"I always knew surrogacy would be my path to having a child of my own.
When I was 16 years old, I was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a form of cervical cancer. I had chemotherapy for 9 months during my junior year of high school and was declared cancer free. 3 years later, I relapsed and had to have a hysterectomy and more chemotherapy.
So from the age of 19, I was prepared for surrogacy to be a part of my life.
Early on, the show 'Friends' was one of my favorites. Friends was one of the first shows to have a character go through surrogacy. It taught me what surrogacy was, despite how easy they portrayed the surrogacy process to be.
Our journey to our son was a dream. He was our only embryo at the time and he took on the first transfer to our surrogate.
At 39 weeks, our surrogate delivered a healthy baby boy, who is now 5 years old.
We started our journey to give him a sibling in 2020. It has been a bumpy and expensive road since.
We found a great surrogate who unfortunately miscarried at the beginning of 2022 at 7 weeks gestation. Unfortunately, she was unable to proceed again.
We found a new surrogate in late 2022. We did 3 transfers and had 2 chemicals and a blighted ovum.
Doctors say you should have 2-3 tested embryos per child you want and within 3 transfers, you *should* have a baby. We've gotten second opinions and no doctor can figure our why we don't have a baby in our arms yet. Recently, we matched with a new (and hopefully our last) surrogate and are in the process of getting her medically cleared to be able to transfer for the fifth time.
Surrogacy (and pregnancy) after loss is scary. I've had all the hope with each transfer, reminding myself that it's a new embryo and new chance each time, but the fear and anxiety and the "what ifs" are always there.
I know that you can. bring home a healthy baby from surrogacy as I have one asleep in a bedroom down the hall.
Sometimes, I find that hard to believe with all the loss we've experiences the last 3 years.
This process can be so isolating.
While IVF is becoming more and more common, it is still not as talked about.
Luckily, we had close friends going through it who could relate to the egg retrieval process but that was it. IVF and transferring to yourself vs IVf and the surrogacy process is so different.
We only knew one distant person who had used a surrogate when we started the process and we still had very different stories of what brought us to surrogacy.
This part of our infertility story was even more isolating because so many people didn't understand all that wen into surrogacy and what a toll it can take on an individual or couple.
When we discussed with others, the process seems so simple. But when you get into it, it's not so simple.
There's so many steps and something can go wrong at each one. Real life doesn't care how much money you've put into something.
You can spend all the money and still walk away without a baby.
We always say if a couple can survive a home renovation together, you can survive anything. Now I'd say if you can survive infertility and/or surrogacy, you can survive anything!
It definitely tests your relationship but what's important is to keep your eyes on the end goal.
We're hoping that this next transfer is our last. We are ready to move on with our life as a family of 4 and put this infertility chapter behind us.
Unfortunately, nothing moves fast in surrogacy or infertility and only time will tell how our story unfolds. For now, we keep ourselves busy with educating the instagram world about surrogacy and connecting with people who walk a similar path as us.
We can only hope that our story of our son and hopefully the story of our next child and how we never gave up until we had a baby in our arms will give someone else a glimmer of hope in their journey.
