For a long time now I've wanted to be a surrogate. I think it's been since I had John, but wanted to finish having my own children first. Well, I did that in a hurry...not really on purpose, though. So for the last few months Joe has been asking me if I am still going to pursue it. He's always been very supportive of it. My problem was just finding the time to fill out the application. It was forever long and very detailed. So I finally sat down to do it one night and got the ball rolling. I'm going through an agency in Cincinnati called Reproductive Assistance, Inc. The day after I submitted my application I got an e-mail from their president, Lisa, asking when she could do a phone interview with me. Wow! That was fast. This was a Friday. We had a phone interview the following Monday which lasted about an hour. It went really well. The following Saturday Lisa's sister, Bethany, who is the vice-president of the company came up to our house to meet us in person and go over the process. That day Joe and I signed the contract agreeing to work with agency and agreeing to their terms and conditions. That went very well. The following Wednesday we had another conference call with Lisa. This time she also talked to Joe. This past Monday we took a trip down to Cincinnati to meet with a psychologist that the agency works with to make sure that Joe and I are both mentally stable to do this. I had to take a test called the MMPI-2. It's a personality test and helps to diagnose any mental health issues. It was 500+ true/false questions! Some of the questions were so weird. If you search MMPI-2 online you can see some of the questions. Anyways, we left her office feeling like everything went really well and I received a phone call from her a few hours later saying that she would let RAI know that she recommended us for the process.
So that is where we're at now. I believe the next step is for RAI to make a profile of me for Intended Parents to view. The agency tries to match us up with couples that they think will work good with us. In my original application they asked questions about who I would work with. What it came down to was that we are looking for a married Christian couple who have the same morals and values we have. I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, but I think it may be harder for us to choose a couple than it will be to be chosen by them. Does that make sense? I'm praying, though, that the process will go smoothly and we'll be matched up quickly.
