Surrogacy Update: He Can Do ANYTHING

Just before Christmas, we asked for your prayers about our desire to start a family. Because of my cancer history, we are in need of a surrogate to do so, and that will cost around $75,000. What God has done in just a few short weeks since that time has been one of the most incredible miracles I’ve ever experienced in my life!

It all started about this time last year. Because Matt and I are now working with the YouVersion Bible App created by Life.Church, we thought it made sense to get to know them and visit their church. There is a Life.Church campus about 7 minutes from our house, but did we visit that campus? Nope, that would be entirely too logical. Instead, we drove an hour to south Fort Worth because we knew a friend at that location. We connected with several people there as well as one of the staff wives named Lisa, and one evening I shared my story with her; the cancer journey, the embryos we have waiting for us, and our future desire for a family. Lisa shared that she once knew a friend in Colorado that had felt called to be a surrogate one day, but that was at least 10 years ago and she had no idea if that was still true. A few weeks later, the pandemic hit, and we’ve really not been in touch with anyone there since then.

Fast forward to the present. As we’ve prayed about this next season of our life, that $75k price tag is pretty overwhelming, so we figured we’d need to organize a GoFundMe.  So, we did, and we emailed all our close friends the exciting journey we were about to embark on. But as soon as we hit “send”, Matt and I both had an unsettling in our spirit. Not that we shouldn’t be pursuing a family, but that we should hold off on the GoFundMe. Neither of us mentioned it to the other, though. The next morning, we both individually had our own prayer time and afterward realized we both still felt the same way. So, we drafted a second email to our close friends and family essentially saying, “just kidding…undo”. We still felt like this was the path, but God was telling us to wait, to increase our time in prayer, and to see what He had in store. So instead of a GoFundMe, we asked for your prayers.

Just a few weeks later, I received a text message from a total stranger, completely out of the blue. After introducing herself as Hayley, she went on to explain we have a mutual friend named Lisa (the Lisa that I briefly met at the Life.Church campus we attended an hour away from our house instead of the one 7 minutes down the road). Hayley went on to explain that she had always felt a calling to one day be a surrogate, but she has never felt right working for an agency, being paid for it, or had a close friend that needed her. Lisa had reached out to her over the holidays and shared our story with her, and if we wanted to have a conversation to see where God leads, she would love to talk about it more.

My jaw hit the floor.

Needless to say, we set up a zoom meeting! We tried to keep our emotions in check…who was this person, has she ever even had kids? Would she live close enough that we could participate in the important milestones and appointments during the pregnancy? Would she have health insurance? Would we like her? Was it a scam???? Was she CRAZY??? There were so many details that would need to fall into just the right place, but we took the first step.

And she. is. awesome.

We connected right away! We enjoyed meeting with her, she was in fact not crazy, and as we shared our stories, we both felt a mutual kinship. And if that’s all God did, it would have been enough. But God likes to do exceedingly and abundantly more than we can ever ask or imagine.

As we got to know each other, Hayley shared that surrogacy had been a lifelong dream. In high school, one of her close friends had actually been carried by her aunt, and that touched Hayley in a way that stayed with her for life. She felt called to one day give this gift to someone, and she had been waiting for God to bring them into her path. In the meantime, she’s gotten married and has three amazing children.

But wait, there’s more.

She grew up in the area and now lives here in DFW, about an hour away from us. Attending all the important appointments and moments would not be a problem.

She is an oncology nurse. We have some familiarity with that.

She even offered to pump breastmilk after the pregnancy, which is something I cannot do and frankly never would have even thought to ask about.

Once again, I had to collect my jaw from the floor.

But wait, there’s more. (Infomercials don’t even have this many “mores”, but God does!)

She mentioned she knew Lisa because they had played soccer in college together. Matt, having played competitive soccer growing up, and being a huge soccer fan, asked if she played select soccer in high school. She did!

Matt: Which team did you play for?

Hayley: The D’feeters.

Matt: That’s crazy, my sister played for the D’feeters. When did you play?

Hayley: The 82 Team.

Matt: (silence). My sister played on the 82 Team. Do you know my sister? Melissa Gorman?

Hayley: Yes I do! We were teammates! We are still facebook friends!

At this point, my jaw resides permanently on the floor, never to return again. Matt and Hayley would have crossed paths many times at these soccer games, his dad even helped coach her team for a couple seasons! You simply can’t write a story like this!

We ended the call agreeing to continue praying, but both feeling like there is no question this “chance” meeting was arranged by God alone.

Since then, we’ve kept in touch and we’ll be meeting in person in a few weeks. While there are still many questions to be answered, details to be worked out, and we are a long way from either party making commitments to each other, I don’t know if my mind has ever been blown by God this much. And I beat cancer – my bar for mind-blowing is pretty high!

As a Christ follower, she also doesn’t mind me sharing what God is doing in our lives in this forum, because stories like this are a testimony of His faithfulness to others. Not to mention a testimony to myself…any time in the last few weeks I have found myself anxious or worried about something, I just remind myself “God made a perfect stranger text you out of the blue and offer to have your baby…God can do anything!”

So while we are still quite early in this journey and anything can happen, I simply can’t not share this incredible story with you! It’s increased my own faith and I cannot keep it to myself! So whatever you are going through today, whatever anxieties and worries you are facing, whatever “that thing” is that you are having trouble trusting God with…God can do anything.

So what’s next? After we meet in person and that goes well (speaking it into existence!), there will be lots of doctor appointments and screenings and lots of attorneys and legal matters. We may still do the GoFundMe because the cost of IVF, attorneys, medical bills, etc will probably still be in the $30,000-$50,000 range and the financial need will still exist…but we’ll figure that out over the next few months, and that is a WAY less intimidating number than what we started with! We can get there. That’s actually achievable. And even if it wasn’t…God can do anything.

(Sidenote – God is moving in more ways than one…you may have seen on social media that we applied for a fertility grant from a non-profit and just this week we were informed that we were awarded that grant for $5,000! I’d say that’s a pretty great place to start! At this point, God is really just showing off…)

More than anything, we covet your prayers. I truly believe this only came to pass because of the community of support in prayer we have around us. God is working literal miracles in our life and you are part of it. Please continue to pray for us in this journey, and I would love to know how we can lift you up in prayer as well. Where two or more are gathered, He is there. And He can do anything!