Where to start ...

I guess the easiest way to start is to start at the very beginning! (No references to Maria please ... LOL)

Trevor and I met almost five years ago, and it was very early on in our relationship that the topic of children was raised. I have got four older sisters, and have been brought up among young children and babies for most of my life. Trevor always wanted children, and had been asked to donate sperm in the past, but the option of actually raising children had not crossed his mind. It wasn't until I said that I wanted to HAVE a family, that his little light went "Bing!", and he started looking into how we could have children of our own.

Adoption was not an option much to our disappointment, as we cannot get married in Australia (yet!), and "single men" are not allowed to adopt! We did not want to "part-time" parent with another couple, nor be foster parents ... this did not leave us with many options!

We made some enquiries with a couple of the American surrogacy agencies; the price was daunting, but we could have run to it ... just ...

We arranged to have a discussions with one American agency EARLY one Saturday morning (it was still Friday afternoon there!). After three hours of talks, the agency dropped into the conversation that "you will also need to pay for the egg donor's medications and travels, plus the medical expenses of the surrogate mother ... probably another US$70,000"!!! These additional costs put us out of the ballpark ...

After some more internet research, Trevor stumbled across a clinc in Mumbai that would work with same-sex male parents. The idea of using an Indian egg donor was okay with us, as we had been looking at Latino/Mediterranean egg donors anyway ... a little bit of skin colour would be good for the Australian sun!

We contacted the clinic ... and the process started from there ...