What 2008 Me Could Not Have Known About Surrogacy

When I first said yes to surrogacy in 2008, I did not know enough to know what I did not know.

And honestly, there was a lot.

One of the biggest things 2008 me could not have anticipated was that the agency I thought was doing a good job, not great but okay, was actually run by a terrible person who embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from intended parents.

I was blissfully unaware of the corruption that just missed me. My first journey concluded in December 2008. By April 2009, the FBI and authorities were involved, and so many others had lost so much.

Being honest, I just dodged that bullet.

I did not survive that situation because I was smarter, more prepared, or better at spotting red flags. I survived it because my timing was lucky.

And when it all went down, the reality of it hit hard.

These intended parents had saved up, taken out loans, borrowed from family, and handed over money in the attempt to have a child. To steal from people in that position, people already walking through infertility, loss, fear, and financial pressure, there is a special place in hell for that.

That was one of my first big lessons.

Not everyone in this industry is doing it for the right reasons.

And that is not meant to scare anyone away from surrogacy, but it is the truth. This process makes everyone vulnerable. Surrogates, intended parents, babies, families, all of it. There is a lot of hope and a lot of money moving through this space, and unfortunately, that can attract people who should not be anywhere near it.

The other big realization came later, during my 2014 journey, when I had to learn that trust is not optional in surrogacy.

My relationships with my 2008 and 2010 intended parents were easy. We had built these natural situationships that just worked. There was never any hesitation around sharing or not sharing, communicating or not communicating. We just were, if that makes sense.

Then came my 2014 journey.

From the very beginning, my intended mother believed I was going to wrong her.

Now, for context, I was not her first surrogate. She had previously matched with another woman who made promises, went to medical screening, signed contracts, did meds or claimed to do meds, and then no-showed to her transfer.

Seriously, who f-ing does that?

So yes, I understood she had a reason to be anxious. I understood she had been burned. I understood that she had her own baggage.

And for the record, for any surrogate to understand, intended parents come with their own unique set of baggage too.

That is not an insult. That is just real life.

Surrogates are screened, evaluated, questioned, and dissected, but intended parents are human too. They come into this with infertility, grief, financial pressure, failed cycles, miscarriages, broken trust, and fear that the next person they put their hope into may hurt them too.

But here is the thing.

Her wound was still not mine to bleed from every day.

She was overly anxious, overly involved, if that is even a thing, and questioned my every move. By that point, this was my fourth journey, and I felt like I was going crazy. I felt like she had no faith or trust in me, and I was being micromanaged to the point where I was questioning my choice to work with her and honestly questioning whether I wanted to do surrogacy at all.

I could absolutely not do nine months of that.

So, for lack of a better term, a “come to Jesus” was had with her and the intended father.

At the time, I was in my first trimester with a strong singleton pregnancy and was getting ready to transfer to OB care. I felt like I had proven myself enough for her to trust me, and I was not going to continue giving daily reassurance that I was not going to steal her child.

I had enough.

The conversation was a three-way Skype call and it was many years ago, but the gist was this:

“Claudia, this is not my first or second rodeo. I have done absolutely nothing to make you distrust me, not believe me, or lose faith in me as a carrier, a woman, or a human. Trust is a two-way street, and surrogacy is based on the honor system. You need to believe me, but I also have to believe in you.

If you really cannot back off and allow me to carry this baby for you without the daily accusations or constant need for reassurance, I am removing myself from the personal side and making this 100% transactional. All required updates will go through our lawyers.”

Now hear me out, that is not what I wanted.

I did not want a cold journey. I did not want everything filtered through attorneys. I did not want to remove the human side of it.

But I also could not keep feeling like I was on trial every day.

It was affecting my job, my marriage, and my belief in myself that I was not an asshole.

Luckily, with me spelling it out for her, and with some help from the intended dad, she got better. Not fully calm, and we definitely still had moments where I had to say, “Claudia, we talked about this,” but by induction date, we were good.

She had the happy ending she had been waiting for; for nearly a decade.

That journey taught me that being a good surrogate does not mean being endlessly available, endlessly reassuring, or endlessly swallowing your own discomfort.

It does not mean letting someone’s fear run your pregnancy.

It does not mean accepting daily accusations because “they have been through a lot.”

Yes, intended parents have been through a lot. Many of them have been through hell before they ever get to us.

But surrogates are people too.

We are not just the body in the middle. We are not just the uterus with Wi-Fi. We are not just the person expected to absorb everyone else’s panic while smiling and saying, “No worries.”

Trust has to go both ways.

She had to believe I was going to carry her baby with care, honesty, and respect.

And I had to believe she could let me do that without making me feel like a threat for nine months.

That is probably one of the biggest things 2008 me did not understand yet.

Boundaries can save a journey.

Not because they make everything perfect, but because they stop resentment from quietly eating the relationship alive.