Episode 72 Hail Mary Pregnancy Faith Cancer And A Surrogacy Miracle Part 1

00;00;09;01 – 00;01;54;12
Kelly Parbs
Life doesn’t always unfold the way we expect. Sometimes the path forward is shaped by illness, loss, uncertainty, or decisions we never imagined we’d have to make in those moments we’re often asked to redefine hope, and to rely on connection, trust, and courage in new ways. I’m your host, Kelly Parbs. I’m a licensed clinical social worker. And throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of walking alongside people as they navigate complex life transitions, especially when the road ahead feels unclear or overwhelming. My guests today are Jess and Paige, two women whose lives became deeply connected through an extraordinary surrogacy journey. Jess is a mother and a cancer survivor who faced a stage four breast cancer diagnosis while pregnant. Paige is a mother who felt called to become a surrogate long before she ever knew Jess, and ultimately said yes to carrying Jess’s second child. Today we’re talking about surrogacy, but also about trust, boundaries, faith and hope when the path forward looks nothing like what you planned. These conversations matter because they remind us that even in the most uncertain circumstances, meaningful connection and possibility can still emerge. Please welcome Jess and Paige. Before we dive into your surrogacy story, I’d like our listeners to understand exactly where you were in life before that story began. And, Jess, let’s start with you.

00;01;54;14 – 00;02;54;02
Jess
I was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer, specifically triple negative breast cancer. I was diagnosed with that in 20… 2018. But I had been really fortunate that I had been responding really while to treatment and then no evidence of disease for a few years. So that’s when I knew I was like, okay, I want to build a family. So I got to the point where I had a sit down conversation with my oncologist. Well, and just point blank side like, I know that I want to build a family. I have a, beautiful baby girl. Well, I shouldn’t say baby at that point. She was five. She would have been right around five, 4 or 5. And I know that I want to be able to give her a sibling. How do I do that? Like, what are going to be my options?

00;02;54;05 – 00;03;21;23
Kelly Parbs
And for our listeners who want to hear that amazing story, if you go to OnTopic with Empathia Episodes 10 and 11, I sat down with Jess for about an hour and we told that whole interesting story. But for the purposes of this podcast Paige, maybe you can tell us what was your life like before you were faced with this question of being a surrogate for Jess?

00;03;21;26 – 00;04;14;09
Paige
So I’m a stay at home mom. I have four kids. I’ve been home with my kiddos for a while, and we were kind of navigating back and forth. If we wanted to homeschool, and we were kind of in that journey knowing that we were we were done having kids of our own. But surrogacy has always been something in the back of my mind. So even before I met Jessica, this was something I always knew I wanted to do. And, before that happened, my husband and I had many conversations before we had our fourth. And I said, you know, I really know that surrogacy is in my future, but I don’t think that I’d be able to do it if I knew I didn’t have one of my own. So we did. We had our fourth, and after that, there was just something in me that knew I wanted to do surrogacy, but I didn’t know exactly how that would turn out. And then I met Jessica.

00;04;14;11 – 00;05;00;04
Kelly Parbs
Wow! And we’ll talk more about that in a little bit. I don’t know if I’ve personally ever known someone who they just knew that surrogacy was supposed to be part of their journey, and I can’t wait to talk a little bit more about that. But just back to you. Fast forward. Praise God that you had this healthy baby girl and that you beat breast cancer and brain cancer. I don’t know if you mentioned that. Wow, what a story! And now you’re thinking about having another child. Can you tell us a little bit more about what were your options for doing that, and what went into the decision to pursue having another child? I’d also be interested in hearing what your husband thought about that as well.

00;05;00;07 – 00;07;55;07
Jess
Yeah, opposite a Paige like I, I had no idea! Like this is, Well, any of it. I had no. Well, nobody ever wants cancer. And does do they want cancer? A grand total of three times. But I had no idea it was going to build a family in the nontraditional way. So I just am still amazed when Paige talks about, like, I just knew it was in my stomach. Now, I knew I was meant to have more than one child. Like, I was super passionate about that. Like I wasn’t going to let anybody in tell me that. Like, no, you really should just have, you know, you should just have the, you know, you have a child like you should have one child like that was. And that was just not an option. Like for some reason, again, like how Paige was feeling that intuition of there was something more. Right? You were made for something more and like, I just did exactly know what that was. So we’re talking with my oncologist, adoption. Unfortunately that was just gonna take a long time. I at this point, I was already 36 going on 37 years old. I just didn’t think that wasn’t going to work. Because of cancer, there’s just a lot of, like, obviously, it was a huge emotional. It still is. You know, so then we talked about the option of, you know, fostering, but due to cancer being like, I just think foster care is. So I a huge shout out to those that are able to, foster and but I just that wasn’t an option for our family. I just, I knew that emotionally I wasn’t built for that. So then we went to surrogacy and I was like, oh, my gosh, could could we potentially get my eggs out? And my oncologist is like, I have no idea just what is going on down there. You’ve had a lot of chemo. I also in one positive and there have been some studies that show that BRCA1 folks, we are low on eggs naturally, and then the quality of our eggs aren’t necessarily that great, but I was like, stop being negative. My oncologist was like, let’s just go for it. Let’s throw the Hail Mary. I then once we started talking about it, I started in my spine. I’m one of those people who go off their gut and probably more than I should, but I was like, yup, that’s when I knew Kelly. I was like, I am going to go the surrogacy route and at least see how far I can get. So my oncologist signed off on doing all the meds to do an egg retrieval while still on drug on like chemotherapy drugs. And so we decided that all the Hail Mary and tried it.

00;07;55;10 – 00;07;57;08
Kelly Parbs
And what did your husband think about that?

00;07;57;08 – 00;08;37;03
Jess
Oh yeah. Dave, my husband, I think he thought I was a little nuts. I say that, but honest, I think he was really. He was. He was really scared. He was not for it whatsoever. He. It was a huge argument in our marriage. I honestly, I didn’t know if our marriage was going to last. I was so passionate, and this was that this was, I don’t want to say it. No brainer. That’s not the word I’m looking for. This was not. This wasn’t like this was not, not doing this was not an option.

00;08;37;05 – 00;08;44;24
Kelly Parbs
You absolutely knew. Like you said, you’re a person who who response from your gut and your gut said, this is what we’re doing.

00;08;45;01 – 00;10;16;22
Jess
Yeah. I was like, well, Dave, we have to try. And what his point of view was, if I, if I die, he would be left with two kids, not one. And it’s easier to parent one kid alone than it is to. And so then that opened a whole new argument or a whole new view of discussion of is that how you look at me? Is that you’re looking, you’re waiting, that I’m, you’re you’re thinking that I’m going to die, right? That I and so I need somebody who is going to be my cheerleader, not waiting for my, you know, waiting for my funeral. So after a lot of in-depth conversations, we ended up going to counseling, which I highly promote. Anybody you go to counseling when you get in, you know, any type of relationship issues. But when you get to a tee, you know, like a tee in the road, like this is where we really needed to have a professional stop in and be able to, like, start weeding out like, hey, what is the issue about this? So we did. We ended up going to counseling, be able to see that. Like where I was coming from, I was able to see where he was coming from. As far as like being scared about my health, even though I had been in a good place. But, I was able to see where he was coming from, and but when it was all said and done, we he got on board. It was like, okay, just well, like, I guess, let’s see how far we can get.

00;10;16;24 – 00;10;21;16
Kelly Parbs
So that that sounds like a pretty emotional endurance journey.

00;10;21;18 – 00;10;23;27
Jess
Answer for you. Yeah, well.

00;10;24;00 – 00;10;36;12
Kelly Parbs
And as a counselor myself, I’m glad that you chose the route of talking with a professional and helping you sort through that. Paige, at this point, you didn’t even know Jessica or her story!

00;10;36;15 – 00;10;37;24
Paige
No, I didn’t!

00;10;37;27 – 00;10;51;28
Kelly Parbs
But you said that surrogacy was something that you had thought about, like we discussed when you thought about it in the past, did you imagine that you would do it for a friend, or at least someone you knew?

00;10;52;00 – 00;11;38;10
Paige
You know that I it’s funny that you ask because I remember back in high school thinking about it like, I don’t know why. It’s just, you know, looking back, I know now why God had that on my heart because he knew I was gonna cross paths with Jessica, and this was going to, you know, come to fruit. And, But I knew I always wanted to do it. I didn’t want to do it through an agency. And I know that works. There’s so many people that there’s so many great agencies that, you know, pair you with wonderful families. And but a lot of those families, like, you know, they’re from different states across the country or even, across the world. And you you don’t get to necessarily have a relationship with that family or the child that you were carrying. And I knew that I wanted to do it for somebody, that I would be able to build a relationship with.

00;11;38;12 – 00;11;49;28
Kelly Parbs
Sure. And again, at this point, you didn’t know Jessica. So, Paige, can you tell us how the connection was made, how your paths crossed?

00;11;50;00 – 00;12;23;17
Paige
Oh, my best friend from growing up, she went to school down at Edgewood down in Madison. And your daughter also went to actually, and they were roommates. And, I went down to visit a few times and we all just got along so well and we kept in contact and I must have mentioned surrogacy at some point. I don’t remember when I even said something, but it was, oh gosh, Jess, what month was that that we- that connected on social media? That was probably June or July?

00;12;23;19 – 00;12;30;29
Jess
Yeah, I had it been June 2022 because we, we ended up going to lunch.

00;12;31;01 – 00;12;43;22
Paige
I had and I mean, you are from, you know, 20 minutes away from I am I’m surprised that I hadn’t, you know, seen your page or your story pop up. It just I just never did. And she messaged me.

00;12;43;24 – 00;12;51;01
Kelly Parbs
So just to be clear, when you say she messaged me and I have to say, you guys, I really love being a tiny part of this story.

00;12;51;01 – 00;13;44;16
Jess
I was just gonna say! Yeah, we got to, like, bring in Kelly here because, do you mind? Kelly, if I go? I think Paige’s missing a part, so I’m sitting here before work one morning, so I get through, we do the egg retrieval, we realize. Okay, we got. I gotta start hunting now for a surrogate. So I put the word out. I get a call from our host here, Kelly Parbs, at eight in the morning, and I’m like, why is Kelly calling me at eight in the morning? Because that’s not really something Kelly would do! And- and so I pick it up and she says, hey Jess,, because she’s the kindest voice and is like, I, I think my daughter knows somebody that might want to be your surrogate. So that’s really how it started, was Kelly calling at eight in the morning!

00;13;44;19 – 00;14;15;20
Kelly Parbs
It just so interesting how that all came together. And again, I love being a teeny little part of this story, but what what a crazy thing that I share your story, Jess, which I had been a part of for a long time at this point, I share your story with with my children and say, please pray that she might find a surrogate. And my daughter says, you know what? I might know someone. So that’s how the connection was made. And and I just think that in itself was miraculous.

00;14;15;22 – 00;15;36;18
Paige
So and when I, when I got that message, I like just knew that it was going to work out like there was just that little voice in the back of my head that was like, yup, this is this is my time to do this. Like, I know this is going to it’s it’s going to happen. Like I just had the best feeling, like when I got that message and I had told my husband about the message that I received before I even you know, follow Jessica’s Paige or contacted her. And I said, hey, I got this message asking potentially about being a surrogate for someone. Do you care if I contact Jessica? And he’s like, I know you’ve always wanted to be a surrogate, so if whatever you want to do, just let me know how I can help. And, you know, he was just very. And, you know, my husband, just like. Just like Dave. They’re not talkers. They’re not big. That’s. I just got, like. I think our lives are so similar. We’re both the outgoing ones, and our husbands are so not, like, outgoing, but, you know, he’s a man of, few words, but he’s just like, yeah, I’ll support you. And just whatever you take the lead in, however I can help, let me know. But that was that. It was probably it was that same day that I, I commented on one of your videos on your page.

00;15;36;20 – 00;15;52;02
Kelly Parbs
So that’s what I was wondering, is what was that first meeting like? And it sounds like it started on social media. And then how did it progress? Tell me about how you met and what that felt like for both of you. Jess, maybe you want to start?

00;15;52;04 – 00;17;19;08
Jess
Yeah. We met. So, yeah. You connected or your daughter like her us on social media. So we exchange, like, information via social media. But then it happened to be a few days later. I was like, hey, Paige, like I’m actually coming home because we’re both from western Wisconsin. So I’m coming to see my parents this weekend. Like, would you want to meet up in Holmen to, go to lunch and see if this is a good fit? Because we both had talked via social media that, you know, we were really looking for like a relationship and not like a, well, to be blind, not a transaction where, you know, we wanted something that was going to be lifelong. And so we got that like out of the way right away. Like that’s what we that was really important to both of us because the we knew that. Why there was no reason to meeting up if we were looking for two different things right off the bat. Yeah. So we’re, we’re like, oh, that’s great. We’re both looking for the same thing. I was like, well, why don’t we just meet and see how, you know, we vibe together or see, you know, let’s just chat it out. Well, we met like 4 or 5 days later at a Mexican restaurant in home in Wisconsin, and I think we could have chatted all day. The only reason I we had to leave is because, Paige, you had your one year kids at like, a birthday party, and I had a music concert to go to.

00;17;19;11 – 00;17;20;07
Kelly Parbs
Yeah.

00;17;20;10 – 00;18;00;18
Jess
But we. Yeah, it was just sparks were flying from the first, like, five minutes of chatting because, like Paige just mentioned, we are very, very similar. Personality is. So, it just was really, really exciting. Paige’s so confident. She was just like, oh yeah, I know, I know. And then at the end I was like, oh, you know, yeah, they get some of the some tougher conversations. And she was like, which took like two seconds because she was like, yep. And I was like, okay. And then she was like, when you want to start and I’m like, what? Oh, wow. Okay. Well, I had.

00;18;00;18 – 00;18;24;15
Paige
Told my husband before we went out to lunch, I said, I have a really I just I was like, I just have a really good feeling about this. And just like I was like, so I was like, if we like click and everything goes well. I said, I want to say yes. And he’s like, all right, I’m, I’m here for it. And I was like, so I called him afterwards and I said, all right, we’re doing it. And he was like, I knew you were going to say yes. He’s like, I just knew it!

00;18;24;17 – 00;18;41;07
Kelly Parbs
Wow, Paige, I’m interested in knowing, is there anything specific that stands out to you about that meeting with Jess when you look back? And was there anything specific that helped you make that decision, which it sounds like you made very quickly?

00;18;41;09 – 00;19;27;06
Paige
Yeah, I just like I said, I am such a strong believer in my faith. I just had that voice in my head, that feeling in my heart that like telling me like this is this is your journey. Like, I don’t know, maybe that sounds silly too, but I just knew in my heart that I felt like I didn’t need to have another like, you know, meeting with Jessica. Although I would have I’d get together with you all the time. But, you know, I mean, like, it was never that, like question like, okay, I’ll think about it. Like, I just knew in my heart right away that this is what I wanted to do. And because you’re so wonderful and lovely and we just clicked immediately, I feel like there was not even a question in my heart on if I should go through with this or not. I just knew.

00;19;27;09 – 00;19;46;27
Kelly Parbs
That’s that’s just beautiful. And I would imagine that also having that support from your husband was was a big part of that. And I’m curious to know too, like, I’d imagine there have to be some conversations with your kids about maybe you can tell us what their ages were at the time.

00;19;47;00 – 00;20;46;02
Paige
Yeah. So okay, now I got to do backwards math. 2022, Evi would have been ten. I think she was ten when we met. So ten, eight, five. And I think Ford was two. Yeah. Ford was. He had just turned two. He’s my youngest. And I kind of told them right away, I think, I think I actually had a conversation with, my oldest. She’s just so mature for her age. Like, she just kind of gets it, like she was all for it, and they were, you know, from the get go, you know, I was just said, you know, mom is going to help, help her friend have have a baby and I’m, you’re going to see my belly get bigger and but it’s not our baby to keep. It’s just our baby to take care of. And, you know, they they all seem to understand. Like they’d go to school and tell their friends, like oh my mom has her friend’s baby in her tummy, and I guess, like, you know, they’d have conversations with their class and their teacher about it. And it was they they were they loved it. They thought it was so neat.

00;20;46;04 – 00;21;09;02
Kelly Parbs
It sounds like you handled that just beautifully. So, ladies, I’d like to move on. Just saying ‘yes’ was just the beginning of all of that. And I’m interested to hear and I’d like our listeners to hear what came next. Jess, maybe you can speak to the different types of appointments and things that you had to work out in order to move forward with this.

00;21;09;04 – 00;22;28;20
Jess
Yeah. So yeah, we walked away from kind of the initial yeses, and I like always was pinching myself because I had so many setbacks from oh, that’s where I attempt not to cry here. So many life setbacks for five years, you know, my cancer had spread. Then they think they would see something and then they get another setback. And it was just seemed like setback after setback. And, you know, it was really tough, right? I’m in my young 30s and watching everybody else get to have more babies naturally. So it was just- so when Paige stepped into my life, it was she. The thought of it all was just taking my breath away, because I couldn’t believe something really, really good was happening to me because so many things were not that great happening to me at all. Like so I think I still, in processing that this is happening. You know, this happened to me like something really awesome happened. But so I got her yes, and we were really gung ho about it. So we, my two embryos were on our ice, and we needed to. Really. What came next is prepping Paige’s body to be able to carry a child.

00;22;28;22 – 00;22;36;19
Paige
Wait, Jessica, you should tell them how many eggs you got and how- like how, like your chances.

00;22;36;21 – 00;22;37;08
Jess
Yeah!

00;22;37;08 – 00;22;38;09
Paige
-of that, because that’s a cool part of it!

00;22;38;09 – 00;25;20;28
Jess
Yeah! So before I could even secure a surrogate, I really. I needed to get do an egg retrieval because I did not get to do an egg retrieval before chemotherapy treatments back when I was 32 or because I was pregnant already. So I was diagnosed with breast cancer while pregnant. So I cannot do it. You obviously cannot do an egg retrieval when you’re already pregnant. And because my cancer had spread then to my brain, you know, things are always tumbling for me. So there was never any time to do an egg retrieval because I was always in survival mode. So the the talks of having, family was never discussed because we were just trying to save my life at that point. So finally we get to do an egg retrieval and, some of you may not know, but when you do an egg retrieval, like lots of times people will get like ten, 20, 30, 40 eggs. I was super stoked because I got five. I got five eggs and I in my heart I was always like, Dear God, just get me one egg. One egg would could equal my baby. And so we ended up getting five. And then we did use my husband’s sperm so that these would be my, or our- our biological children. We ended up making two embryos. But the huge part on this, we had made two embryos, but they are day seven embryos. And if you’re listening right now, you know, in the infertility world or the fertility world that day, seven embryos are considered not great. They don’t have a high chance of sticking. I got this was all very new to me because I never done IVF. I had never done fertility stuff. I was very lucky, grateful that my first pregnancy was natural. And it happened pretty easily. It actually did. It did very easily, actually. And so, I learned very much about these percentages of sticking in this that and my heart goes out to all of those couples are doing fertility, by the way. It is. Wow. It is emotional roller coaster. Anyways, I got these two embryos. The odds of them sticking were not good at all. Not good at all. But I have two embryos. So I was like, oh, once again, I think I’m throwing my fourth Hail Mary at this point because you get they told me the as a sticking root while they said we would recommend you implanting both of those embryos because they have such a low chance. But then there was obviously the chance that both of them would stick inside of Paige, which I-

00;25;21;02 – 00;25;23;03
Paige
I would have done twins!

00;25;23;06 – 00;26;02;05
Jess
I was like, no! Paige was like, oh, you do. We get it. We can do both of them. I’m like my husband at my husband and I looked at each other like, no twins was just not something we were. We were really. We were like, nope, we’ll just do two. Two implants if needed. Yeah. We’ll do another round. But yeah. So we decided to, we, Paige had to do all those medications to prep her body. She had, I felt so bad for Paige. You had to drive. I mean, how far were you driving? You had to get your body checked all the time. You were going.

00;26;02;05 – 00;26;09;20
Paige
Well, we did. We did that initial one down in Milwaukee where they did? Oh, yes. Yeah, it was a dye- it was a dye test, right?

00;26;09;22 – 00;26;13;27
Jess
Yeah. You had to see like make sure your reproductive system was A-OK…

00;26;13;27 – 00;26;30;05
Paige
And that was like initially after because I believe we signed like papers of some sort. It was either like late August or early September and then we did that initial appointment down in Milwaukee where they had to check my ovaries and everything.

00;26;30;07 – 00;26;32;02
Jess
Yes. Correct.

00;26;32;05 – 00;26;51;27
Kelly Parbs
So Paige, if you could speak to it, it certainly sounds like there were medical appointments that had to be attended, which we would all expect there would be what what other types of appointments, did you have to go through before you really could get to the stage where the embryos are transferred to Paige?

00;26;52;00 – 00;27;37;08
Jess
Tons of medical appointments, Kelly. and, unfortunately where Paige lives in La Crosse, they called it like, the hole? Because there’s not a lot of there isn’t any. Actually, there’s no like, fertility care there. So poor Paige was having to drive. And her husband had to drive, like, to Madison and. Yeah, the trip to Milwaukee because she had to come to my fertility clinic either anywhere in Eau Clare or like. I mean, there was a lot of driving. I felt terrible about that. You know, we take it for granted that we live in Milwaukee, know our clinic was my stuff was, what, ten minutes away, right? Or even the Chicago like, it wasn’t really I mean, it’s an easy drive. You don’t go that much. But then there was legal. But thankfully legal was all virtual.

00;27;37;11 – 00;27;39;10
Paige
We have just some phone calls and phone-

00;27;39;10 – 00;28;17;12
Jess
– calls, and they were able to do everything, over email and, Oh, we did also have to do a psych eval. So they actually have us both meet with a psychologist to make sure that we meet with our spouses separately. So me and Dave and her and Richie, we met with a psychologist in the Milwaukee area, and they we met virtually with her. And they just go over to make sure that we are, mentally and emotionally prepared for this journey before we can, we can go on it together. So medically, legally and, emotionally.

00;28;17;14 – 00;28;22;19
Kelly Parbs
Well, and and I understand also you had to come to financial agreements as well.

00;28;22;22 – 00;28;39;00
Paige
Yeah. The contract. I feel like that, honestly, I feel like that wasn’t very hard. Like I know yeah I know, like, things kind of took a long time to like, get the ball, like, finally rolling to, like when we were going to be able to do the transfer. But there wasn’t a ton that we like disagreed on when it came…

00;28;39;01 – 00;28;39;18
Paige
Yeah.

00;28;39;22 – 00;29;42;04
Jess
To the contract? Yeah you’re right. Paige. Yeah. And that was nice. The attorneys were really good about. So we told them like the base price. And it at least in Wisconsin the our attorney is they had it all laid out already for us. So you told them like the baseline. And then they gave me the dates of like when I would send Paige the money. So I had an Excel sheet that I just up uploaded or I mean, that I made on my computer. And then I would send it on those days and then make a note just so everything was organized in case like, well, Paiges. So nice. But in case she came back and like wanted to see the whole like how I did it. She could see it. But the attorneys were just really great about, like, laying it out or like, you know, I would compensate Paige for, like, mileage and time, as she should, because she, like, had to drive so far. I mean, that’s the least I could do.

00;29;42;06 – 00;30;02;20
Paige
And you were so generous, Jessica. Like you, you did so much for me and my family that, like, people, like, you know, there are families that like, they don’t do that, and you just went above and beyond, and I’m just forever grateful. Huge for you. Because it’s you. I mean, she’s so great to my kids. You’d send my kids birthday presents and stuff or.

00;30;02;20 – 00;30;03;12
Jess
I love doing that.

00;30;03;13 – 00;30;20;16
Paige
Like I know you do, but you were just. And you know, I feel I would do the same, but it’s just you were just so generous and it’s, you know, even take away, like, all the financial stuff you did extra for me, like, you just you’re such a caring human being. And I’m just forever grateful for you.

00;30;20;19 – 00;30;22;07
Kelly Parbs
So nice.

00;30;22;09 – 00;30;52;06
Jess
Actually, as favorite part was playing with Paige’s boys as it really got me prepared, we would go bear hunting and, because it’s- Kelly, I’m a little bit of a city girl now, and it’s been a while since I lived on the family farm, and, the boys would make me go, bear hunting in parentheses or not. Have we’d have to go in the mud and and things that I had to do, boy things and that was very new to me, so…

00;30;52;08 – 00;31;27;16
Kelly Parbs
I just love hearing the connection that the two of you made so immediately. As I was reading and trying to prepare for this podcast, I learned that research shows that ethical and legal concerns are really major themes to consider in surrogacy, emphasizing issues like informed consent, potential exploitation, legal protections for all parties. It really sounds like those were not hurdles or barriers for the two of you in your journey. Is that is that right?

00;31;27;19 – 00;33;40;17
Jess
Yeah. Well, Wisconsin laws, thankfully, are very black and white. That is not true in states, including one that’s like right over the lake from us. You know, so we’re fortunate to live in a state where our surrogacy laws are, like, easy to read, like it is my biological child and it goes home with me and Paiges. This, top of the line of in that which she was called out there and crazy. But I, they have to have a doctor from a different state. She was actually from California, and she even goes, where did you find this lady? And I was like, oh, like. And I told her a little bit, she’s like, oh my gosh, she is, a luxury, luxury of it. A luxury that she is like the whatever a luxury. I’m trying to think of a brand name oven right now. Like, but she’s a luxury. That’s like she had, you know, she had a review, all of her bloodwork and her her physical history and things like that. I would say, like, the only thing Paige that we did run into was about, you know, if if Paige’s life was on the line. So we did disagree about if the life was on the line. This was at first about abortion. Right. And that in everybody’s view, whether you agree, agree or disagree. And I was very honest with Paige, really, from the get-go that I could not live with myself if something happened to Paige. Like if she had died for the benefit of me. Like, I can’t live with that. She has four children. Like, I guess the loss of a baby would be horrendous, right? But the the thought of losing Paige for my gain? I don’t think so. Like I could. No, that was that was a red line not happening. So I did it. Have to do a little bit of persuading with Paige about that because I did also very much respect her views on abortion. But I just that was I couldn’t live with that of her dying. So we were able to, you know, just have some really good conversations about, yeah.

00;33;40;17 – 00;33;42;16
Paige
And I think that was in our final contract.

00;33;42;16 – 00;34;15;17
Jess
It was, yeah, it’s my life that. Yeah. You were willing to to go through it like on her deathbed. Then Richie would be able to make that decision for her. But again, I think Kelly, that brings up a really great topic. That’s why it’s so important to have open conversations with your surrogate rather than going like through attorney is like, if attorneys were just talking, man, you could go back and forth a lot. But yes, you have to have everything written out like that in your contract. And in Wisconsin they do like it’s all written out.

00;34;15;20 – 00;34;36;19
Kelly Parbs
And both of you are excellent communicators. And I have so much respect that you chose to have those very, very hard conversations and acknowledge now we have two women who have two very different views on the topic of abortion and you love and respect each other despite having those different views and and you work through it.

00;34;36;22 – 00;35;00;07
Paige
I’m honestly a Jessica and I have very different views on a lot of things, but I just yeah, I feel like that’s a good testimony to like, especially in our world today. Like, I yeah, like, you can you can love somebody even if they have different views and like, I, I will love Jessica for my whole life. Like there’s nothing that you could do that wouldn’t make me love you because you’re, you’re you’re amazing person. I think that’s what that’s what matters the most.

00;35;00;10 – 00;35;30;18
Kelly Parbs
Stay tuned for part two of my conversation with Jess and Paige as we continue exploring their surrogacy journey, and the emotional, relational, and ethical layers that came with it. To hear this episode and other episodes of OnTopic with Empathia, visit our website at www.Empathia.com. Follow us on social media @Empathia, and subscribe to OnTopic with Empathia so you don’t miss an episode. I’m Kelly Parbs – thanks for listening!