I'm Gonna Make Him An Offer He Can't Refuse....

Mark received a text from a family member that she wanted to talk to him.  He thought that it had to do with the holidays when he called back, absolutely not expecting the real topic of conversation.

I was not involved in the conversation, but this is how I imagine that it went....

The family member - I have been thinking about this for a while, and see how hard it has been for you two trying to have a child of your own, and I would like to help you with that.....I would like to be your surrogate.

Mark - What? Oh, Um, OK.  Bye.

I am sure that there was more conversation than that, but Mark does tend to be a man of few words at times....especially when it comes to tough conversations and feelings.

Mark tells me that he has some news.

He sits down with me on the couch and tells me that his family member has offered to be our surrogate.  I am speechless.....and I am rarely speechless.

When I regain the power of speech I find that there are so many things running through my mind and I can't seem to talk fast enough to keep up with them.  Why?  Why now?  Is this real?  Is she REALLY offering?  (you have to know that when people hear my story a LOT of them have "offered" to be my surrogate - it is not a real offer, it is because that it is a nice thing to say, a way of being sympathetic to my situation - you can bet your bottom dollar that if I followed up with a gestational surrogacy contract it would NOT get signed).  Is the real? (you have to also know that we have had two people offer in earnest to be our surrogate and neither have ended up being our surrogate)

I say "OK" and "That's Great", but in my heart I just can't believe that it is real...not yet.

I just can't really process.  Three days ago we found out that our last two embryos didn't take and I am mourning that loss.  I also just can't believe that this is real, somehow it's not going to work out - she's going to rescind her offer, or she won't get cleared medically, or somehow we aren't going to come to terms on the contract.  She's just offering because she feels bad for us, or in the Christmas spirit or something like that.  If she was serious, we would have talked about this before, before India.

It can't be real is all that is going through my head.