The In Between Story

I think when people hear “surrogacy journey,” they often think the experience falls into either a positive or negative category. That’s not always the case. My story is different.

I’ve gone through two surrogacy journeys and both of my journeys were, in many ways, good. I didn’t walk away from either of them feeling like the experiences themselves were negative. Instead, what I’ve learned over time is that the biggest lessons for me didn’t come from the pregnancies or births but it came from things surrounding them.

My First Agency: A Lesson in Boundaries that I Didn’t Expect to Learn

With my first agency, things were fairly straightforward during the process itself. I reached out to them after giving birth to my daughter, about donating my eggs. I was then put in contact with a case coordinator, who informed me that egg donation was very competitive and surrogacy might be a better idea for me. After a ton of research on my end, I decided to start my first journey! I moved through the journey, focused on what I was there to do, and completed it.

It wasn’t until a year later, when I went to start a second journey with them, that things took a turn I never expected.

About a year after my first journey ended, I discovered that a video of me giving birth had been posted publicly by the agency without my permission. I stumbled upon this video on their website when I went to apply for my second journey. My heart instantly sank into my stomach and I felt completely violated.

That moment changed everything for me.

It wasn’t just about the video itself, it was about consent and privacy of something so personal and intimate being shared without my knowledge or approval.

I ultimately had to take legal action, which is something I never imagined would come out of my surrogacy journey- and one had already been completed at that.

That experience taught me a boundary I now consider non-negotiable: my body and my story are not content to be used without my permission!

My Second Agency: A Better Experience, But learned something new

My second agency was a very different experience in many ways. I actually liked them a lot! I felt more supported, communication was better, and overall the process felt more aligned and professional.

However, something I didn’t fully understand going into it was their structure.

Most of the intended parents (IPs) they work with are international.

My first IPs at the first agency I used were international too, so I assumed that was just a normal part of the surrogacy world, that the demand for surrogacy was higher in other countries. I didn’t question it deeply because I didn’t know and honestly it didn’t bother me much because If a family is struggling to have a baby, I want to help regardless of their location. 

But over time, I came to learn that working primarily with international IPs isn’t necessarily the standard—and that working with IPs in your own country can offer advantages that go beyond distance. 

I feel like I missed out on some things by having Intended Parents living in another country. One major thing I felt like was an issue – The different time zones. This made several factors harder than they needed to be, Our schedules were not remotely close to be able to have good communication. The Language barrier was hard to navigate as well, as both sets of my IPs did not speak English. Ultimately this caused a disconnection in the process. Being in another country also made coming to the birth of their child very difficult, and while one set of my IPs made it, the second did not. This made it harder for me to give the baby up after birth because his parents were not there to love on him.

It wasn’t that my experience was negative or incorrect, it was that I simply didn’t have the full understanding at the beginning to understand what options actually existed.

What I’ve Learned From Both Experiences

Looking back, I don’t see my journeys as mistakes or negative experiences. I see them as experiences that taught me things I didn’t know I needed to learn at the time.

I learned about agency transparency.

I learned about consent in a deeper, more personal way.

I learned about how different structures in surrogacy can change the experience more than people understand.

And I learned that what you accept early on isn’t always what you would choose once you have more information and personal understanding of the situation. 

I’m sharing my experience because surrogacy is often discussed in very simple terms, good experience, bad experience, successful journey, difficult journey. But in real life they are usually more layered than that.

Mine weren’t about things going wrong in the journey itself. They were about learning how to advocate for myself better, ask better questions, and understand the system I was stepping into more fully.

Today, I’m more aware of what I need in order to feel comfortable moving forward with anything like this again.

I pay closer attention to privacy. I ask more questions. I look at structure, not just surface-level support.

And most importantly, I don’t assume that “normal” means that it is right for me.

 I understand now that experience is not just about what happens during the journey it’s also about everything surrounding it.