A lot people grow up wanting to be a doctor, policeman, firefighter, CEO, etc. My wife grew up knowing she wanted to be a surrogate.

It started with a promise between her and her sister. At a young age, they agreed that if one of them couldn’t have kids, the other one would carry for the other. I don’t know what kind of sisters make that pact, but they are amazing ones.

Fast forward about 30 years. We have two wonderful little girls. Our family is set. We’re happy. We’re blessed. We’re fortunate. It wasn’t easy though.

Our first child, “Littles” wasn’t conceived the old-fashioned way; well she was, but we needed a little help. A couple of procedures, a couple of drugs, and we were good to go. After about a year in the process, we got the amazing news the wife was pregnant. Looking back, I think the difficulty of conceiving Littles cemented the wife’s decision to be a surrogate.

Littles was delivered the old-fashioned way…all natural, quick and dirty.  That was the wife’s goal and she did it. It was pretty much the most amazing and toughest thing I have ever seen…and I know I couldn’t have done it. Seven hours of labor, an hour of pushing, and “Littles” was ours. A gift from God. We love her!

The only hitch in Littles delivery was the scariest moment in my life. I’m not sure what it is called, but the placenta didn’t detach correctly and so when it came out, I saw my wife bleeding out for about 15 seconds. “All hands on deck” ensued and the wonderful doctors and midwives stopped the bleeding, but for a brief minute that felt like an hour, I was holding my little girl and praying I wouldn’t be doing this alone. I was terrified. I was later told it wasn’t a big deal and that it’s perfectly normal, and everything was fine, but still. I was shaken up pretty good. This event would not only weigh in on the decision for a second child, but for the surrogate as well.

I got over it as much as I could and we decided to have another. Our second child, “Tiny” was just the opposite, which is fitting because our kids are opposites. Littles is the cautious/mothering type. Tiny is a fireball. We call her “Hey Hey” from Moana, or “Jack Jack” from The Incredibles. That should explain it. She’s crazy and we love her.

Tiny was a piece of cake to conceive, but her delivery was not like the first. We had the same plan as the first, but it didn’t work that way. When it was “go time” the wife labored for 24 hours without any progress. It’s called prodromal labor. In short, it sucks. You basically labor, expect every time you’re checked, you’re “still at a two.”  It’s absolutely frustrating and demoralizing.  Finally, the reluctant decision was made to have an epidural. It didn’t work. The wife couldn’t move anything, but she could feel everything. Plus, the drugs made her feel like she couldn’t breathe and made her really sick. Finally, the wife puked, and said, “I felt the baby move!” She puked again and said, “I think she’s out!” I pulled back her sheets, and there was Tiny all covered in goo! There wasn’t even a doctor or midwife in the room! The nurse called the midwife who scooped up our baby girl and put her in mommy’s arms. We were thrilled! (The video is awesome).

Our kids aren’t Littles and Tiny anymore (sniff sniff). Now I call them “Pen” and “JoJo.” They’re 5 and 2 1/2. Happy birthday today, Pen!!! They’re both potty trained, sleep through the night, and sleep in big girl beds. Life is fun. We’re done having kids. When we talk about “starting over” we laugh. Diapers, sleepless nights, and feedings…we have no desire to do that again; but, the wife remembered her pact. She also wanted to deliver naturally again and she wanted to give someone else the gift of life. If you know her, you know she’s an amazing person that way.

The wife and I talked about it a little bit, and if you know my wife, when you put the wheels in motion, they rarely stop.  One day she came home and told me about an agency that deals with surrogates. “They pair you up with couples who want kids, who for whatever reason, can’t have them. I’ve always felt called to do this. What do you think?” she asked.

Wow.  So, we talked. We looked over the information.  We weighed the pros and cons. I talked about my deepest fear (my PTSD about our first birth and raising two girls on my own if anything happened). We took a questionnaire from the agency. We did some more research.  We looked at some profiles of people.  We prayed.  We went over the pros and cons again.  This was how it went for a month or so.  I finally said, “It’s your body, I’ll support you.”

Thus, the journey began. After some time, we were paired with a couple. We met. We went out to dinner. They told us their story. They seemed like good people, and they are.  It made sense. If we were going to do this, this would be the couple.

Make no mistake, this is a journey. A lot of people think of pregnancy as 9 months and you’re done. It’s not. This isn’t a movie. There were hormones and drugs involved. Two surgeries were needed to make sure her uterus was in pristine condition. Tons of tests were done. Lots of blood was drawn. Processes were started, paused, delayed, and restarted. I also had to give her shots…every day. “Okay, breathe, here it comes.” She had two large black circles drawn with a sharpie on her hips for months. That’s where the shots went. She was always black and blue inside those circles. Eventually, she learned to give the shots to herself. This went on for months. Finally, she was ready for implantation day. I’ll describe it in three words: Incredible, invasive, miraculous.

Okay, so now we wait to see if she’s knocked up.  If I recall correctly, we knew within a week.  Now it’s 10 more months.

The surrogate pregnancy was nothing like our other two.  The first pregnancy was magical.

The wife went about her daily routine. She slept when she got tired, she ate when she was hungry, she did yoga, she wasn’t really sick, and we really enjoyed it. The wife even worked until the day before giving birth.  I have never seen anyone happier pregnant. The second pregnancy, well…we have a kid. You can’t nap whenever you want. That alone makes it a little less magical. When you become a parent, you realize sleep is one of the more valuable assets you have, only you get less of it.  You have a living breathing person who needs their needs met…and now.  The wife couldn’t relax as much, but overall it was still good.  The surrogate pregnancy was much different.

The surrogate pregnancy was tough, to the point we questioned our decision.  Since it had literally none of our DNA, the body sees the pregnancy as foreign and fights it, or at least makes it more difficult. The wife was sick, she had headaches, her body ached, she couldn’t sleep well, and she snored like a train. To top it off, the placenta attached in a weird spot, and toward the end she was preeclamptic.  She was miserable.  Combine that with chasing two kids around, helping run a household, and running her own business…well…it was a lot.  At about week 28, we had hit a wall and second guessed ourselves.  Questions were asked, “Why was something so good, so hard?  Why did we do this?”  We had some regret.  Tears were shed.  Then, we found out the wife would most likely need a c-section. One of the reasons she did this was to get another crack at doing another natural birth.  Now that was gone too!  As it turns out, 50-60% of surrogate pregnancies result in c-sections because it’s just not a natural thing.  I remember us saying to each other, “If we would have known at the beginning what we know now, we probably wouldn’t have done it.”  We felt guilty.  We felt terrible.  Was it worth it?

This seems like a good time to talk about the elephant in the room.  In many conversations we’ve had with others, this question invariably came up in some form.  “Don’t surrogates make good money?”  We did receive some compensation for this, but we will not be retiring tomorrow.  Does the money we received help?  Sure.  Are we going to celebrate with some of it?  You bet!  However, this was never about money.  If anyone knows my wife, they know better.  This has to be an altruistic decision.  There’s a lot of other easier and less risky things you could do for 17 months that would make you this amount of money.  I couldn’t have even imagined doing this if the only reason was money.  Literally nothing, except for the end result of a living baby went to plan.  It was nothing that we imagined it would be, until the birth; then it all made sense.

Looking back, the whole process of the pregnancy is amazing.  A life was created in a lab, then frozen, then thawed out, then implanted into another person, and it still grew!  That’s amazing.  The incredible skill of the doctors to perform an operation to remove the baby.  Again, amazing.  I had a bird’s eye view of the entire thing.  I couldn’t resist.  I had to see it and it was incredible.  The precision, delicacy, and intelligence of these doctors was staggering.  I can’t imagine having the life of someone in my hands like that.

(What I didn’t realize is that my worst fear was closer to happening than I realized.  While I was watching the birth, I heard the doctors counting, “900, 1100, 1300, 1500.”  My wife heard it too and asked me to sit down.  I remember thinking, “Why?”  Later, she told me those numbers represented the amount of blood she was losing. 1500 milliliters.  That’s about a third of her blood.  It was the placenta again.  I am so glad I did not put that together at that time and I am so thankful for those doctors who didn’t even flinch.  I totally had no idea anything serious was going on.  I was just watching a baby being born…or so I thought.)

What I was really watching was a miracle from God.  If you want to see a modern day miracle from God, be a surrogate.  I could see it in the mother’s eyes.  I have seen the look in a new mother’s eyes, my wife and I have two amazing girls.  There’s joy, amazement, awe, and a little tired.  The look in this mother’s eyes was different.  Sure, the unbridled joy was there, but there was something else too.  I could literally see years of heartache, pain, frustration, doubt, and anxiety melt away.  I could see her little boy becoming a big brother.  I could see the relief as she looked at her husband, almost as if she couldn’t believe this day was finally here.  She had tears in her eyes, her hand was over her mouth, and in her eyes, her family became whole.  I will never forget that sight.  In that moment, every question I ever had about this process was answered, and I am so glad God put it on my wife’s heart to carry this child.

Welcome home, Baby A.  You are a 4 pound 2 ounce baby girl that came into this world on October 1st, 2018 at 10:48pm.  Live your life and tell your story because you are a miracle from God.