Kaitlin's Surrogacy Story

And the last of the follow ups from our Mother’s Day contest, we had a conversation with Kaitlin about her surrogacy experience.

Her contest entry (and one of our favorites): “Mother’s Day is a reminder that giving birth is not the only way to become a mother. Whether it’s through adoption, surrogacy, becoming a step-parent, fostering… the list can go on, it’s about the person who chooses to love and protect her child unconditionally.”

In her own words, this is Kaitlin’s Story:

From little on, I feel like most girls dream of motherhood someday. I was one of those little girls. I couldn’t wait to become a mom. But my world came crashing down when I was told it would be unsafe for me to carry a pregnancy. So that was really difficult to go through, and then things snowball and really affect you not just emotionally but mentally as well. 

I want to mention Dr. Reed. I had been seeing her and when she found out the news, she gave me this big bear hug, and that's the first time I actually just let me emotions out, and sobbed. She just held me while I cried. I mean, she didn't have to do that. When people go out of their way to be kind, that's unfortunately a rarity nowadays, so that really stuck out to me. Later, she helped initiate our surrogacy journey. I haven’t seen Dr. Reed in a couple years, but she really played a key role—whether she knows it or not—in getting our little girl.

Once we decided to go the surrogacy route, which is intimidating, because it's considered so expensive (which it absolutely is), we decided to do it on our own rather than through an agency. Yes, an agency will do more of the work for you, and have everything set up and matched with a screened surrogate. But we decided to do that work on our end, as it was more financially appropriate in our case. First, before we went public with our surrogate search, we wanted to make sure we had viable embryos (which through the IVF process, we did), and five made it through the genetic testing. Then we started looking for a surrogate.

Our first thought was, “How the heck are we going to do this?” It’s not like you can go to your next-door neighbor and ask them questions about the surrogacy process. It’s kind of an unknown thing. That's why I'm always open to talking about surrogacy, because there's so many myths about it and so many hoops to jump through.

We decided to use the social media route to find a surrogate, posted a nice picture of Tyler and me, asked friends to share, etc. We had a ton of people respond, which was amazing, but very intimidating too. We are essentially trusting a total stranger with your child’s life, so how do you go about building that trust with those you are vetting?

The woman who ended up being our surrogate, Brooke, really stuck out to me and my husband. We met for dinner and she and her husband said this was something they really wanted to do. We just really hit it off. Our morals and values lined up, and it was one of those relationships where you don't have to try; it was very easy to communicate and build a friendship. So we got very lucky and were very blessed in that regard.

Later, we took care of the compensation portion of the surrogacy. If we used an agency, that agreement would have already been completed when matching with a surrogate. We started with fertility lawyers to assist with the surrogacy contract. It’s a hard conversation to have about the “what ifs” with complications of pregnancy. Every hypothetical situation had to have an agreement/ compensation. As our fertility lawyer put it, we’re compensating for her discomfort. We agreed on decisions as couples, and the lawyers wrote up a contract for us to sign. And we continued from there.

I was at every appointment, every ultrasound. Brooke was fantastic with involving me. She wouldn't have an appointment without me being there, which made me feel a little bit more at ease in the process. We got to see Gracyn before she even had a heartbeat, and then we came back a week later, and you could see her little heartbeat flickering. We knew at a very early stage when Brooke was confirmed pregnant. As the pregnancy progressed, I was honestly nervous all the time. Waking up nauseous, just praying this pregnancy was healthy. But once we made it past that first trimester, you feel a little less sick to your stomach every day.

Gracyn was a planned C section due to Brooke previously having one with her own child. The hospital was great in the delivery process. They had my husband and me put on sterile scrubs for the OR, as well as her husband. Once Brooke was prepped with an epidural, they brought me into the OR to be with her. Essentially, kind of in the role of the husband or the father. Where you sit by her head, hold her hand, and support her as much as possible. I wanted to be the best advocate for her, and make sure she was always okay. Both of our husbands were in the hallway and they could see in a little window. 

Once Gracyn was born, I noticed her little dimples right away, and fell in love. When she took her first breath, I kissed Brooke on the forehead while crying, and just kept telling her thank you. Then they had me and my husband go into a little side room where they take care of baby and brought her husband into the OR so he could be with Brooke. It was a really cool experience how they involved all of us, and being able to see Gracyn be born was jaw dropping and nothing less than incredible. 

It was different for what you imagine your life would play out to be, but it was absolutely amazing and such a beautiful, selfless process.

I did have some worries, like, how is Gracyn going to know I'm mom? That's a big thing that kind of sat in the back of my head. But as soon as I held her and we did skin to skin, she started crawling up to my chest and stopped crying when her ear was on top of my heart. That just made me break down because she knew, and I was instantly a comfort for her. That still gives me goosebumps when I talk about it.

We asked Brooke to be her godmother. So after Gray was born and we situated a little bit, we put her in a little onesie that said, “Hi, Auntie, will you be my godmother?” We wrapped her up in a little swaddle. So when Brooke was ready post op and feeling a little bit better, we brought Gray in to meet her. I told Brooke, “Look at her toes!” to initiate her to unravel it so she could see the onesie. We were so proud of Brooke, and the gift of life she gave us. 

I always get the same questions (and I’ve learned to feel the questions without people even asking them). I answer them like this: “Yes, we went through surrogacy. She was completely our bun. We just used a different oven.” It's just for people to understand more, because it's just not talked about, how many different ways there are to start a family. And now that I have a child myself, nothing's more special than the people around you who choose to love your child. 

When love becomes a choice, it’s such a beautiful thing. 

I was asked if I was to provide advice to someone in a similar situation, what would I say? I’d say take however long you need to grieve, to be upset, to try to understand what's happening, and then when you're ready, when it becomes a choice, to move forward and decide how you want to tackle it. Educate yourself—on surrogacy, adoption, fostering, whatever—and do your best to move forward with a positive attitude. Because getting that news can be so destructive and can really break you down.

But know this: when you're in the dark and feeling hopeless, all that goes away once you have your baby in your arms.