What month and year was your surrogate baby born?

August 14,2020

What originally inspired you to look into surrogacy?

 My friends journey

What was your favorite or most memorable moment during this whole process?

My delivery. Having the Mom there and seeing her light up seeing her son born made it all worth it.

What was the most unexpected part of this process?

When I was given a weight restriction before I had a confirmed pregnancy so my job put me out on medical leave at that time.

How was the matching process? 

Very quickly. Smooth. I was comfortable with the intended mother immediately

How is the screening process? Does anything hurt?

Nothing hurt. It was more of anuncomfortable feeling. It was just like getting a pap smear.

How was meeting your intended parents?

They dropped by my house. Meet my family and brought lots of food.

They were sweet and asked a few questions. They seemed to have liked that my husband was in the Army and was stationed in Seol, South Korea.

How do you handle all medication, especially shots?

My husband and mother helped me out by giving me my shots.It got hard when I was traveling with my

daughters cheer team and didn’t have anyone to give them to me.I got lucky one of the moms was a nurse and was able to give them to me. The worst part of the meds was the side effects.I had gotten a migraine that didn’t stop or go away no matter what tell I stopped my meds.

How was embryo transfer? Were the intended parents able to attend? Tell us about that experience.

The embryo transfer was easy. Relaxing. The parents weren’t able to make it. 

What are you most looking forward to?

I am looking forward to more pictures of the twins. And being able to help another family.

How was the pregnancy and how involved were the intended parents during the pregnancy?  

The IM would check in on me every so often and after doctor appointments.

She would even show up and wait in the car outside of my doctors for a few of my appointments.

She originally wanted to be there for every appointment but because Covid hit just weeks after the transfer it changed all of her plans. She was able to attend the birth however.

How did you talk to other people about the process, like your friends and family? Even Strangers? 

Very simple. No one seemed mean about it. They had questions like anyone would. IE is it my eye, do I feel an attachment to the baby, will it be hard to let the baby go. 

How did you talk to your kids about surrogacy before, during and after the birth? 

I told my kids I would be helping out another family have a baby that is unable to have babies.

They didn’t really seem to notice or cared the entire time I was pregnant and didn’t even realize I gave birth.

How was your delivery and post-pregnancy?

Delivery went smoothly. Felt like any of my other pregnancies. Post-pregnancy was a bit weird to handle at first.

I felt lazy because I only had to worry about myself and I felt like I recovered a lot faster because of it.

What were your feelings when you saw the intended parent(s) hold their baby for the first time?  

 I felt pure joy. She was so happy she was crying. 

What was one thing you wished you would have had in your hospital bag that you forgot?  

  Adult diapers 

What is your relationship and contact with the intended parents now?

 I check in every once in a week and ask how they are doing.

The IM is still out here with baby and wants to plan a visit once her husband is able to fly out here.

What did your kid(s) and/or partner say when meeting the baby?

My husband didn’t have much to say. He was more concerned about me and my feelings.

He didn’t believeI was taking it as well as I was and I had to reassure him I was ok.

My children have any seen photos of him and say he’s cute.

Why did you choose to work with an agency, particularly Babytree Surrogacy?

The family dynamic. They are so close and local to me that it makes it easy to get a hold of someone.

They have lunches for the surrogates and before covid had get togethers with the surrogates and their families.

What kind of intended parents you’d want to work with?

I wanted to work with someone that would be involved with the pregnancy in some way.

How would you use your surrogacy compensation?

I used mine to purchase my house

What words of wisdom would you share with other/newer gestational carriers?

 Get a small baby animal. I got a baby kitten right before I delivered and all my maternal instinct just went to the Kitten.I feel like it helped me out a lot emotionally to have something I needed to take care of that needed my full undivided attention at that time since my kids were older and I wanted to do their own thing. 

If you decided to be a gestational carrier again, what would be the reason?

I had such a great experience the first time around that I would love to bless another family.

Anything else you want to add about your experience?

No