Not my blood and bones, but my heart and soul

This is the fifth instalment of a six-part series, Be Fruitful: Fertility Journeys in Modern Jewish Lives, which explores the complex and sometimes taboo journey to parenthood in the Jewish community.

On the very day our surrogate was giving birth, my Jewish mother booked herself in for an elective hysterectomy. You need not have read Portnoy’s Complaint nor watched Woody Allen to relish the Jewish mother/son ironies.

As I prepared to cut the umbilical cord, my mamma was removing the womb that brought me into the world. My therapist had a field day. Dual loyalties and Jewish guilt infused themselves into both medical drips. At one point, I did not know whether to stay with the surrogate or take a call from Cabrini hospital. Needless to say, I spoke with the brave surgeon who sought to please my Polish mother.

Our first-born Matteo was born in frosty Canada after three-and-a-half-years in gestation. It was a long winter of infertility. We shlepped 31 eggs from Melbourne, endured two different surrogates and made numerous heart-breaking attempts. Rome was not built in one day, but I doubted whether our Romeo would be built at all.

But we kept on spinning the IVF roulette wheel. At last, our tadpole was the size of a lime. He was 12 weeks old, and I felt like we had just won the existential lotto.

But all the logistical odds remained against us. Matteo was due at the height of COVID lockdowns and flight cancellations. We were living in Israel at the time. On the day we were supposed to fly out, Ben Gurion airport was closed. We needed special ministerial approval just to secure two seats on an emergency flight to Frankfurt. Nothing was certain. We did not even know whether the EU would allow us in through customs to collect our luggage. The pandemic and surrogacy red tape had turned us into bureaucratic warriors. It felt miraculous just to land in sub-zero Canada.

Yet before we could taste the maple syrup, over-zealous border guards detained us for six hours. They had never heard of surrogacy for foreigners.

Ultimately, after two weeks in quarantine, we made it out and spent time with our altruistic surrogate, Janine. A single working mum of three, she was an avalanche of efficiency. Janine had the baby bag packed and ready to go at six months pregnant.

The morning her waters broke, we stayed with her at the hospital and waited for Godot Junior to arrive. And suddenly, just like that, as though entering the Twilight Zone, we were holding our baby skin-to-skin. Shirts off with paternal bravado, like Putin bare-chested on a horse.

Matteo was exquisite, even perfect, echoing the words of my own birth story. Apparently, when my Egyptian father first laid eyes on me, he cried “The child is perfect” and then loudly pronounced “He looks exactly like me!".

For obvious reasons, I could not say the same. Not just because Matteo, with his angelic fairness, looks nothing like me, but because he is not mine genetically. To us, and many such families, this is just a fact of life, a mere footnote in family history.

Yet the world seemed to think otherwise. With alarming frequency, many well-meaning people demanded to learn whose sperm created Matteo, as if it were material to his existence. While I do not ascribe malice to the question, it often landed awkwardly, loaded with hetero-normative judgment. It felt like inviting someone into my home, and then being asked if I physically built it myself, as proof of ownership.

To be sure, I was sleep deprived and sensitive, but I also just wanted to enjoy fatherhood without explanation. I never embarked on surrogacy to be a social pioneer, I just wanted to become a dad. In fairness, even I could not have imagined how much visceral love and care would transcend biology. Matteo is not my blood and bones, but he is my heart and soul.

It feels impossible to explain what having a baby through surrogacy involves to those who only know the baby bubble on home turf with nearest and dearest.

Instead of enjoying food rosters, we were rushing around passport offices, medical labs and embassies, navigating Ubers and state ministries. On the very day we left the hospital, our Airbnb booking was cancelled, and we had to find a new one while carrying enough gear to climb Everest. Even Air Canada initially refused to add a newborn to our flights. And then the Israeli embassy demanded we fly our surrogate across Canada to be interviewed, even though she had already signed enough paperwork to release a multinational corporation. Apparently, this could not be done on Zoom.

Not to sound ungrateful. I do not for one moment take for granted the miracle of being gifted not just one, but now two children through the marvel of science and the human heart. My son is named ‘Gift from God’ – Matteo.

This year Matteo was joined by my new baby girl Rafaelle, meaning ‘Healing from God’, who was born through a surrogate in Colombia. Both journeys felt divinely endowed and cathartic in equal measure. Our blessed tribe has both held and filled our cups from near and far.

I would willingly travel the lengths of the earth again just to inhale the scent of my babies. In the end, my dad’s words were prophetic, the child is perfect.

On the morning of Matteo’s third birthday, my mamma called and said she could not believe it’s been three years already. And then added with loving narcissism: “I just can’t believe it’s been three years since my hysterectomy!”.