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By Maria Azzurra Volpe
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Ariel Taylor and Marissa Smith are best friends. They met on social media a few years ago then hit it off in real life … and soon, they will have an everlasting bond. Ariel is carrying a baby for Marissa.
Marissa was looking for information about surrogacy when she came across Ariel's Instagram profile. Marissa had been having fertility problems since her mid-twenties, the result of illness and a botched medical procedure.
Fertility issues aren't uncommon—about 11 percent of women in the U.S. experience them, according to the National Institutes of Health. But research suggests that around 90 percent of couples have a baby within two years of trying.
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Marissa was still trying, so when her searches brought up Ariel, who has been a surrogate mother three times and given birth to three boys for other women, she had questions for her.
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Ariel, who lives in London, Ontario, uses her Instagram page to document her surrogacy experiences and educate people about the practice, trying to break the stigma attached to it.
She told Newsweek: "We didn't become friends with the intention to match. At the time, she was looking to have a baby through surrogacy, but she was already matched with another surrogate. When she texted me, we got talking and we immediately became friends. We had so much in common, so we clicked immediately and really bonded."
Their friendship evolved and though they live 45 minutes apart, they get together as often as possible, at least every couple of weeks. They both love the Steve Carell sitcom The Office, so one recent outing was to The Office Experience in Toronto.
Marissa told Newsweek: "We bonded over The Office. We bonded over a lot of stuff. We do so many things together, like go out for dinner or go to an amusement park that we have here. It feels like we've known each other forever, and like it's just normal, and I know it hasn't been that long but it just feels like a normal part of my life."
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How Does Surrogacy Work?
There are typically two types of surrogacy: traditional and gestational.
A traditional surrogate gets impregnated via intrauterine insemination. The surrogate's egg is fertilized with the sperm of the intended father or donor.
A gestational surrogate, sometimes called a gestational carrier, becomes pregnant via IVF. The embryo is fertilized in a lab using the intended mother's egg and the intended father's sperm, and is then implanted into the surrogate's uterus.
It is estimated that around 750 babies are born every year in the U.S. via a gestational surrogate. This was the method used by Kim Kardashian for her third and fourth children with ex-husband Kanye West.
Ariel is acting as gestational surrogate for Marissa and her husband. She has no biological link to the baby she's carrying, even though Marissa says she will always be "Auntie Ariel."
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How Ariel Became Marissa's Surrogate
When she was just 25, Marissa was diagnosed with a reproductive cancer that affected her cervix. Doctors told her they would do a procedure that preserved her fertility, but she later discovered that it didn't work.
"I had a lot of surgeries that didn't go right. The doctors botched a lot of surgeries. They were just cutting pieces off my uterus and scarring my uterus and every time they kept going in, it just kept getting worse."
When Marissa was in remission, she was trying to get pregnant via IVF but having no success. A specialist eventually told her it would not be safe for her or the child to carry a pregnancy to term, and her only option was to have a surrogate carry her embryo.
Marissa and her husband matched with a surrogate, but their attempts at getting pregnant kept not working. That's when Ariel, who had known Marissa for about eight months at this point, put herself forward.
After discussing their expectations of the surrogacy, the friends decided to go ahead. Soon after, Marissa made it official, asking Ariel's favorite singer, Jesse McCartney, to "propose" with a personalized Cameo video message.
Reproductive Cancers
A reproductive or gynecologic cancer starts in a woman's reproductive organs. There are five main types, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: cervical, ovarian, uterine, vaginal and vulvar. A sixth type, which is very rare, affects the fallopian tubes.
Only cervical cancer can be detected early and there is no simple way to screen for other gynecologic cancers. So, it's important to recognize the warning signs. The CDC offers this guidance:
- Abnormal vaginal bleeding or discharge is common in all gynecologic cancers except vulvar cancer.
- Feeling full too quickly or difficulty eating, bloating and abdominal or back pain are common for ovarian cancer.
- Pelvic pain or pressure is common for ovarian and uterine cancers.
- More frequent or urgent need to urinate and/or constipation are common for ovarian and vaginal cancers.
- Itching, burning, pain or tenderness of the vulva, and changes in vulva color or skin, such as a rash, sores or warts, are found only in vulvar cancer.
Gynecologic cancers are less common than breast or colon cancer, but occur in about 100,000 women in the United States each year.
Included in Every Part of the Pregnancy
Ariel is now 31 weeks pregnant with a boy. Marissa has been involved for every step, from embryo transfer to the first kicks and hopefully delivery day.
Marissa said her friend "gives me updates regularly like, 'Oh today, I was really really craving pineapple, so baby likes pineapple,' and stuff like that, which makes me feel very included.
"I do appreciate that because these are all things that I wish that I could feel and that I could experience in my pregnancy, but obviously it didn't turn out that way. So, I do appreciate it when Ariel goes out of her way to let me know when these little milestones are happening.
"It's really special that my best friend is pregnant with my first baby."
Marissa added that she hopes to be in the delivery room with Ariel. "Although if it's a C-section, things might change a little bit, but we're hoping that we can follow our plan and everything goes accordingly, and I can be in there with her," she said.
Even though the pregnancy is almost over, Marissa has no intention of letting Ariel go. In fact, she thinks their bond is only getting stronger.
"There's no world where I could live without having her a part of my life," Marissa said. "There's no way that I would say, 'This relationship is over,' like it couldn't exist."
She added: "It's very important for me to make my child aware of how he came to be. I've been in the childhood development industry, for the last 14 years, and I know it's extremely important to make sure that children know their birth story. It's extremely important for development and mental health.
"The other side is, of course, the fact that she's Auntie Ariel, so she's not going anywhere and we're not going anywhere! She's family and her family is our family, just like an extension of our family. My kid and hers are going to be cousins."
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