Surrogate as Artist

With A & A at the Dead Sea

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Israel to visit my IFs and the surrotwins, who at the time were seven months old.   It had been about six months since I last saw them, and I was excited about being able to see them when they were still small enough to let me snuggle them without wondering who the heck I was.  One afternoon, standing outside a restaurant in downtown Tel Aviv, A asked me a question I’ve been trying to answer myself since the babies were born: “How do you feel, you know, seeing the babies?  How do you think of them?  Is it hard for you?”  At first I just joked:  “I certainly don’t want to take them home, if that’s what you’re asking!”  I know there are horror stories about surrogates deciding they can’t “give up” the babies, but this thought has never even crossed my mind.  There are days I question if I even want my own three biological children, let alone add two more to the chaos.  My continued explanation wasn’t suffice, and I’ve since been trying to formulate the right description of my relationship to the surrotwins. 

Baby E

Of course I think they are beautiful, probably more beautiful than the average baby.  Of course I loved snuggling and holding them and tickling their little tummies to make them laugh and reading the books that I brought them, teaching them the names of farm animals in English, and holding them—pacing and bouncing back and forth the kitchen to coax little D to sleep.  But in all honesty, I’d love to do that with any baby.  Babies are adorable.  My feelings for them, however, are much deeper than they are for any baby.  That affection is nowhere near the same affection I feel for my own children, the children whom I not only grew in my uterus, but whom my husband and I contributed to genetically and whom we have nurtured through sickness and health, through accomplishment and tantrum, for nine, five, and three years.   That love and affection between a parent and a child is one that cannot be replicated.  My next step has always been to compare the surrotwins to my nieces and nephews.  I think they’re cuter and smarter than the average kid, too.  I love them more than the average kid.  I enjoy seeing pictures and hearing anecdotes from their parents and seeing the achievements they make throughout their life.  I have pride in those achievements, even knowing that I had very little, if anything, to do with them. 

Baby D

But even that analogy doesn’t quite fit, because the affection I have for the surrotwins is different still. 

The best I’ve come up with is this: Consider an artist—maybe a writer, or a photographer, or a musician, or someone who makes custom furniture.  Consider the pride that artist feels at the completion of a piece of artwork.  It’s not that they created the words, or built the camera, or invented the guitar, or grew the tree that became a table.  But they took that material—material someone else designed—and shaped it into an amazing new thing.  The completion of that project brings an incredible pride and satisfaction to the artist.  Then consider the satisfaction in seeing that art being enjoyed by its new owner.  Knowing that piece of writing connected with a young reader, that the photograph brings life to someone’s living room, that the song is the background to countless first dances, that the table now seats everyone at Thanksgiving dinners.  Artists understand this pride, both in making the product and in then seeing it bring joy to its new family.  Surrogates understand the pride of growing an embryo into a baby—regardless of their lack of biological contribution to creating the embryo—and the subsequent pride of seeing this baby with its family.  Surrogates understand the honor of being chosen to become a part of someone’s life in such a meaningful way. 

I loved seeing D & E.  I loved holding them and seeing their smiles. I took pride in seeing them roll over and hold themselves up.  But even more than seeing them, I enjoyed seeing them with their family.  Seeing their grandparents snag them from their parents the moment they walked in the door.  Seeing their cousins lay on the floor with them and sing and play.  Seeing their aunt pick them up when they started crying and gently sooth them to sleep.  I adore D & E like I adore the children of my good friends and my sisters.  But I feel a sense of achievement in them that’s different than I have for anyone else.  It’s a pride of knowing that I had a tiny part in making this little miracle.  Not in creating it, or in raising it—that belongs solely to their parents. But the pride of an artist growing something amazing just for someone else to enjoy.