Lea, American Intended Parent in Spring Hill, Tennessee, USA

Explain your reasons for wanting a surrogate/donor:

My husband and I have been married nearly 15 years in April. We have tried to have children for about that long too. We have been through it all but we keep hoping with every step we will finally have our dream come true. We have done about 10 years of fertility treatments or more. Then we took a break because it was taking a financial and mental toll on us. We decided because of the fact that we BOTH have fertility issues we would use a donor and a surrogate. To make a long story short, which I will completely expand upon if we get to talk to to you in person, we have already found our donor and did a cycle which produced 6 perfect PGS tested embryos- 4 girls and 2 boys. We are so thankful for this technology that allows to know these embryos are normal and healthy given we are in our mid-40's. We also found our perfect Surrogate independently 2 years ago. The sweetest and most perfect lady to help us, so we thought. We just went through our first cycle with her with our clinic in N.C. She failed the first cycle because of fluid in her uterus. The RE canceled the cycle. We then found out that she had been through a mock cycle with an agency a year before we met her. My attorney found out somehow and demanded the medical records , and we found out the hard way she was medically disqualified to be a Surrogate (she always gets liquid in her uterus in response to the medications). This was after we had spent more than 15k on her for physical/mental examines which she passed with flying colors. And getting her insurance and legal costs. so the fact she never gave the other info the whole time we were qualifying her, was a very bad shock. We are of course now looking for a new surrogate. We don t have the budget to pay an agency fee but we have enough saved for a new surrogate who would be ready to get started immediately. We have the embryos so we are looking for a proven donor or an individual who knows they are medically fit to be a surrogate ASAP. You will not have to wait long for the opportunity to do this for us. We are ready to go as we did our part already! We are hoping to get going with it as soon as we find the right surrogate! We do not live in N.C but our clinic is there because we felt they were the right fit for us seeing they do many donor egg and surrogate cycles with great success rates. It is a short flight away. Nice people at our clinic.

How would you best describe yourself(s):

I am from the USA and my husband is from Holland. We both live in the USA now in Tennessee. It is where I was born and my huge family is here with two sisters, one brother and nephews and nieces. I love being an aunt! We are both working professionals and make a good living. We just built a new house on our family's farm. We love to farm here as a hobby and we are passionate about our home and our marriage, and our pets (those are our children right now). I find people jobs for a living and work from home, and my husband is an AVP for a real-estate company. We have been so lucky to have a happy marriage, and we know how blessed we are in many ways. I guess our favorite thing is just spending tine together with friends , family , and a lot of laughter! We love to make even the smallest moments fun. We have a passion for our chocolate Labradors and taking them for long walks and even to our trips to the beach. We have traveled a lot over the years and have seen a lot of the world. We are just ready to start our family finally!

Use this space to communicate a letter to potential Surrogates/Donors:

Dear Potential Surrogate, Hello! Please read our "reasons for wanting a Surrogate" section for more insight to why we need a Surrogate almost immediately. We are so excited to meet the person who will amazing and wonderful enough to agree to do this for us and soon. As you probably read, we have 6 perfect PGS tested embryos at our clinic on ice waiting for us to find our perfect Surrogate. Our idea of a perfect Surrogate is the following: a kind woman who truly likes to help infertile couples who have struggled for years to have children make their dream come true, somebody we can trust to be honest with us, somebody who wants to get started asap, somebody will treat our journey and the pregnancy with a high level of respect and be good at communicating with us during the process. We desire our Surrogate to be proven with medical records to back this up and/or somebody who knows they are medically fit to be a first time Surrogate. We also need a Surrogate with insurance that is surrogate friendly as the enrollment period has closed. We would prefer a Surrogate who lives in T.N. or N.C. if possible but if not, not too far from T.N. or N.C? We are open minded to different types of women everywhere but after what we have been through, honesty and trust is the most important quality. And this is something we feel goes two ways so we will also be as honest with you always. We are open to a Surrogate who wants to stay in touch afterwards, or one who does not. There is a strong possibility we may want to take this journey twice for a sibling in the future since we have 6 embryos. Or we may want twins but that is not something we have to have. If your not open to carrying twins but you have all the other qualities we want , that is fine as twins are risky to pregnancies. In the journey if you pick us to help, you will be fulfilling a lifelong dream for me and my husband. We are halfway there with our healthy embryos, will you help us get the rest of the way in our journey. Blessings to you for even reading all of this. Please reach out to us if you want to talk more! Sincerely, your future IP parents