A Surrogacy Journey: Birth of Olivia
Surrogacy has been something I knew I wanted to do since we had Arya in 2014. I knew I wanted to be pregnant & experience homebirth many more times, but didn’t want a huge number of children to raise.
Six months after having my last baby, Rowan, I knew I was ready to start the process of surrogacy.
I was told it would take longer than normal because I wanted a homebirth, direct & open communication with the family, & just all of the natural things that I’ve always done. If the baby was a boy, then you already know what that meant for me.
Families that go through infertility shy away from the natural world, but when I spoke with this family they were okay with everything I threw at them. It helped that we had done this 3 times ourselves, with the same midwife, Darlene Scrivner, & that I am a birth worker myself. We met & the vibes were great. They have 1 daughter through surrogacy, she is 6, so they have done this before, which helped us be more comfortable with the route we decided to go. I really thought it would take me YEARS to find my perfect match & I even considered being okay with a birth center birth, but my heart was set on finding a family that I could help experience all of the beauty that I’ve come to know in a healthy, uneventful homebirth. That had been my goal from the beginning back in 2014. Finding this family & sticking to what I wanted has really paid off.
I am glad I stuck with what I wanted this experience to be for myself, my family & the intended family because if I hadn’t there’s no telling how different this pregnancy could have been given how strict prenatals, ultrasounds & births have been at hospitals in the last year due to Covid-19. I couldn’t imagine having been forced to do any of those either alone or having to pick between having my husband with me or Mrs. Olivia. Thankfully I haven’t had to do any of this process on my own. The baby’s big sister even started becoming involved after we hit viability.
It’s such an honor to be trusted with such a precious part of another family’s life. Having their baby inside of someone else’s body. Trusting that person is treating your baby better than they would their own & keeping your baby safe at all times. Having a huge piece of yourself walking around in another woman’s uterus. To relinquish that control to another woman takes an incredible amount of strength & trust. The fact that they have trusted me to do this is beyond incredible.
I was just as excited to watch my kids experience this along side us all. They’ve really done an amazing job learning & understanding this journey alongside me, but to see it all unfold when the baby is actually here is a while new level of real for both families. I don’t really have all of the words to describe it all just yet. But I will say I was more emotional (for the family) than I thought I would be when the last 30 minutes or so were finally upon us. The IPs were finally getting their 2nd child & their 1st daughter was finally going to be a big sister. It all happened quick once I got in the birth pool. Our kids really stepped up & gained a lot of 1st hand experience through this process as well. I’m super proud of them. I’m proud of all of us! –Bianca Doyle–
