This is a dark post.  I feel the need to say that because I think I usually see the good in people and write about the good I see in people, and I was fairly uncomfortable having these thoughts.

Long after I wrote the post about Theresa Erickson I was still thinking about the situation. The thoughts floating through my head formed into something akin to a strange film on my skin.  We were on holiday, walking through a supermarket to pick up chips for the beach. All I could think about was how those families were preyed upon, their situation exploited for someone else’s financial gain.

And once I saw it there, I started thinking about it everywhere.  She isn’t the first person who exploited other people.  She won’t be the last.  And what it comes down to is how to find your way back to trusting ground after entering a space where you doubt everyone’s intentions.

I think there is a very thin line between providing a service (and being compensated for fulfilling a need) and exploiting a need.  I was thinking about this in a supermarket and, after all, what is a supermarket except a store that is meant to exploit your need for sustenance.  Or wait, does it fulfill your need for sustenance?  Can you see where my thinking started to get grey and murky? Where does it cross the line from being compensation (something I wholeheartedly support) to being exploitation (something I wholeheartedly deplore)?

We need to eat, and we need assistance with our health, and sometimes we need professionals to help us build our families.  And I’d classify all these things as needs more than wants, though people could argue that the final one is a want more than a need.  But I’m not really looking for an argument — for me, in regards to my own sanity and therefore my own life, family building is a need.  For you, it may fall more as a want.

If there was one store selling food, you better believe they’d jack up the prices, knowing that humans are desperate for food to eat; we can’t live without it.  The only reason food prices are where they are is due to the abundance of food.  It’s a terrible side of human nature — that those with the means would hold it over the heads of those without.

And that is what Theresa Erickson did.

She knew the needs of the community.  She observed the community for years by working in the community and like a sibling who knows exactly how to push her sister’s buttons, Erickson knew exactly who would take her up on her offer for a child.  When a human has been beaten away from their need for so long, they are willing to pay the high price in the same way as if you were starving, you’d pay an enormous amount for food.

And I think that I have finally put my finger on why this bothers me so much; because if she can exploit our needs, then anyone can exploit our needs, especially one who remains in our community for a long time and observes how deep the need goes.

If he wanted to, my RE can hold my sanity over my head and put a disgustingly enormous price tag on helping me.  And who is to say that he doesn’t?  I have always taken the cost of ART to be the cost of ART: meaning; fertility treatments cost what they cost because you are not only paying for the supplies and the expertise, but you are paying for the research and the equipment.  That the price is enormous, but the cost of creating IVF is enormous.  And I’ve always trusted that, and I’m sure I’ll get back to a place where I do.

But how do I know?  This seed of doubt has been planted and it is eating away at what I’ve always felt comfortable with.

From what we know based on what she has admitted (and it is her choice to plead guilty and we can only base our understanding on what she states.  If we have the facts wrong, it is because she has provided the wrong facts) she has clearly crossed the line.   I’m not sure how anyone could twist this through a lens and make it look ethical.  But set aside for a moment (to mentally come back to later) the children at the heart of this, the families affected, the surrogates involved.  Set aside all of that.  At the heart of this is the fact that someone observed our needs for a long time and then started exploiting our needs in 2005.  And kept exploiting them until 2011.

That is too long a period of time for this to not be purposeful.

The unwritten social contract dictates that we request compensation for our expertise.  It’s the modern day barter that grows out of the olden days where I’d trade my surplus of apples for your surplus of tobacco and we’d all be happy (forgive me; Maryland history books seem to always use apples and tobacco as our two bartering items).  Therefore, when I pay my doctor to treat my illness, that money is covering the investment he made in his education.  It’s covering office costs and equipment costs.  I’m not sure how he adds up everything that needs covering and divides that by the average amount of patients, but I don’t begrudge doctors money and frankly, I can’t think too deeply about the fairness of the cost.  The job he does is worth a lot to me, and I wouldn’t begrudge him even more than what his education cost since my life has a high worth to me.

But the Erickson situation is like a doctor seeing someone with Stage 4 cancer and holding out a medication for an outrageous sum simply because he knows he can get the patient to pay the price because he is desperate to live.  This is like a doctor making the conscious choice to exploit that patient’s need for their own financial gain.

I have a lot of fears right now, and I’m finding it very difficult to return to that rosy, rational place where I was comfortable in my beliefs.  Where I knew that exploiters exist — does Madoff ring any bells? — and they may even cross my path, but the vast majority of people I surround myself with have my best interests at heart even if they want compensation for their work.  I know I will get back to that place because if that is your natural state, you always return to that place.  But right now, I’m waiting for this feeling to pass so I can return to a place of trust.  Because what else can I do when I have this need and I require others to help me fulfill it?

This needs to be my final thoughts on this because I find that in this particular situation, I need to vomit it out rather than take more in.  Though I want to hear your thoughts on this too to wrap it up.  And then we can go back to my usual musings on unicorns, rainbows, and sing kumbaya.

This week.

There is a lot to unpack and not a lot of time to unpack it.  I’m finding it very difficult to gather my thoughts into words.  At the current moment, they are forming more into grunts and screeches than they are into rational sentences.

Instead of unpacking something real, I instead bring you my thoughts that came at 2 am on Wednesday night.  How would you feel if you found out unequivocally that mermaids were real and living in various bodies of water that you visit?  Would you be excited, hoping to see one?  Would you feel sort of anxious, wondering if you had unknowingly swam with them?  Would you be totally jealous, wishing you too could be a mermaid?

Sometimes I think we spend so much time wishing that fantasy was real, that we don’t really consider the outcome of having our fantasies coming true.  Or, I think that often we feel the outcome of wishes come true and yet still forget when we start chasing the next wish.  Sometimes what seems like it would be the most fantastic thing in the world turns out in reality to be a nightmare.  And other times, what we hoped would be fantastic delivers exactly as planned.

Substitute the word “mermaid” for a whole host of other things.

I was thinking about that at 2 am instead of thinking about other things, but regardless, I was wishing that my brain had an off-switch and I could just get to sleep.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Trying to Find the Positive” (Whitney and Erick)
• “Finding My Sight” (Not a Fertile Myrtle)
• “Balance” (Smartness)
• “Bile” (Sideshow Barb)
• “The Power of Our Love” (Dragondreamer’s Lair)
• “Unexpected Fallout” (Write Mind Open Heart)
• “XY with Several Chromosomal Abnormalities” (Fierce and Nerdy)
• “The Matrix” (Just Being)
• “Across the Universe” (Still Life with Circles) – read Esperenza’s comment

Okay, now my choices this week.

CD1 Again has a raw post about discovering her husband’s ex-wife is pregnant.  It is a tiny post that is a punch to the stomach, especially the timing of the announcement.  And I found that even after I left my comment, that I came back to read it again, as if I expected something else to be there.  A side note, it’s her birthday, so please be sure to wish her a happy birthday when you stop by.

The Kir Corner has a fantastic post about why she started blogging that resonated with me so absolutely. I love this: “I had no idea what I was doing.  I was not consumed with followers or page views.   I could barely hit publish.  My technique was poor and scattered, much like I was at the time.  Kir’s Corner was just a place I could set my troubles down on and leave them.”  I love her release of the label and the peace it brings.

Lastly, I am Vulnerable has a post about aging, a topic that is often on my mind.  I think it’s probably on many people’s mind in this community because infertility has a way of conjuring up mental hourglasses where the sand is dripping away at breakneck speed.  But this post is about what is lost and what is gained with aging.  And I have to admit that after I read it, I realized how much I didn’t miss aspects of those days that I’m nostalgic about.  Yes, I want parts of it, but you can’t take parts without taking the whole.

The roundup to the Roundup: How would you feel if you discovered mermaids were real?  Beyond that, lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between August 5th and August 12th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Important update for commenters at the bottom

I got the first email in the morning, asking me if I had seen the article.  I was off to the beach, certain by the keywords in the url that it was one of those stupid-ass stories that would make my blood boil, so I decided to not click over to read the article at the moment.  There would be time later to get myself good and angry.

I got the second email in the afternoon, asking me if I had seen the article.  But we were trying to think through dinner, and I wanted to get the kids fed before I read it.  Though I found it odd that two people sent me the same article.

And then the third email came and the fourth and I finally clicked over to discover that I had heard of the San Diego lawyer.  I sat down to read about how Theresa Erickson, otherwise known as the surrogacy lawyer, had pleaded guilty for her involvement in a baby selling ring.

And I wanted to throw up.

I had not expected to know the guilty party.  I recently did her radio show with Dina Roth Port and Barbara Collura from Resolve, and I’ve pointed people her way in the past when they had surrogacy questions.  I knew nothing about her actual work as a lawyer, but she was the only person I could think of beyond surrogates themselves who had any tie to surrogacy.  So I sent people her way when they asked me if I knew anyone who could answer their surrogacy questions.

Which is why I wanted to throw up.

It’s a small reproductive rights world.  I’m certain there are many of us that had the same sinking feeling when they read the names of the people in the article.  And frankly, I felt a bit shattered, beyond what I felt with something like April Rose.  Because Erickson was a very real person that I spoke with several times via email or on her radio show.  I trusted her because other major organizations seemed to trust her.  And why not — there was nothing that I could tell from our emails or the radio show that she would play into the very underbelly that people fear from reproductive sciences, setting back public perception on surrogacy yet again.

There are very real babies at the heart of this who will grow up to be very real adults who will have to contend with their feelings on how they came to be.  And there are very real parents at the heart of this, who built their families on Erickson’s lies.  And there are very real women who were used as surrogates without intended parents in mind; the babies they were producing meant to be sold.

Which is why I wanted to throw up.

There is a lot of trust one needs to have to engage in assisted family building.  There are so many people you need to trust along the way as well as trust the processes of building families in a non-traditional way.  And Erickson’s actions are so damaging because they don’t just affect the families involved.  They don’t just affect the surrogates or the babies or the parents.  Her actions affect public perception, they have created doubt, they have caused confusion in those of us who need to use assisted family building.

And I don’t know why, but I immediately started crying while writing this.  Because I am so fucking angry that I can’t build my family without assistance and because I need to depend on other people in order to form my family.  And I am so fucking angry that the majority of people in this world don’t have to navigate the ethical concerns that come with assisted family building.  They want a child, they have sex, and they raise said child.  And I am so fucking angry that I have to depend on others.

And I am so fucking angry because now I don’t fully trust even the people that this morning I trusted fully.  Just because she planted a small seed of doubt in my mind.  And I’m certain I will weed it out, that the trustworthy people in this world will tip the scales back.  But tonight, I’m just really sad for everyone who needs to reach out to others to build their families.  Because it pains me that anyone in the ALI community was taken advantage of by mere virtue of the fact that they need assistance.  And it makes me so fucking angry.

Update:

I was putting this in the comment section and then decided to move it up here to ensure that everyone saw it.  As I wrote literally days ago, I have a commenting policy on this site: “I’m all for disagreement, as long as it’s polite. I will remove any comments that I deem off-topic, rude, or mean-spirited.”  Anonymous started something that is walking a thin line.  What we know right now is that Theresa Erickson pleaded guilty, therefore, the next day in the court room will be for sentencing.  Without a trial for affected parties to voice their hurt, having their say online or offline within conversations is a way of keeping their voice.  My heart goes out to the people who have been directly affected, such as one commenter below.  My heart goes out to the people who used her services in other situations and now feel queasy.  My heart also goes out to those of us who were indirectly affected, which I’d counter is pretty much everyone in the ALI community.  I encourage those who feel passionately about Theresa Erickson to write their own blog post on the topic.  My comment section won’t be a place for fighting, but luckily there is plenty of space in the blogosphere for people to still voice their opinions elsewhere.

I would like to preface this by saying that despite the fact that I have been described as bitchy in the morning, there are plenty of times that I set my alarm and get out of bed at an ungodly hour and function.  I may not do it nicely, but I function.  For the most part.  As long as not too much is expected of me.

If I could, I would shift the world to start a little later.  People would get up around 10ish.  We’d have breakfast and head off to work or school around 11 am.  We’d get home, of course, a little later, which wouldn’t matter because we’d be up until 2 or 3 am.

I do my best work late at night.  In graduate school, I wouldn’t even begin writing until 9 or 10 pm, and then I would stay up through the night working and sleep when it started to get light out.  I liked being awake while the rest of the world was asleep.  I’m aware that if we shifted the whole world timewise, that people would be awake at the same time as me.  But I rarely work through the night now.  My request to shift the world is more a desire to not have to wake up so early.

I am somewhat jealous of people who leap out of bed, fully-functional, at 6 am.  Even if they go to bed early, my perception is that they get more done during the day.

Are you a morning person or a night person?  And do you wish you were the opposite?

*******

I’ve always wondered if when you comfortably wake up determines your overall mood.  If you’re awake for more hours of the day, it would follow that you’d also intake more sunlight.  And that has to affect your mood.

I wouldn’t describe myself as a happy person even though I am technically often happy.  I would probably label myself more a hue of blue than sunny yellow.  Is it because if given the option, I wouldn’t be awake to take advantage of the sunlight?  Is my body less capable of using sunlight in that way, and is that why I’m programmed to be awake late into the night and lazy in the morning?

So now matching it with whether you are a morning person or a night person, go a step further and answer whether you would describe yourself as a melancholy blue person or a sunny, yellow person*.

* I’m talking in broad brushstrokes.  Overall, I think most people who have met me have seen me happy.  But I think my overall state leans towards the quieter, bluer hues.

I Lost a World threw a fantastic post onto the Prompt-ly list for discussion, especially in light of the fact that we all often have to swallow hard in order to dive into the comment section of some of the larger sites (cough… New York Times… cough cough… HuffPo) when they write about infertility. (That is, unless you enjoy having strangers tell you to stop whining and just adopt!)

Anil Dash’s take is that if the comment section is full of assholes, it’s the fault of the online publication. He points out that everywhere else in life, we have guidelines to help humans act like… humans. But for some reason, we throw out all of those ideals when it comes to the online world. He writes: “If you run a website, you need to follow these steps. If you don’t, you’re making the web, and the world, a worse place. And it’s your fault. Put another way, take some goddamn responsibility for what you unleash on the world.”

Er… by the way, YOU write a website if you write a blog. So you best pay attention.

I both agree and disagree with Dash. I think a lot of his advice is spot-on. Monitor your comments. Delete the ones that are simply hurtful. Respond to questions. The larger the site, the more monitors you need.

You should have a commenting guideline. Do you have one on your “about me” page? You might want to write up something simple if you allow for comments. Mine says:

I’m all for disagreement, as long as it’s polite. I will remove any comments that I deem off-topic, rude, or mean-spirited. If you return to my blog and see your comment gone (really, why are you coming back to check on your comment?), that should probably be your clue that I thought your comment was off-topic, rude, or mean-spirited. Rather than write another comment that is off-topic, rude, or mean-spirited that I will also remove, please simply click away from my blog. This space is not for everyone even though I try to be as inclusive as possible.

For the record, beyond spam, I have had to remove very few comments. But I don’t leave up hurtful words — especially about another blogger — for the sake of authenticity any more than I would leave up swastikas if someone spray painted them on my shul just for the sake of keeping it real.

Dash is against anonymous commenting (I actually can think of many places where it is necessary within the health blogging world) and pro letting the community help with the policing of comments in being able to flag them.

The level of responsibility is the big place where we part ways. I don’t think it is 100% the responsibility of the blog or website owner. I think it’s more of a 98% responsibility, leaving a healthy 2% wiggle room to account for imperfections in the creation of online communities as well as limitations of technology and differences in what we deem allowable.  There are going to be comments sometimes that don’t offend me but offend someone else, and since I can’t see all words through everyone else’s eyes, it would be impossible to keep a 100% inoffensive site.

Also, Dash pulls from the idea that we can keep order in the face-to-face world.  But the difference with the face-to-face world and physical communities vs. online communities is that we can see who we are dealing with, so Dash’s point doesn’t completely translate. It is easier to block a person from attending an event than block someone from leaving a comment since there are more loopholes around filters than there are gmail accounts in the world.

Though to return to the swastika analogy, I would be cranky with my shul and stop attending if they told me that they weren’t going to remove the symbol from the walls of the shul after someone sprayed it on — either because they didn’t have the time or they thought it was wrong to take down someone else’s form of self-expression. Yet we’re not equally appalled by blogs (especially big sites such as the New York Times) that leave up hateful comments; in fact, we sometimes applaud a site for the authenticity of it, for giving people the opportunity for free speech. Unlike spray painting swastikas, no property is destroyed, but I think there is emotional carnage in both hateful words and hateful symbols.

Within online sites, where does free speech end and hateful commenting begin? Where is that line? And do you agree that the blog (or site) owner is 100% responsible for the content that appears anywhere on their sites — from their posts to their comments?   Can you still support the New York Times as a whole if they allow for hateful words to be left in their comment section?