In 2014, my husband and I faced our first loss. While our little one was not planned, we were already incredibly excited. Unfortunately it ended at 8 weeks with no heartbeat detected.
In 2016, we were finally blessed with our rainbow baby. A boy. So much joy because of one little person.
We talked about expanding our family in 2019, knowing we had a road ahead of us because it took us a while to conceive our son. Sadly between both his parents passing in 2019, myself going through traumatic events that lead to a ptsd diagnosis and having to take extended leave from my job, and then the pandemic in 2020, we had to put our dream of another little one on hold.
Towards the end of September 2020, we decided to start trying again, only to be faced with the difficult likelihood of having to go through fertility treatments. Long talks were had and tears were shed, and we decided that it just didn’t seem in the cards for us and we would instead just try to be okay with being a single child family.
In 2023, I started the process to be a gestational surrogate for another couple. I found out my own fertility issues had no impact on being able to be a surrogate, and my ptsd diagnosis was not a concern either as it was well managed with therapy and a task trained service dog. This was something I really wanted to do, having faced my own fertility struggle. I was matched with a sweet couple internationally through my agency in fall of 2023. We bonded over cooking and sharing recipes as we went through contract phase and med cycle and we had our first embryo transfer in April 2024. That sweet baby girl stuck immediately and the symptoms hit me like a train. Things seemed to be going well. Both dads were so excited and so was I. I didnt even care that I had sore muscles from injections and a queasy stomach. The love I had developed for my intended parents outshone that by far.
Then in May 2024, I went to the er due to bleeding, which isn’t uncommon in surrogate or IVF pregnancies as SCHs are common. Sure enough at the er, the ultrasound tech found a very large SCH growing in my uterus, causing the bleeding. No heartbeat from baby girl, but it was still early, so they had me continue my med course and the fertility clinic had me get checked at a local fertility clinic a few days later. What they found was heartbreaking. In addition to the large SCH the er found, a second medium SCH was found and the embryonic sac was very misshapen and formed. The monitoring clinic informed me that the likelihood of this little one making it was almost zero. The clinic I transferred at received the notes and had me continue my meds one more week and get checked once more to see if any heartbeat was detected.
The progesterone injections were already hard to go through, but I didn’t mind because I knew it was keeping her growing. With this prognosis though, the injections became almost unbearable. There were many breakdowns as my husband did my injections. It felt pointless. Sadly when I was checked a week later, prognosis didn’t change and I was told to stop my meds. I was scheduled for a d&c later that week. We took the summer to recover, as my IPs faced a devastating loss of a parent at the same time as their little one. We attempted a second transfer in October of 2024, which sadly didn’t take. After talking with my IPs we chose to end our journey together as they needed time to grieve. I was going to try to rematch with another couple, but sadly my husband was laid off of work right after thanksgiving and we had to pump the brakes on the surrogacy journey all together.
In 2025, my husband and I came to the realization that we still weren’t done with trying to have one more child. It still felt like something was missing with our family and our sweet son was yearning for a sibling. So I worked with my ob and we tried a couple rounds of letrozole. Countless blood draws to monitor but I didn’t mind. The first round of letrozole failed, and while I knew that was common, I still struggled. When it looked like the second round failed, we started talks about trying to find ways to afford IVF ourselves. When I had originally said it wasn’t something I thought I could go through in 2020, it was mainly my dislike of injections and needles, but I knew now what a good amount of the process was like thanks to surrogacy and I decided it was something I was willing to do if it meant we had one more shot. We laid in bed the night of New Year’s Day 2026 restructuring budgets and doing everything we could to try and figure out how we would afford it. Anyone who’s been there knows how disheartening it can be when you start crunching the numbers. It was looking at grants, loans, part time jobs with fertility benefits, and cutting whatever we could from excess spending.
The next morning I had to take a pregnancy test so I could stop my progesterone supplements, and start a third round of letrozole. When you spend years trying to get pregnant, you really start to dread pregnancy tests. They feel cruel in a sense. And I could hear the voice in my head going “here comes another negative”… Only to come back with the biggest surprise that it was positive. Shaking hands, utter disbelief, I sprinted upstairs with the test to show my husband and he stared at it dumbfounded. With my history of loss, we decided to tell our son immediately. He had been there through the loss of surrobaby and he understood a lot better than many adults would expect. I didn’t want to have to hide this from him in case I had a hard first trimester. So we told him and were met with a VERY excited 9 year old boy.
I am glad I told him, because he was such a big help in my first trimester when I felt just horrible.
I wasn’t prepared for the level of anxiety I had going into the first ultrasound. We had a massive snowfall the day before and roads were shut down to most people, but we went to my ultrasound anyways. I knew the tech wouldn’t be able to tell me a lot, if anything and I’d have to wait for the radiologist report, but I asked her if at all possible, please just tell me if she saw cardiac activity. She understood my trauma, having faced losses herself as well as her daughter experiencing them. After she got the imaging she’d needed, she turned the screen and showed me and my husband the little flicker on the screen. Instant sigh of relief. The first hurdle was passed. My doctor reached out later that all was looking amazing, and to keep up with my progesterone supplementation.
It’s been hard to go through this pregnancy and not worry every time I turn around, but we have continued to do great and are currently approaching the third trimester quickly. We found out this little rainbow is a girl, and it is such a beautiful and bittersweet feeling.
I may have only been a surrogate to that embaby I lost, but she was so loved by me and by her parents, and so wanted. I know this little girl has a few guardian angels looking over her. Needless to say this storm has been worth both of my beautiful rainbows.
Photo taken by Anna Marie Studios.
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