What is a Surrogacy Mother? My Messy, Beautiful, Crazy Experience
Just a real mom sharing what actually happened
Hey there. So I’m sitting here at 11 PM, finally got both kids down for the night, and I keep thinking about how many messages I get from moms asking about our surrogacy experience. Like, every week someone finds my Instagram or Facebook and wants to know the real deal about what happened when we had Maddie through surrogacy back in 2020.
And honestly? I get it. When we were going through infertility hell and our doctor first mentioned surrogacy, I went straight to Google. But all I found were these super clinical articles that made my head spin, or these perfect blog posts that made it sound like some fairy tale journey.
Nobody was talking about the ugly crying at Target when someone asked if we were “really” Maddie’s parents. Nobody mentioned how awkward it felt to not know if I should rub my surrogate’s belly at appointments. And definitely nobody warned me about the comments from family members who thought we were “taking the easy way out.”
So here I am, three years later, with my son Jared (he’s 8 now and still obsessed with Minecraft) and my daughter Maddie (who’s currently obsessed with anything pink and sparkly), ready to spill everything. The good, the bad, the expensive, and the absolutely worth it.
What Actually IS a Surrogate? (Because I Had No Clue)
Okay, embarrassing confession time. When Dr. Martinez first said “surrogacy might be an option,” I literally asked if that meant we’d have to give our baby away. I KNOW. I know how that sounds now, but I was so overwhelmed and honestly pretty ignorant about the whole thing.
Here’s what I learned: A surrogate is a woman who carries a baby for someone else. But there are actually two totally different types, and nobody explained this to me clearly until like our third consultation.
Traditional surrogacy – This is where the surrogate’s egg gets used. So she’s actually the biological mom but plans to give the baby to you. This gets super messy legally and emotionally, which is why most people don’t do it anymore. Our lawyer actually told us to avoid it completely.
Gestational surrogacy – This is what we did. They take YOUR egg and your partner’s sperm, make embryos in the lab, and then put one in the surrogate. She’s like… I don’t know, the world’s most incredible babysitter, except instead of watching your kid, she’s growing your kid for nine months. Zero genetic connection to the baby.
When someone explained gestational surrogacy like that, it finally clicked. The baby would be 100% ours genetically. Sarah (our surrogate) would just be the amazing woman giving us the gift of carrying our child when my body couldn’t.
Why We Even Ended Up Here (The Short, Sad Version)
Look, I’m not going to trauma dump on you, but here’s the basic story. After Jared, we figured baby #2 would be easy. We were young, healthy, had gotten pregnant with Jared on the first try. What could go wrong?
Everything. Literally everything went wrong.
Three miscarriages. Two D&Cs. One really scary ectopic pregnancy that landed me in the ER at 2 AM. Then my doctor telling me that my uterus was basically done cooperating and that another pregnancy could actually kill me. Like, not exaggerating for drama – actually kill me.
Jared spent two years asking when his baby brother or sister was coming, and every time he asked, I wanted to lock myself in the bathroom and cry. Which I did. A lot.
We tried IVF twice with my own body. Failed both times. Spent probably $30,000 on treatments that didn’t work. I was mentally and physically exhausted, my marriage was stressed, and I was starting to accept that maybe Jared would be an only child.
Then Dr. Martinez mentioned surrogacy again, and this time, instead of panicking, I actually listened.
The Real Process (AKA: Prepare for Your Life to Be Chaos)
Finding an Agency (Harder Than Finding a Good Preschool)
First, we had to find a surrogacy agency. And wow, there are some sketchy ones out there. We met with five different agencies, and honestly, two of them gave us major red flags. One wanted $50,000 upfront before we even met a surrogate. Another one showed us profiles of women who seemed way too young or desperate.
We finally went with an agency called Family Connections (not their real name). They’d been around for 15 years, had great reviews, and their coordinator didn’t try to pressure us into anything. Plus, they actually explained the process step by step instead of just throwing legal jargon at us.
Getting Poked, Prodded, and Psychoanalyzed
Before they’d let us even LOOK at surrogate profiles, everyone had to get checked out. And I mean everyone. Blood work, genetic testing, psychological evaluations, medical history going back to when I was born. It felt like applying to NASA or something.
The psych eval was actually kind of helpful, even though it was weird. The therapist asked questions like “How will you handle not being the one who’s pregnant?” and “What if your surrogate makes different choices than you would?” Stuff I hadn’t even thought about but probably should have.
My husband breezed through everything, of course. Men have it so easy in this process, I swear.
Meeting Sarah (Our Person)
The agency showed us maybe eight profiles of potential surrogates. Some were too far away. Some wanted more involvement than we were comfortable with. Some just didn’t feel right – you know that gut feeling?
Then we saw Sarah’s profile. She was 32, had two kids of her own, had been a surrogate once before, and lived about an hour away. But what really got me was this line in her profile: “I became a surrogate because I love being pregnant and I want to help families who can’t experience that joy themselves.”
We met her at a Panera (so romantic, right?), and within ten minutes, I knew she was our person. She was funny, down-to-earth, and asked great questions about what we wanted. Plus, Jared immediately liked her, which was huge for me.
The weirdest part was negotiating stuff like whether she could drink coffee (one cup a day was fine) and whether we wanted to be in the delivery room (hell yes). But Sarah made everything feel normal and not scary.
Lawyers, Contracts, and My First Panic Attack
Oh my God, the legal stuff. I had no idea how complicated this would be.
We had to hire our own lawyer who specialized in surrogacy law. Sarah had to hire her own lawyer (we paid for it). Then both lawyers had to negotiate this massive contract that covered literally everything you could think of.
What if Sarah needed bed rest? What if there were complications? What if she wanted to eat sushi? (True story – that was actually in our contract.) Who decides about medical procedures? What if we wanted to travel during the pregnancy?
Reading that contract was when I had my first full-blown panic attack. Like, hyperventilating in my car outside the lawyer’s office because suddenly this all felt so real and overwhelming.
My husband found me crying and was like, “We don’t have to do this,” but honestly? We’d come too far to back out. And Sarah was so reassuring about everything. She kept saying, “This is just paperwork. We’re going to figure this out together.”
Making Embryos (The Science Part)
This part was actually kind of cool, even though it involved way more needles than I ever wanted to see again.
I had to do hormone injections for like three weeks to make my ovaries produce a bunch of eggs. The shots weren’t that bad – my husband got pretty good at giving them – but the bloating was insane. I looked like I was four months pregnant just from the hormones.
The egg retrieval was done under anesthesia, so I don’t remember it. They got 18 eggs, which the doctor said was great. Then my husband did his part (lucky bastard – his whole contribution took ten minutes), and we waited to see how many embryos we’d get.
Out of 18 eggs, we got 6 good embryos. The embryologist said that was excellent for my age. We decided to transfer one and freeze the rest, just in case.
Transfer Day (AKA: The Most Anticlimactic Big Day Ever)
The actual embryo transfer was so… normal. Like, we’d built it up in our heads to be this huge, dramatic moment, but it took maybe 15 minutes. Sarah lay on a table, the doctor used a tiny catheter to place the embryo, and that was it.
We all stared at the ultrasound screen like something magical was going to happen, but you can’t see anything that small. The doctor was like, “Okay, embryo’s in! See you in two weeks for a pregnancy test.”
That was it? Two years of trying, six months of surrogacy planning, and the actual moment was over in fifteen minutes?
Sarah had to lie flat for 30 minutes afterward, and we all just sat there making awkward small talk. I brought her a milkshake because I’d read somewhere that was good luck. (It’s not. I totally made that up. But she appreciated it anyway.)
The Two Week Wait (AKA: Torture)
Those two weeks were the longest of my entire life. Sarah was amazing – she texted me every day with updates about how she was feeling, what she ate, whether she had any symptoms.
I, meanwhile, was losing my mind. I googled every possible early pregnancy symptom. I analyzed every text she sent me. I drove my husband crazy asking “Do you think it worked?” approximately 47 times a day.
The night before the pregnancy test, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about what we’d do if it was negative. Would we try again? Could we afford to try again? Could I emotionally handle another failure?
The Call That Changed Everything
Sarah called me at 2:15 PM on a Tuesday. I was at Target with Jared, buying him new shoes, when my phone rang.
“Hey girl,” she said, and I could hear something different in her voice. “So… I’m pregnant!”
I literally dropped the shoebox I was holding and started crying right there in the kids’ shoe section. Jared was like, “Mommy, why are you crying?” and I was like, “Happy tears, baby! You’re going to be a big brother!”
He started jumping around and telling everyone in Target that his baby sister was growing in Sarah’s belly. The teenage cashier looked so confused.
Nine Months of Weird
Being pregnant through someone else is the weirdest experience ever. Like, I was so grateful and excited, but also felt totally disconnected from the whole thing.
Sarah was amazing about including us. She sent bump photos every week. We went to every appointment together. She let me feel the baby kick. When we found out it was a girl, we all cried happy tears in the ultrasound room.
But there were also hard moments. Like when Sarah would complain about morning sickness, and I felt jealous because I WANTED to have morning sickness. When people asked if it was “really” our baby. When my mom made a comment about how “easy” we had it.
The worst was around month 7 when I had this total breakdown about not being the one carrying my daughter. Sarah found me crying in the parking lot after an appointment and gave me this huge hug and said, “She’s yours. She’s always been yours. I’m just babysitting her until she’s ready to come home.”
That’s when I knew we’d chosen the right person.
Birth Day (The Most Beautiful Chaos)
Maddie decided to come three weeks early, which sent everyone into panic mode. Sarah texted me at 5 AM saying she thought she was in labor, and I literally threw on yesterday’s clothes and drove to the hospital in my pajama pants.
Labor took 14 hours. FOURTEEN. HOURS. Sarah was a total warrior, but by hour 10, we were all exhausted. My husband kept running out to get coffee and snacks. I held Sarah’s hand and tried to be supportive while also being terrified that something would go wrong.
When Maddie finally arrived at 9:47 PM, the doctor immediately handed her to me. Not to Sarah – to me. Because everyone in that room knew exactly who her mom was.
She was perfect. Seven pounds, two ounces of absolute perfection. Sarah looked at her and said, “She has your nose!” and then we were all crying again.
The next two days in the hospital were surreal. Sarah recovered in one room while I stayed in another room with Maddie. It felt like we were all part of this weird, beautiful extended family.
The Money Talk (Because Someone Has To)
Okay, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Surrogacy is expensive as hell.
Our total costs ended up being around $160,000. I know. I KNOW. That’s like… a house down payment. Or four years of college tuition.
Here’s the breakdown:
- Agency fees: $35,000
- Sarah’s compensation: $45,000
- Medical expenses: $40,000
- Legal fees: $12,000
- Insurance stuff: $18,000
- Random expenses (travel, meals, gifts): $10,000
We took out a loan for most of it. Used our savings for some. My parents helped with about $20,000. We basically went into debt to have our daughter, but honestly? Worth every penny.
Some people have insurance that covers surrogacy expenses, but ours didn’t. Some employers have fertility benefits that help. We had neither, so we just figured it out.
The Emotional Rollercoaster (And It’s a Big One)
I’m not going to lie to you – surrogacy messes with your head in ways you don’t expect.
The Good:
- Finally having a path to another baby
- Sarah becoming part of our family
- Watching Jared get so excited about being a big brother
- Feeling like we were part of something really special and meaningful
The Really Hard:
- Feeling like I was somehow “less” of a mom because I didn’t carry her
- Dealing with people’s ignorant questions and comments
- The constant worry about things being out of my control
- Guilt about “putting Sarah through” pregnancy and labor
- Fear that something would go wrong legally or medically
The hardest comment came from my own sister, who said, “Well, at least you got the easy way out of pregnancy.” I hung up on her and didn’t talk to her for two months.
We did counseling throughout the process, which helped a lot. Our therapist specialized in third-party reproduction, and she helped us work through all the complicated feelings.
How Jared Handled It All
Jared was honestly the best part of this whole experience. From day one, he understood that Sarah was helping our family have a baby, and he treated her like a beloved aunt.
He drew pictures for her, asked about the baby at every appointment, and when we told him the baby was a girl, he immediately started planning how he’d teach her to play Mario Kart.
The day Maddie was born, he was the proudest big brother ever. He’s been protective and loving ever since. Sometimes I catch him telling her, “Sarah helped Mommy and Daddy bring you home,” and my heart just explodes.
Now he asks when we can visit Sarah, and they have this special bond that’s really beautiful to watch.
Three Years Later: Where We Are Now
Maddie is three now and is this hilarious, sassy, smart little girl who keeps us all on our toes. She knows who Sarah is – we have pictures of them together from the hospital, and we talk about Sarah regularly.
Sarah is still part of our lives. She sends birthday cards, we get together for holidays sometimes, and she’s genuinely become family. Not in a weird way – just in a “you gave us the most incredible gift and we love you” way.
Would I do surrogacy again? In a heartbeat. Was it hard? Hell yes. But looking at my family now – Jared teaching Maddie to ride her bike, my husband reading them bedtime stories, all of us piled on the couch watching Disney movies – every single hard moment was worth it.
Random Stuff I Wish Someone Had Told Me
People are going to say dumb things. Prepare yourself. “Is she really yours?” “How much did you pay her?” “Why didn’t you just adopt?” Have some responses ready or perfect your death stare.
Your surrogate becomes family. At least, ours did. Don’t go into it expecting just a business relationship. These women are doing something incredible for you.
It’s okay to feel weird about it sometimes. I felt guilty, jealous, grateful, excited, and terrified, sometimes all in the same day. That’s normal.
Budget for more than you think. There are always unexpected costs. Plan for at least 20% more than the initial estimate.
Find professionals who specialize in surrogacy. Don’t use your regular OB or a general family lawyer. You need people who know this stuff inside and out.
Trust your gut. If something feels off with an agency or potential surrogate, listen to that feeling.
Questions People Always Ask (And My Honest Answers)
“How did you find your surrogate?”
Through an agency. We looked at profiles, met several women, and just clicked with Sarah.
“What if she changed her mind?”
Legally, she couldn’t have kept Maddie. Gestational surrogates have no parental rights. But also, we knew Sarah well enough to know she wouldn’t want to.
“Did your insurance cover anything?”
Nope. We paid for everything out of pocket and loans.
“Would you do it again?”
Our family feels complete now, but if we wanted another baby, absolutely.
“How do you explain it to Maddie?”
We just tell her the truth in age-appropriate ways. Sarah helped Mommy and Daddy bring her into the world because Mommy’s body couldn’t grow babies anymore.
If You’re Considering This Path
Look, I’m not going to tell you surrogacy is right for everyone, because it’s not. It’s expensive, complicated, emotionally challenging, and not covered by most insurance.
But if you’re dealing with infertility and traditional pregnancy isn’t an option, it might be worth exploring. Do your research, ask lots of questions, prepare financially, and find professionals you trust.
Most importantly, know that however you build your family – whether through natural conception, IVF, surrogacy, adoption, or any other path – you’re not less of a parent. Your kids are yours, period.
Maddie may have grown in Sarah’s belly, but she was conceived from my egg and my husband’s sperm, and she was always meant to be ours. She’s ours in every way that matters, and anyone who suggests otherwise can fight me.
The Bottom Line
Surrogacy gave us our daughter and completed our family in the most beautiful, complicated, expensive, worth-it way possible. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t cheap, and it wasn’t always fun. But it worked.
If you’re going through fertility struggles, know that you’re not alone. If you’re considering surrogacy, feel free to reach out. I’m always happy to answer questions or just listen to someone who gets how hard this all is.
And to anyone reading this who’s helped build families through surrogacy – thank you. You’re amazing humans doing incredible things for families like mine.
Now excuse me while I go break up a fight between Jared and Maddie over who gets to use the iPad. Some things never change, no matter how your kids got here.
P.S. – I’ve linked to some books and resources that helped us through our journey. If you buy through these links, I might make a small commission, but I only recommend stuff we actually used and found helpful. No BS, just real recommendations from one parent to another.
