Hi, and welcome to our story! Kevin and I have been together for 14 years, and married for 6 years. We were high school sweethearts who went to prom together, and have been best friends ever since. We have spent over a decade growing up together, making a lifetime of memories throughout the years, and falling deeper in love with each other.

Kevin and I met in Toronto through mutual friends in high school, and we had an instant connection that made us inseparable. Through this friendship, we naturally became the best of friends, where we would end up spending countless hours on the phone together until the early hours of the morning, constantly seeking out the other person to share our important milestones with, and ultimately led to us realizing we were falling in love. We decided to give into our mutual feelings and never looked back.

That was the best decision either of us made 14 years ago, and even after being married, we still make an effort to date each other every day, tell one another all of the important things in our day, and we are still each other’s best friend. As any married couple, we have been through hardships, but we never let it get the best of us and never for a second doubt each other or take one another for granted. We know at the end of the day, we are soul mates who have embarked on yet another challenging journey ahead.

KEVIN:

I come from a large Portuguese family, and I am the youngest child of three. I have an older brother and sister who I am extremely close with, and I am also the youngest of all my cousins, so I truly am the baby of the family. My whole life was spent surrounded by my older cousins watching out for me, so I grew up in an environment filled with love and guidance. We are still a close-knit family, and most of my childhood memories are filled with fun adventures where we did everything together.

Some of my favourite memories growing up were the family dinners we had together every night, where we would help each other clean up after dinner and rush to the couch to watch Wheel of Fortune and Deal or No Deal. We spent most summers together in Portugal where I have very fond memories, and continue to return every few years now with my wife to continue making new memories. When I was younger, I used to go with my dad on Saturday’s to visit his job sites, where he was a forklift driver for bricklaying companies. This helped to establish the path I’m currently on as I followed in my dad’s footsteps and became a Brick and Stone mason.

I have 4 godchildren, which I feel so lucky to have in my life. Spending time with them has helped me through this difficult journey and has prepared me in a way for fatherhood one day. With my siblings having their own children, they are extremely supportive of our surrogacy journey, as is the rest of our family. They do regular check-ins to make sure that my wife and I are doing well mentally and emotionally as they have been with us through some of the most difficult parts of this journey.

KRYSTAL:

I am an only child from a very small Portuguese family, so I had a very different upbringing and childhood than my husband. As a result of being an only child, I have a very close relationship with my parents, and my mom is truly one of my best friends. I grew up with a few close cousins, and some of my best childhood memories involve going on family vacations together or spending our summers playing at the park.

Since I don’t have any siblings, I naturally never expected to have any godchildren, yet I have been blessed with 4 godchildren (two from my close cousins I grew up with and two I share with Kevin from his siblings).

Being an only child helped shape me into who I am today because it made me incredibly independent, but it also had its challenges as my mom was always quite overprotective of me. This made dating Kevin as a teenager very difficult since he was the first boyfriend I brought home to meet them, while my parents wanted me to focus on my studies as I was an Honour Roll student throughout high school. Kevin continued to prove himself to my parents by sticking around and not interfering with my grades whatsoever, and he continued to support me throughout my years at University.

My parents quickly realized he was willing to wait around until I graduated from University before we decided to get married. Today, my parents view Kevin as the son they never had, and I could not ask for a better relationship between my husband and my parents. My mom and dad are super supportive of us growing our family through surrogacy, and they are excited for the opportunity to hopefully become Grandparents through this journey.

WHY WE CHOSE SURROGACY:

Kevin and I have been trying to start our family for over 6 years, and we decided to start trying to conceive right after we got married as I always had a gut instinct that trying to get pregnant would not be easy for me because I have Endometriosis.

After trying and failing to conceive naturally for over a year, Kevin and I started our fertility journey with a clinic. We went through many medicated cycles without any success, and eventually went through 4 failed IUI’s. After spending over one year at that clinic, we ultimately decided to seek a second opinion where we connected with Tripod Fertility to begin our IVF journey. At the same time, I began learning more about Endometriosis and the affects it has on infertility, and I started to advocate for my health. I spent months putting together research and meeting with various surgeons who were specialized in Excision Surgery to remove the Endometriosis. I picked an incredible surgeon and was ultimately added to a waitlist for surgery.

After some delays due to Covid, we were officially ready to begin our first egg retrieval, which resulted in 2 tested embryos. We transferred the first embryo, found out we were pregnant on Kevin’s birthday and we were over the moon. A short while later, we learned that it unfortunately resulted in an early miscarriage, and we were absolutely heartbroken.

At the same time of processing the devastating news, I learned that my surgery date had been set with my Endometriosis surgeon. I went through my surgery a few weeks later, and we kept remaining hopeful to continue with IVF after my recovery. We once again went through the second embryo transfer, but soon learned that it was unsuccessful. We had no other embryos left, and we knew we would stop at nothing in our journey of trying to have a baby, so we began to prepare for our second IVF cycle.

The second egg retrieval resulted in 7 embryos overall (4 tested normal, 3 untested). Kevin and I also went through Immune Testing to determine if I had any other deficiencies that needed to be corrected before proceeding with another transfer. I went through LIT Therapy, where Kevin donated blood to be converted to white blood cells which were injected into my forearms as a means to correct the issues. With the success of that treatment, we excitedly continued onto our third embryo transfer, which failed yet again. At this point, Kevin and I began to discuss and seriously consider the possibly of needing a surrogate as we were running out of treatment options and embryos.

We went through a four month treatment plan, consisting of a biopsy of my uterus to determine the receptivity for transfer, an antibiotic and probiotic treatment, and SCIG (Subcutaneous Immunoglobulin) infusions done at home with a training nurse for several weeks. We were hopeful that this would finally be our chance to be pregnant after all the various treatments and procedures I had gone through, but after our fourth embryo transfer (February 2024), we learned the devastating news that once again, it was unsuccessful.

Any dreams we had of me becoming pregnant through IVF were shattered because we knew that we had hit the end of our road with IVF. My body couldn’t take anymore, and we were scared of losing our remaining embryos. We realized after 4 failed IVFs that surrogacy was our only option left for us to finally start our family with our remaining embryos. 

We were lucky enough to connect and match with a surrogate in April 2024 through a family friend, and in October 2024, she got pregnant with our first transfer! We were closer than we had ever been to finally starting our family with our miracle baby and excitedly planning to share the amazing news with our family and friends at Christmas. 

Unfortunately, at 9 weeks, our surrogate suffered a miscarriage and we lost our sweet miracle. Through her healing and recovery, she has explained that this experience was incredibly difficult on her, and she has ultimately decided not to pursue a second transfer with us. We created such a beautiful bond during this time that will never be broken, and we wholeheartedly understand and support her decision. With hopeful hearts, we are praying to find another kind and generous surrogate who would love to go on this journey with us. 

OUR COMMUNITY:

Kevin and I live in a beautiful, quiet and family-oriented community in Stoney Creek, within Hamilton, Ontario. We are lucky to have some of the most amazing neighbours that have quickly become like family. 

We live in a house located in a well-established community with lots of parks and playgrounds, schools and tons of young families. We have a backyard that we really enjoy in the spring, summer and fall where we tend to have our families over to have BBQ’s together making lots of wonderful memories.

We look forward to the day where we can watch our children play in our neighbourhood with all the little kids around, but until then, Kevin and I enjoy taking long walks around the community and socializing with our neighbours.

OUR HOBBIES AND INTERESTS:

One of Kevin’s best qualities is his ability to joke around with those closest to him and make everyone laugh. It was one of the first things that drew me to him, yet at the same time, he is incredibly sensible and shy when meeting new people. I am more of an extrovert, more talkative and love getting to meet new people. We balance each other out perfectly!

One of our biggest hobbies growing up together in the last 14 years was watching Friends, and we have easily re-watched the series well over 10 times from start to finish …except for that last sad episode. I also really enjoy reading, and Kevin has recently picked up on my hobby and started getting into his own genre of books. Kevin loves sports, and he specifically grew up bonding with his dad watching soccer.

We both adore vacations and travelling to see new parts of the world, and it’s something that we try to do multiple times a year, but we haven’t been able to do as much ever since our fertility treatments started. Long car trips with us usually involve our own concerts singing along to our favourite songs and doing duets. We try to do a fun date night once a month, and we spend almost every weekend with our immediate family enjoying lots of laughs together and spending quality time with them.

We make a habit of going out for breakfast every Saturday and trying out new breakfast places. We also love being at home, cooking dinners together, and catching up on our favourite shows.

TO OUR SURROGATE:

We would love the opportunity to support our surrogate as much as she would feel comfortable with. We are honest and trustworthy people, we are empathetic and value open communication. We would happily cover all expenses necessary as we understand the selfless gift that the surrogate is offering to us, and she shouldn’t have to pay out of pocket for any of those expenses. She would have our full support throughout the entire journey, before, during and after the birth. We would also love to honor her choices and privacy, as we would want to ensure her safety is our priority and would love to be regularly updated throughout the pregnancy.

We would like to as involved as possible based on her level of comfort, to be able to be present at appointments and ultrasounds, and to act as an emotional support since we are on this journey together. We value good communication and would like to be engaged throughout various milestones of the pregnancy. We would prefer a hospital birth, but we are also completely open to other options that the surrogate might want.

Kevin and I have so much love to give, and we would love the opportunity to create a long-lasting friendship with the surrogate after the birth (as long as she would like to) where we could provide her with pictures of our child throughout the years or keep in touch on their birthday’s with updates on how they are doing. Based on the surrogates comfort level, we would love to maintain a relationship where our surrogate would be welcomed into our family. We want our child to know the important role that our surrogate had in their life and could view the surrogate as an aunt figure. 

After all, none of this would be possible without her help! Thank you for considering us and allowing our dream of starting a family to be one step closer. To our (hopefully) future surrogate, THANK YOU for giving us HOPE.