We’ve been riding life’s crazy tides together for 22 years. We are experienced intended parents with 14 top-grade PGSA-tested embryos and hearts bursting at the seams with love, generosity and empathy. Our families and friends are so ready to welcome our baby AND our surrogate into their arms! We can’t wait to form a lasting partnership with you and we hope our connection blossoms into a forever friendship.
We are based in Montreal (Quebec) and also fluently speak French.
In a way, we’ve grown up together. Not because we met as kids, but because we’ve grown so close through life’s wild tides. After 22 years together, we can anticipate each others’ needs and reactions. Our greatest acts of love are found in the day’s most ordinary moments and gentle gestures. We’ve been together since 2002 and married since 2010. Why our relationship works feels pretty simple: in everything we do, we strive to come from a place of gratitude and empathy. We are surrounded by a village of family, friends and colleagues with whom we get along peacefully because we are deeply respectful and compassionate individuals who believe in goodness and compromise. We are both highly sensitive to others’ wishes and we skillfully find a way to balance giving and taking, work and play, intuition and reasoning.
We love to laugh (we aren’t afraid to be silly), travel (Italy is our second home), celebrate (every occasion big or small, even the plainest Tuesdays), and to leave each other love-notes! We are spiritual individuals with integrity, humility, and a profound love of nature and animals. We have a cat named Mukki (moo-kie) who thinks she’s a horse and we’ve befriended a flying squirrel at our cottage whom we’ve named Pon (short for Pontificus, not that we’re very religious). The best part of every day is coming together after a fulfilling day at work, sharing our highlights and worries, and unwinding as we cook, eat, and binge-watch British comedy shows and cute animal videos that make us ugly-cry.
We met at Indigo (the bookstore), where we both worked in our early twenties during our studies. Jeremy immediately thought Kristina would be super easy to tease and to prank (sigh). Kristina thought Jeremy wasn’t quite her type but he eventually grew on her, so she asked him out! At first, he hadn’t understood that it was a date! How we met is a cute story, but how our bond evolved since then is really what we’re most proud of in life.
We are so excited to one day (soon?) be able to share our home and our values with our little one(s) and to learn from them in return. Whenever we talk about being parents, we imagine scenes of togetherness, mindfulness, and adventure. We smile when we imagine laughter but also those wild tantrums that have the kid sprawled on the floor like a starfish at the mall, unwilling to take a single step. (Maybe we won’t have any of those??) We have so many ideas about how we could raise secure, empathetic, self-aware and passionate children who are free to be themselves and accepting of others. Children gravitate towards us, possibly because of our kindness, humor and childlike awe. We have two nephews we adore—they are 12 and 11 years old and would make the most loving and fun cousins!
Our hardships have not hardened us; we still have the same joie de vivre that attracted us to one another all those years ago! We have no idea what the next pages of our story will hold, but we know we’ll be writing it together, maybe even with you.
Thank you, potential Surrogate, for this opportunity to grow, heal, and create even more love.
Our Upbringing & Families
We’ve never been conventional. When friends and family mention our love story, they always say how strong we are, not only as a couple, but as individuals. We’ve lived on separate continents and we’ve created our dream jobs. Our family is a blend of cultures, faiths and languages. Our identities and traditions matter to us because of the roots they represent. We were married by a civil officiant, a Rabbi AND a priest in one beautiful outdoor ceremony! Every year, we set a Christmas tree and light a menorah. Between the two of us, we speak 5 languages. What others may think of as obstacles, we have always held in our hearts as opportunities for love and learning. We don’t believe in lines or boxes; we have always lived knowing that love lights the way.
We have deep relationships with many friends (at home and abroad). We love that our separate friends have become friends! We are also so blessed to be so well surrounded by neighbors who always lend a hand and watchful eye. Our families are small but very close-knit; we joke that in-laws are not theoretically supposed to get along THIS well! Sometimes, they have wine & cheese parties and they don’t even invite us!!! Our moms also share the same birthday. We spend holidays and birthdays together, text and call each other every day. But, thankfully, they never meddle, only endlessly support us. We can imagine our child(ren) growing up surrounded by this “village” of people who are so excited about finally welcoming a new addition. Our families have grieved so much with us over our prior losses – they are so excited to welcome our baby and our loving surrogate into their loving arms.
Our Hardships
Over the decades, we’ve felt our hearts expand with joy but also sink from the grief we’ve unfortunately repeatedly experienced. We never want our past losses and grief to feel like an extra burden on you, but they are part of our identity, so we cannot leave them out of our story. We hope to match with someone compassionate, gentle, and empathetic who can understand where we are coming from (but that doesn’t mean we don’t trust you, or the process, or the doctors!) We are always extra mindful of our emotions and how they may impact you. While we seek a partnership where we can be our transparent, authentic selves, we will be attentive not to put any extra pressure or stress on you.
Infertility was unfortunately not the only problem we had to overcome; Kristina has suffered greatly since her teens with severe endometriosis. This impacted our ability to grow our family without risking Kristina’s health and our well-being as a couple. We decided to pull the plug on fertility treatments to give Kristina’s body a break from trauma and cancer risk, and to find a creative solution to our obstacles. We are extremely touched that there are people in the world who are willing to do SO much for strangers! We may not be conventional in opting to match with an egg donor and a surrogate, but we absolutely know this is right for us and our families are tremendously supportive.
We are experienced intended parents. We matched with an amazing experienced surrogate in early 2023 and every step of our pregnancy unfolded smoothly but, just shy of the 20-week mark, our baby’s heart stopped (not because of embryo reasons) and we had to experience the trauma of a stillbirth delivery…
Our losses have honestly felt like a LOT, but they have not hardened us. We are still gentle, hopeful and joy-seeking people, excited for the tides to finally turn. When our neighbors see us in the street, they always refer to us as “les amoureux” (the love-birds), and this feels like a victory!
We still have 14 PGSA-tested top-grade embryos frozen at Create with Dr. Ari Baratz as our physician. We’d love to have a sibling journey with our surrogate, but of course (!) would be more than happy with one kiddo.
Our Home & Neighborhood
Our home is in a very green and community-oriented neighborhood in the heart of Montreal. It is spacious, colorful and serene for a baby, with enough room to comfortably stay here long-term, and loads of parks and pools nearby. (We’d love to have you come visit us during/after the pregnancy so you can enjoy this for yourself!!!) We have already put our names on sign-up lists for daycares and schools. We have a very strong network of friends and neighbors who are in the same stages of family-planning, so we will have a great support system post-partum. The snow will surely be a challenge, especially for Kristina who is not such a winter person (strollers with ginormous wheels will be a must!) but we are ready to tackle it! 🙂
Our Interests
We have lots of interests, individually and together. We are both writers. Kristina adores photography, neuroscience, cooking, travel, gardening, interior design, swimming, horse-riding, architecture, art history and all things Italy! Jeremy is an active cyclist (gasp, even in the winter!) and he loves to play hockey, squash or tennis. We both enjoy classical music and opera. We also both love to eat, visit wineries, and walk arm-in-arm anywhere, even to the grocery store.
How We Intend to Support Our Surrogate
Having been through this process once before, we are very aware of the costs and expenses of a surrogacy journey and of how to support our surrogate at every stage of the pregnancy (before, during, after, including in the case of loss).
You should never feel like you’re going through this alone because you most certainly are not – we are a partnership through and through!!!
We are very generous individuals (our families know us as the types who get more excited about giving gifts than receiving them!!). We also value transparency, respect, and accountability for all parties involved.
We would love to be present and available during both the high points and the lower points (e.g., if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the hormones or in need of extra care and support!)
We are committed to being present for you by:
– showing genuine interest in your life by regularly being in contact by text, phone and occasional meet-ups and showing genuine interest in YOUR interests, family, friends, passions, work, etc. and hearing you fully when you voice concerns
– meeting during key appointments and clearing our schedule to have ample time to spend with you and/or talk to you
– listening attentively to your needs and asking you what we can do to better assist and support you
We are committed to reimbursing your expenses with the highest level of ethics and integrity, including:
– all expenses incurred for travel to/from appointments (clinic fees, meds, mileage/travel, accommodation, lost wages, daily meals)
– all relevant expenses pre-pregnancy (vitamins, mileage, communication)
– all relevant expenses during pregnancy (groceries with pre-paid debit/credit cards, take-out meals, relevant mileage for pregnancy-related errands, communication, lost wages with doctors’ notes, life insurance, maternity clothing, health and wellness expenses such as pelvic health, physiotherapy, massage, paramedical expenses, doula expenses, retreats with SCO, etc.) We are open to considering reimbursing anything you may find essential to your comfort, security and well-being during the pregnancy. Please feel free to be open and communicative with us.
– all relevant expenses post-birth for recovery (including provisions for multiples, c-section, etc.)
We are looking forward to listening to your needs and finding generous, creative ways of making sure you feel heard and reimbursed for your expenses in accordance with your needs and daily reality. We hope to find a surrogate who is honest about expenses incurred, and who trusts us in return.
We hope this will not be a business transaction and will result in a lasting connection between us and also with our child(ren).
We dream of finding a surrogate who feels a kinship with us and is able to feel transparent and communicative throughout the entire process. We would love to help in any way possible during the pregnancy and are able to travel for appointments. But we also would respect our surrogate’s needs and make sure they feel concretely supported (emotionally, physically, financially).
Respect is non-negotiable for us. We are committed to respecting our surrogate’s own perspectives, boundaries, confidentiality, and comfort level! Of course, we hope to find that same respect and gentleness in return.
We would love to form a long-term relationship with our surrogate, but we are open to whatever that may look like based on our surrogate’s wishes.
We will most definitely be transparent with our child(ren) about the decisions that helped us build our family, including who our egg donor + gestational carrier are. We are genuinely so excited about revealing this and are open to our child(ren) seeking contact and information.
We’d love to find someone who is communicative and sees us as being on the same team (for example, involving us as much in real time as possible, rather than relaying facts afterwards, especially if there are concerns). We wish to feel connected to our surrogate on a personal level and to feel connected to the baby, because this is a very abstract process for an intended mother who is not able to give her own eggs nor carry her baby. To the extent possible given scheduling constraints and hospital policies about who can be in the room (COVID policies or otherwise), we would love to attend important appointments, such as the transfer, the ultrasounds, anatomy scans and to be in the delivery room at the time of the birth. We would like to feel comfortable asking questions without our surrogate feeling that we do not trust them – sometimes questions just appease intended parents who have been through trauma before.
We hope to find a surrogate who is trusting towards us – as we would be trusting towards them – and who is committed to smoothing out any communication bumps or challenges that might arise during emotional times with a phone or video call, rather than only texting. All parties should feel heard, respected, trusted, and nurtured throughout this process and beyond.
Our surrogate’s comfort and privacy is absolutely important to us and we acknowledge that SHE is the patient, but we hope to not feel left in the dark about appointments or any concerns as they arise.