Considering most of you won’t have the chance to meet Jessi
in person (she lives in Ohio), I thought it would be fun to introduce her to
you in this way, tell you a bit about how we met, and have her share some of
what this journey has been like from her perspective.
Meet Jessi! The person behind “the bump.”
Jess and I met in New York City through the Coast Guard. Her
husband, like mine, is active duty and we were both stationed on Staten Island,
the city that affectionately captured our mutual disdain.
Our first year in NY, Ryan was stationed at sector New York, which despite some of it’s perks (getting to be color guard for NY Ranger
games, easy commute, etc.) was a rough place to clock in everyday. When he got
the opportunity to go underway on an icebreaker for a few weeks, I was both sad
and lonely and really excited for Ryan-he was going to get his “sea legs!” Ryan
ended up fitting in really well with his shipmates, most notably Logan, Jessi’s
husband and Ryan’s supervisor, and although the work was hard and hours long,
he felt fulfilled and was learning a ton.
Ryan found favor with the captain of the boat, and when it
was almost time for him to head back to his unit, the captain asked Ryan if he
would want to join the crew permanently and spend the remainder of his tour
(about a year and a half) on the Penobscot Bay.
I remember having a conversation with Ryan during that time
and telling him I didn’t know why I wanted him to stay on the boat, it meant
him commuting to New Jersey instead of the short drive from our house to
sector, it meant going underway for weeks at a time and an unpredictable
schedule. But despite all the obvious deterrents, it felt just right. Looking back I really believe the
root of that peace stemmed from what would become our special relationship with
Logan, Jessi, and their family.
I remember the first time Jessi and I really had the chance
to connect. It was family day on the boat so Jess and I decided to car pool
together on the two hour trek to Westport where our husbands were moored up.
Conversation was easy and I took a liking to Jess immediately (I like to think
the feeling was mutual 😉). She’s a West Virginia girl with a southern accent and
says y’all a lot, drinks sweet tea
and cries when she hears the national anthem. Even though she is only a few
years my senior, she has a “mama bear” thing about her that I loved and felt
covered by.
We chatted the whole way there and back about life, our
backgrounds, CG life, and at some point the infamous question came; Do you and Ryan want kids? This was at a
time when infertility still burned like a salt soaked open wound. I wasn’t
blogging or sharing our journey openly and was very guarded with whom I opened
up to about the details of our situation. Most days I would have replied to
that question with, yep! Sure do! And
left it at that. But that day I didn’t. That day I unraveled our story, from a
cervical cancer diagnosis to radiation treatments that left my uterus in tact
but potentially unable to sustain a pregnancy. I told her how I grieved and still
grieve the fact that going through fertility
treatments and growing our baby with the help of a gestational carrier would
likely be our only shot at a biological child.
Jess listened and she was sweet and sincere and I felt safe.
Time went on and Ryan and I continued to grow in
relationship with Jessi, Logan, and their cutie pie little’s, Hailey and
Peyton. I recall one time walking down the pier in Staten Island with Ryan and
discussing all that was ahead for us to become parents, and what was at the
time, the biggest hurdle of all-who the heck is going to carry our baby?? I
told him, you know who would be perfect,
Jessi! She was steady and solid, an amazing mom and wife, loves Jesus, and
had a great marriage. It seemed like a pipe dream in my head, I would never in
a million years ask Jessi or anyone for that matter to carry our baby. I prayed
from the beginning that whoever was to do this would feel a deep call from the Holy
Spirit to walk this journey with us, and would approach me. But when I said it
out loud, it felt real. I was given the faith to ask God, if this is something you have called Jess to, please reveal it to all
of us!
It wasn’t but a few weeks later that Jess wrote me a message
that started off something like this “So
this is kind of awkward and I’m not exactly sure how to approach this but….”
She went on from there to tell me how she felt like God had laid it on her heart to
offer herself as a gestational carrier for us.” And me…I just sat there wide
eyed staring at the screen like “is this
real?!” See this came to us at a dark time for me. I had healed pretty
miraculously from the treatments I received to eradicate the wayward cells on
my cervix, most notably I was never ever supposed to have a period again, not
because I wouldn’t ovulate, but because the radiation essentially zapped the
lining of my uterus so much that I would have nothing to shed every month. But
just two months after my last radiation treatment, I bled. A teeny bit, but I had
a period. And my flow increased month after month and almost 6 years later I
have completely normal periods and have not missed a single one since. I say
all this because although I was told from the beginning of all this that carrying
a pregnancy was a concrete “NO,” the
rather miraculous regeneration of the lining of my uterus (no doctor I’ve
encountered has ever seen this happen before) was a game changer for us,
and even the doctors I presented our situation to had a glimmer of hope, a
pregnancy just might be possible for me. So I drank red raspberry leaf tea like
it was water and did castor oil packs over my uterus nightly, and all that I
knew how to do to continue to strengthen my uterus. When the time came, and we
were ready to start taking action steps towards starting a family, we had to
know…what was my uterus capable of?? Would I defy the odds and end up in the
medical literature as the first woman to carry a pregnancy to full term after
radiation treatment to the uterus? We believed I would be.
Long story short (and you can read more about it here), a
hefty procedure and a real intimate look at my uterus revealed
so.much.scartissue. So much that my chances of an embryo implanting were slim,
and the chance of carrying a pregnancy full-term was even slimmer, and the
chances of a ruptured uterus and miscarriage were high. So high that my
fertility doctor was not even willing to perform an IVF on me as a pregnancy
presented too many risks to my life.
I wasn’t devastated. I really wasn’t, I had already grieved
this loss. But I was left directionless and without vision for what would come
next. I was living across the country relatively disconnected from my friends,
family, and most everyone I knew. Most of my friends were wither pregnant, with
a newborn and a plan to have more children, or haven’t had a baby of their own
yet, and not many other people in this world even knew we had a need for a
surrogate.
I read Jessi’s message at a time when I was staying up in
the wee hours of the night looking up surrogacy agencies crying over my
keyboard knowing this was not my story, but I just wanted to be doing something to feel like we were moving
closer to having a baby.
I cried tears of joy, wrote her back something that probably
consisted of a few words and a ton of exclamation marks and emoji’s, and we
made a date to meet to talk about the many, many logistics that go into
something like this.
Years and a failed attempt later, here we are. God, I still
can’t believe we are here.
Going through this experience with Jess has been a dream,
and better than I even imagined it would be. She celebrates me as an expecting
mother, keeps me posted on every detail, is sensitive to my heart and needs,
and is over the moon excited for us to become parents. Having her share in our
joy and find so much purpose in her journey growing our little means the world
to me.
So I thought it would be fun to ask Jess a few questions to
get to know her and hear some of what this experience has been like from her
vantage point
What do you do for
fun? Hobbies?
I enjoy spending time
with my husband and kids Hailey (8) and Peyton (6). We love hiking with our
chocolate lab, Dallas, exploring new places, and going to zoos and museums. My
personal hobbies are running, exercising, reading, baking and attempting to
learn to sew.
If someone told you
10 years ago that you would be a surrogate what would you have said?
While I would like to
say I would have thought, "that's awesome".... considering I was
finishing up college and we weren't ready to have kids ourselves, I probably
would have thought, that's crazy and wouldn't work with our ever changing life!
This has definitely been proof that God is in full control and has a plan for
our lives even if it is something that has never even crossed our minds!
What made you decide
to be a surrogate for R&C? Was it an easy decision?
My decision to become
a surrogate for Ryan and Christina was not made lightly. When Logan and I
initially talked about the idea of becoming a surrogate, there were a lot of
concerns and questions. What were the risks of having a 3rd C section, how
would it effect our kids, was I willing to put going back to work aside to see
the whole process through, could I emotionally handle handing a child over
after birth even though it wasn't mine, sooo many questions! Despite all the
uncertainty and questions though there was a desire in my heart to help our
dear friends bring one of the greatest gifts into their life. I knew R and C
had tried everything and exhausted every path to bring a child of their own
into their world and I also knew I was still young enough and healthy enough to
help them. So with much prayer and discussion with Logan we decided that the
only thing to do was to dive in and begin this journey with our sweet friends.
What do your kids and
husband think about what you're doing? Has it changed your life at home?
My kids and husband
have been supportive from the minute I mentioned the idea. Of course it did
take some explaining to my kids that they would see me carry a baby for 9+
months but the baby wouldn't be coming home with us; however, after explaining
the fact that Miss Christina couldn't carry a baby and this would be the only
way for her and Mr. Ryan to have their own baby, they were both instantly on
board. As for my husband, Logan, he is always my biggest supporter, even of my
craziest ideas ❤. His only concern was my health
and after confirming with my doctor that the only risks were those that
normally came along with a C-section, the same risks I took with our own
children, he was on board as well.
It has changed our
life at home in some ways...the kids help out a lot more since I'm constantly
getting short of breath from walking up the steps, Logan has been doing the
majority of the cooking to prevent me from getting nauseated. There have been
things that the 3 of them do that I can't physically do but they understand
that it's temporary and the end result will be life changing for our friends!
What's your favorite
thing about being a surrogate?
By far my favorite
thing about being a surrogate is the thought of seeing the doctors hand this
precious baby girl to our friends who have cried, begged, and diligently prayed
for a child of their own.
What has been your
biggest challenge being a surrogate?
My biggest challenge
being a surrogate is trying to keep up with my kids at a normal pace. I want to
keep everything as normal as possible for them. There have been some setbacks
with extreme nausea in the first trimester and now dealing with back pain and
shortness of breath but all in all I think I'm doing pretty good and can't
think of too many things that I haven't been able to do with them.
