LIFE Magazine Cover: April 30 1965

LIFE magazine's cover from 30 April 1965 showing an 18 week old fetus in utero, taken by Swedish photographer Linnart Nilsson, using an endoscopic camera with electronic flash.

How amazing to know that this is how our Noddy is looking like around this week. A real person, a human being with all his/her limbs and now able to respond to light and dark from the outside world!


This week we enter our 18th week gestation, or thereabouts. Each week we receive an email update from an online baby forum here in Australia with information on how Noddy should be developing and growing and it is great to have this information available to us. These weekly emails combined with updates from Dr Sudhir and Dr Yash and chatting with our surrogate on SKYPE help to make us feel closer to our pregnancy.

At this stage, from our latest ultrasound films from SI, Noddy is due to join us some time from the 15th to the 27th April 2010. Gosh, not long now until our dream of parenthood becomes reality!

There are so many couples undertaking this life changing journey of starting a family via surrogacy in India, the USA, Thailand and other countries it is easy to forget that for some, the process of becoming parents is very long and exhausting. Not everyone has a positive pregnancy. We are both so very blessed to have had success on our first attempt and count our blessings every single day. We receive continued support from couples world wide, some who have tried in vain time and time again with no success to become parents.

We are equally happy to hear that these people are not giving in to negative results and continue going back for their third, fourth and fifth attempt. As others have already said before us, the one guarantee that surrogacy offers us is options and hope. Hope that this time will be 'our time'.

The surrogacy community is small. Nastiness, lies and malice toward others is not called for and when you behave this way it shows nothing other than ones immaturity and inability to care for your fellow man. Darren and I both believe that we need to be there and support each other with kind words, prayers and messages of hope.

Is this not what we would want for our children? I know I would.