**Continued from Part 1 and Part 2 of my story**

How were we going to go about finding another surrogate to carry a baby for us? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what to do. I scoured Facebook groups to see how other people found surrogates, independently of an agency.

The only thing I could think to do at the time was to start putting the word out there that we were looking for another gestational carrier. I’d tell anyone who asked (and even people who didn’t ask!). You never know when someone you talk to will know of a friend of a friend who might be interested, right?!

Well friends, that’s exactly what happened….in a more round about way.

I was talking to one of my friends about looking for a gestational carrier and I was telling her how I felt a little lost. She mentioned one of her old co-workers used a gestational carrier to carry her twins, and she met her in a Facebook group. And that gestational carrier happens to live in my home town. My friend asked if I’d like to be connected to her, and I immediately screamed YES!

That particular gestational carrier (I’ll just call her C) wasn’t able to be a surrogate anymore (she hit her limit with the number of pregnancies), but she was heavily involved in the surrogacy world in our community. I was asking her for advice on how to find someone on my own, without going through an agency, since that’s what she did. She gave me some tips, and told me she’d keep her ears open if she hears of anyone interested in another surrogacy journey.

Fast forward to February 2018: my daughter was 5 months old, and I get a call from C. She tells me she found a surrogate who is experienced and is interested in a second surrogacy journey. She passed along her contact info, I called her immediately, and we set up a time to meet up and chat in person.

A tiny glimmer of hope was starting to emerge! Could we really make this happen??

I met up with our gestational carrier, Lindsay, later that month. We met up for lunch and clicked instantly. It felt SO meant to be. We were on the same page with everything: she was open to moving forward with an indy journey (no agencies involved), she had surrogacy friendly insurance, and we agreed on all of the important topics (like no termination, compensation, etc.). PLUS we discovered she lived only 5 minutes away from me. What were the chances?!

As with any surrogacy journey, our process was SLOW. We didn’t end up having our transfer scheduled until January 2019, almost a full year after I met her.

Why the hold up?

There were several factors: in the beginning, she wanted to make sure the family she worked with during her first surrogacy journey didn’t want to move forward with a sibling journey. They weren’t ready to move forward, so we were able to get started!

Then our clinic denied Lindsay as a gestational carrier. I’m not going to get into the details of the medical reasons why she was denied, since that is her personal information. But to us, it felt like the reasons they gave shouldn’t prevent her from moving forward with another pregnancy.

We decided to get a second opinion at a different clinic, and they approved her (after some consultations)!!! We were both prepared to get denied again, so I was once again completely elated and overjoyed to know we were able to move forward together.

How is that for a round about connection to our gestational carrier?! My friend’s old co-worker’s surrogate connected me to Lindsay….you never know how you’ll find someone!

Like I mentioned, we had an embryo transfer in January of 2019. Our son, Wyatt, was born on September 23, 2019. We had finally completed our family. We have two beautiful, healthy children almost exactly 2 years apart. One girl, one boy.

Still to this day, I feel like I need to pinch myself when I realize our family is complete. There were so many years of pain and heartache when I didn’t know how we would ever have a family. So many years of feeling hopeless, not knowing how to move forward.

But here we are. To everyone out there who might be feeling like I used to, PLEASE keep moving forward. Keep putting one foot in front of another, and you will get there….some way, somehow. The journey to grow your family might be a roller coaster and not look how you envisioned, but I promise you it’s all worth it in the end. All of that worry and anxiety was worth it. We made it. There were so many tearful nights where I didn’t think we’d ever get here. But here we are – we’re on the other side, and my hope for all of you is that you’ll all be standing right where we are, with a completed family, so very soon.