Surrogacy is a journey that is filled with many unexpected surprises.  There are many stories from surrogates of their experiences, emotional and physical, of how surrogacy affected their lives.  Behind the scenes of the surrogate lies the untold stories of their families, and this is perhaps the most overlooked, and unappreciated story, that I wish to tell.  My name is Laura and I have had the great blessing of being a surrogate twice: the first was a healthy little girl, and the second, a healthy boy and girl. 

                Like most women, whether we are dealing with pregnancy or fertility, the world revolves around us for an extended period in our life when we are pregnant, or are trying to get pregnant.  Our hormones, and moods, are often out of our control and sometimes we may not even realize how this affects our loved ones.  As a gestational carrier/surrogate, we go through a very similar fertility treatment as that of the intended mother, with the obvious exception of the egg retrieval. 

                First, our hormones are shut off quite abruptly through the use of a product called Lupron- or, as my first intended mother liked to call it, “loopy Lupron.”  Your body is slammed into a state not unlike menopause, and while all you can think about are the hot flashes, night sweats, and sometimes nausea and heart palpitations, your family may witness you change from a loving person into a person feeling anger, depression, easily irritated, emotional for no reason, and all while you barely realize you are acting this way.  Depending on the age of your children at home, they may not understand why you are behaving this way and think they have somehow caused it.  Or, in my case with a teenage girl, they may pick up on your hormonal fluctuations and mimic your behavior without realizing it themselves.  This left my spouse with not one, but two hormonal women to deal with!

                Relief starts to come when the estrogen is added back into your body as the cycle progresses.  You begin to feel more like yourself again as the sweating subsides, but depending on your dose, this can be quickly replaced by feeling like you are running on a caffeine high all the time, making you equally irritable.  Your spouse then has the dubious honor of injecting you daily with progesterone, which fortunately mine was good at.  He wouldn’t admit it at the time, but he was scared of doing this for me- both because he knew the shots were painful, and because he worried about doing it wrong.  Every day, he would put on a brave face as I flinched when the needle entered my hip, then say he was sorry that he hurt me.  I’d always tell him he did a great job and that it was no big deal- that was my brave face.

At the time, you may not recognize the emotional aspect happening- in retrospect, you may find you were as excited about becoming pregnant as you were scared and nervous that you would fail.  You begin to realize it’s not about you anymore- you may have had the easiest time in the world conceiving your own children, but now, you are trying to get pregnant for someone else and that changes everything.  You, and your spouse, have heard the struggles the couple faced, whether they knew they were infertile to begin with, or discovered it as they were unable to conceive.  You already learned about the years they may have spent trying to have children, and the emotional roller coaster they were on.  You may begin to feel guilt if the first attempt doesn’t work, as if you have somehow failed them.  You may grieve with them over the loss of yet another set of embryo’s that had the potential to be their child, but for some unknown reason did not implant. 

Through all of this, your family is your rock.  You’ll spend more time than your spouse talking to the intended mother, but he will hear about all of your conversations.  He will pick up the pieces when you fall apart if a cycle fails to get you pregnant, or she does not produce quality embryos for a cycle and it is cancelled.  He will hold your hand through the doctor’s visits and tests, and will support you through every hormonal and emotional fluctuation.  Your children may point out to you when you are acting “angry” or “sad.”  They may ask you why you are crying, and you fail to find the answer to give them as you’re not even sure yourself.   All you can focus on is the desire to will your body into getting pregnant for this couple.  And when that happens, a new journey begins.

Pregnancy with another couple’s child is unlike anything you or your family has ever experienced.  The tears of joy, and yes, there will be tears, which the intended mom has when she finds out you are pregnant will be overwhelming for both of you.  It is the second most intense emotion I think I have ever experience- the most intense coming when the intended mom and dad get to hold their child for the first time.  In between these days lie months of emotions and experiences you and your family did not, and could not, plan for.

To many, my first surrogacy would be considered “a breeze.”  Aside from a week or two of morning sickness, the pregnancy itself was uneventful.  I was able to work and exercise until the day I was induced.  I continued to perform my normal household cooking and cleaning, and while the kids may have had a few extra chores, life remained relatively unchanged.  The extra progesterone continued until I was 12 weeks pregnant, and looking back my family later told me I was very emotional during that time and even commercials could bring me to tears.  My husband noted that the entire pregnancy I was harder on myself than with any of our other children.  I was far more careful about everything I ate and did to the point of being “silly” in his eyes when I refused to eat certain foods because I read somewhere they could put you into early labor (mind you, I ate those foods with all three of my own children and nothing bad happened!).

Fast forward to the delivery.  The intended parents stayed with us for a week before the induction, just in case she decided to make an early appearance.  During this time, the bond I had felt with the mom prior to this was now experienced by my entire family.  We became extremely close to both mom and dad, and my boys especially loved “hanging out” with the dad while my husband was at work.  My daughter also grew close with the mom, and during a later trip to visit them for the baptism, she became close to, and then pen pals with, the mom’s mother. 

The day of the delivery, my husband and the intended parents were all there.  I remember trying to put on a brave face for them so they didn’t know how bad the contractions hurt.  I wanted to make it without an epidural as I had done with two of my three other deliveries, but the pain became too much.  Like my previous deliveries, my husband was again my rock.  Holding my hand, rubbing my back, fetching me ice water- whatever I needed.  When she was born, her dad cut the cord.  They watched as the nurses checked her over and declared everything looked great- then mom got to hold her daughter, the one she had been waiting years for, for the first time.  This moment still brings both me and my spouse tears of joy when we think about it.  Nothing can prepare you for this.

I was discharged the next day while the parents stayed in the hospital with their baby for the required 48 hours.  During this time, I thought about all the people who had asked me during my pregnancy how I could possibly carry a child and then not take it home with me, and I began to cry.  No, I wasn’t crying because I went home empty handed, I was crying because I would miss the close relationship I had developed with the family.  I knew they would be flying back to their home, their family now complete, and be busy with their new responsibilities.  I was crying because I was so filled with happiness, and even relief, that everything had gone perfectly smooth.   I was crying because I realized how easy it is to take your own children, so easily conceived, for granted after you see how much another woman struggles to have their own child.  My husband, with tears in his eyes, simply looked at me on that drive home and said, “I’ll miss them too.”

A year later, we were blessed to still be close with the family.  We still talked frequently, and pictures of her and stories about her are frequently posted on a blog site by her mom.  Fortunately, she has a lot of family members who also live far away from them, so the blog is wonderful for all of us!  My daughter frequently visits the blog to see how she is doing and keeps a picture of her in her room.  Although I wasn’t sure I would do surrogacy again, the time now felt right.  Before I would call Shirley, I had to talk with my family, because without their unwavering support, I would not move forward.  I also wanted, or rather needed, to talk with the first couple I was a surrogate for.  There is a friendship and a loyalty there that made me feel like I was cheating on a loved one in wanting to be a surrogate for someone else.  With everyone’s blessing in hand, my family and I began the journey a second time.  My family knew what to expect from me emotionally during the fertility treatments, and thought they were prepared for another pregnancy.  However, as I said in the beginning, surrogacy is filled with unexpected surprises. 

Within a few days of the embryo transfer, I knew I was pregnant.  A few days after that, the morning sickness began: weeks and weeks of uncontrollable nausea and vomiting that every medication we tried would not relieve.  Double the babies, double the hormones, and in this case, ten times the discomforts.  My children, now 15, 12, and 9, would hold my hair for me and bring me water when they heard me getting sick as my husband was at work.  They would offer to cook and clean to help as just the smell of food would send me over the edge again.  I was losing weight and emotionally I was a wreck.  I worried about the health of the babies, as well as my own.  My husband, my rock, at one point asked me if this was really worth it.  He hated seeing me so miserable as much as I hated feeling that way.  I would sob as I cradled the toilet.  It was then that the strength I needed found me. 

An email from the first mom I was a surrogate for came that day.  It began by describing how at night, she and her husband sometimes still went into their daughters room and felt amazed to see her there- like they expected it all to be a dream they would wake up from one day and they would be childless again.  She told me to find strength in the end result- to remember the joy when her daughter was born, and that maybe, if I could hold onto that happiness and the happiness I would be bringing to this other couple, the sickness might be a little easier to bear.   That same day, a care package arrived from the intended mother whose children I now carried.  It was filled with ginger candies and drinks, as well as some chocolate for when I was feeling better.  Her card said she wished she could go through the sickness for me.  Such simple gestures can make all the difference.

By sixteen weeks, the nausea had subsided and I hoped to return to taking walks with my husband, eating real food, playing with the kids, and a “normal” pregnancy.  For a few weeks, I almost did.  I was so tired all the time that I could barely stay awake long enough after dinner to check homework, never mind take walks or play.  The kids and my husband began doing more cooking and cleaning for me, and as I would doze off I could hear the kids complaining about having to do “everything.”  Then, my husband was laid off from work.  This turned out to be a blessing in disguise when at my 29 week visit, just when I had been feeling great for several weeks, the doctor discovered I was 4cm dilated and put me on complete bed rest.  “No stress,” he said.  “You can get up to go to the bathroom, shower for five minutes a couple days a week, and otherwise, don’t get out of bed.  Hopefully, we can avoid having to admit you.”  Gulp.

For the next six week (yes, they stayed in for six more weeks!), I was waited on by my family.  My daughter would blow dry my hair after I took a shower while I lay on the bed.  She’d trim and paint my finger and toe nails to “make me feel better.”  She even shaved my legs for me twice!  When they weren’t in school, my son’s would bring me a steady supply of fresh water, food, books, the laptop, movies, and whatever else I needed.   They would close the bedroom door when they left so I could rest “quietly.”  Once the door closed, I could still hear them.  The boy’s would get frustrated that they couldn’t have friends sleep over.  My daughter was upset she couldn’t go to a friend’s house because she needed to take care of me and watch her brothers while my husband was at classes.  My oldest son began getting D’s and F’s because he was afraid to bother me to check his homework.   The arguing between the kids was increasing, and the tension in the house was growing.  I could hear them talking back to their father, and then he would lose his patience, and occasionally his temper, and they would tell him to stop yelling at them because he’d upset me and put me in labor… and all I could do was lie in bed and listen.

The day my water broke, I could see and feel the relief on my husband’s face.  As we drove to the hospital, he said to me he’d “never realized this pregnancy would be so hard on the family,” and that was when it hit me.  Sure, I’d heard the kids complain, heard his frustrations at having to take care of everything he usually did, plus everything I usually did, but I never really thought about what THEY were feeling.  I was so preoccupied with my own emotions, and my frustrations at being stuck in bed, I had never considered how hard this had been on all the members of my family. 

That day, the intended parents made it just in time to see their children born.  It was the easiest labor of my life, despite the second baby being pulled out breech.  I could hear the intended mom crying and thanking me as she saw her babies for the first time and cut the cord after her daughter was delivered.  The dad was absolutely glowing as they both watched the nurses and the doctor caring for their children while they both screamed loudly.  That’s perhaps one of the most beautiful sounds in the world I think- the first time a baby cries.  It’s at that moment that you can say without a doubt, yes, it was all worth it.

A week later, the babies were discharged home with their parents.  As they live nearby, I know we’ll have the chance to visit with them in time and we’re already discussing plans to get together when my kids are off school.  For now though, their babies are still premies and need to be kept safe from germs.  My kids were a bit disappointed they didn’t get to hold the babies like they had with the first surrogacy, but they did get to see them and take pictures.  Having gone through this twice, I think the “novelty” of surrogacy had faded for them as they seemed happier that it was over, where before they were disappointed.  For me and my husband, it was just as much of a miracle as the first time.  The emotions were as intense, and the joy just as profound when we saw the parents holding their new children.

My husband and I talked about how this surrogacy was so different than the first, and how important it is for the entire FAMILY to be part of this amazing process because of the risks of what can happen medically.  There’s something very special about a husband and children who will support you through this journey.  They possess a compassion and a deep understanding of what it truly means to give of yourself for another person.  This is a special gift that they have learned in this process, and one that they will take with them for life. 

Two weeks after the delivery, our lives have returned to about normal.  The kids are looking forward to a family fishing trip this weekend, our first outing together in literally months.  They also set up the digital photo frame and filled it with pictures of the twins and their family.   My oldest son told me he was proud of me for helping them have not just one, but two babies, while my youngest asked if I was ever going to do it again.  I’m back to cooking and cleaning up after the kids, the husband can finally work on his “honey do list,” the boys have had the opportunity to have friends over, and my daughter has her first boyfriend.    I commented to her that she seemed so much happier than I had seen her in a while and I asked her if she had something to do with her new boyfriend.  She hugged me and replied, “No, it’s just nice to have my mom back.”