but it’s a patchwork of laws just trying to make it impossible,” Will said.
The Neville-Rehbehns were matched with a surrogate in 2015 several months after reaching out to All Families Surrogacy in Oregon, an agency that has 10 staff members, many of whom were surrogates themselves.
Carey Flamer-Powell, founder and director of All Families Surrogacy, said her agency’s screening process of surrogates, who must have given birth before, can take up to four months. She said the hardest part is getting the surrogate’s medical records approved to carry another pregnancy. Also, the agency sends a social worker to the surrogate’s home.
“It takes lots of time and money, and so many hopes and dreams are invested in this per- son that there can’t be any issues whatsoever,” Flamer-Powell said.
After surrogates are vetted, they are matched with couples based on whether their personality and expectations are in line with the potential parents’. In Will and Dan’s case, they Skyped with Yessenia Jones, a mother of two, and her husband, Alex.
“It just felt like, ‘Oh, these are two people who are supposed to be in our lives,’ ” Will said. “It felt like meeting friends.”
Within a few weeks of matching, the couple were texting and talking on the phone with Yessenia, and after the embryo was implanted, they continued to Skype through doctors appointments and check-ins.
She said many people wonder whether it’s hard for surrogates to give up the baby they carried, but she said that in reality it’s harder to let go of the everyday contact with the new parents.
“We have these friends we talk to every single day, and obviously that is going to change,” she said. “That I think is more of the attachment than it is to the baby.”
Yessenia gave birth to Will and Dan’s son, Jackson Strange Neville-Rehbehn, on Oct. 24 in Oregon.
Will and Dan believe their child will have a relationship with Yessenia and her family.
“It’s very similar to how we felt about wanting, developing a friendship with Yessenia. ... It developed naturally and organically,” Dan said. “I think it will be the same with our kid and Yessenia.”