jokes that become reality

Nothing like announcing you’re moving forward with surrogacy and then leave folks hanging for six months…but taking an opportunity while we wait (and wait and wait) to tell the story of how we found our gestational carrier (GC).

For now, her identity will be kept secret and all names in our blogs will not be revealed so for ease of reading, we will call her Samantha.

About a week or so after deciding on surrogacy, Samantha and I went to lunch with Bethany, which happened to be the first time they met. Bethany and I have talked about my infertility journey before so she was familiar with my story (she was 35+ at the time and not married but had considered freezing her eggs so we talked through that process). I feel like when people first meet, it’s an easy question to ask if you’re married or have kids so, of course, it was brought up as they got to know each other.

When talking about Samantha’s family and pregnancies, Bethany blurted out “would you ever consider carrying for Christa?” I wish you could’ve seen my face. I was shocked and honestly mortified because this was mentioned without my prior knowledge. But to my surprise, Samantha (jokingly?) laughed and said, “if she needed me to, I would!” Excuse me, what?

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Was this a God wink? We just decided on surrogacy and somebody jokingly offered without me even mentioning it? This has to be God, right?

After researching surrogacy and talking with my fertility doctor about it, I knew that it takes 8-10 months on average to even find a GC (and then possibly another 10-12 months to be cleared for transfer). We had already been in this infertility journey for 5 years so I didn’t want to waste any more time contemplating anything. A few weeks after that conversation with Samantha and Bethany (and not a day went by without me thinking about it), I decided to bring it up again.

We had been shopping and I was driving her back home. I swear my palms were sweaty (knees weak, arms are heavy) and I could’ve passed out from anxiety. I don’t even know why I was so anxious. I assumed she was joking but I didn’t know for sure. The only way to find out was to ask. So I did.

I put my car in park (talk about waiting until the very last minute to ask an important question) and just asked, “hey, do you remember when you jokingly said you’d carry my baby for me if we needed you to? well, we need someone to because my body just can’t do it.” Her response gave me chills. “I wasn’t joking when I said that. I’ve thought about doing this before I even knew who you were.” Oh hey God, how’s it going?

Obviously, she needed to talk with her husband and family before committing. It is very important with surrogacy that you have a great support system. I was leaving for vacation shortly after that conversation but told her to talk through it with her fam and let me know her thoughts after I got back. A week(ish) later, I returned from Florida and she was basically busting at the seams to let me know that she was all in. I cried when she told me. I cried on my way home. I cried when I told Jason. I even cried when I told Mila (my dog for those who don’t know, lol). The fact that she came to me and I didn’t even have to ask, confirmed that she really did want to do this for us and was invested. I couldn’t have been more excited at that moment.

I’ve received a lot of gifts from friends over the years. But this. This is the most selfless gift someone could ever give us and it is my favorite.

What I thought was a jokingly response of “yes” due to being thrown in an uncomfortable situation with an unexpected question, turned into our reality.

We had a surrogate.