Social media campaign to find surrogate mother

 I read a remarkable article about a Social Media campaign to find a bone marrow donor on Mashable which got me thinking. The possibilities are endless, I thought. Why not look for a surrogate mother in the same way. '#FindKateaSurrogate'. Accompanied by a twitpic of me and my husband, it could be an extremely effective message board. The army of mummy bloggers out on the net might actually feel they could get to know me through this blog.

My hands would still be tied, however, by the fact that I live in France where surrogacy is illegal. Check the story of the French couple (left) whose twins were denied French citizenship because they'd been born by a Surrogate in California.

So maybe I could do a twitter campaign for the UK only and then uproot my husband and myself back to England so we count as UK residents to be able to apply for UK laws on surrogacy? It's a thought, albeit a fairly destructive one.

I can see why people in the UK opt for the surrogacy clinics in India - you pay more, and you have to stay there for 3 months at the end to get your paperwork, but it only takes 9 months. Or California where you pay, but you earn back fourfold in the time you save looking for a surrogate who 'clicks with you' in the UK.

What strikes me every time I sit back and think about this is that my kidney disease was the tip of the iceberg. It has led to a kidney transplant (that involved dragging my family through the treadmill too), to numerous infections and snotty noses, to an insurance nightmare, to an inability to travel (and so visit developing countries which the organisation I work for supports), to a high risk of cancer, and now to what's equivalent to infertility.

That first day when the doctor in Ladbroke Grove, London, told me I had scarily high blood pressure and I locked up my bike and, in my flip flops, rang my husband to say I'd best go and check it out in hospital, I did NOT think it would translate into an avalanche of problems like this.

Thankfully doctors break the news of each of these delights to you bit by bit and not all at the start. Managing a transplant patient is a test of empathy, patience, humanity, and, I would have thought, must be an absolutely exhausting job. I rocked up all jolly, and 2 years later, I feel I've been battered round the head by Mohammed Ali