“Mommy, that’s a
mitzvah
!”
That was my 4-year-old daughter’s reaction when I told her I was becoming a gestational surrogate.
“Am I going to get another baby brother?”
“No, honey. I am going to grow the baby for someone else.”
Blank stare.
“You know that only women can grow babies, right?” She nods. “Gil and Tomer are two daddies, two men, so neither of them can grow a baby–they need help. So I’m going to grow their baby for them.”
A few seconds of silence. Then Ramona’s face splits into an enormous grin, and she says, “Mommy, that’s a mitzvah!”
That was Ramona’s foray into surrogacy advocacy. Since that moment, my daughter has become surrogacy’s youngest and most passionate spokesperson. She will tell anyone who will listen, without missing a beat, that the babies in Mommy’s belly are not ours, but rather, they belong to Gil and Tomer, the couple I got matched with through our surrogacy agency.
>> Read the rest of The Joy of Being a Surrogate Mother over at Kveller.
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