Carrying Hope: An Unconventional Path to Motherhood Through Surrogacy
Images courtesy of Mariam Shahab unless otherwise stated.
I never imagined being in the same category as Chrissy Teigen, Kim Kardashian, or Tan France. Nor could I have dreamed of someone else carrying and birthing my child. I’ve never aspired to celebrity culture or cared much about it, but alas, when my fertility doctor suggested pursuing surrogacy as my most viable path to parenthood, I began my journey into what I thought was the seemingly unattainable life of the rich and famous.
As a woman, it felt like a failure to not be able to carry my own child. I always knew I wanted to be a mother, but I was betrayed by my body and by what society told me was the norm. Although my husband and I met in high school and married after college, we assumed we would be able to have children when we were ready. When that time came and we weren’t able to conceive naturally, we began seeing specialists, underwent a series of fertility tests, and ultimately decided to undergo a round of IVF just in case.
With my embryos on ice, I dug deep into researching gestational surrogacy (1) as the world shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a lonely and confusing time. Social media posts from influencers, virtual baby shower invites from friends, and even attempts at a Netflix binge all became triggers. Somehow everyone was pregnant when I couldn’t be.
Even through my rabbit hole of Googling surrogacy, I rarely came across anyone who looked like me–a South Asian American Muslim woman living in Texas–as an intended parent or a surrogate. Despite this, my husband and I spent our Memorial Day weekend in 2020 applying to surrogacy agencies recommended by our fertility clinic. We filled out profiles about ourselves to attract our perfect match from a potential surrogate. It was like filling out a dating profile. Each application asked about our favorite movies and travel destinations, but with a twist of extremely serious questions like under which circumstances we would terminate a pregnancy.
Once we were matched with our surrogate that summer, then came the trust-building process. Asking for and trusting someone else to carry your baby is literally an out-of-body experience. It’s the biggest ask of another person to help you in such a vulnerable way. The relationship an intended mother and surrogate have is unlike any other. There are stated expectations in 80+ page contracts, psychological screenings, and compensation agreements to support the legal, financial, and mental load. Knowing the heart, and uterus, of a stranger (in our case), was intertwined with our hopes, dreams, and aspirations for the future of our family. It is nerve-wracking, anxiety-inducing, and simultaneously awe-inspiring and unbelievably exciting.
While my husband and I live in Texas, our surrogate lives in Oklahoma, about a six-hour driving distance away. It was important to us to find ways to bond with our child in utero and with our surrogate and her family so we became regulars on the I-35 highway to attend all major milestone appointments in person. It ended up being a way for my husband and I to bond too. We purchased our surrogate BellyBuds headphones safe for her growing belly and recorded ourselves reading, talking, and singing for our baby to hear our voices. We relied on our surrogate to text us pictures and call us with updates each week. I wanted to know all of the seemingly mundane details of the pregnancy. I was so curious to know what foods she was craving. Together, we laughed at the nicknames her children gave to our baby growing in their mom’s belly. I cherished the first family drawing her son drew for us depicting our future life as mom, dad, and baby. One of my fondest memories of our surrogacy journey was capturing our own version of a maternity photoshoot with our surrogate and her family on top of a mountain in Oklahoma. We hired a photographer who was used to taking traditional maternity shoots and shared what was important to us when capturing our journey.
(1) Gestational surrogacy is an embryo created by IVF using the intended parents’ or donors’ sperm and egg. After fertilization, the embryo is implanted into the uterus of the gestational carrier.
Surrogacy maternity photoshoot featuring intended parents, Mariam Shahab & Umar Syed, with their surrogate. | Dallas Lewis Photography
As a self-identified Type A individual, I focused on letting go of control during this process. I couldn’t control what other people were thinking about my decision to pursue parenthood in this way. I couldn’t control what my surrogate ate or whether she exercised. I couldn’t control how much parental leave I would get at my job. However, I did heavily influence and advocate for this which in turn created a blueprint for future parents through surrogacy at my job and the holding company. Furthermore, I couldn’t control the COVID-19 protocols that prevented me from being in the room for the heartbeat confirmation appointment or in the delivery room when my son was born.
After being myopically focused on my journey to parenthood and once I was finally holding my son in my arms, I began to unpack, recognize, and name the systemic barriers for potential parents from fertility to surrogacy. In early 2024, the Pope called surrogacy ‘deplorable,’ and called for a worldwide ban. It’s no wonder surrogacy is inaccessible, full of misinformation, and uninviting to so many marginalized groups. It’s commentary like this and media coverage only about celebrity surrogacy pregnancies that make intended parents via surrogacy feel uncomfortable sharing their stories out loud, for fear of judgment and assumptions. Additionally, access to these types of treatments is often a privilege. Individuals can face challenges from healthcare inequities, including racism within the healthcare system, to lack of insurance coverage and high cost of treatment. Today, some corporations are expanding their family-building benefits which is a step in the right direction. However, until more people of color, and non-celebrities, see themselves visually represented in these paths to parenthood, the nonverbal signals of, “This isn’t for you” will continue to permeate.
However, I can’t keep quiet. I am a proud mom via gestational surrogacy. I firmly believe it only takes one story to destigmatize an entire journey or change an opinion about who should and can have access to building their family. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Sometimes it takes a village to bring a baby into this world. The journey to parenthood doesn’t look the same for everyone and it’s not fair to assume that it is. We can’t control what other people say, but we can work together to create intentional change toward inclusive vocabulary, policies, and support systems. Together, we can evolve the narrative of surrogacy and the headlines from celebrity and global leaders, which can make intended parents feel othered, to create more inclusive spaces for regular people to have a voice and share their stories free of assumptions and without judgment.
Mariam Shahab is the founder of Chatterbox Consulting, an inclusive marketing consultancy, but her favorite job title is Mama. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and son who was born via gestational surrogacy in September 2021. Shahab is using her lived experiences to advocate for inclusive parenthood journeys—in the workplace, in mom groups, in brand marketing efforts, and in society at large.
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