04: Professionally Pregnant: For this mom, being a surrogate is not a job, it’s a calling

When Jen was pregnant with her daughter, she had one of those unicorn pregnancies you never hear about in real life: she wasn’t tired or sick, and she felt energized by it all. But she and her husband didn’t want more biological kids, so Jen started thinking about how she could experience the magic of pregnancy again. That’s when she became a surrogate and found her life’s purpose. 

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.

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Julia Winston: I'm Julia Winston, and this is Refamulating, a podcast that explores different ways to make a family.  

Kelly Clarkson: Congratulations. Oh my. You baby boy. Right? Thank you baby boy. Uh, 

Khole Kardashian: It definitely was, you know, just a different way. I did surrogacy. Yeah. 

Julia: In 2022, Khloe Kardashian went on Kelly Clarkson’s talk show and casually talked about having her second child via surrogacy. 

Khole Kardashian: it's amazing. I had reasons why I couldn't carry myself. Me too. Right. And it's, it's such a blessing that we have this. And I, my sister Kim had two babies through surrogacy. She had two that she carried on her own and her last two are through surrogacy. If it wasn't for Kimberly, I definitely don't think I would have been as comfortable. I wouldn't have been aware. I wouldn't have known as much. 

Julia: There is nothing particularly special about this interview, and I’m not a huge Kardashian fan. I play it because this kind of casual conversation about fertility and surrogacy on daytime TV…wouldn’t have happened even a decade ago. 

Many of us were told conversations around fertility and family planning were inappropriate, so keep that to yourself. But Khloe mentions that watching her sister, Kim Kardashian, use surrogates helped demystify the experience for her. 

The normalization of surrogacy seems to be becoming more widespread. Even if we don’t know someone who used one, there are more and more examples in pop culture. In the last few years, Paris Hilton, Crissy Teigan, Gabrielle Union and other celebrities have openly talked about their surrogacy experiences.

But all these celebrity examples only give us a glimpse of surrogacy from the perspective of the intended parent- a word you'll hear a lot in this episode that refers to the person or people who will raise the child. 

The main narrative we've been given about surrogacy is that it helps people who can’t carry babies or give birth, have biological families.

But what about the surrogates themselves? What are their stories? As someone who donated my eggs to help a same-sex male couple start a biological family, I was curious to learn more about the experience of the other key player in a refamulating scenario like mine - a surrogate. 

When I was asked to donate my eggs, I had to do a lot of personal reflection about my future relationship to these imaginary kids. People close to me, especially people who’ve had children, worried that I might get too attached. “I could never do that,” they said.

For me, being the source of DNA feels more like a cool connection to the kids, rather than an attachment. If I had been asked to carry the children, on the other hand, that would have given me pause. I could totally picture myself getting attached if I felt them actually growing in my body. 

But I've heard other people say that the opposite might be true, that sharing DNA with a child would make them feel more attached. 

It's obviously personal… but I wanted to dig into questions like this with someone who actually serves as a surrogate. What is it like to carry a child and do the intense physical labor on behalf of someone else? 

In my own experience, once I donated my eggs I wasn't really involved in the process, and didn't have a relationship with the surrogate the egg daddies used. So I wasn't privy to the ups and downs. 

But luckily...I found Jen. 

Jen: I just love the feeling of growing a baby, like being able to feel the baby moving in your stomach, just knowing that there's a life in there. It's just, I don't know, everything's just very magical. I have friends that get very sick in pregnancy and I completely sympathize. But for me it's, it's been such a positive experience. 

Julia Winston: Jen is 38, and has spent most of the last decade pregnant… or trying to get pregnant. That’s because Jen is a surrogate, and she’s given birth to five babies for other families.  

Jen lives in the mountains of Northern California with her two daughters, her husband and lots of animals- dogs, horses, chickens and peacocks- all together on their small ranch.

I had so many questions for Jen- because I felt like I could connect with her on some level. I know what it feels like to use your body to help someone else have a family. I also know how taxing it is to do IVF. But my situation was pretty different from what Jen does. I was helping a couple I was friends with, donating my eggs as a gift. Jen works with families she doesn’t know, carrying their babies as a form of paid work. 

But before surrogacy was even a twinkle in her eye, Jen built her own family. That started when she met her husband and quickly fell in love…

Jen: We fully committed to each other in January and in February we actually found out I was pregnant. So, we hadn't been expecting that and both of us just looked at each other and we're like, we want to keep it. You know, let's see where this goes. 

Pregnancy was really easy for me. Uh, I didn't have any of the side effects. I didn't actually believe that happened to women. I thought for sure you get the nausea, you get the aches and pains. And I didn't have any of that. My daughter was not a big kicker. So she was very gentle. And the whole process was just so calm and sweet. And I didn't expect that because you hear so many negative things about pregnancy and how hard it is on women. And it definitely can be. I just... was one of those lucky ones.

Julia: She even loved giving birth to her daughter. Things didn’t go exactly as she planned- her doula was late and her husband was nervous- but she felt empowered after the experience. 

Jen: I think it was a year or two later, and we just said, you know, I don't think we want to have another one of our own. We, we both have some funky biological background. I absolutely adore my daughter. She's just turned out to be an amazing kid. And so we thought, you know, some of the risks that our family has just biologically, we could be taking those same risks and be helping children that need a home or a temporary home at least. And so when we decided that we wanted to do foster care, we just talked about, and I told him, I said, I miss being pregnant. I really miss the feeling and I know I still can be.  

Julia: So Jen and her husband started fostering children, and eventually adopted their second daughter. While she and her husband were building their own family, a relative of Jen’s was also trying to have kids. He’s a gay man, and he used a surrogate. 

Like Khloe Kardashian, seeing someone close to her use a surrogate helped Jen understand what the process actually looks like. 

And that’s when something clicked. 

Jen could be pregnant again and she could do it for someone else. 

And so she became a surrogate, and her first pregnancy couldn't have gone better.

Jen: the whole thing was wonderful, but the actual labor and delivery was probably my favorite part. I think giving birth is so fun, I really do. Especially if you have a doula. I don't think I could do it without a doula. 

We had this funny little Hawaiian doctor. He was just, he was really cool. He played over the rainbow on his ukulele during the labor, and um, when I did give birth and the dads took that baby into their arms and they held him and they called him sunshine. It was like, it was very magical, very special, and I just felt lucky to be a part of it. 

Julia Winston: What role do you think that the success of that surrogacy played in you wanting to continue down this path? 

Jen: I think it made a huge impact, just how wonderful the intended parents were. They were nothing but... Sweet and kind to us. It's been 10 years and I'm still in touch with them. They send us a little gift every Christmas and we get their yearly letter. I know surrogates have had a much tougher first journey. And I think if I didn't have that connection with my intended parents that I really wanted, if I had just gone for an out of country couple that let's say, We had a hard time speaking the same language or something. For me, that just, that would have been a lot harder. I really wanted a connection and I, and that's exactly what I got.

Julia: Okay, let’s just rewind for a second though because, unsurprisingly, being a surrogate involves a lot of logistics. 

For Jen, the first step was to find an agency. The agency would match her with intended parents and handle all the logistics. 

After finding an agency, Jen had to go through a series of physical, genetic and psychological screenings to make sure she was a good fit to become a surrogate - I went through a similar process as an egg donor. 

But one thing that surprised me about surrogacy, is that most agencies want surrogates to have already had their own children. 

Jen: They always say you wanna be kind of done with your family if you're gonna be a surrogate. I've seen a lot of people that are very young go, oh, I wanna be a surrogate, but I've never had a child. Why won't they let me? Um, it's because there is a chance you could lose all your reproductive organs possibly and not be able to have another child. And there are surrogates out there that actually are now intended parents because of things like that. 

Julia Winston: Surrogates who ended up being unable to have children of their own and now require surrogates to help them have biological children?

Jen: Whether, whether they got remarried and decided, oh, you know what, I'm not done yet, or whatever it is. Yes, there is. 

Julia: After passing the initial screenings, Jen worked with the agency to find the right family. She knew she wanted them to be local so that they could go to doctor’s appointments together.

Jen: My very first couple was a gay couple because I requested a gay couple because the person I knew who had their child through a surrogate was a gay couple who had been trying, you know, to have children. And that was something that I really felt strongly about. My doula, she's a lesbian, she's one of my best friends. She had hopes of having children one day too. And so just being part of that community was important to me to be able to do that for the first time.

Julia Winston: The couple was trying to have their second child, and they were thrilled to be involved in every part of the pregnancy, which Jen loved. They went with Jen to doctor's appointments. They attended her oldest daughter’s birthday party and had their nanny watch Jen’s kids when the three of them went to OB appointments. She really felt loved and supported by this couple.  

This first pregnancy was also her introduction to the legal side of surrogacy. Before the IVF process began, Jen and the dads signed a contract explaining the terms of their partnership. The main purpose was to make sure the surrogate, and egg donor, have no parental rights over the child. But Jen says the contracts can also get more granular. 

Jen: You can add little things like I've had intended parents that don't mind if I dye my hair and I have intended parents I would prefer I don't dye my hair the whole pregnancy and some that would like me to not do it in the first trimester only. So all those little things get added to the contract and I think that's totally fine. You just have to make sure what you're putting in the contract is really important to you because something could cause a match to go wrong that maybe wasn't that important. You know, for me, I am very sensitive to my intended parents' needs, but I'm also very busy mom and I don't know if I could keep a journal about every time I exercised and every time I ate something and it, it's a little too much. I'm already a homeschool mom, , you know, I'm already doing my homework a lot. . 

Julia: This is, this brings up the whole topic of how much say an intended parent has over the body of another human being while they're pregnant with the intended parent's child. 

Jen: That was a big conversation recently in one of my surrogate groups. A intended parent was very upset that the surrogate did not want her to touch her stomach. And it was one of those things that some people are like, well, it is her baby, so why shouldn't she be able to feel her baby moving? And other people are like, well, that's the surrogate's body and you can't just touch people unwanted. And they were already very far into this pregnancy. 

For me, I wish that had been talked about ahead of time, but that's not something anybody in our groups had like even thought about. I think one side just assumed it would go one way and the other side just assumed it would go the other way. And nobody ever even thought to talk about it during a match meeting. But there are little things that you need to think about. They don't necessarily need to go in the contract. I wouldn't put: she can touch my stomach in the contract. That'd be a little bizarre. But just having that conversation and anything you wanna lay out on the table, you have to do it during the match meeting.

So the match meeting's important. Everybody wants to be polite at the match meeting. Everyone wants to say yes to everything, especially if the intended parent has been waiting. You know, some intended parents wait over a year for their surrogate, and if that match doesn't work, then they could be waiting another year. So don't say, you know, just, you can't say yes to everything. You have to really be true to yourself on if it's a good match or not. 

Julia: The legality of surrogacy varies wildly… depending on where you live.

It’s not even legal, or recognized, in most countries. The US is one of the few that allows surrogacy, and even then it changes depending on what state you’re in. Jen lives in California, which has some of the most supportive laws for both surrogates and intended families. 

Jen: I have heard there's lots of other states that are not surrogate friendly and that's when it gets scary. Here, when you get your birth certificate, it has the intended parents' name. My name is never on the birth certificate. It is not an adoption. It is very clear their children and we sign all the paperwork way ahead of time for that. In other states, it becomes more of an adoption, and your surrogate does have her name on the birth certificate, or you have, you know, you have to go to court and almost fight for your own child as an intended parent.

Julia: Here’s a very general overview of how that looks in the U.S. 

A handful of states, like Michigan, Louisiana and Nebraska, don’t recognize contracts for surrogacy. That means there are no legal protections for the intended parents or the surrogate if something goes sideways.

California, Nevada, Washington, Colorado and a handful of other states do recognize surrogacy contracts.

The rest of the states fall somewhere in the middle.

We have a link in our show notes if you want to learn about surrogacy laws in your state. 

Compared to other countries, the American surrogacy process focuses on making sure both the surrogate and intended parents have a say, and that the surrogate is properly compensated. There are also more medical requirements here than in other countries, which makes surrogacy in the U.S. pretty   expensive. 

Intended parents usually spend 50 to 100 grand on the process, but really the cost can get as high as 200,000. It all depends on the legal fees, if the family needs an egg donor, and all of the medical costs. So how much of that money goes to surrogates like Jen? 

Jen: That is an extremely common question. It's not the same as if you're working a full-time job. It's not, you know, the amount of hours that go into surrogacy is 24 7 for, you know, ideally 10 months. But at the same time, you know, my last one didn't stick, so we're having to try again. So I don't wanna give the exact amount because it really varies. A first time surrogate, you know, it can go in some states, I guess. Maybe $30,000, but I've heard of surrogates getting a hundred thousand in, you know, Hollywood or something like that. You know, it really depends on what the intended parents focus is. If they want an experienced surrogate, if they want a surrogate to follow a certain diet plan, you know, I've had surrogates that are supposed to write down in a journal every day what they exercised and what food they ate. And then there's other surrogates that, you know, things are a little more relaxed for.

So it, it's huge variation. Um, I don't know any surrogates that do it for the money, you know, you are supposed to show, especially with an agency that you are financially doing just fine. They do not want people in America doing surrogacy because they're desperate for money. Same reason they don't want anybody doing surrogacy, you know, that doesn't have a child Yet.. You know, you've gotta kind of have some boundaries on this to make sure that people are doing it for the right reason. There are altruistic surrogates that do it for no money other than, you know, like covering the hospital expenses and things like that. But it's a huge variation. I just like, I do wanna put out there that most surrogates really aren't doing it for the money. It's not that much money, like with the risks you're taking. 

Julia Winston: Yeah. It seems like you have to have a really strong sense of purpose and, and intrinsic motivation to do something like this, that the, the incentive is not the money.

Jen: I would think so. I mean, every surrogate I've, I've met really talks like I do about it. They, they did it for the experience more than anything, you know? And usually it's people like me that didn't have an absolute horrible time with pregnancy that love being pregnant or have like that connection like I do, where they saw a family member that was able to use a surrogate. So they have that in their heart. You know, it's not so much you wake up in the morning and you just go, oh, I feel like being a surrogate today. There's so much thought and research put into it before you do it. There's so many other ways to make a ton of money that, that you're not risking your body and taking time from your family and all those things. 

Julia: Jen mentioned the risks a few times- which is something I want to underscore. Giving birth in the U.S. has gotten more dangerous in recent years. The number of women who die during labor is growing, especially for Black women. The US is the only developed country with a growing maternal mortality number...

Also...more than a third of women have some sort of health issue after giving birth. These range from depression and anxiety to pain during sex to infertility.

Jen: There is a lot of risk of surrogacy, just like any pregnancy. Um, sometimes higher because of IVF. So, you know, you do risk even things like losing your uterus, you know, I, I actually have it in my contract that if I am put on life support only to support the babies, , um, that the intended parents do pay for therapy during that time. I'm on life support for my family because you can't grieve losing someone when they're still on life support for a ba just purely to give the baby a couple more days or whatever. 

Julia: But Jen accepts the risks. When we come back, we'll hear details about being a surrogate: the good, the challenging, and the pregnancy belt that holds it all together.

Jen's next two surrogacy experiences were similar to the first one. She enjoyed being pregnant. She had successful births. And...she felt connected to each family.

Jen: All three of my first intended parents were really great. You know, we stay in touch. I've still seen pictures of the kids. It just, it felt like friends, you know, not necessarily a friend that lives next door that you go and have coffee with every single day. But it felt like friends that, you know, we check in with each other. We ask how your kids are doing, you know, um, during the pregnancy they would text or call or we'd visit and it was awesome. You know, it really, it felt very warm and I knew that this baby is definitely something that they really wanted, cuz half the conversation would be totally focused on how excited they were to become parents. 

Julia Winston: But Jen’s fourth surrogacy didn’t go as smoothly. The agency had connected her with a single, gay father trying to have his second child. 

Jen: So, hearing his plight that, you know, he wanted a sibling... I was like, well, you know, I think I could do that. That could be fun.

So we did a match meeting and, uh, he was very, very nice. Uh, very excited to get started. He'd been waiting kind of a while. And he didn't want the kids to be too far apart in age. So, we went to his IVF clinic. Um, he didn't come to the first appointments, but we video chatted during them. So, I felt like he was there for the appointments, you know, as much as he could be. We did the... The transfer, and a couple weeks later The IVF doctor actually told us at first he thought there was triplets. Yeah, it was pretty, it was actually kind of scary because body wise I am a little bit older into my surrogacy journeys. I'm not trying to carry three babies. That's a little, little much and the intended parent really kind of freaked out. I think it really scared him. The idea of being a single father with one toddler And three babies on the way, possibly. 

Julia: Jen got an ultrasound the next day, and they found out she was pregnant with twins, not triplets. Jen had been a surrogate three times, but she'd never carried twins. So she was understandably a little nervous...and she expected the intended father would step up and be her partner during this pregnancy, but...pretty quickly, Jen realized this relationship was going to be different. 

Jen: He kind of stopped messaging me as much, he stopped calling, he wasn't even really talking to the agency. But he kind of stopped communicating with me and for me that was hard because my last intended parents have all been very communicative, very supportive. I totally understood that this was very overwhelming for him, but I was also suddenly pregnant with twins, not expecting it. And I kind of needed us to be able to support each other.

That got a little lonely. My agency was very nice. They were there for me, best they could be. Um, went to the next few appointments by myself. He didn't video chat, you know, he wasn't there. I did ask my agency if they'd talk to him. I think they only talked to him like once and they were like, yeah, we think he's just really overwhelmed with the idea of how as a single father, he's going to manage a toddler and twins.

Julia: Toward the end of the first trimester, Jen was getting ready for a big doctor's appointment where they would do an ultrasound that would tell her and the dad more about the twins and what to expect from the pregnancy. But the day before the appointment, things took a turn.

Jen: Unfortunately we did have a miscarriage at 11 weeks. Because it was twins, there was something called, um, an S C H, which is a, like, kind of a big ball of blood that was behind them, which is very common in I v F. It can also be common with twins. I lost a lot of iron and, um, being that it was twins, I was already, um, much more tired than normal. And I think a lot of that had to do with the amount of iron that two babies kind of take versus one. And, and so I ended up having to go to the ER. 

Julia: She went to the ER because during the miscarriage she fainted and lost consciousness. Fortunately, IV fluids kept her awake while she completed the miscarriage. 

Jen was out of the woods, but the pregnancy didn’t make it. Once she was okay, Jen told the intended dad what happened and… 

Jen: I did get a message from him just saying, you know, I hope Hope you're doing okay after it happened. He did discuss with the agency me going ahead and trying again because usually with surrogates you agree to try three times If you mentally and physically feel like you can. You don't have to . I still wanted to be a surrogate. I still wanted that birth I still wanted that joyful feeling of bringing a baby into the world and we thought hey, what's the chance of another split? It's a very small chance. This happened once wasn't meant to be You know, hopefully this is a singleton this time. Let's try again. And they ordered me my medication, got my medication, and a week before I started he decided to cancel. And so I just never heard from him again. 

So that one just kind of left me feeling a little abandoned, I guess. Where I know a lot of surrogates like to have more of a connection with their intended parents, where they don't feel like they were just, you know, A breeding machine or something like that. You know, you, you are a person, you do have a family. Obviously me going through miscarriage, all these things affected my family as well. And so I just wanted some recognition that, like, Hey, I'm here, I'm a person. And I'm really sorry this happened to you, but I'm sorry it happened to me too.

Julia: Earlier, I talked about attachment to babies that aren’t your own. It’s something I had to wrestle with a lot, and I was curious to hear about Jen’s experience.

Jen: It feels like a friend's child to me. And there's love there. There's worry and concern that, you know, they're healthy and they're growing. Um, the time that we did find out was twins. I was excited to see two heartbeats, you know, but it doesn't feel motherly. It feels like an auntie or a very close friend, someone that just wants to protect your child and see that they, you know, do end up living their best life. Um, and I think I kind of took on that same perspective with foster care. You know, they're not your children and for me, it's very easy to separate that but still be concerned and still be loving and still, you know, like I said, like an auntie would mother a child, but not be the mother of a child. You know, there's boundaries there. 

Jen: A lot of us really don't like when people tell us about how they could never do it because they'd be too attached to the baby. It's a really harsh thing to hear because we are attached. It's just in a different way. We've been able to take the mindset of doing what's best for the baby. I saw someone say surrogates must have no maternal instinct. And I thought that was very harsh because even though I don't feel sadness when that baby's going to their family, I feel happiness because I know that's what's best for the baby, is their child. 

Julia Winston: Did that come naturally to you, or is that something you've had to sort of train yourself to do, to hold these boundaries in knowing that you're not the parent?

Jen: It came more naturally with surrogacy than it did for foster care. Honestly. I think foster care and adoption carries a little bit more heaviness. A little more sadness. You do worry about where they're gonna go afterwards, Foster children and adoptive children have been through trauma. It doesn't feel the same way when it comes to surrogacy. You know, they're built with love. They're, everything is all about that child from, you know, A to Z the whole time. And with foster care and adoption, it's, it's not like that. 

Julia: Jen has a lot of compassion for children who have been adopted. Yes, she adopted one of her children from the foster care system, as you might recall… and she was adopted herself. 

Jen: It was never a secret. It was always, I was always able to ask questions and eventually I kind of started looking into it more myself and I have been introduced to some of my birth family, um, through different channels. It was, they handled the, especially as a young child, I think very properly. I will say, there wasn't a lot of support for adoptive families at that time. And so, encouragement was to be so overly positive about adoption, that later on as a teenager and as an adult, when you start to get feelings about Um, coming out of what they call the fog a little bit, we're starting to understand that, uh, there was loss involved, you know, there's, there's blood relations there that you don't know, you may never know, there's, uh, you know, certain, uh, health history you may never know, things like that, that I feel like, Maybe shouldn't have been quite so glorified at a younger age where I would have been more comfortable with the negative stuff as I got a little older. Uh, the negative stuff kind of was actually more of a shock to me when I started coming, those things started coming to light.

Julia: Being adopted helped Jen understand, from an early age, that families can be created in many different ways.

It primed her to think about family more expansively. There are people out there who share her DNA, but she doesn’t have the same emotional attachment to them as the family who raised her. 

There are different kinds of love, and Jen knows how to hold that complexity. Her own adoption helped her realize she could raise two daughters of her own and carry babies for others - and approach both experiences with love. They’re just different kinds of love.

This isn’t easy for everyone to wrap their head around. Jen gets a lot of comments and questions about being a surrogate, and I was curious what the general response was.

Jen: people say very nice things. My last ultrasound, the gal was like saying just such sweet things and I just told her, she goes, you're so sweet for doing this. I said, I'm crazy, but it's a good kind of crazy. 

My husband's not the type of guy to just say no,  you know, he's very, very,  um, backs me up 100% no matter how kind of crazy my ideas are.  Um, my daughter has always been involved in the process. She was only three through the first surrogacy, but she's 12 now. And so as she's gotten older, we always ask her, you know, how do you feel about mom doing Another surrogacy? It's never been weird to her cuz it's just always been a part of her life. And she also knew that, you know, this family member had had kids through a surrogate. So we're very open with her about everything. 

My  mom on the other hand, was not super comfortable with it.  Um, she was kind of confused at why we weren't gonna have more children of our own. And I do think part of that comes from because she just wasn't able to herself.  Um,  she's very worried about my health. I am her only daughter, you know, and so she just worries that something could happen to me and I'm, I am risking it for another family. Uh, but as we've gone on, she's kind of accepted it.  Other than that, I, all my friends have been supportive. You know, I've never had, I know some surrogates that have had like nasty comments from people, and I've never had that. Everyone's always been very pleasant. Hmm. Confused maybe, but pleasant.

Julia: After the miscarriage with the twins, Jen knew she wasn't done being a surrogate. But working with the hands-off dad of her fourth surrogacy taught her she should be a little pickier about the families she worked with. She wanted the parents to be more involved if she was going to enjoy the process. 

Jen: I wanted to trust my gut a little bit more. Maybe ask a few more questions, make sure that I'm really on the same page at the match meeting with the intended parents. And, um, my next match meeting went wonderful. I absolutely love them, and I still absolutely love them. 

Julia: They're another gay couple, trying to have their first kid. 

they were adorable. Every appointment that I saw them at, they showed up with cupcakes for my kids or flowers for me or both, and just very adorable. appreciative, very sweet. The first two transfers that we tried, unfortunately, neither one took, and there was only one embryo left. So as a surrogate, I had a lot more anxiety for the intended parents. We did take a little break after the second one, so my body could just get back to normal before we started with medication again.

Julia: After a short break they tried again, and the third transfer worked! The first doctor's appointment was just to confirm the pregnancy had stuck. 

Jen: And we ended up going together. They met me there. And I actually had been a little more abnormally tired than usual. But I convinced myself, I'm just, you know, I'm a little bit older, maybe I'm just tired because I'm pregnant, and I'm a little bit older than I was, you know, my first pregnancies, and so when we went in there, and the, the guys are in there next to me, and the Um, the lady was looking at, you know, the image and she turns to us and she goes, I see two heartbeats. And they, it was like they didn't understand what she said. You know, the look on their faces was like, what? And, and, and that's what they asked. They said, What do you, what do you, what did you say? I see two heartbeats. It looks like you guys are having twins. And they were just in complete shock. And I just kind of looked over and I smiled at them and I was so happy to have a second chance at this for a couple that really wanted this. And I did have a tear in my eye. I just, It was pure happiness.

It was a little bit of nerves, because, you know, twins I know is going to be a harder, a harder thing to, a harder amount of babies to carry. Um, I will say that the miscarriage I had with twins was very, very hard. It was very scary. And so there was a little bit of that kind of fear and stuff, you know, well, I hope this just works. I hope this lasts, you know. I know this makes it a little bit higher chance of losing them because there's two in there. 

Julia: When I interviewed Jen, she was in the final trimester of this pregnancy with the twins. And if you were frustrated earlier hearing her talk about how easy pregnancy is, don't worry, the twins changed that for her. 

Jen: I definitely had more symptoms with this pregnancy that I did not have with singletons. Um, I'm, I feel bad because I feel like I'm just having what a lot of women probably had with singletons. Uh, just like in the first trimester, I was a little nauseous, I wasn't horribly sick, but I had a lot of trouble eating, you know, as much as I should. I had to struggle with protein, things like that. Um, so that... Was a little bit tougher, you know, I was a little bit, a lot tired, things like that. But it sounded like a first trimester that a lot of my friends that had singletons went through. So I'm kind of just getting what everybody else gets. Uh, second trimester, really wasn't bad at all, been very smooth. Uh, third trimester though, it's a lot heavier. Um, I've got, currently I'm 33 weeks pregnant and I've got Two babies that are slightly over five pounds in there right now.

Julia Winston: Wow.

Jen: and I can feel it. You know, my pelvis hurts a little more, I had to buy a belt, a special pregnancy belt, which I've never done before. Um, definitely lots of heartburn, lots of acid reflux, you know, you can't eat as much because there's two babies in there. So it's been tougher, but every appointment we go to, they do the ultrasound and they tell us how perfect these babies look. 

Julia: Jen gave birth to healthy twin boys earlier this year. She hadn’t given birth yet when we talked, but I wanted to know what her other experiences were like once she left the hospital. She gives birth, she hands off the babies, and she goes home. What now?

Jen: I am so happy to get back to my family and my pets and. , I have everything I've ever wanted. So for me, there's no, no real loss to it. And you know, like I said, I've had intended parents that still stay in touch with me. So, you know, they'll send a picture of the baby and as long as I know they're healthy and happy, I feel very good about it. Um, it does depend though, if you're pumping afterwards, which I pumped for 10 months with my first surrogate baby, he had, um, an issue with formula. With my second one I pumped for three months. You do, you know, you do get a certain amount of money to pump , uh, per week. But the amount doesn't honestly make up for the amount of time that you're pumping. 

Julia: Jen loves being pregnant, and all of her healthy deliveries added to this being a magical experience for her. But she's in her late 30s now and knows it will only get riskier to carry babies…

Jen: I am allowed to do one more surrogacy. Um, they do not let you have more than six deliveries, which, uh, whether it's C section or, uh, vaginal delivery. just, I love this. I absolutely love the whole process. And even when it goes not so well, it is like I told you before, you know, you learn something from all of it.

Um, I will be very picky about the intended parents again, though, just like I was this last time where I want someone I'm going to have a connection with again. You know, someone that if it was twins, they would be okay, or at least, you know, happy with it, that they are prepared for some of these unexpected things that do pop up, but we'll get through it together. Like if I can find a couple like that again, I would be very happy.

Julia Winston: Wow. I, so I'm just like jaw dropped, amazed that you want to do it again. You, you, it sounds like you just love it. Like, what do you love about being a surrogate?

Jen: Um, I just, uh, growing life is amazing, you know, and knowing, I think being adopted and, you know, seeing what foster care is like for kids, seeing so many kids that have rough starts in life, have families who maybe they want them, but they just struggle at the ability to take care of them. Sometimes you do have parents that don't like their kids or don't want their kids. In the surrogacy world, I get to be with parents that dream of children that, you know, they just, they've been hoping and wishing and praying and doing everything they can to hopefully be able to have that family that they always wanted. And, um, I love being a part of that. I, I love the positivity that I know these kids are going somewhere that they will for sure be loved, maybe a little spoiled, you know, exactly what kids deserve.

Julia: Whether Jen does another surrogacy or not, her time being pregnant will be over soon, and she's thinking about what comes next. 

She’s busy raising and homeschooling her two kids. But she's started to think about how she wants to spend her time when they're older. 

Jen: my goal is eventually when my kids are a little older to become an end of life doula. Uh, just like a birth doula is there for when babies are born to comfort the mother. I'd like to be there for people when they are passing away, especially when it's hard for their family to be. Um, I want to be the one that's there for the uncomfortable conversations that, uh, maybe need a little bit of guidance or a little bit of support with the family that's going through that. 

Julia: Jen's dream is to use her ranch in Northern California, as a place for this end of life work. 

Jen: I have big goals for our property. We plan to turn it into a place that people can come who are in their end stages of life, that can bring family, a priest, whatever. And we're trying to make it kind of where they can do lots of different things. We have four horses. We raise peacocks. We, you know, are doing, um, meat pigs right now. They can come pet the horses, they can walk around in the forest area we have.

I know death can make people very, very uncomfortable, which is totally understandable. Um, for me, I unfortunately, you know... As an adoptee, I did lose a chunk of my family. Um, and I knew that from a young age, uh, 12 years old, I lost my father. I continued to lose family up until around age 18, 19, you know, grandparents, uncles. It just kept going. So for me, death was a large part of growing up and, um, you can either sink down in a hole with that or you can see, you know, why that's just part of life. 

And when it came to, you know, being able to carry these babies and stuff like that, and be able to bring life into this world, I feel like it helped balance it out for me a little bit. It helped make me even more comfortable with what I had previously gone through knowing that that will happen to all of us. It's just the same that we're all born. We will all die. I don't want to be uncomfortable with either one of those. So I dive in deep with both of those. 

Julia: Have you ever met someone who you thought might actually be an angel? For me, Jen is definitely one of those people. In her world, the veil that separates birth and death is very thin.

Jen: Giving birth naturally is almost as close to death as you can get. Physical body is in extreme amounts of pain, but it's doing what it's supposed to do. It's completely natural. And when you pass away, that's completely natural. But both those things are, they're on the opposite end, but they, when you're in that moment, I feel like that's kind of what it's going to be like. This extreme moment that leads to some kind of peace. And that's how I feel giving birth. It's an extreme moment. It's very, Emotional, physically and mentally. And then there's peace after really when the baby, as soon as the baby kind of pops out, those shoulders come out, that heads out, the body's out. You just breathe. And it's, it's an interesting moment that I will miss. 

Julia: Talking to Jen made me feel more seen as an egg donor. Some people in my life don’t understand why I wanted to help someone else have babies, when I haven’t even had my own. And I struggle to explain it, all I can say is my gut told me it felt right. It just feels like part of my life’s purpose in some deep, strange way. 

Jen so clearly feels that giving birth for other people is part of her purpose. She sees herself as someone who is not only here to serve her own family, but to help other people start their families as well. 

There’s a life mantra I've been developing for many years that goes like this: “be grateful, stay open, give what you can, and enjoy the ride.” 

In Jen, I see someone who is truly living this mantra. She realized pregnancy was her happy place, and wanted to gift that experience to others.

Some people don't understand her calling- that's fine. She still does it. Jen is not afraid of loss, failure, or being misunderstood. In fact she embraces these things, painful as they may be, because she wouldn't get the magical experience of birth without them.