Transcript
Speaker: I have walked through three surrogacy journeys, but I only ever say that I've been a surrogate twice. And that distinction has stayed with me.
Speaker: There's this moment that i keep coming back to. It wasn't the phone call. It wasn't a doctor's appointment. It was just a regular day. The kids were coming home.
Speaker: Noise in the house, emails to answer, your phone's going off, you've got the to-do list, practice to get to The amount of Google alerts, Google Calendar alerts is insane.
Speaker: and I remember realizing that even though everything around me was moving forward, something very important had just stopped.
Speaker: I didn't realize how much being a successful surrogate had become such a part of who i was until I wasn't one anymore.
Speaker: And when that part of my identity shifted, i wasn't prepared for how much it would hurt. And I don't think I fully understood what that meant yet until I had to look at my story a little differently.
Speaker: So for those who don't know my story, my first surrogacy journey began in 2017. And I know that doesn't sound like that long ago, or maybe it does for some, um but the industry looked so different back then.
Speaker: Everything felt newer and simpler in some ways. And for me, it was all very matter of fact. um That first journey ended with the delivery of two twin girls after a single embryo transfer. So that was fun, but it really was one of the greatest days of my life. I remember being in recovery, hearing their sweet parents meet them for the first time I feeling this deep sense of wholeness, like something had just clicked into place.
Speaker: Growing up, when people would ask me, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? I would list all these things, the jobs, the roles, plans that I had. But as I got older, I realized that what I really wanted wasn't really a title at all.
Speaker: I just really wanted to make a difference in someone's life. To be part of someone's story in a meaningful way. To know that there was someone out there saying stories that had my name in it and how I impacted them in some way.
Speaker: And surrogacy gave me that. But of course, at the time, it it didn't really feel extraordinary. it just felt possible.
Speaker: I could do it. Even after my second journey in 2020, when I understood more clearly what this meant for families, I still saw this as something that I could do.
Speaker: Not just something i needed to hold with awe or amazement, I knew it mattered, but I didn't fully realize how much of myself I had poured into it.
Speaker: And I think that's why what happened next hit the way that it did. It wasn't until my third journey that something shifted. I had two failed transfers and I had never had a failed transfer before.
Speaker: But it was after that I realized how deeply my identity had become tied to being what I thought of as a quote, successful surrogate.
Speaker: Not just someone who helped, but someone whose body showed up, carried safely, and turned a dream into a reality. And when that role was suddenly gone, it didn't just feel disappointing.
Speaker: It felt like a failure and something that I've noticed even now is how I still talk about my story. If someone asks, I say, I've been a surrogate twice and I don't usually include that third journey, even though it mattered.
Speaker: I showed up for it. I walked through every part of that process. but there's still this part of me that ties the title to the outcome.
Speaker: Like it only counts if it ends in a delivery. And what's interesting is i don't think that way about anyone else.
Speaker: In my work as a coordinator, I never looked at a surrogate's journey and reduced it down to whether or not there was a delivery. I could see the full picture, the commitment, the courage it took to even just say, yes, you wanted to be a surrogate. The way that these women showed up regardless of the outcome, I could hold that for them so clearly, but for myself,
Speaker: It felt so different. And i'm I'm still wrestling with that because I know that's not actually true. I know the effort, the commitment, the willingness to say yes.
Speaker: All of that matters. But it's so it's it's so interesting how quickly we can reduce something meaningful down to a result.
Speaker: And I think that's part of what made this so hard. Not just that it didn't work. That was excruciating. But even beyond that, it challenged the way that I had come to define what it meant to be a surrogate for myself. And once that started to unravel, everything underneath came with it.
Speaker: And that's a feeling i know so many women experience, even if the circumstances look different. Sometimes people ask me about the range of emotions that came up for me during this time, or maybe what surprised me most about that season.
Speaker: And I think what surprised me most wasn't just the disappointment, it was the anger. And this very specific kind of grief that I didn't know where to put.
Speaker: Because I wasn't the one trying to grow my family. I wasn't grieving something I had dreamed of for myself. I was dreaming the fact that i couldn't do it for someone else.
Speaker: I had carried the hope. I had believed alongside them. I had done all the superstition and the socks and the pineapples and and everything.
Speaker: And now I was the one sitting with the reality that my body couldn't carry this part of their story forward.
Speaker: And somehow that felt just as heartbreaking, but it didn't feel like a grief I was allowed to name and life just kept moving.
Speaker: I was still getting kids to practice. I was still getting Google alerts, answering emails, making dinner, just continuing on.
Speaker: If I'm honest, work was especially hard. I sat in meetings where we were celebrating other coworkers and friends of mine and their journeys, successful transfers, growing bellies, sweet baby bumps.
Speaker: And I could not get off of those meetings fast enough. It was really this strange and complicated tension between being so genuinely happy for them and the sweet family that they were making happen.
Speaker: And at the same time, being so incredibly sad and upset and just genuinely not knowing what to do with all of that unnamed grief for myself.
Speaker: Truly, when people would ask me the question, why did you want to be a surrogate?
Speaker: There's obviously so many answers, but one of the things that I have always said was, I felt like I was meant to do this. And to suddenly go from that to now being what felt like betrayed by the very body that had carried so much was its own kind of devastation.
Speaker: Of course, you know, as the holidays approached, I got a Christmas card from my sweet intended parents. And I couldn't help but cry thinking about how that card could have been a baby announcement or could have had a fourth little person in that picture.
Speaker: Of course, my sweet husband gave me the biggest hug and he held me so tight and said, i know you couldn't grow their family, but look at what you did do.
Speaker: he pulled out all of the other holiday cards from the families I had carried for and from the families that I had supported as a coordinator.
Speaker: And while it didn't take away my grief by no means, it did shift something. And it did remind me that two things can be true at the same time.
Speaker: I could hold sadness for what I wasn't able to do anymore. And i could still celebrate what i had done and maybe even begin to imagine what I could still do.
Speaker: And that was the moment where something started to shift for me. noll
Speaker: Not all at once, but enough to see things a little differently. And I think that's part of what I'm still learning. Because for a long time, I thought hope looked like things working out.
Speaker: Hope looked like certainty. It was a positive test, a growing belly, a sweet baby at the end of the journey. That's what I had come to associate with hope for me.
Speaker: So when that didn't happen, it felt like hope was gone too. But I don't think that that's actually true. And I think what I lost, it wasn't hope itself. It was this version of hope that felt certain.
Speaker: The version that said, this is going to work because it always has. And without that certainty, I didn't know how to hold hope anymore.
Speaker: So for a while, i didn't. I pulled back, not because I didn't care, but because caring had started to feel really risky. Because when you've been the person who carries hope for someone else and then suddenly you can't, it makes you question what your role is now.
Speaker: I remember in my second journey hearing so much fear and And that whole idea of waiting for the other shoe to drop just in my intended mom's voice.
Speaker: And then having this
Speaker: attitude, I would say, in my mind of just, it's okay. I've got this. You don't have to worry about that.
Speaker: But to no longer have that role, it just made me question, where do you you still fit? What do you still have to offer?
Speaker: And that's such a brutal and uncomfortable place to sit. Because for me, there still really isn't a clear answer.
Speaker: There isn't a moment where someone hands you a new identity and says, this is who you are now. It's so much quieter than that. It's slower. And I found that it looks like showing up differently.
Speaker: Having the honor of still being in this work, still believing in this path for families, even when your own story didn't unfold the way that you expected.
Speaker: It looks like learning that your value was never just in the outcome. It was in the way you showed up, the way you cared, the way you carried people through really important moments in their lives. And that doesn't disappear, even if the role changed, even if the outcome that you were expecting didn't happen.
Speaker: And I think this is also something we don't talk about enough because in this work, it is so easy to celebrate a lot of really beautiful moments.
Speaker: The positive tests, the growing bellies, the delivery, the we did it moments, and those deserve to be celebrated. It is a joy and such a privilege to be a part of those.
Speaker: But what isn't as easily shared is what a privilege it is to walk through the hard parts too. Those failed transfers, the unexpected medical complications, the insurance red tape that makes everything more stressful than it needs to be, the moments where things don't go according to plan or don't go forward at all.
Speaker: These moments are just as real. They're just quieter, less visible, but they matter just as much. We say all the time that this is not a journey that you should go through alone.
Speaker: And a lot of times that conversation centers around intended parents navigating infertility or the ups and downs of the process. But what I've come to understand is that support matters just as much when things don't work.
Speaker: When a transfer fails, when a journey is paused, when something you were ready for suddenly ends before you expected it to. Because those moments can feel incredibly isolating.
Speaker: And they're just harder to talk about, especially as a surrogate. Because you might not have the same language for your grief or the same space to process it openly.
Speaker: And yet it is still so real and deserves to be held. And for me, I think that's where hope started to come back for me.
Speaker: Not as certainty, but as willingness. A willingness to still be part of this space. a willingness to still believe that families can be built this way.
Speaker: A willingness to stay open, even when my surrogate chapter has closed. Because this calling to help create families, it doesn't just disappear because a journey didn't go the way you hoped.
Speaker: I've seen surrogates years later still sharing their stories, still showing up, and still impacting people they may never even meet.
Speaker: And because of that, someone else feels less alone. Someone else feels called to step into this role. They find courage to say yes.
Speaker: And that ripple effect is so real. We talk about it all the time. I have seen how going through something hard in this space gives you a different kind of empathy.
Speaker: The ability to sit with someone else in their disappointment without trying to fix it, to support someone navigating loss because you understand what that actually feels like and that matters. That's part of the story too.
Speaker: So no, this kind of ending doesn't mean your story is over. It just means it might be changing. and sometimes the impact you have going forward looks different than the one you originally imagined, but that doesn't make it less meaningful.
Speaker: So I just want to say that if you are in a place where something didn't go the way you hoped, where a chapter closed sooner than you were ready for, i just want you to know this isn't the end of your story.
Speaker: The way you showed up still matters. The hope you carried still mattered. And whatever this next chapter looks like, there is still space for you here.
Speaker: And if this is a part of your journey you're walking through right now, you don't have to hold it on your own. Whether that's leaning on someone you trust or connecting with a team who understands what this process really looks like, there is support for you in this and people who truly understand how to walk it with you.
Speaker: If this episode resonated with you in any way, I just want to remind you that this journey, no matter what it looks like, it doesn't always follow a straight line. There are moments that feel clear and certain and others that are harder to name, harder to hold, and both are part of the story.
Speaker: At Egg Donor & Surrogate Solutions, we believe that support shouldn't just exist for the milestones, but for the moments in between too, the ones that don't always get talked about.
Speaker: So whether you're navigating a shift in your journey or just trying to make sense of what this experience means for you, don't have to do that alone. Lean on your support system. Reach out to your coordinator.
Speaker: Talk to someone you trust. And if you need deeper support, there is real strength in finding a mental health professional who understands the emotional weight of this journey.
Speaker: You deserve support in every part of this process.
