We are an outgoing and social couple who love to travel, cook (and eat) delicious foods, and spend time outdoors. We met through friends and our first date was playing tennis– Matt had assured Susan he was good enough to teach her to play, and he was right! We quickly became inseparable and moved in together after a short period of long-distance when Susan lived in Port Aux Basques working as a teacher. Once back in St. John’s we found a cute apartment above a flower studio and began our life together, learning each other’s quirks and making new routines and memories. Later we bought a house on a tree-covered street, completed some much-needed renovations, and decided to get married! We were married surrounded by family and friends and danced the night away.

6 years later, we have been through a lot, and have lived a lot. Matt works as a Sales Manager at a local technology company which allows him to travel– and Susan to tag along every now and again! We have been lucky to travel to places such as England, France, Spain, Denmark, and Portugal. Susan works for a local non-profit supporting job seekers and employers in tech careers. We both work hard and enjoy seeing progress in our professional careers. We have a cat named Gus who we love dearly, friends who we see regularly, and a strong family who supports us.

We are very lucky, however, we just have one major void in our lives- the addition of a child to our family.

Susan: I grew up in St. John’s with two loving parents and a big sister. I played soccer, was a good student, and made a lot of friends. My parents both spent their free time and money making me and my sister happy. We had a few different budgie birds and hamsters and a cat named Baby. My parents gave me the tools to make good decisions, and make a few mistakes too. They always supported me no matter what I wanted to achieve and were there to catch me if failed, or celebrate with me when I succeeded. My parents both love Matt deeply and we see them weekly for Sunday dinners. Our two nephews, my sister and her husband live in Sudbury, Ontario where we travel regularly to spend time together.

Matt: My upbringing was very normal; I grew up with my two parents and little sister. We had a house in the suburbs and always had what we needed. I played a few different sports but spent most of my time playing music. My family was very musical so family gatherings had musical instruments and lots of singing. I was in the high school specialty band and toured to play in places like Conne River, NL and Tokyo, Japan. I had good friends and remain friends with most of them to this day.

We started trying to conceive in the spring on 2020. In Jan 2021 our first pregnancy ended in a missed-miscarriage followed by another miscarriage in June. Susan was diagnosed with low ovarian reserve and we started seeing fertility specialists in 2022 and underwent multiple rounds of IUI to no avail. Jan 2023 we had a third natural pregnancy which ended up being a chemical pregnancy. April 2023 we did a retrieval at Atlantic Fertility, and got our two frozen embryos. We were not able to do a transfer due to a thin endometrium/lining, which has been a common challenge since doing treatments.

September 2023 was the fourth natural pregnancy which is when we got furthest along to 9 weeks in which we heard a heartbeat but two weeks later found the embryo stopped developing- that pregnancy ended in D&C. Since then Susan was diagnosed with Asherman’s Sydrome which is a complication of scar tissue in the uterus. Multiple surgeries have yet to provide a healthy environment for transferring an embryo.

We have fought through each treatment and heartbreak together as a couple, and our dream of having a child has never wavered. Our love and resilience is strong and our hope remains. This is why we are opening our hearts to the pathway of a gestational carrier.

We plan to raise our child in St. John’s, NL. We love it here! We both have jobs here that we enjoy, we have easy access to fresh air, ocean, forest, and a clean and safe city that we love, and the work-life balance is unbeatable. Our neighbourhood has old-character homes (ours was built in 1930!) and tree-covered lawns, access to trails, and walkability to downtown. Our neighbourhood has a lovely small grade school and the homes on the street are consistently filling up with younger families like us.

We are both light-hearted, easy-going, and love to laugh. Our first inclination in most situations is to make a joke or make each other laugh. Matt is the rational thinker, Susan relies on her emotions, but we both take things day-by-day and usually find ourselves on the same page when it comes to making decisions. We talk every night about our days and share in each other’s work drama, excitement for upcoming plans, and talk about our cat Gus… a lot.

We hope to work as a team with our surrogate. We would love to be involved with all aspects of the journey, but also understand if our carrier would like to be more independent. We plan to support our surrogate with all related costs such as travel, food and medications, child-care, insurance, comforts, and anything else that they will need throughout the process. We will be there to chat with them regularly, visit and meet with them and their family (as our carrier wishes), and generally build a relationship of trust, care, and honesty.

We hope to maintain a relationship with our surrogate after pregnancy, and would like to make these decisions with our surrogate based on both of our wishes and desires. We want to be on the same page and work together– we will be a team!

We would like to spend time building our relationships prior to pregnancy and would be open to attending doctors visits and would like to have regular communication pre-transfer, and throughout the pregnancy.

Thank you for reading our profile. It means so much that people like you exist. Without your kindness and generosity we would be left without this pathway of hope. We have fought so long and so hard to make a baby for our family, we have gone through so many ups and downs, yet we are steadfast in our dream of raising a child. The idea of continuing to strive for this dream with a surrogate has filled us with renewed love, hope and excitement. We are open to all questions and would love to hear from you!