MicroblogMondays: Gestational Carrier Agreement

Last Tuesday, I looked at the calendar sent by Dr. E and found out that in order to have a transfer on October 31, Annie will have to take her last birth control pill on Wednesday October 5th and have a pelvic ultrasound at a local clinic on Thursday October 6th.  And Dr. E would like to receive the legal clearance from our attorney before the scan.  So it means that we had about a week to finish reading, changing, and signing the gestational carrier agreement.

Well, let’s just say that we are cutting it very very close.

At that point, I still hadn’t received our first draft of the contract yet.  I emailed our attorney and her paralegal about the exact date that the contract would have to be done.  They responded to us with a promise that we should have the draft in the next few days.  “Few” could mean 2, 3, 4 day, or longer.  This is the process: upon receipt of the draft, we would have to read it, make changes, send it back to our attorney for the changes, and then pass the draft to my gestational carrier’s attorney so that the attorney can go over it with our GC.  So it could potentially take another week, which means that we would have to push the transfer back.

My immediate response was feeling stressed.  It was interesting that I felt that way because in reality an October 31 transfer and a November 7 transfer do not make a huge difference to us.  We should devote our time to make sure that the contract’s terms are accurate instead of rushing it.  Worrying about it means that I don’t trust God’s timing.  If I have learned anything in this process, it is to trust God and His timing.  Me rushing things doesn’t get me anywhere. But yeah, my reaction was probably not out of the ordinary.  Since we have been waiting for so long, it’s natural for us to want to get it over with as soon as possible.

After that realization, I had just been waiting patiently.  Wednesday, nothing.  Thursday, nothing.  Friday I woke up at dawn with a headache, checked my email, and was pleasantly surprised to find the draft of the agreement in my inbox.  Since I couldn’t fall back asleep, I entertained myself with the whole 30 pages of this legal document on my little iPhone screen.  Such a fun activity for 5:45am.  That day I spent my whole lunch time (and some more) writing down the corrections of typos and changes that were necessary.  It was a lot of work.  Our donor’s agreement was 19 pages and that was a lot to read.  So 30 pages was just so much more fun (not).  I was surprised to find that errors included the gestational carrier’s name and her husband’s name at various places being wrong, as they weren’t changed from a previous draft with another client.  I thought that it was quite a record to have read all those pages and emailed the changes back to our attorney within 12 hours of receiving the document.  My head was literally spinning after focusing so hard on the computer screen.

So why is the document 30 pages long?  It includes literally everything needed to protect us and our gestational carrier and her husband: psychological evaluations and testing, insurance, details about transfer, conduct during pregnancy, restrictions on travel due to Zika virus and after 24 weeks to stay in her own state, medical emergencies and how things should be handled, early termination and fetal reduction, delivery details, custody upon birth, parental rights, contact post birth, disbursements of compensation and allowance, compensations for bed rest, D & C, C-section, and other things, health insurance and medical expenses…  So can’t blame me for feeling dizzy after reading such a document.

The good news is that the attorney also did her part, made all the changes, and sent the revised agreement to us on Sunday.  It’s wonderful to know that she also wants to help us with the deadline as much as she can.  Hopefully my gestational carrier’s attorney will go over the agreement with her today so that we can actually have the agreement signed by Wednesday.  If not, I am at peace with waiting another week for the transfer.

Either way, we are on our way to a transfer, and hopefully a baby in the very near future!