‘Alex! he keeps ringing!’ cried my annoyed colleague.
Let me set the scene… I am giving my daily briefing to my sales team and Graham is ringing my phone again and again and again. Graham had landed in Bulgaria on business the previous night and he knew I was working all day, so I had no idea why he is calling. ‘Hello?’ I answer confused (he isn’t one to keep calling). ‘SHE GAVE BIRTH!’
I won’t (or can’t) type what I actually said but I am sure you can work it out. Now, the reason I was so shocked is that our surrogate was only 29 weeks pregnant, and we hadn’t even told all the family we were pregnant, yes now you can work out what I said.
Oh, and our surrogate was in India.
Honestly, I don’t remember the hours that followed I think I went numb, but lots of phone calls and lots of texts followed. Baby was doing OK, tiny, needed help to breath, but OK.
Graham was in Bulgaria to wind down a business that would allow him to have more time when the baby arrived – ironic huh? So, he couldn’t immediately rush home, so it was up to me to get things in order. The pregnancy hadn’t been an easy one, we had had our fair share of bumps along the road, because of this we hadn’t told many people and we hadn’t bought a single thing. We were waiting till week 32 to do all that, so to be faced with the idea that in a hospital 5000 miles away is a little girl waiting for us was rather over whelming.
We knew once we got to India it would be an extended stay (the UK passport process was minimum of 12 weeks). So, I had to buy everything needed for a baby (eeek), pack everything we needed for a three month stay, book flights, somewhere to stay, visas oh and tell our family it had just grown by one. As it happens, my brother and his girlfriend worked near a shopping centre, so I drove to them, they left work and came to rescue a very confused and overwhelmed me – and honestly, we had the greatest fun in John Lewis – I got to live out my very out Supermarket Sweep moment. Then off I went to sit in the Indian embassy to apply for visas.
Back in India, we had made friends with another couple going through surrogacy, who happened to be in Delhi at the time. They were amazing and rushed to the hospital to meet out little girl. We had photos and videos and lots of updates. It was heart breaking we weren’t there but reassuring that she had someone holding her hand. I got home that night, after another WTF phone call with Graham, surrounded by what looked like half of John Lewis Baby and Mothercare and just stared at the wall.
WE. HAVE. A. DAUGHTER.
In India you aren’t allowed to find out the sex of the baby, so we hadn’t decided on a name, honestly, we hadn’t even got it down to one boy and one girl, we still had a few of each. After all we had months to decide right? It wasn’t until the next day or two that I realised we had been referring to out gorgeous little girl as Charlotte, I remember asking Graham when we decided on Charlotte? We hadn’t, but it was perfect. It was funny how the madness of the past few days had meant we picked a name and gone with it. When I think back to the other names on the list – none would fit. She is our little fighter, our little charlotte.
And that is my first 24 hours as a Dad.