11/07/2025
What No One Understands About Infertile Holidays: You're Sinking While Everyone Else Moves Forward
The question always came at the holidays.
"How's the surrogacy journey going?"
And when you have no plan, no hope, no direction, what can you say? One year I answered: "We haven't decided what we're telling people right now. You can read into that what you want."
Because there wasn't much else to say.
Later that evening, a relative asked, āWhy donāt you just keep trying to get pregnant? Why do you need a surrogate?"
I'd already explained that Christy didn't have a uterus. We'd said it clearly. Multiple times.
The whole concept went right over their head. No uterus.
How do you respond to that? How many times do you have to explain the most painful medical reality of your life before it registers for others?
I smiled and moved on. What else could I do?
That's what infertile holidays feel likeāhaving to re-explain your trauma to people who can't or won't absorb it, while you just keep smiling because no one understands that you're drowning.
It wasn't just one painful Thanksgiving or Christmas. It was multiple holidays over multiple years. Everyone else was going about their life, making changes, moving forward.
And I was stuck in quicksand, sinking.
The Elevator That Won't Move
Your life is on hold when you're infertile. It's like being stuck on an elevator waiting to go somewhere.
Take me up, take me down. But you're stuck in place and there's no phone to call anyone to help get you unstuck.
The holidays magnify everything. You have relatives excited and hoping to hear news of a grandchild you can't give them. You have the next generation of the family on hold.
Your number one mission is to go forth and multiply and you're stuck in a loop with no timeline for solving the problem and releasing the grief.
That grief doesn't go anywhere. It just stays trapped inside you, burning in your heart while your destiny sits in limbo.
Hearing Them Call
We found some peace with long walks on the beach.
But that's also where we heard our children calling out to us in the sounds of crashing waves.
They were part of our life in some ways, but more in a yearning to be with them and missing them than actually present. More like we were failing them by not being able to hold and comfort them.
It's like they were playing hide and seek with us and we couldn't find them and they kept calling for us.
Peaceful because they were so close. Torture because they were so far away.
If you heard your children calling for you, would you be able to give up? Or would you go find someone who knew where they were and could safely bring them to you?
We didn't have any option but to find someone who could help our waiting children and guide them home.
The Answer Key
When we finally connected with our surrogate, the feeling was relief.
She came with a map, a game plan, a direction and a timeline. Hope and faith filled the air.
She didn't know it but she was the answer key for us.
She gave us oxygen that we could breathe. Rest and comfort. She was someone with a smile who showed up to help us and protect our children when we weren't able to.
She was a guide who took them on this nine-month journey and guided them to us like lost children we were missing, keeping them safe until we could be reunited.
But here's what I wish she had known: It's not just a child. It's a family. It's a future you can't achieve without her help.
A child almost sounds limiting to helping create the next generation of our family and four children and all their life.
She gave our children the chance of life. You can't win the lottery without a ticket and she was our ticket. Fortunately for us, surrogacy has better odds than the lottery.
The Gift That Keeps Giving
The helplessness of the process was humbling. No amount of effort on my part could solve my infertility problem. I could never carry a baby.
So these women gave us everything.
I was able to marry and stay married to my wife who couldn't carry my children yet still have children with her. That's a priceless prize and a miracle that lives with me every day.
It fills me with gratitude every time I see my kids do something new.
Going into this, I thought surrogacy would be a season of my life, a chapter that closed after my children were born. But it lives in my heart every day and my appreciation of what they delivered for me keeps growing.
I live with four walking, talking miracles that I get to watch grow and explore the world every day.
A Message to Surrogates This Holiday Season
The best gift you can give someone yearning to be a parent is to match with them in November or December so they can go home excited with a plan and a purpose.
It relieves so much holiday and family stress to be able to say "We have a surrogate and a plan."
I know many surrogates don't want to match during this time because they're busy with their families and holiday schedules. But all it really takes is one phone call and a yes. Everything else can be scheduled to start in mid-January after the holidays are over.
That one phone call will be the best present you could ever give someone.
You're not just offering to carry a baby. You're offering a family stuck in an elevator a way to move. You're offering parents who hear their children calling in the wind a way to bring them home. Youāre offering a hopeful grandparent relief.
You're offering oxygen to people who can't breathe.
Hope Is Movement
I used to think hope was a feeling. But I learned that hope is an action.
It's movement. It's someone showing up to say "I'm here to help, let's take this path together, I too see your North Star." Someone else can see it with you so you aren't alone anymore.
Forward motion is always going to feel better than being stuck. A plan alone brings relief.
If you're an intended parent experiencing your first painful holiday season right now, contact us. We'll do our best to match you before you have to go home without a plan.
If youāre a hopeful Intended Parent, even if a match doesn't happen that quickly, we can still help you figure out your path forward. You can get started with a doctor, create embryos, just start taking your first steps forward.
Because movement matters more than timing.
And to the women considering surrogacy: I highly encourage you to give the gift of surrogacy this year and provide hope.
You have no idea how profoundly you can transform someone's holiday season from grief into gratitude.
What No One Understands About Infertile Holidays š
The holidays are supposed to be joyful ā but for couples facing infertility, they can be some of the hardest days of the year.
Everyoneās asking: āAny baby news?ā
Meanwhile, youāre quietly sinking ā smiling through pain that no one else can see.
For years, Christy and I went through holidays like that.
No plan. No hope. No direction.
Just the ache of explaining, again, that she couldnāt carryā¦ and the hollow silence when people didnāt understand what that really meant.
It felt like being stuck in an elevator that wouldnāt move ā watching everyone else go on with their lives while we stayed trapped between floors.
Then came the miracle.
A woman said yes.
Our surrogate gave us a map, a plan, and oxygen to breathe again. She guided our children safely home to us.
So if youāre an Intended Parent sinking through another painful holiday season ā hold on. Movement is coming.
And to the women considering surrogacy:
You have no idea how much light your āyesā brings to a family waiting in the dark. You are the miracle that turns grief into gratitude.
āØ Hope isnāt a feeling ā itās movement.
One miracle at a time.
Read More about this story š
https://medium.com//the-silent-pain-of-infertile-holidays-ca2d57efb26e
āāāāāāāā
If you are ready to start:
You can start your profile by following this link:
https://expectmiraclessurrogacy.com/apply-as-a-surrogate/
