Hampshire Illinois Surrogate Maternity Photos

Here is our story – Jose & I are in literal disbelief. Our miracle, Baby Abascal, is arriving the beginning of October via surrogate.

Let me take this way back. On June 24, 2023, I made a Facebook post on my personal Facebook & on a surrogate matching group in hopes that we might find someone who would carry a pregnancy for us. More women reached out than we expected, inquiring &/or interested in helping us, & we felt so fortunate. I brought their information to my doctor & because surrogacy is about minimizing risks, most of the women didn’t qualify. We matched on July 28, on a Facebook matching group, with a woman from Iowa who works for a surrogacy agency & has been a surrogate twice before, for the same family. She asked if we would ship our embryos to the clinic her former Intended Parents used & I told her that is too risky because it costed us not only a lot of money but more importantly a lot of emotional & physical anguish to get our embryos with all the cycles I did & we weren’t willing to risk it. She decided to move forward with our clinic since our doctor could follow the same protocol in her previous successful transfers. She was sending her records to our clinic & we were getting to know each other. She became frustrated with our clinic because they weren’t accepting her records the way she was sending them in. In the middle of August, she stopped responding to me & I was hoping she was okay. I reached out & told her that if she had a change of heart, that’s ok & we understand. She finally wrote back on August 24, after having not responded for 9 days, & said that our clinic is too stressful & she understands that we love our doctor & don’t want to switch clinics & that she is going to take a pause in another journey & wished us luck. We were so sad & felt like we were back all the way at square one again. BUT….here’s the God moment! 7 hours later, after the woman from Iowa backed out….MY FRIEND messaged me & offered to carry for Jose & I! She had asked me questions back in June, but then started to research on her own in a Facebook group (she didn’t tell me, but I saw she joined a surrogacy group). She said she saw her OBGYN the day before & she got the all-clear to be a gestational carrier. We were SO excited but knew that we had to do SO many steps still (medical record review, MFM clearance, medical clearance, psychological evaluation, contracts written up with lawyers, set up an escrow, had her insurance reviewed & purchased additional insurance plans), so we were cautiously optimistic. Going through all this has been scary, even though everything has been going so smooth & her body has given birth before so it knows what it’s doing & she doesn’t have the issues that I have to get & stay pregnant, makes me wonder if the wounds that infertility & loss have given me will ever truly heal. But for now, we are counting our blessings & holding onto the other moments that we can see that God undeniably has His hand in this journey so far (& I will share more later). So, we’ll just be here holding our breath until we’re holding you.

Of all the people on this planet, we somehow found the most generous, loving one of all, who along with her family has conspired with us in the greatest of ways to make our dearest dream come true. And I’m finding that as it so often happens in life, we get what we hope for. It just doesn’t always arrive in the shape we’d expected.

Sometimes it’s even better.

Ashley, we are so humbled by your willingness to do this for us. There are no words to adequately express our gratitude & appreciation. When we thought everything was falling apart, God showed us that His ways are far beyond anything we could imagine. They are far better. ♡

To those who are facing the challenges of pregnancy loss & infertility, we understand the emotional weight that such announcements can carry. If you are still waiting, we see you, we hear you, we are you, & we hope that sharing our story can offer even the smallest glimmer of hope. ♡