Dear Potential Surrogate,

We want to thank you for taking the time to read our profile and letter. Your desire to help a family—giving parents their first baby or their second or even third, giving children a sibling to have for a lifetime, giving grandparents a grandchild, and/or cousins another playmate and friend, is truly remarkable.

My name is M and I live in Milton Georgia with my husband T, our two daughters Mia (newly 8), Davis (5), and our newest addition George, our long haired guinea pig.   I grew up in Canton Ohio and have two siblings.  While attending Miami of Ohio I majored in Early Childhood Education. This was the catalyst for my move to Georgia after graduating.  Coming up to this huge crossroads in my life, I knew I needed take advantage of it and despite being scared, I felt I should explore and move to a new city or state. A dear friend who was also graduating from school at the same time, loved this idea too, and with the blessing and encouragement of our supportive parents, we moved to Georgia after being hired to teach 1^st grade at the same school…with adjoining classrooms!

T is a native Georgian and grew up in Roswell as the oldest of three children.  His parents, brother, and sister all still live locally as well, which has been wonderful for our daughters.  He spent the majority of his time as a child and teen outdoors.  He went fishing just about every day, hunted, played sports, rode four-wheelers, and spent every summer weekend boating at Lake Lanier.  It’s been really fun to see his love for the outdoors carry over to our girls as they now get to experience fishing, boating, and all of these things!  T went to West Georgia for undergrad and Kennesaw State for graduate school.

We met on a blind date in May of 2011.  Not knowing the restaurant where we planned to meet, I got turned around with my GPS and ended up being 45 minutes late.  Even though I immediately let T know I was going to be late, he loves to tell everyone how he thought he had been stood up for those 45 minutes.  As he anxiously twirled flower stems in his fingers at the table and laughed with the server, I arrived, and I think he and the server were both shocked!  We had a wonderful time and went to an adjoining restaurant for dinner and then to listen to some music at the end of the evening at another venue.  It was the surprise of a lifetime when T proposed to me in August just after a whirlwind 3-month courtship.  What was even more surprising was that he flew to Ohio to meet my parents for the first time while simultaneously asking for my dad’s permission to propose.  This trip was masked as a work trip and while I knew T intended on meeting my parents for dinner, this was not so unusual for him. T is a very confident and outgoing person, so the fact that he was going to be doing business near Canton and offered to spend an evening inviting my parents to dinner while he was in town seemed like something he would just do. That meeting and dinner went very well and the following May we got married at Serenbe, in Palmetto Georgia.

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We love our community, our elementary school, our amazing neighbors and friends and the fact that our girls are close to grandparents.  The girls are both involved in ballet and tennis after school.  They are both Girl Scouts, this being Davis’ first year.  The girls love collecting nature treasures outside, catching butterflies in nets, catching sunbathing unsuspecting lizards, picking flowers, playing with their fairy gardens, riding bikes, doing art activities, reading and more.  Their summer time away from school is filled with swimming, going boating at Lake Lanier with grandparents, swimming and playing in the lake, playing tennis with friends, usually 1 or 2 camps, and just enjoying the slow days of summer the best we are able.  T has a very demanding work schedule— the time the girls get to spend with him during the work/school week is very limited, so weekends are extra special.  T started the tradition of Daddy Daughter breakfast on Saturday when our first daughter Mia, was young.  The tradition has continued through the years and now both girls are so excited for this at the end of each week. They choose a favorite spot from a list of their go-to’s.  After breakfast, they do a fun activity of some sort whether that’s the park, going fishing, doing the children’s building activity at Home Depot or something else.  They are usually home for lunch and then our weekend continues as we decompress from a busy jam-packed week.

While from the outside it may seem as though our family is complete with a now 8 year old and a 5 year old in Kindergarten, there is a nagging sensation in my heart that will not go away. I see our beautiful family and often feel like someone is missing, if that makes sense. Both girls were conceived via IVF and with that, we have a handful of remaining very healthy embryos.  I never felt as though we were finished building our family after we had Davis 5 years ago, however, after two deliveries made very dangerous by placenta accreta, we were strongly advised to not have any more children because the risk of not making it through the third delivery was that great.  Shockingly enough, I got pregnant spontaneously which we did not think could ever happen.  This of course was so exciting and surprising but equally scary.  Sadly, we had a miscarriage.  We explored surrogacy late 2019 but got cold feet because the process seemed so daunting, so overwhelming, and so emotionally tough.  It was and continues to be this big looming unknown and for that reason, we’ve started and stopped the process many times.  Years pass and the regret continues.  It would be one of my life’s greatest joys to see my two little girls welcome another baby into the family.  I want so badly to see them as big sisters, especially our youngest, Davis, who has a special affinity towards babies.  One of the scariest aspects at this time, is our age.  We are both over 40 and that worries me because I feel like a clock is ticking and our window is closing.  Despite these fears, I am often able to shift my mindset and dwell and dream about all of the positives another child would bring to our family and those so easily outweigh any of my other worries.  I want to invest in our family so our girls have a third sibling to grow up with and love.  In recent months, I stumbled across a quote about siblings by Jeffrey Kluger.  After I read it, my desire to give the girls another sibling, only intensified.  “Your parents leave you too soon and spouse comes along too late, but your siblings know you when you are in your most inchoate form.”   I do truly truly feel that another sibling would be the greatest gift we could ever give our family, but getting there has not be easy at all.  It is for this reason, that I cannot ignore this constant pull to restart and continue this process before it really is just too late to make sense.  Right now, I feel like we are reaching some sort of imaginary finish line and I do not want to regret being scared of this process any longer.  I do hope and pray someone is able to help us finish completing our family.

With Love,

M+T