Why Become a Surrogate? SONYA’S STORY: A decision inspired by a movie and a wish to “pay it forward.”
When asked how, and why, she became a surrogate, Sonya has an unusual answer.
“I saw the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler movie Baby Mama, and I absolutely fell in love with the idea of being a surrogate!”
Sonya and her husband at the hospital with the new baby she carried!
Though the laugh-filled 2008 romantic-comedy film is more fantasy than reality (and clearly not an accurate picture of any surrogacy case today), it conveyed to Sonya the powerful role that a surrogate can play in helping someone build a family.
From the time she saw the film as a young teenager, surrogacy was something Sonya knew she wanted to pursue. And she makes no apologies for the fact that it was Hollywood that put the idea in her head and, as she puts it, “really got the ball rolling for me.”
Another reason why Sonya wanted to be a surrogate involves her own early experience as a mother.
“I had my first child very young, as a teenager,” Sonya shares. “Like many young girls, I was completely unprepared for motherhood, and incredibly naïve. But I was lucky, and things worked out for me — and I sort of viewed surrogacy as ‘paying it forward’ in a sense, for someone else.
“When I turned 21, I sought out Meryl Rosenberg and ARTparenting just so that I could look into the process, and to make sure that I was ‘good to go.’ Meryl was amazingly informative and supportive, and the screening process was thorough but straightforward. By that time, I was married and had two children of my own — my son, who was 7, and my daughter, who was just 2.”
So, what happened next?
“Well, I was originally matched with a family after about 7 or 8 months. It seemed like a good pairing. But as we got into the process, the couple’s fertility doctor felt I wasn’t a good fit, and they decided not to go forward. They were eventually matched with another surrogate, but it was a disappointment for me.”
Shortly thereafter, however, Sonya was matched with a professional couple in Virginia, and, says Sonya, it was pretty much a match made in heaven.
“We had our first Skype call – me in California at that time and them in the Washington, D.C. area – in December of 2017, just to get to know each other. We knew immediately that we were going to get along well.
Was Sonya’s husband — a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California — on board?
“Absolutely,” Sonya answers. “He and I were always on the same wavelength about my doing surrogacy. He was there on that first Skype call with me, incredibly supportive. He knew that surrogacy was something that I had wanted for literally half my life, and how much it meant to me. The only challenge ended up being that, since he’s in active military service, he ended up being on deployment and out of the country much of the time I was pregnant.” Sonya did, of course, have the support of other family and friends, plus the constant support of the intended parents.
Does Sonya “just love being pregnant,” as so many surrogates claim to?
“Well, I can’t say that I love being pregnant like some women do,” Sonya responds, “but none of my pregnancies was particularly difficult. “The physical preparation for surrogacy is probably the most demanding part of the journey — the medications that you have to take to prepare your body for implantation, the hormones, the careful timing— I won’t lie, to some extent it’s work. But it’s work in the service of a life-changing result and so worth it.”
As occasionally happens, Sonya and the intended parents had the experience of the first embryo transfer not being successful.
“Although you’re prepared for that,” Sonya concedes, “it can seem like a setback if the first transfer doesn’t ‘take,’ and it was certainly a disappointment. Especially for someone like me who has always been in perfect health and never had trouble conceiving.”
“One of the nurses at the clinic had told me to begin taking the hormones a little too soon. So, when it came time for the embryo transfer, the intended parents were actually traveling out of the country. But if I could fly to Virginia they said they could hurry back and meet me and go straight to the clinic. So, I hopped on a plane, and I had my daughter with me, and we met up for what was the first time in person. The whole thing was kind of like a sitcom, it was so rushed and stressful, and I can’t help but think that maybe the stress level had something to do with the transfer not working.
Sonya speculates that less stress and better communication helped with the success of the next transfer.
“The second time, things went much more smoothly: I’d gotten there a day or two beforehand, we’d all gone out to dinner together, and it was super-relaxed. And that transfer was successful.”
Sonya shares that her son, 8 years old during the surrogacy, was nonchalant about her pregnancy and that when she said to him, “There’s a baby in there, and it belongs to the intended parents,” he took it in stride. The intended parents flew to California for the birth, staying at a B&B in nearby Oceanside, and attended the birth, which was without complications.
“It was really wonderful working with the intended parents.”
“It was really wonderful working with the intended parents,” Sonya recalls several months after the birth of a healthy baby boy. “I’m told the baby’s a night owl, which I could have told you from when he was most active during the pregnancy! As a dad, B. is like a big kid, and is absolutely wonderful with children – when they were in California awaiting the birth, he hung out with my daughter watching cartoons with her on his lap. I knew he was absolutely born to be a father. And A. is a wonderfully soft, calm, sweet lady – I can see why she’s good at her job. We’ve stayed in touch. They send me pictures and updates, and ask me how I’m doing. It’s very cordial and nice. And it was definitely a happy ending for all.”
Now 23, Sonya has completed her pre-med studies at the University of South Carolina and is in the process of applying to medical school. In the meantime, she works full-time for a spinal rehabilitation center that specializes in the non-surgical treatment of spinal and back problems.