A journey to parenthood

When Matt and I married in 2007, we were young, hopeful, and open to the idea of starting our family whenever life was ready for us. For the first year, we traveled, worked, spent time with family, but beneath the ordinary things of life, the desire to become parents began to strengthen.

Almost a year later, that dream finally seemed within reach. I was pregnant! We announced it to our families on Mother’s Day, passing around a positive pregnancy test with nervous hands and lots of smiles. My mother and I bought a tiny yellow duck-themed onesie the next day, and we nicknamed the baby “Ziggy,” a nod to the scientific term zygote, the very first stage of human development after an egg is fertilized.

Two days later, that dream slipped away. The miscarriage was physically brutal and emotionally crushing. I had no answers, just grief.

A year passed. Then many more.

We dove headfirst into fertility treatments: IUIs, medications, endless appointments. Each cycle carried hope. Each attempt ended in loss or complete failure.

Eventually we sought out one of Atlanta’s top IVF doctors. His confidence in our chances was comforting. That is until five more years passed without a baby to show for it. We had endured several losses and nine embryo transfers. We were exhausted.

We sought out specialists in immune disorders, clotting issues, and rare infertility causes. Prednisone, antibiotics, blood thinners, and a three month medical storm that ended in nothing but heartbreak.

One doctor finally said the words no one ever prepares to hear: Continuing to transfer embryos into me would be “like flushing them down the toilet.”

Our doctor recommended surrogacy.

At the same time, desperate to become parents in any way possible, we also began pursuing adoption.

Our first adoption attempt internationally collapsed after months of waiting when the program suddenly closed to Americans.

Our second opportunity was deeply personal: the sister of a good friend. We attended appointments with her, cautiously hopeful, undecided on the outcome, but still committed to having a family.

At 22 weeks, she lost the baby.

It was a boy.

That was the end of our adoption journey.

By 2013, surrogacy felt both terrifying and hopeful. There were few social media pages for surrogacy back then, and only one small independent website where Intended Parents like me could post profiles.

Before that, though, I interviewed eleven surrogacy agencies.

Some were attorney owned. Some were founded by former surrogates. Some were huge, and some were small. But none that I found seemed to understand my perspective of grief, the financial weight, the emotional risk, and the vulnerability of losing all control for a stranger to carry your child.

I remember thinking: “If I ever open an agency, it will be for families like ours, where intended parents feel seen, heard, and supported.”

One summer morning, I decided to take a leap and post our profile online. By 3 PM that same afternoon, I received a message from a young mother named Rebecca.

She told me that she had been looking for a family, and the moment she read our story, she knew.

I wanted to believe her, but after so many failed conversations, I was cautious.

A month later we drove one state over to attend her son’s first birthday party. We met her friends, her parents, her children, and honestly it felt like we had known them for years. Even her father, hesitant to see his young daughter face so much risk, embraced us by the end of the day, wishing us luck.

There was a steep learning curve doing our surrogacy independently. We made mistakes. We took risks we didn’t know were risks. But eventually, in December 2013, we arrived at our IVF clinic transferring two three day embryos given only a 10% chance each of success.

After five years of IVF, four losses, nine failed transfers, even with a surrogate, we were scared to hope.

But unbelievably, it worked.

We were pregnant, with twins.

Rebecca included us in everything. Every ultrasound. Every update. Every flutter, kick, and hiccup. Then one day, while I was on a business trip, the phone rang.

Rebecca was in labor.

I rushed to her and within twenty minutes of arriving, we held our breath through a high risk emergency C-section. Finally, we met our daughter and son, our long awaited miracle babies.

Thanks to one amazing woman who has become a friend for life.

While waiting for our twins to arrive, a small idea kept nudging me, the same idea born during those eleven agency interviews. A surrogacy agency built from the perspective of intended parents.

A place where compassion, transparency, advocacy, and support would be intentional and honest.

With a background in entrepreneurship, I began researching, planning, and building what would become Family Makers Surrogacy. We opened our doors in January of 2016, starting in the Atlanta area and eventually expanding far beyond.

The following spring, I walked into my doctor’s office believing I was having yet another loss.

My cycles had always been irregular, and I didn’t even know how far along I might be. I braced myself for bad news.

But instead, my doctor smiled.

There on the screen was a healthy 8 week baby with a heartbeat. A baby who would join our family in 2017.

It was the pregnancy I never thought I’d get to have.

As Family Makers thrived, so did our home. Three children under three, chaos, magic, exhaustion, and best of all, joy. And still, our remaining embryos sat quietly in the back of my mind.

After complications including an emergency c-section, ectopic pregnancy and severe adenomyosis, I was told having a natural pregnancy again would be nearly impossible, and even dangerous.

Then in the winter of 2018, while celebrating my birthday, my close friend Ashley offered to be our surrogate. We had two little embryos left. Within days, we said yes.

The day of our embryo transfer, the first little embryo didn’t survive the thawing process. We were elated that the second one, our last possible shot, did survive and implanted.

Our journey together was seamless, supportive, and anchored in knowledge about the surrogacy process and in our friendship. Ashley kept the baby’s gender a surprise to us, one last gift of wonder in a process that usually leaves little room for the unexpected.

Nine months later, Ashley delivered our last healthy baby boy via unmedicated birth. She gifted us a beautiful, handmade blanket of blue and gray. Since then, we have shared our lives together, vacations together and watched our children become friends.

As our agency celebrates 10 years this year, I look back on every twist, heartbreak, miracle, and moment of my journey to get here. I understand Intended Parents deeply because I’ve stood exactly where they stand.

My mission is simple: To give every parent the advocacy, compassion, and trusted guidance I once needed.

Family Makers is not just my business. It is my calling.