You call that reality?

Lee and I auditioned last week for a "surrogacy docu-series." We really liked the casting agent and we were excited about the possible adventure, we're always up for a good adventure, and with our journey to parenthood already "strange" why not thrown in a camera or two.

The Skype audition seemed to go well, but then yesterday the casting agent called me and said the producers wanted to change the direction of the show and they were hoping we would be open to what she called a "social experiment" or more exactly:

She wanted me to pretend to be pregnant at the same time our surrogate is, and hide the fact we are using a surrogate to have children from our family and friends…..

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During our initial interview she did ask how I felt about people who did this and I was honest. I said I can see both sides of it. Personally maybe 10 years ago I would  have been eager to play along, and may have done it on my own even without a reality show. I felt shameful about my infertility and specifically my MRKH and hated the fact that I needed to have a surrogate carry my child, and honestly it is no one's business how we have children. 

But over the years I have grown to be proud of  my situation, and have turned into a public advocate for many others and hope to change the stigma of infertility and surrogacy so others don’t feel they need to hide it or be shameful of it. I could never fathom hiding our journey now, and pretending to be pregnant would eat me alive inside, it would honestly break me into pieces, and make me look stupid since everyone knows about our situation at this point. Not to mention that it would take away from the amazing gift our future surrogate would be providing us, I dont want to hide her, I  would want to scream at the top of a mountain THANK YOU so the whole world can feel the love she is providing us with…..

I hope one day there is no more stigma around how people choose to grow their families, and no more “shock factor” available for shows like this to benefit from….it saddens me they have decided to go in this direction, and I honestly hope they can’t find anyone to fill the roles so they see what a bad idea it is….. but im sure they will find plenty, since there are people out there willing to do anything for "fame"...fame is not what we wanted, we wanted exposure, exposure to shatter the
stigma, and to show the world you have options to grow your family.... and an adventure, we're always up for an adventure!

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