Today is a VERY exciting day. With her permission and
blessing, I am so excited to introduce you to our amazing gestational carrier,
Ashlee.
Ashlee and her husband William live in Georgia with their
four children. She is an instructional coach, which means she assists teachers
in planning lessons and improving outcomes for their students. She is
passionate about her family and her job, and she even has a blog and social
media account with her best friend devoted to promoting literacy skills and
educational resources for all teachers. When she isn’t loving her husband and
kids and helping educate every high schooler in her school system, she loves to
read, visit the beach, and volunteer.
When Josh and I met Ashlee and William for the first time,
we were immediately drawn to their warm personalities and kindness. In many
ways, we felt like we had known them forever, and we certainly knew almost immediately
that we would be so lucky to “match” with them through our agency. Our initial
assessment has proven right over and over again as we’ve continued to build a
relationship, and when I say we are forever blessed simply by knowing Ashlee
and William, I couldn’t mean it more. We obviously hope our journey with them
will lead to the additional blessing of a child in the future, but for now we
are so grateful for the chance to befriend them and share this experience with
them.
When Ashlee applied to be a carrier with our agency, she
shared her “why.” She said, surrogacy is a dream
that was planted in my heart a few years ago when my midwife made a joke that I
liked pregnancy so much that I should be a surrogate. The idea has stayed with
me, and finally, as my last baby turned 3, I knew that I was ready. I know in
my heart I am 1,000% done with having biological babies. I want another family
to feel the joy and pride of parenthood when they look at their own babies. If
I can help someone else find that joy, I would feel so fulfilled and proud of
myself." She
has since shared with me that her desire to help another couple build their
family was so strong it was keeping her awake at night! When I think about my
interactions with Ashlee, I think these sentiments express how special she is
perfectly. She is passionate, she is kind, and she is generous. She loves her
family deeply, and she is willing to share that love with us as we grow our
family.
I’ll
end by sharing this letter written by one of Ashlee’s daughters and included in
her agency profile. One of the hardest things about considering a gestational
carrier for us was the idea that we would have no control over the environment
that our baby was in while he or she was growing in utero. We shared this fear
with our match manager, and we boiled it down to the idea that we wanted our
carrier to live in an environment of love. We obviously wanted her to be
healthy and follow her doctor’s orders, but the intangible piece for us was
that we wanted her to be loved, and to give love freely to those around her.
Ashlee didn’t know this about us when she submitted her profile materials, and
it is just one of the countless ways that this match has felt Divinely
inspired. Josh and I couldn’t be more thrilled to (hopefully) have our little
one share his or her first nine months with her.
