Me, Her Baby- & the Surrogate

I have been scanning expecting families for over a decade, at any moment I can call up any one of the several hundred of clients and client families that left a mark on me. One that comes to mind at this particular moment is the one of a biological mother, her baby- and her surrogate.

The surrogate was local, but due to state laws surrounding surrogacy the bio mom was from over 700 miles away in a different state. The surrogate arrived first, it was just the two of us in the dimly lit cozy ultrasound suite. She wanted to know if we allowed recording, she asked me about the angle of the tv from the viewing chair. She new her role well, she was advocating for her bio family. She explained it was the bio mom’s first time getting to see her baby outside of a cellphone screen during doctor’s appointments. The bio mom had flown in for our appointment, it would be the first and last time before birth that the bio mom would get to be in the same room as her baby and see her baby in real time. The bio mom arrived. She wasn’t giddy with excitement. She arrived , calm, reserved and quiet. She remained this way through out the whole exam. I wondered to myself, if it had been the long journey to get here, the roadblocks, specialists, and bad news that had stolen the unquenchable hopeful excitement that I typically experience with expecting families.

Instead of highlighting that, I treated her exactly as if it where her on my bed. The dedicated surrogate played her part perfectly. I spoke directly to the bio mom. Bio mom sat on the side of the bed, where the surrogate had all but faded in to the bed, never looking away from my screen as I told her, “ this is your babies face, and this is his little feet”. Several times I held the probe still, just so she could watch her baby dance around, grimace his face or kick his foot. When he did kick, She would place her hand on the surrogates belly, She could see him kick while she felt it at the same time. I printed three times the amount of pictures I was allowed ( If you’re reading this, Sorry Jill!) and I have never regretted it.

When the appointment came to an end, I knew the three of us were all sad to see the end of such a magical time. We just spent the last 30 impactful minutes together, time had felt like it stopped. The surrogate’s hope to give the biological mom an amazing experience she felt she deserved, was achieved. As they left and I cleaned the room I thought about how the biological mom would be thinking about the time we spent together every minute for the next five months while she waited to finally hold her baby. It was then that I realized how special it was to me to be the stewardess of that moment, and the pride I felt having made it everything i could has stayed with me since.