My name is Linda and my Husband is Van. I am a nurse and my husband is a businessman. Together we own a successful clinic. My husband handles all the back works of things and I focus on all the day to day operations. I’d say we’re generally pretty quiet people. Its Tuesday night and we just took our animals for a walk downtown, went for dinner, had some appies and a drink, and now I’m working on this bio while they’re all napping around the fireplace.
My husband(37) and I(30) met about 10 years ago through some friends and at the time it was only a small fling that didn’t last long and we went our separate ways. About 4 years ago, I went through a really hard time in my life where I just wasn’t able to cope through grief and death in my life. It was also a really dark time where I felt misunderstood by everyone around me. Grief is interesting in a way that it really consumes you. I knew it was becoming an issue because it started to affect the way I responded to the things around me. I began shutting myself out from the world and life grew very quiet for me.
It was during this time that Van reached out to me for support. It was nice that he never really questioned things with me and just let me figure things out as I was comfortable. Slowly, I began to heal and Van and I grew closer and we moved in together with our cat, Pusheen.
A year later, we brought home Peanut, our little orange chihuahua. So now I suppose we’re a family of 4. You know the saying right person wrong time? I feel like that was the case for us. Being together over the last years really helped us grow both individually and together. We’ve had our ups and downs as everyone does. And we’ve travelled so much of the world together and built so many memories. And now we’re here at this time in our lives where we’re ready to take that next steps. Its kind of scary.. as there’s so much unknown but we’re wanting to go all in with this and face any upcoming obstacles together
Van and I are both from vietnamese immigrant families. Neither of our families had very much money growing up. Our parents were refugees escaping war and famine in their home counties. My parents don’t talk to much about how their experience coming over here but Van’s mom is quite vocal about her’s. She gave birth to Van on the side of of a dirt road in Vietnam. She was only about 20 at the time. Shortly after, they departed on the small boats from Vietnam to Hong Kong. From my understanding, this was no simple feat as many died on the way over. There were horror stories of cannibalism on some boats with barely any survivors. On Van’s boat, he was just a baby and going through the rice patties. Van would cry and the other passengers would threaten his mom that they were going to throw her baby off the boat. This is because of the risk of getting caught would be arrest or death of everyone.
Crossing china, a merchant had offered food to his mom in trade of her baby boy. This too caused a lot of conflict among the other hungry passengers but again his mom held on tightly to her baby. Finally, they made it to Hong kong to the refugee camp. Its crazy but it was here that his dad met my dad who was also in the refugee camp. They became friends for a short period before leaving to Canada and attending English school together and then losing contact. They didn’t reunite again till only a few years ago when I asked my dad if he knew this man from a photo and his eyes lit up. “This is my school friend. Give me his number !” Now at family dinners, they talk endlessly about how fateful it is for their children to have found each other like this across the world.
I guess this doesn’t really explain our upbringing too much and more so how we got here to Canada. We were both children of very poor families. Our parents were just children themselves in a new world with no money and no resources. But what we did have was a great community support. Many vietnamese families came over in similar circumstances so the community always came together. We didn’t have much growing up but we always had a great sense of family and belonging. Friends of my parents became close aunties and uncles because we all looked out for each other. If our parents were working, we’d go to a family friend’s house and vice versa. This is something I want to instill into my future children as well so they know the importance of helping others and being apart of a family and community.
We don’t currently have any children. We do have 2 embryos frozen and ready for implantation. Unfortunately, we were some of the unlucky people that were affected in the cooper surgical defective culture situation. Out of the 15 eggs retrieved only 2 had survived due to the defected culture solution. We’re hopeful that these two little survivors will continue to fight more odds and implant to our intended surrogate.
A little background about why we are choosing surrogacy. I myself don’t have problems conceiving but more so have an issue carrying to term. This is due to a spinal cord injury I sustained back in 2018 that resulted in the development of central sleep apnea. Breathing is typically autonomic meaning your body does it without having to think about it. But for me whenever I was falling asleep, my body doesn’t register to take the next breath on its own so I often suffocate and wake up. Now I see a sleep specialist but she’s unsure of what to do about my situation as it seems to come and go. And because it isn’t obstructive apnea, conventional CPAP machines would not be effective for me.
The specialist says its quite severe and I’m going very hypoxic over night (low blood oxygen) that I would be a high risk pregnancy. Risk of miscarriages. Risk of developmental concerns. I’d love to try on my own but this doesn’t seem to be a viable option anymore due to the health of the growing baby.
We live in a pretty nice and green neighbourhood. We have parks down the street on either sides of our street which our animals like to run to. My parents and brother live not too far away as well which will be nice cause I know my mom will love to come visit more once there’s more grandchildren for her to feed. Van’s nieces are currently enrolled in CEFA which I believe is like a school for toddlers. They’re about 2 right now and the school is about 10 minutes from us. We’ll probably enrol our child in this school as well to start their education and socialization early.
Our current home is occupied by me, Van, and our 2 animals. We’re pretty tidy people. My cat use the toilet so no litter box. And peanut is well potty trained. We invite our parents over for dinner often just to spend time. About once a month my niece and nephews come over for movie nights at our place. They’re 9 and 11 and have 2 younger siblings 2 and 4. I think they’ll all be super excited to come over more often to play with their baby cousin.
Our family is quite big so I think our child will have a very safe and warm environment to grow up in.
Van and I run a clinic together. Most things are set up for us now so we don’t work too often in office. Most of our work is remote actually and all the other doctors and nurses just run things while we’re not around. This gives us quite a bit of time to just enjoy life now. We like to travel a lot.. Our next trip coming up is actually back to Vietnam and Thailand. We’ve gone in the past before but just love and miss the food so much that we want to revisit again. Van’s sister is currently travelling around Asia, Dubai, and now up to Turkey with her husband and 2 babies. And it makes me feel so inspired to have family vacations like that.
Other than travelling, we mainly focus on our animals making sure their happy and well taken care of.
My pass time is I like to journal, draw, make silly videos, and cook.
Van’s pass time is fishing, gym, and baseball
Together we like to binge TV series and go for walks and explore the streets with our animals. Often we like to host dinners with our friends or family
I think we’ll be supportive in whichever way our surrogate wants us to be. Of course, we want to be as proactive and as involved as possible to feel connected with our baby but the reality is our surrogate needs to be comfortable too. The whole thing is very intimate and sensitive I feel. If she wanted space, we’d respect that too. Communication I guess is important to ensure everyone’s on the same page so no one feels over stepped or on the opposite side, neglected
For us, I think it’d be like supporting a friend or family member who’s pregnant. Drop off food when she’s having nightly cravings. Give her a ride around if she’s struggling. Check in and talk to her when she needs the support or even just wants to talk for fun. Go movies or dinners if she wants to hang out. I’d think I’d want her to have the same treatment I would want for myself if I’m pregnant.
Expenses and cost I’d think is a given to be covered if she is going through this process with us.
I think I’m open to an ongoing relationship with my surrogate. I wouldn’t force it but if it happened organically because we just clicked, I think I’d like it. I’d be very open with my child that they were birthed via surrogate and this is your auntie that did it. I think it’s a pretty big event in our lives together and we’re bound to grow a bond. This friendship might even grow past being my surrogate and just being friends generally. I think anything is possible.