“So, for me, this Journey began before the screening and application phase, which is the first step in working with NYSC! I have known people throughout my life who struggled with fertility seeing how heartbreaking it was I decided while still in my teens that I would help if given the chance. Then after my husband and I had our 2 amazing kids, I brought up the idea to my husband of becoming a surrogate. He always knew it was something I considered, but he said he never really expected that I would actually go after it. He was NOT thrilled at first, his first response was a mixture of fear and confusion; he would find horror stories on the internet and show them to me. These stories didn’t persuade me to reconsider, so we agreed to look into it separately for a few months and talk bring it up after that. I think he needed time to really accept how important this was to me and even though he doesn’t understand why I want to do this!

At the end of that stage, he agreed he’d support me starting the process as long as I got answers on how these scenarios he found would play out if they happened to us, and NO international. I actually used a company Surrogacy Is to match with NYSC- because I had no idea what to look for in an agency and where to start. They brought me a few options on who I could go to and what packages they offered. When I was discussing it with them and my options 2 things stuck out to me and ultimately were why I chose NYSC.

  1. They offered 250k more in life insurance than most other agencies! Now I know that is VERY unlikely I would need it, well really my family, but if something happened to me that would go a long way to making a difference for my family. I am a stay-at-home mom and I homeschool my children, so that would be a big gap to fill.
  2. When I looked into the agencies and how they started/surrogate’s experience I saw a few things. No surrogate I could find gave Joe anything less than a glowing review, saying he was literally always available, understanding, patient, and truly someone you want in your support group during all this. Then the dedication Casey and Joe have had to both making commercial surrogacy legal in NY as well as advocating for families. I knew even before speaking to them that they do this for the same reason I want to be a part of it; to help.

After choosing my agency, I had a conversation with Joe to go over the timeline of the process, what to expect, and of course to get information to help ease my husband’s internet story stress. Of course, the worries didn’t stop after just one of seven conversations, we had a TON. I could write a book of all of the scenarios I was asking him about; in fairness it is a huge decision so we felt we needed to make sure we were comfortable. Joe is truly a saint who never even questioned why or how we were coming up with or asking such wild questions, and believe me some of them were out there!

Meanwhile, I started sending over my medical records, and insurance information and called my doctor to ask about getting a recommendation and my PAP/STD test done. Well, my doctor in no uncertain or polite terms, let me know that he was against surrogacy as a whole and would not help in any way. I was shocked! I didn’t realize that people still had a stigma with it. I ended up going to my old doctor- (I moved states) who delivered my oldest and saw me for most of my pregnancy with my youngest- he was more than happy to have the tests done and recommend me! This process has been a lot of “hurry up and wait” the hardest part for me was waiting after I sent in the whole checklist! It took me about a month from first talking on the phone with Joe to tell I got the email to schedule a zoom home visit! “