To call myself a “surrogate” seems like such a stretch for me, but I guess, in essence, that is the only one word term for what I did. I carried a beautiful baby girl for my friends, Jon and Christy.
Christy has been my friend for a few years. Yes, we met through the surrogacy community, while we were each in the midst of our own journey, but we have a great friendship that grew outside of surrogacy.
So for me to call myself their surrogate or refer to them as my IP’s, draws a line between our journey and our friendship, a line that never existed for me, still doesn’t.
There are many significant moments in surrogacy. Some are very personal so it can be pretty hard to put them into words so others can understand the full impact those moments can have on an individual.
Surrogacy is about trust. Jon and Christy put an enormous amount of trust in me and my family to care for their daughter. That showed in every aspect of our journey from seeing the look in Christy’s eyes and the expression on Jon’s face when they saw their embryos on the monitor at transfer, to one of my most impressionable moments; when they arrived in town for Miss Austin’s birth.
They had a late flight, so I sat and chatted with some of the others in the airport. I absolutely loved telling Austin’s story when strangers asked about my large belly. She has a very inspirational history. When the plane landed I got up to greet them as they came from the gate. (I’m pretty sure they were the last two people off the plane).
When they did come down, it was Christy’s actions that made this moment significant. She dropped her bags, hit her knees directly in front of me, put her hands on each side of my belly, placed her forehead against where her daughter was growing, and just held it there.
She may have said something, too, but it was the image that made such an impact on me. Here I was, watching such an intimate moment between a mother and child, that it was very surreal to realize that I was also a part of that moment.
To see all that emotion was such an incredible blessing for me. We were finally at the end. Jon and Christy were finally going to get to take home the child that they had waited so very long for.
Surrogacy is filled with ups, downs; questions, answers; strengths and weaknesses, but as a team that is in it for the same end goal, it works. Austin is proof of that. Surrogacy is a very powerful thing; its draw, its struggle, its journey, its end.
