Julep: Let me explain.

Lola, I appreciate the support, I really do. I know that you are speaking from your good, kind, loving heart full of sympathy. And I am very glad that the woman who wrote the NY Mag story is happy with the way her situation has turned out. I am not sitting in judgment on anyone whose conscience does not object to these things - although I think it is a sad reflection on our culture that we have gotten to the point where so many people's consciences do not object.

As for me, I am morally opposed to IVF, let alone surrogacy. It isn't simply that I take seriously my obligation to form my conscience by educating myself as to the Church's teachings -- although I do. It so happens that on this subject, what the Church teaches matches up with what I have always thought and felt. Life should not be created in a laboratory (... or destroyed in an exam room for that matter. People struggling with infertility wouldn't feel like these measures are necessary if women with unwanted pregnancies were given the support, resources, and encouragement they need to pursue adoption instead of abortion. But I digress). Just because science has developed to the point that we can do something doesn't mean we should do it.

Surely God will love a baby however it comes into being - that's not what I'm worried about. I'm not going to abandon my moral principle now that my circumstances are making it inconvenient.

On a more practical note, there is no reason to believe that IVF would work for us: we don't have the conditions (low sperm count, irregular ovulation) that it is able to ameliorate. And while adoption is evidently going to be a huge hassle and expense, I can't envision any less of a hassle or expense in finding an egg donor, and/or a sperm donor, and/or a surrogate to generate a baby who won't be genetically related to us and whom I can't nurse. I'll just have to find one who is already out there and needs a family.

Unlike the woman in the magazine article, Mr. J and I don't have age issues or medical issues that will interfere with adopting. And if we do have issues -- or if we never get matched with an adoptive child -- I guess we'll chalk it up to God's will and learn to live with it, hard as that may be. My conscience simply is not OK with ordering up a baby like take-out.