Location: North Carolina
Embryos: Six PGT Tested Embryos
Compensation: Click here to try our Surrogacy Pay Calculator and view our surrogate compensation package.
Hello!
The first thing we want to say is how long the road has been to get here! We really weren’t sure about surrogacy at all in the beginning. We had a lot of questions. We are eager to be parents ourselves, so we get the motivation of intended parents. But we had a lot of curiosity about the people who choose to be surrogates. So, we sought out and met with someone locally who had just been a surrogate and that really helped us decide that this would be the right path for us. She shared how meaningful the surrogacy journey was for her and she teared up talking about being able to do this for someone. Hearing how much her surrogacy journey meant to her, helped us understand how giving the gift of parenthood to another couple had enriched her life. It was a very powerful reaffirmation of this process, and really demonstrated that surrogacy is a beautiful human gift. We left that meeting feeling hopeful and inspired, and we decided to move forward.
A lot of life has happened between that moment two years ago when we decided to move forward and now. One of the things we realized we needed to do was to get married, and even planning a backyard wedding took a lot of time (now we know one of the perks of being married is no longer having to plan a wedding!). Then, as we began to move forward with the egg donation process, Hurricane Helene hit. We had several feet of flooding at the community pottery studio we operate, and some damage at our home. Ripping out drywall and clearing out flood waters, and restarting the studio sadly took precedence and put us about 4 months behind schedule, but we are now excited to be back on track with this process.
In terms of our life, we are both at places in our careers and lives where we have a lot to offer a kid. We can give a child a really loving and supportive home and community. J’s family lives nearby. His parents, who are in their late 70s/early 80s, are just a few miles down the road and still healthy and active. J’s older sister is two minutes away and her two grown children just had children of their own. There are a lot of little young ones running around now, and we’re hoping to contribute to the wave of kids! We’re also fortunate in that A’s family lives on the coast, where we get to see them often and spend weekends at the beach with nephews and siblings. We’re also at a mature place in our careers, having a bit more flexibility and less pressure, and that is providing us with the financial ability to do this.
Parenting itself was not something we always felt completely sure about. Growing up, there weren’t a ton of examples of gay couples parenting, so at times it didn’t even feel like an option. Once we realized parenthood was possible and right for us, it has been an incredibly exciting time. We are often talking about our future kid, who of the two of us should teach them certain skills, or who can be trusted to pass on the “correct” pronunciation of certain words. Imagining our life with a kid has impacted everything. When A gardens, he thinks about future years where he and our kid will get their hands dirty and together watch the magic of the garden unfold throughout the year. J is really excited at the prospect of sharing the magic and joy of things like Christmas and Halloween–and just playing games together. We know parenting will also bring with it a lot of challenges and unknowns, but we are beyond excited for the entire journey.
We want to close this letter by attempting the impossible task of sharing our gratitude for you. As we shared in the beginning, we didn’t understand surrogacy at first, but we now believe it to be one of the most human acts someone can do. To whoever is reading this letter, we want to extend our deepest appreciation. It takes an incredibly special person to want to do this for other people and we will consider ourselves honored to have you in our life. We view this entire journey as something we are in together, and are endlessly grateful to have you alongside us.
With deep respect and gratitude,
A & J
More about their journey:
A & J are hoping to partner with a surrogate who is similarly inspired by the deeply human and connected nature of this journey. They would love to build a long-term relationship—one that may even allow their surro-baby to one day meet their surrogate, so their child can grow up knowing the incredible people who helped make them possible.
They envision this experience as a true partnership and, when comfortable for their surrogate, would love to attend medical appointments and be present at the hospital during delivery (perhaps from a nearby room). At the same time, they deeply value and respect boundaries and look forward to allowing the relationship to develop naturally as you move through the many moments of this journey together.
