00:00The first step, if you're into surrogacy, is to find a surrogate, obviously.
00:08In England, it's different to some other countries. You cannot do it as a business.
00:13No one can profit from it.
00:15People do private arrangements quite often, what they call an independent journey,
00:20like a friend that's willing to help out, that kind of thing.
00:24It's called Surrogacy UK.
00:34Filled out the application form from Surrogacy UK for same-sex male-intended parents.
00:41Asked you a fair amount of questions, details of who you are, who your family is, why you want to be parents.
00:51We have to spend £200 on an admin fee for Surrogacy UK to go through our application.
00:57There is about a year's wait, and when we get to the top of the list, there's another £1,000 to pay.
01:05Because surrogacy in the UK, you can't do it as a business, and it can only be done as private arrangements,
01:13Surrogacy UK essentially act as a social service to put you in touch with people.
01:20And introduce you to potential surrogates.
01:24So once a year, Surrogacy UK do a big conference.
01:27And everyone from all over the country comes and they learn lots of important things.
01:32And there's a bit of a social the night before.
01:35Now I am at the hotel the night before.
01:38We've not done any kind of physical social one-on-one interaction.
01:44I'm on my own because Michael had to work tomorrow.
01:47And I'm about to go to a bar full of very, very many people.
01:57So we've got some IP training coming up, which will be over Zoom, which will be a group with other IPs.
02:03IPs being intended parents.
02:06Then we will have a one-to-one conversation with one of the founders of Surrogacy UK,
02:13just to make sure that we're all set.
02:14And at that point, we will then become proper full members.
02:17It's been accepted as full members of Surrogacy UK, which means we can now set up a profile.
02:23And can put ourselves out there for potential surrogates to look for.
02:29A couple of surrogates out there that we're chatting away with.
02:31All very lighthearted.
02:33Everyone's lovely.
02:35We don't want to scare anyone off.
02:37We've had embryos on ice ready to go for about eight months.
02:44So we needed to have a very deep conversation.
02:48Will we have a child who comes from me?
02:51Or will we have a child that comes from my husband?
02:53The first step we've decided to take is to go to a fertility specialist where we can have our seed.
03:06What do we call it?
03:09Checked.
03:10Our specimens have been checked, verified and given the all clear.
03:13And more importantly, we know whose we're going to use.
03:17So we've been on the waiting list for egg donor with our local clinic for over a year.
03:24We made the decision to go to a specialist donor agency.
03:29They found someone who is probably perfect.
03:33Height, eyes, study, interests, hair colour.
03:40We've picked someone that's kind of similar characteristics to both Michael and myself.
03:46So we said, yes, go ahead.
03:48Perfect choice, which is exciting.
03:50So now the next stage from the egg donor's perspective is to go and get various tests and checks.
03:57So our egg host is now off to be stimulated, apparently.
04:01That was grim, sorry.
04:03And so now it's up for us to hold our end of the bargain.
04:07So Javi and I are off now to redo our samples that we've done previously, but now with this new agency.
04:16So everything is all in the one place.
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