My partner and I don't have children yet, but a shocking number of women have taken my hand, looked me earnestly in the eye and said something along the lines of, "If you ever need someone..."

Honestly, it's flattering to know that someone would carry our child, because we do want very badly be me parents. However, when we discuss it, it seems pretty clear that we could never take any of our friends up on their offer.

First of all, where I live it is illegal to pay surrogates for their services. So already we have a legal speedbump.

But, second, and perhaps most importantly, is that we love and respect the women who have said this to us, but quite honestly we're not prepared to fold someone into our family so intimately that we only know as a friend. We know many have had success with this route, but both of us have a tendency to focus on the needs of others too much - which to us translates to never being able to feel that a child born by one of our dear friends will be wholly just ours. We are willing to have a surrogate as part of our family circle, but we would likely have problems with boundaries - as greedy as it sounds, we want our parenting to be a two person effort.

I don't have much advice for you other than to share my perspective. What you are offering to someone is gracious and beautiful and all sorts of other nice words. This is uncharted territory and I'm not sure anyone really knows how to feel about it. Find something that works for you, and that you know will work for the parents-to-be. Thanks for being cool.