About
Hi, I'm Jade! I am a surrogate. I created this website to help others learn more about surrogacy. I hope that this website can be useful to current or potential surrogates and intended parents alike, as well as anyone who would just like to know more about this utterly complex subject.
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I began my surrogacy journey in 2014. I had thought about being a surrogate or an egg donor before that time, but I hadn't given it much thought. In the summer of 2014, my husband brought up a posting he had seen searching for egg donors. It got my interest, and I started doing research and looking into agencies as well as ways to match independently. At the end of July, I went into my OB's office and got my Nexplanon implant removed, and started on the pill. I applied with an agency and was put into their donor database, but I wanted to be pursing things actively, so I also looked for an independent match online. As I was browsing some websites
Me at Transfer
with classified ads, I noticed that there weren't many people looking for egg donors, but many more looking for surrogates. Every classified ad contained another story from an intended parent that tugged at my heart strings. I talked to my husband about possibly becoming a surrogate, instead of an egg donor. At first, he thought I was crazy. But, he has a big heart too, and I think we both knew that he would "get it" eventually - he would feel that same tug at the heart strings that I did when it came to actual, real-life people, rather than some hypothetical situation. (This turned out to be exactly the case, by the way.) After a few conversations, he said that he was fine with me pursing the surrogacy thing and seeing what came of it.
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I was conceived in an "unconventional" manner. My parents are lesbians, so they had to find a sperm donor to conceive me and I was conceived via at-home insemination. I gave birth to my own son in May 2013. I was not one of those girls who dreamed of being a mother all of her life. When I was a child, I envisioned having a child (one daughter, named Isabella). As a teenager, I was sure that I did not want to have kids. After getting together with my now-husband, who told me when we started dating that he wanted kids, I slowly started warming up to the idea of kids again. We weren't trying to get pregnant, and I didn't feel very maternal throughout the pregnancy. I had a certain attachment and protective feelings for my son, definitely, but I didn't feel the strong connection or sense of motherhood that some people describe. However, soon after my son was born, the reality that he was my baby and I was his mother finally appeared and my love for and bond with him was so strong. This combination of becoming a parent and discovering this immense love for my child, and coming from an "alternative" family (and thinking that that was pretty darn cool), gave me a burning desire to be a part of helping someone else create a family of their own. I would put my son to sleep and then just stare at him in his crib, thinking about how much I love him and how much I wanted to help someone else get that feeling.
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In August 2014, I matched independently through a site called findsurrogatemother.com. In November, my husband and I flew to my IPs' clinic in the Czech Republic for transfer. We had a positive beta and saw baby with a heartbeat on an ultrasound, but at a follow up ultrasound the day after Christmas, baby was gone. Our beta numbers never doubled well, and I was bleeding most of the pregnancy. We don't know what caused the miscarriage, though. Things ended up not working out with those IPs, and in January 2015 I signed up with an agency. In April 2015, I matched with my IFs. In February 2016, we finally had our first transfer, and it was a BFN. In April, we had our second transfer and that one stuck! One healthy baby boy, due January 15, 2017.
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I have to give a lot of credit to the lovely people over at the All About Surrogacy forum on BabyCenter. I couldn't have made it this far without their knowledge and support. They also encouraged me to start this website to help others. I'd like to give a special shout out to sprightlydance for inspiring me by suggesting that I do something to help educate others about surrogacy. Go check out the forum at: http://community.babycenter.com/groups/a136645/all_things_surrogacy.
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Please note that I am in the United States. Therefore, the information in this website given is mostly relevant to surrogates in the US and IPs working with surrogates in the US. Dollar amounts listed on website are USD.
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