About Me :-)
India - Visit to the Embassey
California - Rodeo Drive
Hollywood
Mumbai
India vs UK
My journey started when I moved from London (UK) to Manhattan New York (USA) in September 2007. In London I had no reason to know or understand commercial surrogacy as it was not widely spoken about – hence my lack of knowledge. When I moved to Manhattan I started to notice all these guys with children and was fascinated as to where all these children were coming from. Through various online research and seminars I learnt that singles/controversial couples were flying to California to visit surrogacy agencies to learn about parenting options. I therefore began my journey in 2009 on a fact-finding tour to California to learn about the process of surrogacy. To my surprise I was shocked as to how obscenely expensive the process was in USA - I mean to the extent that I would have to remortgage to even be able to consider this. I decided to think outside the box and before making any rash decisions decided to cover all grounds on research so I started looking into medical tourism (outsourcing) internationally to see what my options were.
I was asked to go to Bombay (India) on a three-month microfinance project from work in 2011 (blog link below) and during my free time in Bombay I used this opportunity to learn about surrogacy in India. It was very educational seeing how different the process worked in California compared to India. In India I got to meet some of the surrogates and visit the agencies which was very educational. I pleasantly learnt it was a quarter of the price of USA and also learnt it was a becoming a booming industry in India. My primary concern was the legal aspects and my dysfunctional global situation which included having a British passport while living in America on a visa while having a child who will be born in India - how long would it take to get back to New York? Can I come back to London? How long can I be away from work before I can get back into the country? Do I have enough vacation time? I was thinking if people could see me would they think I am going mad?
As passionate as I was about the idea, while in India I decided to visit both the British and American embassies in 2011 to pleasantly learn the process was much more straightforward than what I was expecting. I returned back home to New York after my work assignment in Nov 2011 and was pretty much set to begin my journey.
At the end of 2011 I was researched out! My plan for 2012 was to do as much travelling and enjoy all my free time where possible before I started this next chapter of my life. 2012 was a fun year of parties, travel and even more travels. I financially and mentally budged to start the process in Jan 2013 and was set to go but unfortunately heard news from my chosen agency in India that surrogacy had been banned for singles in India, I was pretty devastated but I always learnt that everything happens for a reason and everything happens for the best.
Throughout 2013 I was following the news and hoping the laws would change in India but no luck, I was getting frustrated waiting around for something I had no control over so I decided to take matters into my own hands in December 2013 and start my surrogacy journey in the USA where the laws were still on my side.
Please excuse the constant switching between American & British terminology - please find below a hyper link to typical translations. After being in New York for seven years I don’t even know what language I am speaking half the time!