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Ep. 14 Who? The kids!
214 Plays1 year ago
On today's episode, we are talking to the kids! We had an amazing opportunity to get to talk to some of our kiddos whose mom's not only work for Egg Donor & Surrogate Solutions. But were all surrogates! I got to ask them their perspective and what they remembered from the journeys and they shared some of their favorite memories, stories, advice for other kids and for other moms who are thinking about becoming gestational carriers themselves. This episode was all so much fun, so silly, and full of great stories!
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone. Welcome to me, you, and who. On today's episode, we are talking to the kids. We had an amazing opportunity to get to talk to some of our kiddos here on staff whose moms were all surrogates and asked them their perspective and what they remembered from the journeys. Some of our kiddos are 18 and off to college and their mom's journeys happened a long time ago. Other ones are teeny tiny and that journey only happened just a year ago.
00:00:30
Speaker
We got to listen to some of their favorite memories, stories, advice for other kids and for other moms who are thinking about becoming gestational carriers themselves. We did do separate meetings with our bigs and littles, so you'll hear a bit of a transition later in the episode, but it was all so much fun, so silly, great stories, and I cannot wait for you to listen to this episode from the kids.
Breaking the Taboo: Surrogacy and Egg Donation
00:00:57
Speaker
Me, you, and who?
00:00:59
Speaker
Who knew it would take more than two people to have a baby? In a world where infertility is no longer a taboo topic, this podcast will take you through all the different aspects of surrogacy and egg donation through the lens of many who walk this journey in different ways. My name is Whitney Hall, and I am a two-time Surrogate, now turned Surrogacy Coordinator for Egg Donor in Surrogate Solutions.
00:01:20
Speaker
the very agency I used when I chose to carry for two amazing families. With this podcast, it is our goal to help guide and support you as you learn about what it takes to grow a family in an alternative way, as well as hear inspiring and beautiful stories of how this path has changed lives forever.
Kids' Perspectives on Surrogacy
00:01:39
Speaker
We can't wait for you to hear about just one more way happy families are created every day.
00:01:50
Speaker
I'm going into third grade. This is and I'm eight years old. I'm Emma. I'm going into sixth grade and I am 11 years old. I'm John David and I'm going to short grid and I'm eight years old. He's my twin. Cool. I'm Audrey. I'm 10 years old and I'm going into fifth grade.
00:02:20
Speaker
Your turn. What's your name? What's your name? Hi, I'm Maya. I'm in kindergarten and I'm going to turn six in April. Oh my goodness. Kindergarten. Are you so excited Maya to start kindergarten? Yeah.
00:02:50
Speaker
I'm Miss Whitney, and I'm just gonna ask you guys just some questions about when your mommy was a surrogate. So Maya, do you know when I say the word surrogate, what does that mean? When somebody else carries a baby for another family. Yeah, that's exactly right.
Experiences with Surrogate Families
00:03:12
Speaker
That's exactly right. Okay, Audrey and my children, what about you guys?
00:03:19
Speaker
Do you guys remember how you explained what a surrogate was to your friends? So at school, my friends would always be like, oh, so you're going to get another brother? I was like, no. She's having a baby for someone else because they can't have one. That was a very hard no, I'm not having another brother. No, I'm not having another brother. No way.
00:03:46
Speaker
What about you three? How did you guys tell your friends that you were not getting any other siblings? Um, I think I remember I was like my best friend at the time she would. Her mom was actually having for her another brother and she told us that. And so I was like, yeah, but guess what? My mom is having my new best friends.
00:04:13
Speaker
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. So do you guys remember meeting the babies whenever they came? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You remember? OK, go ahead. Go ahead, Audrey. And then, Maya, you're next. My mom brought the baby home with Ravel and Carl. And we were in the basement at the couch. And we got to hold him and feed him daughters. And so it was cute.
Understanding and Explaining Surrogacy
00:04:43
Speaker
It's so much more fun when you get to give them back to their parents, isn't it? And they don't actually stay at your house. What about you, Maya? Do you remember meeting baby? I met Marissa and Kevin and baby Jack and my cousin Josie. And I had lots and lots of fun with them. And on a long day, I had a sleepover with them.
00:05:11
Speaker
You guys should have a sleepover with them. Oh my goodness. So you guys have all become best friends and like family, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Baby Jack smiles when I smile at him. Oh, that is so special. I thought he loves his cousin Maya. Oh my goodness. What about you three? Do you guys remember meeting the babies? Oh yeah.
00:05:38
Speaker
We're meeting Caroline and Eleanor. Me too. You do? You were so little. Interesting. Yeah. Do you remember what was so special about meeting Tristan? I don't really remember. Remember we had to meet him in the car because it was like 2020. Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys remember meeting Caroline and Eleanor?
00:06:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember holding them. So what has it been like since the babies have been born? How has the relationship been like, have you seen them since? I know Maya has because she calls them cousins. So have you gotten to see baby Jack and Josie since he was born? They're actually my cousins. They are your cousins.
00:06:35
Speaker
Yeah. When was the last time you saw them? Um, on a long, long day ago. A long, long day ago. And what did you do when you got to go see them? I just actually, um, just, just played them a little bit and they actually had a beach house. Oh, you got to go to the beach with them? Oh, the beach house. Oh, at the beach house. Oh my goodness. That is so fun.
00:07:02
Speaker
Did you get to go to baby Jack's first birthday party? Uh-huh. And we were just hitting Peter Penn, my dad, like my friend with the sword. And we were laughing on the circle swimming down the enough room. That sounds like so much fun.
00:07:28
Speaker
All right, what about you guys? Audrey, did you get to go to, did you, have you gotten to see babies since? Yeah, we got to see baby Max on my mom's birthday. We went down to Ohio and met them. How fun. We got home from school and dad said that we were going to go see Raquel and Carl. So we went to Ohio. Oh my goodness. What a fun after school treat.
00:07:55
Speaker
So what has it been like all three of you have mommies that we were surrogates and now we keep working with surrogates. So maybe I know my kiddos, you might not remember the journey super well, but what do you think about the fact that your mommies get to keep helping families in a different way? I think it's cool. I think it's definitely like fun for you probably.
00:08:22
Speaker
I think it's fun for all of us that you get to keep helping everyone and get to help mommies and and get to help their children too. What about you Audrey? It makes me really happy because she gets to help someone who couldn't have a baby and it's just a good opportunity for her. It is. What about you Maya?
00:08:56
Speaker
Oh good, I'm so glad. How do you guys explain to your friends what your mommy does for work? Forget a courthouse, but now she works for you guys and. And I just tell them that she helps other people who can't have babies to find somebody who can have one for them. That's the easiest way to explain it.
00:09:23
Speaker
So what has been your favorite memory since your mommy's been doing all of this? Big family dinner. Big family dinner. Those are fun. My favorite memory was when we got to meet him. And when we got to meet Raquel and Carl, that was fun. That's a very good memory, huh?
00:09:51
Speaker
So what would you say to any kiddos whose mommies are about to be surrogates or are surrogates? What advice would you give to any of those kiddos if you had any?
Advice for Kids and Families Involved in Surrogacy
00:10:07
Speaker
Go ahead. Like be really nice to the baby whenever you need it. Like I would also say like congratulations, obviously. Yeah.
00:10:23
Speaker
Help your mom. Help your mom, definitely. What about you, Audrey? Maybe just don't stress about it as much as I do, because it can be scary at some point, but it's actually really cool for her to be able to do that. Yeah, for sure.
00:10:50
Speaker
Thank you for sharing all of the fun stories about your mommy's. Okay, you guys will welcome thanks so much for doing this, I really, really, really super appreciate it, I think this is just going to be really fun to get your perspective of how.
00:11:18
Speaker
life was when your moms were either, were doing surrogacy. So, okay, first let's go around. You guys can say your name, say how old you are. If you remember, and yeah, and then if you remember how old you were when your mom did at least her first journey, if she's done more than one. So Hayden, why don't you start since you're in my corner right here.
00:11:47
Speaker
Hayden Palm, my mom is Lauren Palm. I am 18 years old. What was the other question? How old were you when she did her journey? Four or five. Baby, you were tiny. Started when we lived in Texas. Okay. Very cool. Very cool. All right. Jump in. Who's next? I'm Liam Watland.
00:12:13
Speaker
I was four when she did it her first time and then nine when she did her second. Okay, very good. My name is Mason Best. I'm 15 and I was like eight years old and my mom did it when she did surrogate. Okay. What about you Deegan? How old were you? I was seven when she was a surrogate. Seven. Okay. Awesome. All right. Trip Grace Maggie.
00:12:43
Speaker
Uh, my name's chip and clay. I'm 14 right now. And I was six when she did service. Okay. I'm grace. I'm 13 and I was like four or five. Um, I'm Maggie. I was, oh, I'm 11. And I don't know if I was like two or three that area. Okay. So you were the teeniest. Do you remember any of it Maggie?
00:13:06
Speaker
I just remember being in like the hospital room eating powdered sugar doughnuts. That's the only part. Oh, excellent memory. What hospital have powdered sugar doughnuts? I want that hospital. Well, you like went somewhere to get them. Oh, okay. That makes much more sense. All right. So, okay. This is just y'all, I'm going to just ask this question and y'all just jump in. So don't worry about, you know, being too polite. Just go ahead and jump in and then, you know, we'll figure it out. But,
00:13:35
Speaker
How do you guys remember when y'all's mom like explained what it was she was doing and what did that look like? I don't necessarily remember when it was like exactly, but it was kind of just her saying like how she's helping a family. Who can't have kids and she's just helping them. Have kids by having their kids, yeah?
00:14:03
Speaker
What did you think whenever she said it? Was it just simple or did you have a ton of questions? I think well, cause like Liam said, I was five and she didn't run us for her first time. So I don't, I don't think I really understood it. So I don't think I had that many questions, but I still thought it was cool that she was giving a family.
00:14:32
Speaker
not necessarily giving, but like helping them get kids because they couldn't have kids. Yeah. I remember the second time when we were nine and by that time, since she already at once, I was like, Oh, we're just kind of doing it again. She's helping another family. So it was, it didn't really like, it kind of felt like normal at that point. Like we're helping another family cause she had twins the first time. So it's already happened like with two kids. So it was like just helping another family, which was really good.
00:15:03
Speaker
Sure. That's awesome. So at that point, it was just like, yeah, this is just what we do. Yeah. So mine was a little weird. Like, I didn't know. I, all of a sudden I just realized she was pregnant because I was like six or seven. And I was like, there's no way I'm having another brother. And then like, she tried to explain that they put twins in her, which I didn't understand at the time. And I had questions, but like, it wouldn't have made sense.
00:15:29
Speaker
Like, okay, she put a egg and then whatever. And then like it started to make more sense as she like, I got older and she described it, but. So really it sounds like it wasn't until the end of her journey and you were like seeing all of it come full circle that you were like, Oh, got it. Got it. So the end of the journey was that light bulb moment. Dean, what were you going to say? Um,
00:15:56
Speaker
She just, I thought she is just having a kick for other people. That's all. And that was that? Really? Yeah. Yeah. Simple. Easy. Um, I remember they like used a book of like kangaroos, like to explain it. Yeah. The kangaroo. Like once a week or so, like,
00:16:21
Speaker
my mom had this thing and would like tell like how big the baby was like based on like a, like a fruit or vegetable or something. That was cool. So yeah, I'm like using at first and then like I got it and she was like, well, yeah, this is like what my work is. So that's how like, so I, then it's hard to make a lot more sense of what she did when I was like over eight, eight or seven. So yeah. Yeah.
00:16:49
Speaker
That makes a ton of sense. And Maggie, you just remember the powdered donuts. Okay. So Maggie, since you don't remember your mom's journey, how have you, like, how did she explain like what Tripp said, just what her work is and what we all do? Um, I think I was kind of like still confused for a long time until like, I was like nine, but I guess she kind of just said it like,
00:17:17
Speaker
whenever somebody's not able to have a baby and they're like, it's just not working right, and they cried, then they just like, I don't know, like take it out of them and put it into another person who can have it for them. There you go. That works. How was it explaining any of this to your friends? I kind of did it like, well, they'll be like, what does your mom do for a job? And I'm just like,
00:17:43
Speaker
Whenever somebody can't have babies, she helps them have like, she helps move it to like the same thing as my mom explained to me, I guess. I just kind of remember like, oh yeah, my mom's pregnant, but it's not going to be my sibling. Like, and that kind of lives like, Oh, like what does that mean? So like the first time I didn't really understand it. So just like, yeah, that's kind of what she does. But then like the second time,
00:18:13
Speaker
It was just like, she's like helping this family have a kid, kind of like what Maggie said. So like, it was just like kind of explaining that and then like, like helping them understand that. Yeah. Did anybody get any weird questions? Yeah, it was like, why is your mom having a kid that's not yours? And it was like kind of hard to like explain that like,
00:18:38
Speaker
Well, like this family can't have kids, so they're like kind of transferring it to her so she can have it. Yeah, why are people just having kids for other people? Like they didn't understand that those people couldn't have kids. Oh, interesting. So you guys were almost like the yeah, by the way, this isn't like as easy as maybe we all think it is sort of like you were the door to that. Very cool, very cool.
00:19:08
Speaker
What else? Who else had some funny questions or funny encounters? I've never had any. Nice. Good. Yeah. I told him what she does, but I have never had any weird questions about it. It was just easy. No, that's great. I feel like it's really a lot more simple. And for some reason, other people want to make it more complicated. And at the end of the day, it's your mom's helping your family have another or having a helping a family have another baby. That's awesome.
00:19:37
Speaker
What was, if you can remember, what was the most fun part about your mom's journey? The second time she was a surrogate, we were nine. And so whenever they were like transferring the egg or something,
00:20:05
Speaker
We went to Colorado with their family and we got a fly there on their plane. And so we just kind of spent, I don't know how, I don't remember how long it was, but it was our first time really seeing like snow, which was cool. What were you going to say Mason?
00:20:29
Speaker
Um, I was gonna say, um, the people that we did it for the second time, they took us to Disney or like the girl did. And she took us to Disney and bought us like a bunch of stuff and paid for dinner and everything. Yeah. She just took us to Disney. Nice. Um, yeah, I kind of like what Cullen said. Our first, and like what he said, um, our first time we got to go to Disney too. And then
00:20:52
Speaker
second time colorado and it was really good to just like kind of meet a new family and like create like a special bond between them and just like the experience of like what he said like seeing snow and all this stuff that we haven't really seen before yeah no that's fantastic i think that the best part for me was not that i remember it back then but like i remember it now just like getting to see um like pace all grown up and like
00:21:21
Speaker
doing all this cool stuff that it's like, he wouldn't have the opportunity to do that. Yeah, absolutely. Kind of what Maggie said, just like watching it grow and then with like the bond, like we still go to like baseball games with the family and like they still send us pictures of like what the kid looks like now. So it's like really cool to be able to see like my mom helped create that family.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Who else is still in contact with maybe one of the babies that your momma grew? Okay, so yeah, awesome. What kind of contact, what does that look like? They just sometimes FaceTime us, sometimes we'll see pictures of them, sometimes they'll send like postcards to the house. Okay, very cool. How does that make y'all feel whenever you see that? I know you guys said it was like,
00:22:19
Speaker
It just makes, it's so cool to see how your mom created that family. But what other things, how does that make you feel watching all of that? It kind of brings like a sense of joy. Like, yeah. We like, like our family, like helped them create like something that they never would have had without it.
Emotional Connections and Impact of Surrogacy
00:22:40
Speaker
Definitely. Definitely. I know, I know for me, one of the coolest things, um, for my first journey, my kid was very little.
00:22:49
Speaker
And we were in the hospital and the intended mom comes in, it was twins. And she came in with the little girls and she goes, okay, you guys, it's your first friends. And I remember just thinking how cool that was. You know, they got to, like they were, they were the first friends. They were some of those big voices that they heard. And so I think that's really neat that you guys, like you get to be that, which is pretty cool. What's one thing
00:23:13
Speaker
Like if you could tell other kids whose parents are about to like go through this, what would you kind of, what would you say to them? Um, I think, well, it kind of depends how old the kid is. Cause yeah, like if you're young, you probably won't understand it. And, uh, it'll probably be kind of weird for you, but
00:23:40
Speaker
I would just say like trust the process because it'll seem weird at first, but then like once it happens and like you see that family, because I remember the second time my mom did it, like seeing how the mom, like how happy the mom was on her first Mother's Day. I remember like thinking that that was cool that my mom
00:24:10
Speaker
Um, uh, she helped that family have the mother's day and the first father's day that they couldn't have done. But, uh, yeah, I'd say trust the process because it eventually is a really cool thing. Yeah. I remember like in my eyes, it was like,
00:24:37
Speaker
Like, you know, like my mom's a super hero. Like she's like saving, like helping this family. So like five for the younger kids, just like, like your mom is like, like help create this family. Like she being a super hero for this family. So like, and a more way that they can understand it for the younger kids. Yeah. Uh, I think I, I tell them just be patient, uh, wait on your mom, obviously depends on wage. Like,
00:25:06
Speaker
They said, um, but they're creating a new family, which is going to give other people in the world happiness, which is basically what everyone wants in their life. And if this is the way they want to receive or get that, let your mom do what she wants and help that family. Yeah. I think another thing is like, it's just worth it in the long run. Like it looks, it might seem like really hard at the moment.
00:25:35
Speaker
but it has a greater outcome. Yeah, you're creating like a permanent bond with that family. Like that. There's no other way to create like you helped create that family, which is really cool. That is cool.
Encouragement and Communication Advice
00:25:51
Speaker
That's awesome. What advice would you give to the moms?
00:25:59
Speaker
who are about to do this, what would you say? Hey moms, like don't worry, you know, maybe don't worry about this or hey, these are some good things to say to your, their kiddos. Go for it. Like just go for it. That's perfect. Just go for it. Maybe if they're little, like this can be like your new friend and like it'll definitely make this little kiddo happy. You know,
00:26:30
Speaker
Like, kind of for the mom, like it's it really is just like an incredible way to like have a kid because you're creating like a special bond with another family and also like getting like where it's still like partially your child, which I think is awesome. Absolutely, absolutely. Awesome you guys. Well, I super appreciate you giving me just a little bit of your time.
00:26:58
Speaker
and, you know, telling us a little bit about your story. Does anybody have one final thing they want to say, whether a fun memory or especially all of y'all's moms are still doing this, but not necessarily a surrogates, it's just all of our jobs. Does anybody have any final words that they would want to say? I think maybe like another thing that you could say to mom was like, you're hard, you're going to be part of that kid's story. Like that kid gets to say that I
00:27:27
Speaker
My mom had somebody who helped hurt my mom, have me. And now I, I don't know. I think that's just like going to be a cool thing for that kid to be able to say. It is a very cool thing.
Conclusion and Resources
00:27:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's the moral of the story. Just go for it.
00:27:48
Speaker
Awesome, OK you guys well thank you thank you and thanks to your moms for letting them loan computers and you know all of that for making this possible and good luck to those who have football practice and are moving away and school coming up and all of that. So I so so appreciate you guys. I hope this was painless. But yeah, thank you thank you thank you and if you have any thoughts or anything afterwards just let me know OK. Yes ma'am.
00:28:17
Speaker
Awesome. All right, you guys. Thanks so much. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye. Bye. Nice to see you. You too. Bye, you guys. You have just finished listening to an episode of me, you, and who. To find out more about egg donor and surrogate solutions, go to www.createahappyfamily.com.