Surrogacy: Offering a GTK
By: Kim Barrett
Tags: Children, Surrogacy, Parenting, Offers, Pregnancy

#5

Surrogacy: Offering a GTK

Image from pxfuel

It was a sunny Monday morning. My partner, Thomas, and I were sitting on a picnic rug in the garden with our laptops. I was supposed to be doing some work but, instead, I was drafting and redrafting an email. It was important — but I knew that the wording itself didn’t matter.

“You think I should just send it?” I asked Thomas, not for the first time, and he nodded enthusiastically. I finally clicked ‘send’ and pushed my laptop aside. I knew that it could take until the following day to get an answer to my offer.

To an outsider, the email might seem innocuous — I’d offered to get to know a couple that I’d met online. However, I’m a surrogate and we’d be getting to know each other to find out if I was the right surrogate for them. It’s such an important stage that Surrogacy UK, the surrogacy organisation I’m part of, has given it its own acronym: GTK (‘get to know’).

We’d met Louise & Brian(*) at one of Surrogacy UK’s online socials when we were put into a randomly-assigned Zoom breakout room with them. Afterwards, Thomas & I both said that we really liked them. We’d read through their profile before but, after checking it again, I immediately added them to our shortlist.

I messaged them through the Surrogacy UK’s forum board, a private website which allowed members to talk to one another. They replied a few days later and we started chatting.

Shortly afterwards, Surrogacy UK retired the forum and replaced it with a more modern messaging system. Inevitably, this ended some of my conversations, as people learnt how to use the new website and forgot about messages they hadn’t replied to on the old forum. Thankfully, despite a few days spent worrying about it, my conversation with Louise & Brian continued on the Surrogacy UK Member Hub.

After a couple of weeks of messaging each other, I started to think that I might offer a GTK to Louise & Brian. I let Surrogacy UK know about my interest and began receiving notifications about which online socials they had signed up to. I went to the same ones for the chance to chat with them (sometimes rearranging my weekend at short notice!)

At the socials, the Zoom breakout rooms were still randomly assigned, so it was pot-luck whether we actually got to speak to Louise & Brian. For me, this is the main downside of online socials and there were a few disappointing socials where we missed out.

I looked forward to offering a GTK so we could chat more freely — and without the fear that the time would run out on the breakout room and the conversation would be forced to end.

I wonder if I would have waited longer to offer a GTK if we weren’t in lockdown because we’d have been able to chat more easily at socials. On the other hand, we would have been able to chat more during the socials so maybe I would have offered sooner.

I felt excited about speaking to them; I knew in my gut that Louise & Brian were the right IPs for me. So, finally, I let myself accept that we should offer them a GTK. When I told Thomas, he said that he knew we were going to pick them when we added them to the short-list.

As with all stages of this journey, I wanted to be completely certain before taking the next step, so I decided to wait for a month. During the month I got more and more sure about offering the GTK and realised I’d be really disappointed if someone else offered to them before I had a chance.

We told both mine and Thomas’s parents that we were planning on offering a GTK to Louise & Brian (along with the necessary layperson explanation of what that meant!) After 3 weeks of my self-imposed month-long wait, I realised that I should just do it.

Thomas was fully on board with the decision, although he didn’t realise until afterwards the full impact of officially offering a GTK. It would, hopefully, really change any IP’s life.

That non-descript Monday morning, I sent the email to the surrogacy coordinator letting her know that we’d decided to offer a GTK to Louise & Brian. This process is done through an intermediary to make it easier for them to say “no” if they don’t think I’m the right surrogate for them.

Forty minutes after I sent my initial email, I received an enthusiastic response from the surrogacy coordinator telling me that she would get in touch with Louise & Brian and let me know when she knew the answer. I thought I would be able to remain calm while waiting for the answer but I couldn’t focus all day and kept refreshing my email inbox.

I imagined what was happening in Louise & Brian’s house. Perhaps excitement and joy; I wondered if they would let themselves get their hopes up. Even if they turned me down, I hoped that my offer would give them hope that the right surrogate would eventually choose them.

Five hours later, she emailed me again with a “great big yes” and I melted with relief.

There are plenty more hurdles for us to clear, but I’m ready for all the ups and downs. I’m very excited to start this next stage of my surrogacy journey and I’m very glad that I’m doing it with this couple.