To our lovely, future surrogate,

We hope you’re doing great!

We are Stije and Arthur. We are engaged and live in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, near the cozy canals.

Stije works as a global security specialist for a well-known Swedish furniture company, Arthur works as a communications adviser for the Greater Amsterdam Transport Authority.

19 years ago we met, still being students, working both in an IKEA store in the north of the country and we’ve never been apart since. We’ve had a passion to care and interact with kids in our families since we were young and would dearly love to have a child together. Our families are a very important support in our lives and we’ve involved them in this process.

We understand that all surrogacy journeys are different and that there most likely will be challenges along the way, just like we had, too. But we have processed that and are optimistically moving forward. Optimism is key and we’ve kept each other smiling since we’ve met and we will so for the rest of our lives.

We’ve been able to visit Toronto and some parts of Ontario and are already looking forward to discover more of your amazing country on our next trip.

We are active, outdoorsy, healthy and fun. We care deeply about sustainability, love animals and wildlife. For a positive future for our child and everyone else on this planet. We exercise regularly, take hikes in nature, do beach trips, scuba dive, camp and (mostly) eat healthy. Stije is a vegetarian and Arthur a flexitarian. We love music and like to read our daily newspaper and books. We love to travel, from exploring Germany to backpacking through Indonesia.

Our families are super important to us and they are supportive of our path to parenthood. Our child would be adored by us, and also loved by their grandparents, three aunts and four uncles and many cousins. We hope to meet you, a wonderful woman, to help us light a spark in one of those eight beautiful, frozen and PGS-tested embryos that are currently in our clinic in Toronto and ready to go. So that we can become parents and give our nephews and nieces a new little family member.

We recognize what a generous gift you as our potential surrogate are giving and how that gift increases the collective good in the world. We’ve spoken to agencies, lawyers, been to conferences and read, watched and listened to what it takes to have a successful journey, and the challenges some have. We understand that surrogacy, like any successful relationship, takes work and we are committed to it.

Because we have a strong relationships with friends and family all over the world and we are mobile (we could temporarily relocate to Canada if needed), we feel we could comfortably become close to our surrogate if she so desired. We of course also love to welcome our surrogate and her family to our lovely city. We would be happy and proud to make sure our child was aware of the love and care that another person showed.

We feel humble writing this and hope to find a surrogate to become a friend and allow us to have a child. We’ve already met several other Intended Parents and heard many inspiring stories of courage and resilience. And see so many people deserving of being parents. And we are also humbled by the enormous gift surrogates give to IPs. In expressing our own hope and longing to become parents together, we feel compelled to try, and hope to be able to, help others too. We have done a lot of research and in the process learned a lot about surrogacy, IVF and related topics. If we can help any other IPs with this knowledge, we will. That’s why we both are now volunteers of ‘Meer dan Gewenst’ (More Than Wished For), the Dutch foundation for LGBTQI+ parenting, to help others find their way to parenthood.

We are open to any form of communication, whether it’s a lot or little and we are ready for that special relationship with you as our surrogate. We want to make sure that our surrogate never feels alone, that we are in this journey together. Whatever will help to assist you in this exciting, but understandably intense process. ♡

We are open to either option of having or not having a close relationship. For us it would be great to establish a relationship with you and develop a friendship or anything like that. We’re curious about your view on this and happy to establish shared thoughts together.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, there is a lot we wish to share.

If you are interested in helping to build our family please reach out today! We look forward to meeting
you. ♡

Love and best wishes,