What changes when you carry for your best friend, and then do it again for a family you have never met?
This episode is part of the Surrogate Stories, where we hand the mic to the women who make this whole thing possible. These are their journeys, their stories, in their own voices. Eloise Drane sits down with surrogates and lets them tell it start to finish: why they said yes, what carrying for another family really asked of them, and what they carried home afterward.
This week, our surrogate is Alyssa, a two-time gestational surrogate from small-town Iowa who did it two completely different ways. Her first journey was independent, for her best friend, a family that had already lost a child. Her second was through Family Inceptions, for intended parents on the other side of the country whom she met on a match call she compares to a blind date.
This conversation covers how she raised it with her husband on the drive home from a date night, how she told two daughters at very different ages, and how she vetted agencies from Facebook groups before she ever picked up the phone. Alyssa is candid about the difference between doing everything yourself and having someone else handle it, about the beta test that made everyone think the pregnancy was over, and about the postpartum blood pressure scare that put her in an ambulance three days after delivery and eventually led to a hysterectomy she is still making peace with.
If you are considering becoming a surrogate and want to hear both the independent route and the agency route from someone who has done each of them, this is the episode to listen to before you take the next step.
"These were never my babies. It was all their embryo." -- Alyssa
Alyssa is a two-time gestational surrogate who completed one independent journey for a close friend and one agency journey through Family Inceptions. She lives in a small town in Iowa with her husband and their two daughters. She talks openly about what surrogacy asked of her body and her family, including the postpartum complications that followed her second delivery, so that women considering it can decide with the full picture in front of them.
This episode is for women who are weighing surrogacy and want an honest, first-hand account from someone who has carried for both a friend and a stranger and seen how differently the two can go.
Family Inceptions: familyinceptions.com
Fertility Café: thefertilitycafe.com
Alyssa on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alyssamcnally22
Postpartum After Surrogacy
https://thefertilitycafe.com/podcast/ep-65-postpartum-after-surrogacy/
What to Look For in a Surrogacy & Egg Donation Agency
https://thefertilitycafe.com/podcast/ep-88-what-to-look-for-in-a-surrogacy-egg-donation-agency/
Thinking About Becoming a Surrogate?
If you’re thinking about becoming a surrogate and want to talk with a team that’s been doing this for over two decades, apply at https://familyinceptionssurrogacy.eggdonorconnect.com/surrogateprescreen?utm_source=FertilityCafe&utm_campaign=SurrogateStories
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Learn more about surrogacy https://familyinceptions.com/
Listen to past episodes https://www.youtube.com/@FertilityCafe
