Dear Prospective Surrogate,

We’re J and C, married seven years and proud dads to Eand baby C born 2024. We currently live in a friendly, close-knit neighborhood in the  D.C. area. We are so excited to meet you and to start a journey and relationship with you as we continue to build the family we’ve always dreamed of.

About us as individuals:

J:

While I have some more conventional hobbies (being an avid runner, learning and experiencing other languages and cultures, playing on my old Super Nintendo from the early 90’s – yes, it still works!), I feel that my true passion is the people in my life.  The majority of my time outside of work is spent enjoying the company of family and friends.  This includes my part-time gig as a wedding officiant.  I’ve now officiated 6 weddings for friends, and while it’s a lot of work, I’m always so honored to be invited to play a part in the celebration of love of people I care so much about.

Most people would describe me as fun-loving, thoughtful, and conscientious. I would say that I am a pretty balanced individual as well. I am a true blend of extrovert and introvert. Part of me is very social, a little goofy, and thrives on building relationships… The other loves to spend time alone running or swimming, reading, learning, or just thinking. Similarly, while I’d describe myself as precise, methodical, and detail-oriented (I loved math and physics in school, and tend to be a pretty logical thinker), I also feel deeply, and connect powerfully with art in the forms of music, movies, and fiction.

For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a father.  I feel so grateful to live in an age where I can make this lifelong dream a reality along with the man that I love.

C:

I grew up in a small town in New Jersey with my parents, fraternal twin brother, and older sister. Education and having a passion for learning are big in my family, which informs some of my adult hobbies like studying foreign languages and reading long news articles on weekend mornings. Music is also big in my family, and I played the violin (fairly well) and piano (fairly poorly) through college and some as an adult and now mostly enjoy listening to all sorts of music. Outside of that I love to exercise and do so as often as I can.

Personality-wise I’d describe myself as someone who finds a lot of humor in life, loves meeting new people, and who generally tries to keep things in perspective and find the silver lining when something doesn’t go right. I am really bad at holding a grudge and am always eager to make up after a conflict. I can be sarcastic and snarky but try to keep that in check when I can. I’m definitely a “big picture” type of thinker, and I spend a lot of time observing the world around me and trying to connect the dots. That also means that sometimes I can skip over the details (and can be a bit messy) which is why J is such a great complement to me.

About our family:

Although we are both East Coast natives, we met in 2011 while living in the San Francisco area. During our first date, it took only about 5 minutes for us to realize how many uncanny coincidences there were in our lives.  We discovered that we had grown up just 2 hours apart from each other, had moved to the West Coast after college to pursue the same obscure Master’s Degree (Latin American Studies), and that our moms, dads, and older sisters all had almost the same careers as one another! We opted to decide that these coincidences were more funny than creepy, and we very quickly fell into a relationship that was fun when it needed to be, serious when it needed to be, and filled with constant laughter.  After progressively seeing each other more and more over the next two years, we made the decision to move back East together. In 2017, we got married surrounded by friends and family in J’s home town in Delaware. We were lucky to enjoy plenty of pre-COVID and pre-parenthood experiences together, including memorable trips to Iceland, Ireland, India and the UK and lots of fun times spent with loved ones.

Our family grew for the first time with the arrival of our daughter, E, in 2021. Now three years old, she is an absolute delight to her parents, teachers, and even strangers, with her sweet and unique disposition. She is a pre-K student in a Spanish-immersion school (which is great given her dads’ many combined years of Spanish study) and loves singing and arranging her stuffed animals just so. Do not try to mess with that girl’s arrangement of her stuffed monkeys! 

After E was born and everyone, including us, finally found out that we were now fathers to a girl (we love playing that surprise game), so many people said “oh, a girl with two dads – she’s going to have you wrapped around her finger!”.  At the time, we rolled our eyes.  Today, well… let’s say it remains debatable.

Then, this past spring, we became a family of four with the arrival of baby C, who so far has blessed us by being a great sleeper, eater, and all around chill and happy baby who is willing to simply watch and smile as her older sister runs the show. We are so thrilled with parenthood, even with all of the challenges it comes with, and are so eager to work alongside you to grow our family again. 

On that topic, one of the things that originally drew us together as a couple, and that has kept our relationship rock-solid since, is our shared values around family. Both of us grew up with incredible models of strong, trusting partnerships through our parents.  J is the youngest of five children, and C has a fraternal twin brother and an older sister.  Our girls now have ten first cousins and we love watching their relationships and bonds grow during visits to grandparents’ houses or at family reunions at the beach, where we spend most of the time just hanging around, catching up, watching cheesy holiday movies, and cooking for one another. 

The importance of family and our determination to continue striving to build the family we desire was made all the clearer this spring when we unexpectedly lost J’s dad, just three days before Baby C was born. A dedicated and loving father and grandfather, not to mention friend, mentor, and cheerleader, he embodied the type of spirit and values we strive to bring to our daughters’ and future children’s lives. The loss of J’s dad made the arrival of Baby C a difficult one to navigate, experiencing so much grief amidst something so joyful. A precious memory we hold tightly onto is his accompanying us – two terrified new dads – as we drove E home to DC after our first surrogacy journey. While he can’t be with us on this journey, we absolutely feel him cheering us on.

One of the best things about our journey to become parents has been the beautiful, organic friendships we’ve developed through surrogacy, which includes our successful journeys that brought us E and Baby C. In each case we have forged an organic, genuine, and joy-filled friendship with the amazing and generous woman who had agreed to join us in helping create our family. We love that surrogacy is part of our story as a couple, and part of our children’s stories, too.  We so appreciate the special opportunities it affords to meet and develop a bond with someone we may never have crossed paths with otherwise. 

We hope our path leads to you and a new journey towards growing our family together.

Love,

J, C, E, and Baby C