The "hitting" incident

It’s rare that I have to come down really hard on the girls.  It is.  I know I come across as the cranky, mean parent.  I kind of am cranky.  I’m not a completely freaking ray of sunshine most of the time.  I do get frustrated easily… anyway… Over the course of the past 6 years we haven’t had many “big” trouble incidents.  Last night was one of them.

Larry’s in Chicago for the day with work and he expected to come back late which is fine.  Funny though how most things like this tend to happen when Larry’s not around.  Maybe it’s some form of parenting kismet.  The afternoon had cruised along pretty easily, the girls were tired from camp so they were just chilling on the couch after dinner.  Olivia and I had our usual run-in over food.  I know common parenting logic says that you shouldn’t make a big deal out of it because you will create eating disorders later in life.  My logic says that my child not eating is indicative of something deeper.  So I push, and I push, and I push.  Olivia feels that’s she not getting enough attention and that one way to retaliate is to by ignoring something I put a lot of effort into.  She’s a smart cookie.

So we’re all on the couch on iDevices.  I realize it’s almost 8pm - give them the quick heads-up that they need a bath.  So I go start the bath.  Olivia comes up and joins me - which is cool.  Then Louise follows.  Now the girls don’t generally bathe at the same time.  It seems to be coming a bit more common so I’m not really sure what’s going on there.  Again I am not really rock the boat though - saves me time sitting on the bathroom floor keeping them company.  They also both decided to wash their hair.  Now the funny thing here is that Olivia particularly doesn’t like washing her hair… I normally have to force that issue.  Recently nope - she’s washing her hair every couple of days.  So Louise and Olivia are in the bath.  Now it’s a normal sized bathtub and I should have foreseen something was going to happen.  Parental ESP and all that.

So something did happen.  The bathtub is getting to be a bit too small for two kids to lay side by side.  So the next thing is the argy-bargy, the she touched me, no she touched me, she got water in my face and whammo - Olivia hit Louise.  So Olivia gets hoisted out of the bath given a towel and marching orders to brush her teeth, hair and get straight into bed.  Now for the first time in her life she complained that she hadn’t washed herself… seriously! 

So Olivia has her pajamas on and has brushed her hair and teeth, is in bed and she cops the lecture.  Now we have a couple of golden rules in this house - one is no hitting.  So it’s not a small lecture, it’s not the I’m upset that you hit you sister.  It’s the I’m disappointed in you.  Now I get to a 5 (nearly 6 year old) the gravity of things isn’t quite apparent.  We got there eventually.  The clanger though was when I did the channelling my own parents - the “I thought I was raising you better than this.”

Now ordinarily this probably wouldn’t be so much of a problem.  However the girls share a bathroom that separates their bedrooms so Louise overheard me saying “I thought I was raising you better than this” and she took that to mean that I was raising Olivia better than her.  Cue favoritism drama - so I have one child upset because she’s gotten the lecture and didn’t get a kiss and a hug good night (I’ll come back to this) and the other one is upset because she thinks I favor her sister.

So I have to put that little fire out.  One of the things I really love about the English language is the diversity and breadth of expressions.  There are just so many cute and interesting sayings.  One of the things I dislike about the English language is that you have to try to explain to children who don’t quite have the same understanding of the language you do what these expressions and sayings mean.  So I spent the time explaining to Louise that I was disappointed in Olivia and I thought I was doing my best to raise kids that don’t hit.  So that was sorted out.  

Meanwhile Olivia is having a meltdown in her room because she didn’t get the hug or the kiss.  That was hard for me.  When I was having the talk to Olivia about what punishment she felt was suitable - none really felt that they would lend themselves to the gravity of the offense.  Taking her iPad away for a day is pointless because she still has the TV… so I thought if I just tucked her in and said good night and walked out that would do it.  Now I am not a complete monster - there is one thing that I have always tried do to with Louise and Olivia and that is leave with them a smile or a laugh when they go to bed.  So I went back in and had a quick chat to Olivia and told her that I forgave her and explained that I get angry too, I react to things without thinking them through - it’s human nature, I don’t hit people though.  I tend to say TV words - the really bad ones!  That gave her a bit of a laugh.   I gave her a kiss and a hug, told her I loved her and said good night.

There’s lots of things about parenting that I find hard.  I’ve spoken to people before about the fact that I try to be the perfect parent (which I know isn’t possible).  With situations like this I worry if I have done the right thing.  It was all a bit stressful for me… now in the past I’d unwind with a few drinks (probably a few too many) - these days I unwind by folding laundry and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.  The ultimate outcomes are that my kids know that I love them, the boundaries were enforced and my sanity prevailed.

The Nanny Period...

a note to my readers - sorry I have left this blog and our surrogacy story alone for so long.  I really have been a bit slack - I do need to sit down and write this more regularly... so hopefully my slackness will abate for a bit!

Title sounds awful doesn't? ;)

Now I personally had reached a meltdown.  I literally tore myself apart over this.  I had a breakdown - I rang Larry at work and asked him to come home because I couldn't cope.  So we started discussing options, childcare or a nanny.  Now I wasn't ready to go back to work and your Dad has been really gracious about me not working - I will give him full credit for that.  So we ended discussing what would end up working best.  I just needed the ability to get out and do the errands without you two.  So we figured that two days would be best (and it was probably also what we could afford).

So we interviewed a couple of people and I found someone I really quite liked - I just took a while to finally getting around to calling her to tell her that we wanted to hire her.  She was very gracious about it actually - she told me that she understood.  For me it was separating feeling like a failure and actually getting someone to help.  Thankfully Megan was still available to work two days a week for us.  And so there started us having a nanny.

There is probably a lot of people that associate nannies with the wealthy.  I know there are increasing numbers of people who are getting nannies because they can't get places in childcare or it is actually cheaper for them to hire a nanny then have full-time childcare (sorry a bit of a segue).  I did get the reaction a few times that we must be rich to be able to afford a nanny...

So anyway Megan entered our lives.  It took me about a week and a half to able to leave the house for more than an hour... I wasn't really that overprotective!

In a lot of ways Megan was a godsend.  She taught me so much about being a parent and gave me lots of tips and tricks and did also show me where I was doing a few things wrong.  Well not so much wrong but how I could be doing things better...

Probably the main example is that I never set a strict nap routine - I would just let drop where you were when you needed a nap.  Apparently not a good idea as your naps end up being short and I end up being frazzled as part of it.  One of the really important things that Megan taught me was more about myself - I can't be the perfect parent.  I can only be the parent I am.  Noone can be the perfect parent (they don't exist).  All I have to ever do is look at how happy and healthy you are and know that I am doing a good job - or at least the best job I can.

This is also one of my favorite stories involving Megan.  So bathtimes for us were hell.  Sheer absolute hell - noone enjoyed them.  Megan had her doubts that they were that bad... so she decided to give you guys a bath.  I was outside washing your Dad's Vespa as he was selling it.  It honestly sounded like someone was being murdered in the house.  She was shocked!  So anyway she came up with a strategy to help you guys deal with water - we went to the pool - no more horror baths.

Megan has become a very good friend.  She was with us for about 8 months and we had a few comedies.  The horrible Santa photo at Highpoint which I will point out was entirely her idea! HER IDEA!!!! It was shocking but really quite funny.  The photographer was a pain and the Santa was as cranky as all get out and go... and of course two little one year olds didn't want to sit still.

After we stop using Megan as a Nanny she would still babysit and just come around and visit.  She's an amazing friend.

After this started the Montessori and Childcare adventures.  I will get to those in due course.

Yesterday was Dad's Birthday

My father passed away last year.  I think there's a blog post about it somewhere.  Anyway I realised yesterday that I actually miss my Dad - it seems weird considering at times my relationship with him wasn't the best (nowhere near as bad as the relationship with my mother though!).  So I thought I'd get a little bit introspective and do a post about my Dad...


I have regrets - I have always tried to live my life with no regrets but I do have a few regrets in terms of my relationship with Dad.  I should have tried harder - I really should.  I think for most of my adult life I only ever spoke to Dad on father's day, his birthday and Christmas.  The rest of the year I pretty much ignored him.  Dad was a good man, he was, but he had a very large drinking problem which is partly what caused the estrangement between us.  That and in some screwed up way I always thought I was never as good as my brother in his eyes.  All I ever really wanted Dad to say was that he was proud of me - which a friend of his told us that at his funeral that Dad was incredibly proud of both us and would constantly talk about how well we were doing and so on (I suspect this applied more to my brother as Dad didn't have that many details of what I was up to...).


My relationship with Dad really did go sour because of his drinking.  The man was a heavy alcoholic from the age of 16 and I suspect that I have my own issues with alcohol due to that.  I don't know but I'm not going to blame him for it.  My father meant no harm ever.  He was a good soul but I think he was lost.  He tried to do the best by everyone around him and that's what once in a while went pear-shaped.  He was used and abused basically - people took advantage of his good nature and it was really sad to see it happen time and time again.  Old dogs, new tricks...


The bad:
- getting phone-calls from whichever bar Dad was at to come pick him up.
- getting into a fight with him at the bar I worked at because I was cutting him off.
- Dad not remembering who I was after he had a rather nasty fall and ended up in Hospital.  He was stuck a couple of years in the past, Edwin and I went to visit him and he absolutely no idea of who was (I had lost a considerable amount of weight by this point).  That was heart-breaking for me (and I did hold it against him).
- ringing Dad for fathers day or his birthday after a massive weekend and blacking out due to lack of sleep and he was still on the other end of the phone talking like nothing had happened (this I am actually ashamed of!).
- Some of the general things of living with an alcoholic... I won't go into details but they tend not to be pleasant.


The good:
- One of the fondest memories I have of Dad is bringing me a cup of coffee every morning when I woke up (I started drinking coffee at 14).
- I came out to Dad when I was 19.  I was so worked up and stressed over it.  Dad looked at me and quite simply said "as long as you are happy" - I was stunned and a bit surprised that it was that simple.  
- Dad buying me my first car and encouraging my interest in it.  I still don't know my way around the engine of a car but I can make a car look pretty ;)
- Dad's generosity - he was quite simply the most generous and genuine man I think I've ever met.
- Dad actively encouraged my interests - including cooking.  He hated me being in the kitchen though as the kitchen normally turned into a massive mess! But he was generally kind enough to clean up after me.
- Dad allowing me to hold my High School Formal after-party at home.  Almost 100 drunken teenagers!  The man deserved a medal for that one!  And we only had the police come past once.


The regrets:
- Not seeing Dad before he died.  I moved down to Melbourne in 2003 and I didn't go back to Brisbane until Dad's funeral last year.
- That Dad didn't get to meet the girls.  I tried explaining to Dad that Larry and I were starting a family (or attempting to at that stage).  And it's the only time Dad ever hung up on me with a very curt "I have to go."
- Dad not being there at our Wedding (but there was a very good reason for that too!).  If Dad would have been a bit more healthy mentally then it wouldn't have been a problem - but I'm not sure if Dad could have handled the concept of his youngest son getting married to another man.


My father in a lot of ways was a very admirable man and I do have a lot of respect for him.  He was born in 1940 during the War and in a lot of ways he was your typical European male.  Didn't show much affection to his kids (he loved us deeply though - I think Edwin and I both knew that).  I don't think he was ever expecting that he would be raising two children by himself.  Virtually unheard of in the 1980s.  But I think he did ok.  I'm not a complete screw-up... I've done ok for myself.  I've got a good education, stayed out of prison, I have a stable relationship and I have two amazing children.  I wouldn't be the person I am without my father.  I may not have always liked him but I do love him.  I have a much deeper respect for him now that I am a parent myself - I understand more of where he was coming from and the sacrifices he made.  


It's also funny a flickr contact of mine a couple of months ago posted a self-portrait of himself in the mirror and asked who do you see when you look in the mirror.  I see my father... as I have gotten older I look more and more like my Dad.  Not completely obviously as there were two people involved in making me.  But the resemblance is there.  Once upon a time I used to think I took more after my mother in terms of my looks but that was based purely on memory.  I can now see how people think I look like Dad...


I do love him and I do miss him.  And I do only hope that I can be as a good a person as he was.

so we moved back to the city...

Ok getting back on track with all this....


Your father found a job - huzzah!!!! Took a lot of financial pressure of... A LOT! But it added a whole series of new pressures.  To get to work he'd be getting up at 6am to try to get out the door at 7 to catch a train at 7:30 from Woodend.  I'd then be keeping you guys up until around 7:30 so he could spend 10 minutes with you before I put you to bed.  This was actually hard on both of us.  Your father didn't get to see you.  And I felt more and more isolated and alone.  So I felt particularly stressed... as did he.  And I was a fair monster to be around during this period too (I will admit to that...).


So unbeknownst to me... your father had seen a house and went had a look at it.  And then suggested that on Boxing Day 2009 that we all go look at it as "something to do" so we came had a look and I will be honest I fell in love with the house.  There was a rather large stumbling block.  It was pricey... (still is!) so we would become quite familiar with the term mortgage stress - which we have.  We weren't sure if we could afford it, we weren't sure if we could get a mortgage but we put in an offer all the same - 10 month settlement, rent-back for the 10 months.  And surprisingly the vendor accepted!  We had a new house, in a location that we loved and a brand-spanking new townhouse.  Next part was selling the other two houses and moving back into the city.


So on March 19, 2010 we moved back to South Melbourne.  Well we did... it's your first house in the area.  It's funny going from a town of under 1000 people back to the inner-city I instantly felt more comfortable.  Anonymity has a lot going for it.  I think it's much easier to be someone faceless in a larger population.  In part and as friendly as the folks in Trentham are - I did feel a little bit like a freakshow.  Here it's not that much of a problem, we're much more readily accepted, people generally don't blink at two men with kids.


Also it suddenly became easier for friends to drop around and visit.  Granted we're just around the corner for most of them now, than being a 3 hour round trip.  So that did and has had made life much more comfortable.  Although the flip-side of that now is that we've made it much harder for our dear friends Chris & Ian to visit us - they now face a 3 hour return trip (as do we when we go visit them!). 


I miss the garden at times though and I know your father does too.  But we've discussed that as well.  This was a decision we made (not particularly lightly) for our family.  It's easier having one property at the moment rather than having two and the expense of two.  And at this stage in your lives we can't ferry you up and back every weekend and then spend the whole weekend in the garden.  That's not fair on you! 


I also find that raising kids in the city is generally a bit easier.  There's more things to do.  Swimming lessons (a bit of a failure), gymbaroo (the woman who ran it was an absolute nutjob), there's your music classes that you, me and your father absolutely adore.  Everything is so much more convenient.  I suspect as you get a bit bigger we'll miss having a backyard for you guys to run around in though.  But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it - on the plus side there's a few parks you can and do terrorise.


It's also funny the sale of the houses in Trentham and Port Melbourne were relatively stress-free for me.  Every other time your father and I have sold a house, I've been a right emotional wreck... not sure why.  But this time around it was actually very easy and it was all done with perfect ease for me - I even took control of most of it (which is quite unusual for me!).  And in a slight brag moment I had a couple of my photos used for the marketing of the property in Trentham, it was one of those moments where I felt like a real photographer (they are few and far between these days).


For the most part we settled back into city living very easily.  Everything was suddenly (again) so convenient.  We could walk to the supermarket - rather than having to drive 20 minutes... we didn't need to jump into the car to go everywhere!  It was brilliant and something I really quite honestly missed.


As a parent I still had my ups and downs and I was still struggling with dealing with two infants and my own issues.  We had a couple of scary moments which were mostly resolved by getting a nanny in to help me for two days a week (I'll touch on that in my next blog post).


I do miss the country.  I miss the peace and quiet.  I miss the beautiful surroundings.  I miss the fantastic roads I used to take the Mini out on (there's some absolutely brilliant roads between Trentham, Kyneton  & Daylesford).  But I do think we made the best decision.  We're happy here - it's a beautiful house, we've got good neighbours.  There's a bit of a sense of community - which is always wonderful.


A note on the photo - this is a photo I took last year at the front of the house.  The developer planted a variety of Jacaranda in two of the townhouses and as I was doing a 365 project at the time... this is what I came up with for that particular day.  It's probably the best macro photo I have ever taken.

Travelling... (Virginia Part 1)

It's a nightmare...
24 hours roughly of travelling.
The girls all things considered actually did really well. There was no major meltdowns. Louise didn't sleep much as she had to know everything that was going on. So she'd be asleep and someone would come talk to us about the girls and up would pop her cute little head - get a cheeky smile. It really is very, very cute.

I got the chance to watch 2 movies!
Which for a 15 hour flight is a scream - got to watch both Clash of the Titans & Alice in Wonderland, broken and interupted quite a bit but did eventually get to watch them. Enjoyed both of them.

Qantas I love you! The staff were awesome. The passengers were pretty good (better than our connecting flight). We were waiting for everyone else to get off the plane when we landed at LAX and we were getting congratulated on being able to deal with the girls as well as we did (which was a bit weird). Got patted on the back by a drunk bogan and got a resounding "well done mate". American Airlines - you suck. Larry and I get split up (nothing new for them) and we get put in seats that are nowhere near an aisle... yeah smart move with babies. I could have done with the smartass behind me though who quite loudly said great and rolled his eyes when he saw me with Olivia. I know travelling with babies is an imposition on a lot of people - but my girls are good ;)

We had a really nice moment at LAX when we were going through customs. My surname is different to everyone else in my family and the customs officer was a bit taken aback by that! That struck me as really quite sweet.

Oh and hire car shennigans! I wanted a Ford Fusion - you know a nice mid-size sedan. We got a bonus upgrade to a Saturn Vue. Which is a Holden Captiva in Australia which we looked at getting at one stage. Larry's impression of it - it's a boat! *giggles*

Oh and the internet is so fast here!

India Part 1 - Part 2 - the first baby video

I should have included this with the last blog post but technical issues in trying to find a .dat to .mov convertor that wasn't windoze based (apoligies too for the watermark but hey I'm only converting one video so I'm not paying for it).

Two of these blastocysts are Louise and Olivia. Pretty amazing isn't it? I just had to share this as it was and still is something so completely and absolutely amazing.

the other link to it is here -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/larryandmichael/4822821828/

India Part 1 (Part 1 of many)

There are so many things in life that just end up comedic. Or unintentionally comedic...

So anyway we were still trying to get pregnant. Now obviously there is only so much "stuff" that can be used before it runs out. We had our egg donor cycled and ready to go... and we get an email from the clinic. We had to be the next day to deliver more "stuff" or as we've rather delicately decided to describe it genetic material. Cue the fits of hysterics... the stress... the frenzied phonecalls/emails etc... basically explaining that we can not physically get to Mumbai by the next day.

So there's a frenzy of activity including me begging work for 10 days off so we can go to India. I seriously did work with an awesome bunch of people! I really did :) I still miss them at times. So anyway, we manage to get into Mumbai on the Friday (we were supposed to be there on the Wednesday) and had an appointment at the Clinic on the Saturday (that being Valentine's day - nawwwww!). Our babies we're created on Valentine's Day (nawwwwww!).

I'll digress for a second. There's something really quite surreal about being in Business Class on a Qantas flight and landing in the middle of one of the worlds largest slums. It probably was a pretty good introduction into the culture shock I was in for the next two weeks... I'm not a particularly well-travelled person, I will also admit that. At this point I've been to Hong Kong (enjoyed it!), Vietnam with your Dad (that was interesting), the States with your Dad (LOVED IT!), Singapore (I actually really had fun in Singapore) and the two trips to India.

We were very lucky in that we got to meet your surrogate and kind of in a roundabout way we got to meet your egg donor. Well we didn't get to meet her as such... but I was sitting in the waiting room trying to work out if the pretty woman on the other side of the room was your egg donor or not. Your father told me off for staring as I was most likely going to freak her out... which I probably did. I can have that effect on people. Just so you know - your egg donor is very pretty, she's very short (which is probably why you're both short-arses) and she just had such a beautiful face. Your surrogate was very quiet and very shy but she seemed to have a good soul - your father gave her some flowers to say thank you and she was left speechless (in a good way!).

So this was to be our sixth and final attempt. Although to be honest, I think your father and I would have kept trying until we got the desired outcome. As in we would have found the money for further attempts from somewhere. We wouldn't have given up but as we found out before we left India we didn't need to try again! We had found out that our surrogate was pregnant with twins.

The two of you were created on the 14th of February and you were transferred into the surrogate on the 16th of February. Your father and I were in India for about another week. We decided to have a bit of a tour around while we had the chance to do so. The next couple of blog posts will be about my experiences in India... should hopefully be entertaining!

I'm taking a brief hiatus :)

well not that most of you will notice considering how irregularly I blog... but we're off to Virginia for Larry's 20th High School Reunion and so the girls can meet their grandmother.

xo

michael

Mommy Dearest…

Most of my therapy to date has been about my relationship with my mother. I have been in therapy for excess of 3 years. We had a break through this year – I admitted that I hated my mother. Now this is a pretty big step… I will have to venture in the deep murky depths of what my mother was/is and what it all means to me.

My mother left when I was 10 years old. She ran away with the man across the road in a tacky middleclass melodrama. I was very much a mama’s boy – I will admit that – I felt closer to my mother than I did to my father. And when she left I felt completely and absolutely betrayed.

It’s very clear in my memory. I woke up one early one morning and walked in her and Dad’s bedroom, she had packed all of her clothes in her suitcases. I asked her where she was going – she said on vacation. I asked her to take me with her and said no. I went to school thinking everything was ok. I got home from school to find my father sitting on the couch absolutely devastated. Mother had left – packed up all her belongings and left her husband and her two kids to run away with a younger man from across the street. This man eventually became my stepfather. This is also the day that pretty much changed your Opa forever. He loved your grandmother, I don’t think she quite released how much. European men have great difficulties expressing or showing emotion and your grandfather was definitely one of those kind of men.

So anyway…

There’s very much a history of your grandmother and I have problems. She’s had periodic contact with me through most of my life since I was 10. I went years without contact from her or contact with her.

One point I will make and this shapes a large part of my relationship with your grandmother. I was abused (she denies it but that’s to be expected) physically and emotionally. And those scars run deep! If you ever need confirmation just ask your Uncle Eddie he’ll tell you. Now a large part of the problems that I have with your grandmother stem from this abuse. We’ll get back to this.

So anyway through most of my teenage years I didn’t really have much to do with your grandmother. I think I got back in touch with her when I was 18 or 19. I seem to remember driving out to see her and my stepfather when I had my first car. Not long after that they moved to WA. I didn’t really have much contact with them after that.

I eventually got back in contact with her. I always felt like I needed my mother. I should have realised that my mother and I really don’t have anything in common apart from a blood connection and to be honest – that’s really not enough.

At the end of 1996, I moved to Western Australia. My then partner and I had split, were having huge problems and I thought why not! This is actually the first major mistake I made with your grandmother. I should have stayed in Brisbane. I was with your grandmother and stepfather for 2 days before I was in my own apartment in Rockingham some horrific little town about 90kms south of Perth. Your grandmother and I fought – a lot! She also threatened to hit me at one stage, which was when I decided I would move back to Brisbane. In the space of 24 hours I had sold up everything and I mean everything! What I couldn’t sell I donated. I bought a bus ticket back to Brisbane and I spent the night in the grounds of the Casino in Perth.

This is probably one of my regrets and a bit of a low point. I was a bit mean to your grandmother at this stage. Her and my stepfather did buy me some furniture and had set me up in the apartment with the bond and everything else. I did resent them because I didn’t feel particularly welcome. And also I suspect your grandmother wasn’t expecting to deal with an adult – I think she wanted the 10 year old back or she was at least expecting the 10 year old. Somehow I went from being 10 to be being 24. So anyway that went badly and ended badly. My mother and I didn’t speak for a good long while.

So eventually when I was talking to your Uncle Eddie he asks if it’s ok for mother to have my email address. I think sure why not. What’s the harm? If it will make her feel better that she’s back in contact with her two sons – then why not? So mother and I communicate by email for years. It’s nothing – it’s gloss, nothing really deep or personal is ever revealed by me at least. I think mother revealed more but I didn’t really care. I found it all a bit trivial and boring to be honest.

It all kind of changed with your father. Family is very important to your Dad, so I tried to repair my relationship with my father and improve my relationship with my mother. My father unfortunately was a lost cause (I may explain that much later). My mother was thrilled – she was so excited when your father and I committed to each other. She was also very excited to find out that we were trying to start a family. The starting a family came before the commitment – if your father and I were going to have a family then I wanted a commitment between ourselves (this at times proves to be a real challenge though – I do love your father so very much but we have our problems). I was joking for a while that it was a shotgun wedding.

This is about where the story starts to turn back to the darkside…

So anyway, my mother and I are getting on ok. I’m uncomfortable and awkward talking to her on the phone. I don’t like it – I didn’t like sharing things with her it just didn’t feel right to me. It really didn’t. She was missing for so much of my life – she missed all the important things and she didn’t care. Mind you the opposite was also true I missed so much of her life and I just didn’t care – at all. I realise how horrible this sounds – but getting over the betrayal of a parent leaving you is hard (if not impossible).

I was trying.

Maybe not particularly successfully but I was trying.

So back to where I was. We found out that our surrogate had miscarried. Your father was in London and I needed someone to talk to. I rang my mother. I really, really, really, really, really, really, really shouldn’t have. It gave the signal to my mother that everything was ok between us. It wasn’t but I felt I had done the wrong thing by ringing her and I wasn’t sure how to fix that.

My mother and stepfather had planned to come visit us in May 2009 (largely to meet the original set of twins) and they stuck to that after the miscarriage. The reunion with my mother was awkward for me to say the least. By this stage mother and I hadn’t seen each other for over 12 years. She was very touchy-feely and physical and I wasn’t comfortable with that. She was also a bit too curious about things that I felt she had no right to ask questions about:

• how much your father made
• how much I made
• how much the house in the city was worth
• how much the house in the country was worth

I just felt they were really inappropriate questions to ask.

There was a couple of defining moments though. She had known your father for less than an hour and she called him a snob. That just really set my teeth on edge for some reason. I just didn’t really think it was appropriate. The other was – we were meeting your Uncle Mike for dinner – I think he was curious to know what my family was like. So we’re walking past an aboriginal art gallery in Flinders Lane in the city and she’s telling me all about the darkies & the abos in Western Australia (these are two terms you should never use when referring to aboriginals) and I found it really surprising that my mother – who’s a migrant would use these terms at all. I was also really quite surprised that she was that much of a bigot and a redneck.

So the happy reunion was a miserable failure. I was happy to see the back of them to be honest.

She wanted to come back and visit after you guys were born. This concept freaked me out – mostly because she wanted to stay with us. I have not shared a roof with your grandmother for more than 2 days since 1996 and before that it was in the early 80s. This completely and absolutely stressed me out. I managed to delay her visit until late January 2010. And as the date was creeping closer I was freaking out more and more. So I rang her. I asked her not to come. And I have no idea of what happened from that point – it became a whole series of other people’s dramas. I will never speak to your grandmother again based on her behaviour from when I asked her not to come – I asked her to understand that it was what I thought was best for my family, a concept that I will admit is completely alien to her, and I didn’t mean for her never to come (on some level I did I’ll be honest).

There is more to this story but I will leave this here. It will get mired in the pettiness otherwise and this is a situation I need to move on from. I regret that I don’t have a relationship with my mother. But I am also relieved that I don’t have a relationship with my mother (if you get the gist of the catch22).

My sincerest and deepest hope is that I will be a better parent to you both than what my mother was to me. I don't ever want you guys to go through the pain, misery, hatred and agony that your grandmother has put me through.

My final comment on this - I was walking with your grandmother down the street we used to live in Trentham and she asked me if I had any happy memories of my childhood with her. I don't. I've searched for them. I don't have any. And that saddens me...

back to the surrogacy story

So where we…

That was a bit of diversion really!

We will be back to me trust me. It generally works like that…

So anyways… we’re in early 2008. You’re father has just gotten back from the trip to London and he’s pointed out this article in the International Herald Tribune. So we start investigating whether or not we can do it. Financially, it’s much more viable for us (as surrogacy in India is considerably cheaper than the US). So we we start to investigate the possibilities. Now at this point your Dad is working in Singapore for 3 months (I did say he travelled a lot).

So while we were talking about and investigating the possibilities for us to create a family your father had the ability to fly from Singapore to Mumbai. It’s a 9 hour flight – which doesn’t seem like much really.

So your father was investigating two options.

One was with Dr Patel in Anand. She normally doesn’t deal with single men but she made an exception for your father. This is where your father and I had a bit of a heated discussion. I was also moderately offended that he was approaching her as a single man – to me it felt like he was creating our family based on a lie and I wasn’t really that important in the grand scheme of things from his perspective.

The other was with Rotunda in Mumbai. This clinic also had it’s own challenges. When your father went to sign up with them – they sent him home with his file cover sheet, which was what meant to identify him… so they lost “us” for about 9 months.

So as Rotunda didn’t seem particularly keen to begin with. We decided to progress with Dr Patel – we were very lucky and our surrogate got pregnant after the first transfer. We found out a couple of weeks in that it was twins! We were excited – your father and I wanted twins – I’ll explain that in a later blog post. We then found out it was in fact triplets. The third foetus was hiding behind one of the other ones. We were informed that at 12 weeks our surrogate would be undergoing a foetal reduction. A rather barbaric practice in India where one of the foetal hearts is injected with a solution that forces the heart to stop. The surrogate’s body then eventually rejects the foetus – this also potentially increases the risk of a miscarriage of all foetuses. When our surrogate was pregnant at 15 weeks, I get a phonecall from your father who was in London at the time – our surrogate had miscarried and lost the remaining two foetuses.

I had never in my entire life felt so devastated or crushed or alone. And your father was half a world away. I really didn’t know what to do. I have never before in my entire life just crumpled. After I got off the phone to your father I did just that – I crumpled. I cried for about 2 hours and then on and off for the next 5 days… The following day I also made one of the biggest mistakes of my life – I rang my mother. I’ll explain that in my next blog post.

So when your father came home from London we discussed options. Where did we go to from this point. We finally got Rotunda to realise that we were supposed to be doing something with them and they started the process of for us.

Your father heard my concerns about going through Dr Patel as a single man. Mostly how we would explain that we were both there at the birth to eventually pick up baby or babies. That I really didn’t feel comfortable starting our family based on a lie. I still will occasionally have my gay activist hat on.

So we had another 3 attempts – 1 with Dr Patel and two with Rotunda… I’ll be honest. Your Dad and I were running out of money. We didn’t know if we could afford any more attempts. We decided to give it one more try (which actually became our most expensive attempt to date! But I’ll explain in the post following the one about my mother – it’s the trip to India!!!).

This is the article that started our surrogacy journey

This is a very short blog post (well the actual post from me!)

As I am just posting the article that Larry read in the International Herald Tribune that started our surrogacy journey in India... (and the story of that journey is coming I promise!). This is purely being posted in my blog so that one day I can show this to the girls and say this is where it all started. This is why we went through India rather than the US or Canada.

Foreign couples turn to India for surrogate mothers

By Amelia Gentleman

Published: Tuesday, March 4, 2008

MUMBAI — Yonatan Gher and his male partner plan eventually to tell their child that it was made in India, in the womb of a woman they never met, with the egg of a Mumbai housewife they picked out from an Internet line-up of candidates.

The embryo was formed in January in an Indian fertility clinic about 4,000 kilometers, or 2,500 miles, from Gher's home in Tel Aviv, nurtured by a team of doctors who have begun specializing in surrogacy services for couples from around the world.

As they waited to see if the fertilization process had been successful, Gher, 29, and his partner sped around the streets of Mumbai in the back of an autorickshaw, drinking in scenes of a country they had never previously visited, staring at the unfamiliar faces of Indian women and children and "trying to imagine our child," he said.

"The child will know early on that he or she is unique, that it came into the world in a very special way," said Gher, a communications officer for the environmental group Greenpeace. "But as it grows up and asks questions about the birds and the bees, then we will need to go into more detail."

Reproductive outsourcing is a new but rapidly expanding enterprise in India. Clinics that provide surrogate mothers for foreigners say they have been inundated with requests from the United States and Europe in recent months, as word spreads of India's combination of skilled medical professionals, relatively liberal laws and low prices.

Commercial surrogacy, which is banned in some European countries and subject to a wide spectrum of regulation in U.S. states, was legalized in India in 2002. The cost of the medical procedures, air tickets and hotels for two trips to India (one for the fertilization and a second to collect the baby) comes to around $25,000, roughly a third of the typical price in the United States.

"People are increasingly exposed to the idea of surrogacy in India; Oprah Winfrey talked about it on her show," said Dr. Kausal Kadam in her office at the Rotunda clinic, an hour after creating an embryo for Gher and his partner, with sperm from one of the men (they would not disclose which one) and an egg removed from a donor just minutes before in another part of the clinic.

No contacts between egg donor, surrogate mother or future parents were permitted.

There are no firm statistics on how many surrogacies are being arranged here for foreigners, but anecdotal evidence suggests a sharp increase.

Rudy Rupak, co-founder and president of PlanetHospital, a U.S. medical tourism agency, said he expects to send at least 100 couples to India this year for surrogacy, up from 25 in 2007, the first year he offered the service.

"Every time there is a success story, hundreds of inquiries follow," he said.

In Anand, a city in the eastern state of Gujarat where the practice was pioneered in India, more than 50 surrogate mothers are currently pregnant with the children of couples from the United States, Britain and elsewhere. Fifteen of them are living together in a hostel attached to the clinic there, waiting to give birth.

Dr. Naina Patel, who runs the Anand clinic, said that even Americans who could afford the cost of surrogacy at home were coming to her, because Indian women "were free of vices, like alcohol, smoking and drugs." She said she receives around 10 e-mailed inquiries a day from childless couples abroad.

Under guidelines issued by the Indian Medical Council, surrogate mothers sign away all their rights to the child. In cases where the surrogate provides a womb for an embryo formed from the sperm and egg of the prospective parents, it is only the names of these genetic parents that appear on the birth certificate. If an egg donor is involved, her name does not appear on the document, either; only that of the father.

This eases the process of taking the baby out of the country. But for many, like Lisa Switzer, a 40-year-old medical technician from Texas whose twin babies are being carried by a surrogate mother from the clinic, the overwhelming attraction is the price.

"Doctors, lawyers, accountants, they can afford it, but the rest of us - the teachers, the nurses, the secretaries - we can't. Unless we go to India," she said.

Surrogacy is an area fraught with ethical uncertainties. Critics argue that the ease with which relatively rich foreigners are able to rent the wombs of poor Indians creates the potential for exploitation. Although the government is actively promoting India as a medical tourism destination, something about the exchange of money for babies has made many here uncomfortable.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development said in February that it was considering introducing legislation governing surrogacy, but this is not imminent. An article highlighting some of the concerns about the practice, published in The Times of India, questioned how such a law would be enforced: "In a country crippled by abject poverty, how will the government body guarantee that women will not agree to surrogacy just to be able to eat two square meals a day?"

Gher and his partner (who asked not to be named) have worked through their doubts and are certain they are doing a good thing.

"People can believe me when I say that if I could bear the baby myself I would," he said. "But this is a mutually beneficial answer. The surrogate gets a fair amount of money for being part of the process."

They are paying around $30,000, which includes flights, hotels and medical care. The surrogate is paid about 300,000 rupees, or $7,500.

"Surrogates do it to give their children better education, to buy a home, to start up a small business, a shop," said Kadam. "This is as much money as they could earn in maybe three years. I really don't think that this is exploiting the women. I feel it is two people who are helping out each other."

Gher agreed. "You cannot ignore the discrepancies between Indian poverty and Western wealth," he said. "We try our best not to abuse this power. Part of our choice to come here was the idea that there was an opportunity to help someone in India."

In the clinic, it is clear that an exchange between rich and poor is under way. On some of the contracts, the thumbprint of an illiterate surrogate stands out against the signature of the clients.

Although some Indian clinics allow surrogates and clients to meet, Gher said he prefers anonymity. When the woman gives birth later this year, he and his partner will be in the hospital, but not in the labor ward, and will be handed the baby by a nurse.

The surrogate mother does not know that she is working for foreigners and has not been told that the future parents are both men. Although the clinic advertises its gay-friendly credentials on its Web site, offering wombs to people who do not have them, homosexuality remains illegal in India.

Israel legalized adoption by same-sex couples in February, but surrogacy for same-sex couples is still not permitted. A fertility doctor recommended Rotunda, which made news last November when doctors there delivered twins for another gay Israeli couple.

Rotunda did not allow interviews with its surrogate mothers, but a 32-year-old woman at a fertility clinic in Delhi explained why she is embarking on her second surrogacy in two years.

Separated from her husband, she found that her monthly wages of 2,800 rupees as a midwife did not cover the expenses involved in raising her 9-year-old son. With the 550,000 rupees she earned from the first surrogacy, she bought a house. With the 350,000 rupees she expects from the second, for which she is negotiating with an American couple, she will be able to pay for her son's education. "I will save the money for my child's future," she said.

The process requires a degree of subterfuge in this socially conservative country. She has told her mother, who lives with her, but not her son or her neighbors.

So far, the experience of having a baby has been strangely virtual for the Israeli couple. Profiles of egg donors were sent by e-mail ("We picked the one with the highest level of education," Gher said), followed by additional information (a factory worker was rejected in favor of a housewife, who is presumed to have a less stressful lifestyle). Gher is posting updates about the process on Facebook. Soon ultrasounds of their developing child will start appearing in his inbox. Highly pixilated, blown-up passport photos of the egg donor and surrogate mother are pinned up on the wall of their apartment in Israel.

"We've been trying to half close our eyes and look at it in a more holistic way to imagine what she would actually look like," he said of the donor's blurred image. "These are women we don't know, will never know, who will become in a way part of our lives."

Out & about experience #2 – I love David Jones

Out & about experience #2 – I love David Jones

For my American readers David Jones is an upscale department store. Probably kind of like Nordstrom or Bloomingdales.

So I’m having sleeping baby issues. Or more likely babies that don’t sleep. The girls have decided that the day naps – particularly the morning naps are optional. I can’t say I agree or approve of this notion as it pretty much makes the rest of the day hell. Hell does have a fury like a woman scorned, it’s grizzly twins… so anyway I was trying to find ways to combat said grizzlyness and I thought taking the girls into the city would be a good way to go (we seriously live about 20-30 minute walk from the CBD). So while I was walking in I thought it would be fun to surprise Larry at work – he always gets a kick out of seeing the girls during the day so we did a detour via his office.

This is always fun. The women at Larry’s office are fantastic. They always offer to watch the girls for a little bit while I go run a few errands, which is a very nice offer – when you’re not a massively over-protective parent like moi! So I said no – but I also expected that a double-wide pram would help deal with the lunchtime department store crowds (I’m not completely insane you know!).

So first stop is the Keihl’s counter to get some shaving cream for Larry. And then to find a cash register to pay for it. Is it just me or have Myer & David Jones on Bourke Street been getting renovated like forever? It seems they have for the 7 years I’ve been living in Melbourne. So I hand over the shaving cream and the pregnant cashier is lost in space staring at the girls for the next minute or so. It was very cute to watch. Then I turn around and there’s a semi-circle of about 5 clucky women all goo-ing and ga-ing over the girls. Which I also get a kick out of! It’s funny department stores seem to be filled with clucky women…

So next stop is homewares to get a wedding present for some friends. More women goo-ing and ga-ing over the girls. I also did something vaguely ambiguous. There were references made to my “wife” – now I didn’t say anything specific about whether I was married to a woman. I just indicated that I was married (I do wear a wedding band after all!). This always leaves me in a bit of a pickle. I know I should be out & proud and not hiding anything from the girls so the girls don’t grow up feeling like that we’re hiding anything or that our family is anything to be ashamed of. But at the same point in time I don’t want to have engage random strangers and explain the whole situation to them… it’s hard really.

Out and about experience #1

These will be a short sharp blog posts about our experiences out and about. Probably more my over-reactions to stuff…

So take yesterday. I decided to take you guys to Westfield Southland. Well more so I decided to go to Southland to do something. And we needed to get some more suitable winter clothes for you guys. So I thought rather than deal with the dramas of trying to find a parking spot in the city – I’d go to Southland. I should have gone to the city – getting a parking spot would have been so much easier.

Allow me a brief diversion please readers. You really don’t appreciate how ridiculous parking spots are when your have to get babies out of either side of the car. I was knocking back perfectly good parking spots because I knew I wouldn’t be able to get one of the girls out.

So eventually we find a parking spot. The girls are in the stroller and we enter mall hell. Talk about confusing and how easy it is to get lost. But that’s not the point of this entry – it’s the comedy.

Now I understand the people who come and talk to us – they don’t know that after about an hour they are most likely the 10^th or so person who’s told me the exact same thing and asked me the exact same question. By the 10^th time I’m pretty much over it. Especially when it continues to happen for the next two hours. I may even get a little short and snappy about it all.

And to finish it all off. I lost the car. I couldn’t find where we had entered the bloody shopping centre. So I spent the next 20 minutes wandering up and down trying to find something that looked familiar so we could finally exit and get home.

And then of course someone had parked next to the car so getting one of you was next to impossible. Except Daddy backed the car out to get Olivia in to then only be told off by some woman in a cheap car which was of Korean origin that I was blocking her way. You know what – I didn’t really care. She was driving a Korean car, I felt sorry for her.

I'd like my mid-life crisis Porsche now please...

I think I need a cheery, zany post to lift the mood of the past couple of posts. It’s gotten a touch serious really hasn’t it?

Let’s divert back to the now…

I’m struggling to find a spot where to pick up the thread of my story again. I guess even after all the revelations it’s a bit hard really.

So we’re back living in South Melbourne (the real estate shenanigans is another blog post or three) and I think your Dad is having a few problems adjusting to having a normal life again where he can’t vanish into a garden for 6 to 8 hours a day. So he’s gone slightly (not in a bad way) mental looking for a car. The Mini Cooper he did have was sold – we don’t need two cars, we really don’t, we can justify having two cars.

With the baby seats in my car, it’s basically become a two seater as the middle seat between the baby seats is basically inaccessible. Trust me – I’ve had to clamber back there a few times to feed you both! It’s not easy squeezing back there and then trying to squeeze back out.

We’ve traipsed around parts of Melbourne looking at cars, from Japanese import 300ZXs in overly flamboyant paint schemes (the bright oranage one was a looker) to older BMWs and Volvos.

Let me just ask the question here – which interior car designer feels that it’s a good idea to put a black wheel centre in a beige interior? Swedes are supposed to be known for stylish design. I’m guessing in the late 1990s-early 2000s someone at Volvo missed that memo. Although Peter Horbury was designing at Volvo then and he is British so that may explain it.

Anyway, so there’s a car dealer in the back of Port Melbourne that your father wanted to have a look at some cars at… one of which was the aforementioned Volvo & a BMW. We had also arranged to meet your Uncle Mike for lunch. As per usual your father and I were running late (you will just learn that running late is a fact of life for this family – I’ll resent it and your father will just tell me to relax and go with the flow), so he asked us to go meet your Uncle Mike at the Café we were supposed to meet him at and he’d meet us there.

Your father showed up in a Porsche Boxster. I had never driven a Porsche before. I actually managed to get through lunch before I asked your father for the keys. I took Louise out with me to have a look at it – she was on my lap at the time. I then waited until after your father had finished eating before I took the Porsche for a drive. I was very much smitten with it (this is pretty much an understatement), I did ask your father if we could buy it and we did seriously consider it for about 5 minutes before reality sank in.

I told your Uncle Mike on Sunday when we were trying to take photos of his car for sale that I would like my mid-life crisis Porsche now please…

So no Porsche :(

Although it was an entertaining afternoon looking at cars and you both did seem to enjoy it.

a very honest blog post...

I debated about actually posting this so very publicly!

My early adult years were filled with me losing weight (I was obese when I finished High School) and questioning my own sexual identity. It’s funny I’ve always wondered if straight people have to question their own sexual identity. I suspect not. But they also tend not to grow up in an environment where they are the minority or viewed as ‘wrong’ on some level.

So my body issues. It seems like the longest battle of my life. I’m still fighting them to this day. I do honestly hope that we can instil in you both an understanding and an appreciation that you are just fine the way you are. It has taken me a very long time to come to terms with that.

I was a pretty sporty kid. Mostly because you’re Oma made me. I had swimming during summer (6 days a week), Judo two nights a week. In winter, I had judo 2 nights, tennis 1 night a week (I still hate tennis!), and rugby league twice a week. Once your Oma left, I basically dropped all sport and became a fat kid. And I mean fat… it was almost embarrassing but I really didn’t care. I was surprised when I went over 100kgs and it was like oh so this is what being 100kgs is being like. It didn’t really phase me.

I think to be honest my battle was more with self-esteem than body image. I think my mother leaving at such an early age didn’t really do much for my self-esteem and it did leave some lasting scars that I am still trying to work through.

Eventually in my later teen years and once I moved out of home I started losing weight – I went from 128kgs to about 78kgs. So from one extreme to the other - too fat too far too skinny. In my late 20s I discovered a couple of things – a gym. I went nuts – I was working out about 7 days a week and I got the results to show for it. I also discovered drugs. That’s not such a high point in my life and introduced an entirely now battle.

I hope I am never hypocritical enough to tell you to not do drugs – I can’t tell you not to. I have a history with them. I had a huge problem with them (it was one of the reasons why I decided to move to Melbourne). So chances are I will never tell you not to do drugs – I will just tell you to be careful! Know what you are doing, know the effects, the drawbacks and please be honest enough to talk to me about it. I do hope I will never be some scary “parent” that you feel you can never talk to.

Back to where I was… I was training for a corporate triathlon, it was probably one of the most challenging, rewarding things I have ever done. The actual triathlon was a bit of a letdown to be honest. We did kind of badly. But it’s probably the fittest and healthiest I had ever been in my life. I was vegetarian, working out 7 days a week (weights), running 5 days a week, swimming 5 days a week (badly!), I wasn’t drinking. I was so puritanical that in hindsight I almost disgust myself ;)

Anyway I did the triathlon, felt the massive sense of achievement that came from it and decided to start celebrating and having a bit of a life again. I started drinking again. And I was introduced to speed. At the time speed was so cheap it was crazy. And thereby started my drug frenzy. I would go on 3 day benders strung out on speed, MDMA and base. I wasn’t a huge fan of pills (ecstasy) – not sure why but I wasn’t. It became an addiction to the point where I was starting to do drugs during the week – just for kicks. And I wasn’t snorting anymore – I was injecting – which to me was always the one line I would never, ever cross. I crossed it and I found myself wanting more and more and more and more… Fortunately, I was completely and absolutely flat broke so my habit had to stop. It became such a low point in my life – I did some seriously fucked stuff, I cost myself some very good friends, I still regret that to this day.

I still remember when my contract ended with a company, I decided to go on a 3 day bender with an 8-ball. A friend was having her engagement party on the Sunday afternoon. I was a complete and absolute incoherent wreck to the point where she basically asked me to not show up at the wedding on anything!

That should have been a wake-up call. Unfortunately it wasn’t! I showed up for the wedding clean – sober I wasn’t – the drunkest I have ever been in my life! 3 day hangover… my friend married a scot so we all wore kilts, I had sequined hotpants on underneath my kilt – which I had worn to Mardi Gras – as I was asked to wear them. There are photos I’ve seen from the wedding of me flashing the whole wedding. I’m a classy kind of guy.

I forgot the keys to my apartment so fell asleep at the front gate. By the time my flatmate got home, I was lying in the gutter with the back of the kilt ridden up and my bum facing the busiest street in Brisbane. I had already taken the jacket, vest & shirt off due the heat.

I realised my addiction had spiralled out of control when I was having sex for drugs – I had developed a reputation that if you gave me drugs, I would have sex with you. Charming in hindsight, but that was the person I had become. So I decided (aided by looming unemployment induced poverty) to give the drugs up. It’s not an easy thing to do. The hardest thing I’ve had to give up has actually been cigarettes. And I will tell you not to smoke. That one I am prepared to be hypocritical about! So I gave up the drugs and the partying – I would say for a while but when I decided to stop the drugs, I also stopped partying in Brisbane. Fin – no more.

I was clean for about 18 months. I moved to Melbourne and started dabbling in a few things again. This time however, it didn’t get completely out of control. It wasn’t every weekend like it had been previously. It was once in a while. If I had everything to do over again - would I do the drugs? I really don't know. I can try be all sage and wise and say that this experience has made me part of who and what I am (which it has) but it has also made me realise that realistically I'm just a hedonist at my core.

The drinking though! My god. There’s another life long battle. Both my parents are alcoholics so I was pretty much genetically destined to have a drinking problem. I’ve been dealing with that for large chunks of my life too. That one probably is a different story as well!

So even after all the partying I did maintain a gym habit. I finally dropped all that a couple of years after I met your Dad. I decided that spending time with him was more important that spending time at the gym. I always swear that I will go back one day… but that day hasn’t come yet! And right now I am getting a fair bit of exercise from pushing you two around :) It’s funny since we moved back to the city a couple of months ago I’ve lost roughly 10kgs. It’s a combination of exercising more and not eating. I need to fix the not eating thing as I am falling back into some very dangerous old habits.