Dear Surro-Auntie, I’m Santiago, but you can just call me Santi. I’m a 1-year-old expert in the art…of babbling and toddling around, and let me tell you, it’s pretty exciting! I am writing to you, because I am on a mission to find my future sibling, and guess what? I heard you might be just the person.

Let me introduce you to my dads, Cris and Alex. Daddy Cris is a plane wizard, seriously! He’s an aeronautical engineer with dreams of taking us – you, me, and my future sibling – to the airport to watch planes.

And then there’s Daddy Alex, who loves to bake. Imagine a kitchen filled with the smell of big braided bread. Yup, that’s one of his favorite things to do on weekends – yummy.

Daddy Cris is Argentinian and daddy Alex from Germany. We all live there, in a beautiful city called Hamburg. And we love – the place where our dream comes true.

Now, about a typical day in my life – it’s quite the ride. Each morning, I wake up with my two dads. We have breakfast together, and trust me, I have way more fun with my food than they do with theirs.

Then it’s off to my nursery, where they have this huge climbing house, and I turn into a little monkey. When the weather’s good, we head to the park in the afternoon. I’m a professional crawler, and it’s a great workout for my dads. Once we’re home, it’s playtime with my rocking airplane, and then dinner. Each night, I fall asleep with my two dads. I love them, and they love me.

I also had a surro-auntie for my journey. She is cheering for us for our second journey for my sibling. We all just met on our family vacation in Argentina, which was so nice for all of us. Unfortunately, she can’t carry again for medical reasons. But she’s more than happy to share her experience with you and give you the insides on what it’s like to be part of our adventure.

Dear Surro-Auntie, if you can imagine to join our adventure filled with laughter and love, and maybe a few airplane noises (courtesy of Daddy Cris), please, please write us! We’re waiting with open hearts and a spot saved just for you. Do you want to be our Super-Auntie and become part of our family?

Big hugs, Santi and daddies Alex & Cris

Describe your upbringing and family:

We are both the eldest of four siblings. Alex grew up in the German countryside and Cris grew up in Buenos Aires/Argentina & Mexico! Being from large families, family – both biological and chosen! – is very important to us. We would do everything for them and they for us. And we would love for you to become part of our chosen family.

Information about your infertility/struggles (or reasons) to start your family (include any children, how many embryos you have):

We have been in this process for 7 years now, including Santi’s journey. We started off with adoption plans (not so easy in Germany..).. The embryos from our first egg donor unfortunately did not mature, but now, with our second one, we are very lucky and still have 10 embryos after the transfer for Santi (it took the first time we tried :)! We also had to wait very long for being matched with a surrogate, our first match did not work out as our surrogate decided it was not the right time for her… Then we got lucky with our wonderful surrogate. Unfortunately, she cannot carry again, but she is happy to chat with you, if you would like to get more information about us.

Describe your home/neighbourhood and where you plan to raise your child.

We live in the City of Hamburg, Germany. We have a four bedroom apartment, a beautiful park just outside, the nursery and elementary school are next door. We have plenty of friends, some of them with children from surrogacy as well, in our neighborhood. We spent already lots of time with our kids playing together on the playground. We have a little country house, next to a horse & donkey farm, where we take Santi often as we believe the connection with animal and nature is so important. Alex’ brother with his wife and baby Elle is also living in the City and our parents come visit a lot from Southern Germany and Argentina, we also like to go there a lot as it is very important to us to spend time with our families.

Please fill out any other details about yourself such as occupations, pets, hobbies, what you like to do for fun etc.

As mentioned, Cris is an aeronautical engineer, crazy about planes. Alex is a healthcare professional helping hospitals become more digital. Cris is active in our local rainbow family group, Alex loves to bake, and do some sports. We also like civic engagement for the right cause. We love to travel and are in love with Canada. We definitely want to take our children there – hopefully to meet you as well – as they grow up.

How you will support your surrogate during pre-pregnancy, pregnancy and post partum:

We have already been through the process, so we feel quite comfortable and we want to support you as much as we can.

First things first: Finances, you are doing this for us, and you should never pay out of pocket:

We are well prepared for the journey. All expenditures will be covered for you, immediately. There should be no wait. We will support as much as we can. Travel, groceries, clothing, legal costs, support personnel, lost wages and the list goes on – it goes without saying that we will cover everything related to the child including post partum care.

Pre-pregnancy

• Support you with preparations for the pregnancy, maybe getting support care in place already
• Making sure the clinic is sending you all the right information
• Being there and helping for doctor’s visits
• We are planning to meet you in your home place or Toronto, if you would like

Pregnancy

• Making sure that you have support & that you are reimbursed promptly
• We would love to learn about how your body is changing, we know pregnancy can change a lot in a woman’s body, maybe we can send little gifts, for example to dark chocolate to help with iron ;), back massage or similar things
• Being there as much as you would like us to be there to give emotional support
• Helping researching potential symptoms, growth stages of the baby etc.

Post partum

• Depending on the type of the delivery this can vary, we want that you are well taken care of, you might need continued support for the household
• We will get to spend time together at your home city as we will be there for the birth and we would love spend a bit of time together and helping each other out.

What type of relationship/contact do you hope to have with your surrogate during and after pregnancy?

We plan to visit you around 3 times, before and during pregnancy and hopefully many more times after birth 🙂 We just met up with our first surrogate on vacation and we would love for you to come to Europe one day or us spending vacation together in Canada. We love your country and our children are Canadian and we want them to have a connection with you – as our extended family – and the country.

–> Hopefully, our family will be yours and yours our family at this point!