In our own words

100th Post

When this blog was started, I was full of hope.   I was totally confident that I had found not just a good facilitator,  but a friend, in Kim Waters Hendrix of Complete Surrogacy Solutions.   I believed that International Fertility Centre was a clinic that I could trust not only with the lives of my children, but with the life of my surrogate.   I imagined a 100th blog entry which showed our joyful family,  complete at last.  

Mother's Day is approaching quickly and I wish I could say that I was excited.   I am happy to celebrate the relationship I have with my beautiful children.  At the same time,  I can't forget the fact that Johnny never got to feel his mother's arms around him.  He never got to hear me say, "I love you."   I never got to tell him how very much he was wanted and loved.  

While I know that Mother's Day will always be a painful and complicated day for me, I am profoundly grateful to the many people who have helped me get through the last six months.  I can honestly say I don't know how I would have managed without you.  

•Zachary, Alexander, Clarity, Quinn and Maizy, you have made me the person I am and give me a thousand reasons to get out of bed each day. 

•The US surrogacy community on Facebook has been an incredible source of support and strength.   Initially, I was very afraid of speaking out about our experience.   I was terrified that people would say that we deserved what happened to Johnny because we chose an international journey.  Instead, our family has been embraced with open arms and surrounded with support and love.    I cannot describe how grateful I am for that compassion and understanding.   

•Stephanie and Jennifer, you have listened to me rage and comforted me when I was almost incapacitated with grief.   I wish that the thing that brought us together had never happened to any of us.   However, I could not ask for stronger or more compassionate women to walk this difficult path with me.

•To Mrs. S., wherever you are, I am celebrating with my daughter this year because of you.  

•To all the IPs who could have stayed silent and allowed our family to be attacked and slandered, thank you for your courage, your integrity and your compassion.   It has meant the world.   

Kim Waters Hendrix & Complete Surrogacy Solutions Review and Complaint: Client Confidentiality

As I’ve written before, client confidentiality is a fundamental part of any professional surrogacy agency, facilitator, etc…     Surrogacy facilitators have access to financial information, medical information and are frequently given significant amounts of personal information by their clients.   

There were many times during my relationship with Kim where she shared information with me, that in retrospect was inappropriate.  I should not know about the couple who had to terminate their much wanted pregnancy at 13 weeks due to fetal abnormality, nor should I know anything about the sperm quality of several of my Facebook friends.  

That’s why when I found out that Kim was sharing my information with other people I wasn’t surprised.  Hurt, yes.  Surprised?  No.  One of the first people to let me know that this was going on was Paul McDavy.  Frankly, if he had been the only one and it had been an isolated issue, I probably would not be writing this post today. 

Posting information (and inaccurate information at that) about our struggle to get records  on my Facebook wall?  Not appropriate.  Sharing even more information with a prospective client?  Not professional.  

I confronted her about this in January:

One would have thought that this would have ended the matter.  However, it's very clear now that this pattern-  which was going on throughout our pregnancy and after our son died has continued.

She admits that she knew John wasn't well, although she and Bakshi repeatedly assured Drew and I that no oxygen deprivation had taken place.   Additionally, she fails to share that while she offered to go to Delhi it was with the understanding that Drew and I were footing the bill. 

Sharing details of our financial situation is not appropriate.   Additionally, we were being told that Adiva was a good hospital, there was no oxygen deprivation and no reason to move him unless we wanted to do so for the sake of doing it.  Given the information we had at time we made the decision to leave John where he was until I got there.  Had we been told that Adiva was not qualified to care for him, we would have moved him, regardless of cost.

Kim had absolutely no right to share the ongoing issues we were having in terms of getting the records or my other concerns. 

John died of HIE and Klebsiella pneumonia.  HIE is not genetic, nor is pneumonia.  HIE is caused by oxygen deprivation at birth.  Secondly, the genetic issue that our six year old has is not carried on the Y chromosome, it's maternally inherited...which is why we used an egg donor.  Lastly,  it is absolutely unfathomable that any person calling themselves a professional would feel this kind of disclosure is appropriate. 

I am also aware that Kim has also emailed clients, sharing her version of our tragedy and requesting that those clients give her positive reviews.   The fact that she has recruited other "professionals" not involved with our case to help her do this is even more disturbing.  While it's certainly her right to ask people for testimonials, the fact that she is continuing to share our personal, private information, despite our repeated requests that she not do so is disgusting.   

It has come to my attention that this blog does "not paint me in a very positive light".  



Allow me to clarify.  Because I trusted the wrong people my youngest son died alone, in a filthy hospital of a bacteria transmitted by human shit.  I wake up every morning and have to confront that fact.  It is the last thing I think about at night.  Regardless of what strangers on the internet think of me, it is NOTHING compared to how I feel about my failure to protect my son.

Secondly, you are welcome to call me culturally intolerant because I have an issue with the quality of health care my child received.  Rest assured I have spoken to several doctors in India.  All of them were horrified by the conditions at the hospital, etc....    This is an example of derailing.  It's used as a way to deflect attention away from the topic at hand. 

Prior to threatening someone with a libel or slander suit, I would suggest that you familiarize yourself with protected speech.  For those who have not yet mastered the art of Goggle-fu  

negative review/ tos

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140924/16444828628/roca-labs-sues-customer-posting-negative-review.shtml

Complete Surrogacy Solutions/ Kim Hendrix. Review and Complaint #1

There is one issue I want to talk about today.   The first is that Kim seems to be telling people that Drew and I were not her clients.

It is true that Drew and I did not pay Kim her 8000.00 client fee.  When we first connected with Kim, she told us that she would waive this fee because as a new facilitator, it would be helpful to her to have us as clients.  We had received quite a lot of media exposure as a result of the issues with Planet Hospital and therefore would be in a position to make referrals to her.    I made numerous referrals to Kim throughout our surrogacy.  She introduced me to several people at the Families through Surrogacy conference as her client and frequently asked me to write references for her to prospective clients.

Additionally, I am aware that she was given a 10% referral fee from Dr. Bakshi.

Therefore she was paid both monetarily and in kind.

If Kim was NOT my facilitator, why did Dr. Bakshi only communicate with her when my children were being born?  Why was she given our medical records?   Why was she involved in invoicing payments to the clinic?

Kim, you can't only take credit for the successes.  That's not how this works.  It's not how it works at all.

"....there should be zero fear in facing and negative issues head on. " - Kim Hendrix

On July 29, 2013, Kim wrote:  

“Negative press needs to be replaced with positive stories, people need to be able to talk freely and openly about the experiences they have encountered and there should be zero fear in facing and negative issues head on.  Only in dealing with things in a straight forward manner can we be sure that issues are resolved and are not repeated.   We're dealing with human lives, we want it to be a true win win for our surrogates, for our children, and for ourselves.

Kim acknowledged this with this post Freedom to blog about true feelings.... 

Last week, this blog was shut down by an abusive complaint to google.  I was able to restore it in twelve hours.

Yet we're still being harassed and threatened.

Being bullied, harassed, threatened and attacked for "talking freely and openly about the experiences we have encountered"  stinks.

Surrogate medical care matters..

Drew and I choose to have a "facilitator" involved not once, but twice because we knew we didn't have the ability to effectively vet and monitor a clinic on the other side of the planet.  Our facilitator told us that she traveled to India frequently to check on surrogates and make that they were being well taken care of.   During the entire year we were involved with her, she made trips to Thailand and Mexico.  She did not travel to India during our surrogate's pregnancy. When she finally went there after one of her trips to Thailand, we were appalled to find out that it was the first time she had been since the birth of her nephews-  who were almost two years old.  

Prenatal care is absolutely critical to the health and safety of babies.  We were assured repeatedly that our surrogate would have the absolute best care.   Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that was the case. 

A cursory look at our surrogate's medical records indicates that she was tested for iron deficiency on four different occasions.  On three of those occasions, she tested as anemic.  Despite those test results and despite the fact that she was complaining of dizziness and fatigue, there is no evidence in the chart that this was ever treated.  Anemia  in pregnancy increases the risk of post-partum hemorrhage  which can be fatal.  It's also dangerous to the developing fetus and increases the risk of developmental delay.  

Despite supplementation,  which started when I arrived in India,  Maizy was  anemic at her first pediatrician appointment in the US.  Our pediatrician says this is an indication of just how anemic she was at birth.   Her pediatrician believes that her anemia may have contributed to her seizure.  Only time will tell if she will experience  developmental delay as a result.  This was entirely preventable.

In the beginning of the pregnancy, our surrogate had low to normal blood pressure.  However, from twenty weeks on it appears that her blood pressure rose steadily at each appointment.  By the time she delivered the twins, the hospital records indicate that she had pre-eclampsia.  The chart indicates that Mrs. S was complaining of dizziness, headache and visual disturbance.  Despite these clear indications, the clinic did not do a 24 hour urine collection, which would have confirmed the diagnosis.   While she was observed in the hospital overnight at one point there is no indication that they did anything other than give her some fluids.    Pre-clampsia is a very serious medical condition -  left untreated it can result in seizures, stroke and even death.  It seems that they did nothing other than record the fact that this was happening.  The fact that our surrogate survived appears to be a result of luck more than anything else.  When we confronted our facilitator and the doctor about this, they  denied that it was a problem.

We were not the only clients who were concerned that our facilitator had not made the promised trips to India for surrogate monitoring.  When these concerns were brought up to her, she became very defensive and angry and talked about how she needed to make her family a priority.   

If Mrs. S was the only surrogate whose health and safety was put into jeopardy,  I could understand why someone  might think that our situation was an aberration.  Unfortunately, I know that this is not the case.  I can't speculate as to why a facilitator  would continue to refer clients to a clinic where two clients in three months experienced serious complications for their surrogates and their babies.  I don't want to believe that the referral fees are what motivated her,  perhaps she genuinely believes that this care was appropriate.  

We wanted an independent facilitator because we wanted someone to advocate not only for our family, but also for our surrogate.  Our facilitator and our doctor likely feel very differently about our journey than we do.  Regardless of how anyone feels the facts are this:  

•My surrogate had more than one health condition that was not managed appropriately

•My daughter has ongoing health issues directly related to those issues, her prematurity and the facility where she was born.

•My son died.

As an aside,  another surrogacy facilitator, not the one we used,  threatened to take legal action against me because she didn't like what I've said on this blog.  For the record, nothing I have said here constitutes libel or slander.  

She also told me "Your blog does NOT paint you in a positive light."

My child died.  The last thing on my mind is what other people think of me.  Lastly-  bullying a grieving mother says a hell of a lot more about you than it does her.