My name is Karen McAnerin and I’ve been happily married to my husband, Scott, since September 9th, 2006. We have two incredible children, Myla and Brodyn (Bo), who are extremely active and love sports, especially hockey (they both play on rep hockey teams). I was born and raised in Kingston, Ontario and moved away after graduating high school to pursue my post secondary education. In May 2005 I graduated from the Funeral Services Program at Humber College in Toronto and passed my Ontario Board Exams, officially becoming a Licensed Funeral Director and Embalmer in August 2005. I became a stay at home Mom after our daughter was born and feel extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to stay at home with both kids. Now that they’re older I volunteer often at their school – on Parent Council, with hot lunches, in the class, on field trips, etc. In the summer of 2017 we moved from our home in Bowmanville to our dream home in Brockville. It’s been a big change moving 3+ hours away and away from the GTA, but life here has already been more relaxing and rewarding. We have 30+ chickens and ducks that free range on our 5 acre property and the kids now have their own little egg business – Fluffy Butts Coop.

I am now a retired egg donor, having donated 6 times (completing both anonymous and known donations) and am also a retired gestational surrogate. As a teenager I saw a documentary on surrogacy and I knew if circumstances allowed when I was older that I wanted to help give the gift of life/family to someone – even though at that age I didn’t fully understand what it meant emotionally. When Myla was born in 2007 and I was still in the hospital, I knew that once we were done having our own family (we planned on two), that I wanted to try to give someone else the opportunity of becoming parents. While in the hospital and looking down at our precious new baby girl, the thoughts of wanting and not being able to conceive children were intense and gave me such an indescribably sad feeling. Knowing how lucky we were to have our new beautiful baby, especially after a very intense and scary delivery (an emergency c-section with 52 vertical staples due to a prolapsed cord) it further pushed my desire to want to help others achieve their dreams of parenthood.

Our son Bo was born in 2009, completing our perfect family of four. With the full support of my amazing husband, I embarked on my adventure into the World of Third Party Reproduction as an egg donor. In July 2010 I had my first egg retrieval as an anonymous donor and although having limited details, I was told that the Intended Mother did indeed get pregnant. It was such a gratifying experience that it further enhanced my desire to become a gestational surrogate. Once Bo was out of the “baby” stage, we began looking for our perfect match to embark on a surrogacy journey with. After speaking with a few Intended Parents, we were extremely fortunate to meet an absolutely incredible single father-to-be (who already had frozen embryos) through Surrogacy in Canada Online. Although we met as complete strangers, the friendship and bond that formed quickly became that of family. In May 2012, with both my IF and my husband in the OR with me, I gave birth to a gorgeous baby boy, full term. Sadly it quickly became clear that he was born very sick. There were unforeseen complications with his health (that were not and could not have been diagnosed during pregnancy) and he passed away at just 8 weeks old. The experience changed me in many ways as the idea of loss is not something that I was not prepared for, especially with surrogacy when helping to create life/a family. Despite the devastating outcome of our journey, it was still such an absolutely beautiful experience , one that I’m grateful to have been a part of.

I have always had a very strong passion for helping others and when Sally asked me in August 2012 to join the SCO team and lend my assistance as her Egg Donor/Surrogate Support Worker, I enthusiastically jumped at the opportunity. I look forward to getting to know you and please don’t be afraid to reach out with any questions or concerns you may have about the process.