My Journey Into Motherhood: Zinnia Harris

We started to explore surrogacy a few months after Isabelle died. There are a lot of steps and layers to surrogacy – both logistically and emotionally. In the UK it can be quite a complicated process to navigate. Because it isn’t commercialised, you can’t advertise or pay for a surrogate, beyond covering loss of earnings and maternity costs. As such, there are only a few non-profit agencies that exist to ‘match’ surrogates and intended parents, most of which have closed their books due to demand. It can take two to three years to find a surrogate in the UK. There’s also no legally binding contract between the surrogates and the intended parents. Both parties fill out a surrogacy agreement stating how they want to navigate the pregnancy, birth, and what happens next, but it’s not enforceable.

UK law states that after birth, the surrogate is the legal parent of the baby. As an intended parent, you go through an adoption process which can only be started after the baby is six weeks old. In terms of cost, it’s usually suggested that payments to surrogates range from about £10k-20k, in addition to the costs associated with IVF. Some people may choose to pay legal fees as well, for the parental order.

Surrogacy has so many emotional elements to it. On the one hand I was so grateful to have someone carry our baby, but I had to completely trust someone to do this for us – to fully relinquish control. When I was pregnant with both Ivy and Isabelle, I made certain choices that I felt were best, but you can’t be sure your surrogate will do the same. Eventually, this was something that I let go of. Whatever Helen (our surrogate) did, I knew the baby was better off in her than in me – I trusted her implicitly.

We didn’t use a surrogacy agency to find Helen. Instead, we signed up to an agency called COTS to help us navigate the process and create the agreement – particularly as both of us as intended parents and Helen and her husband were new this. We found Helen when my friend Kayla reached out to her doula community to see if anyone might be interested in talking to us about surrogacy. From the outset, Helen wanted to do what she could to replicate the pregnancy I’d want. Helen is also a doula herself and is trained in dealing with trauma, so she understood what I’d been through with Isabelle.

Getting to know Helen’s family was an important part of the journey. You have to discuss some difficult topics with your potential surrogate to ensure you’re aligned on several aspects; what kind of birth would you all like? Who can be present? What happens if there’s a problem at one of the scans – would you agree to terminate or continue with the pregnancy? How many embryo transfers will you try? What lifestyle habits would you like the surrogate to follow while pregnant? When should the surrogate stop work? Will you all keep in contact after the birth? 

As it happened, I couldn’t really celebrate the moment when Helen fell pregnant. It was difficult to let myself believe we were going to have a baby in case things went wrong again. For most of the pregnancy I was extremely anxious. Having spoken to a counsellor, I understood my behaviour was symptomatic of PTSD. I was also wracked with guilt that Helen and her family might think I wasn’t grateful, or she might feel disappointed that I wasn’t celebrating each milestone. But when I shared my feelings with her, she was so understanding. We honestly couldn’t have found a better person to be our surrogate. 

Helen went to most of the scans and appointments by herself – partly due to Covid-19 rules, partly down to my anxiety and partly due to distance. We were based in London and Helen lives in Bury St Edmunds. However, I did go to the 20-week scan with her. When we saw the baby on the screen, I felt a huge sense of relief, but I was also hit with a huge wave of sadness. Helen just reached out and held my hand – she understood what I was feeling. We asked the sonographer to write the sex of the baby on a piece of paper and went to meet our husbands. We all found out together we were having a baby boy.

We planned to have a home birth at Helen’s house so we could all be together. But like most birth plans, that went out the window. When Helen initially experienced contractions she called us, so we could make our way to Bury St Edmunds. When her waters broke, I went with her to the hospital. It was there that we found out there was meconium in her waters, so she’d have to deliver in hospital. After several hours of labour, the baby’s heart rate started to decelerate, which meant having to deliver via C-section. Helen’s husband Danny went with her for the surgery, while Braden and I waited in our own room in the labour ward. Once the baby had been delivered safely, the midwives brought him up to us.

From the moment I held Hugo, I knew I was his mother – it felt so natural, even though I hadn’t carried him. Our son might not have officially been ours when he was born, but legally we were allowed to take him home right away. Between six weeks and six months old, you have to go through a ‘parental order’ process to adopt your baby from the surrogate and her partner (if she has one). It sounds convoluted, but it’s relatively straightforward. Once the paperwork is submitted, there’s an initial court hearing. Both our family and that of our surrogate are then visited by CAFCASS, the adoption body, and following the submission of the CAFCASS report, there’s a secondary court hearing, before the final change of parental responsibility takes place and the new paperwork (including a birth certificate) is drawn up. 

The first few days with Hugo were surprisingly easy. I wasn’t recovering from pregnancy and labour, so I had loads of energy. We went for lots of walks and spent time together as a family. The one thing I was worried about was feeding him. I had breastfed my daughter for about two years and struggled with the idea of not being able to breastfeed my son. I did try to induce lactation myself, which is possible, but it didn’t work for me. Thankfully, Helen had expressed loads of colostrum for us and continued to supply us with breastmilk for three months.  

Hugo is six months old now and we’re waiting for our final court hearing to take place. Within a matter of weeks, he’ll officially be ours. In all honesty, it’s just paperwork and the lengthy process hasn’t bothered us. For so long we hadn’t allowed ourselves to believe we would have another baby. One of the best moments was introducing him to Ivy and letting her feed and hold him – particularly after everything she went through with losing her sister. She was so excited to finally have a baby brother. 

We might like more children in the future, but there’s a lot to consider. We’d have to go down the surrogacy route again, which is not only expensive, but it can also be a difficult and lengthy process to find a surrogate. It’s also an incredibly emotional journey, and one that, following my experience with Isabelle, triggers a lot of anxiety. We know how lucky we were to find Helen and what a positive experience we had, so it’s hard to believe we’d have such an amazing experience again.

I have a podcast called ‘Making It To Motherhood’ which I host with a friend, Maya. We have both experienced baby loss and embarked on unconventional journeys to have another child. In series one we talk about our baby loss experiences, navigating grief and what we each went through. In series two, we interview my surrogate Helen, as well as other mothers and their unconventional journeys. You can listen via Apple, Spotify and Google and follow us on Instagram.

Follow on @MakingItToMotherhood on Instagram and download the podcast here.