VINCENNES, Ind. - Neither Sara McCarter nor Tara Pearce ever worried about what would happen once Tara gave birth to Sara’s twins — it was the rest of the world that wondered.
“Everyone kept asking me if I would be attached to them,” said Tara, who carried Sara’s biological twins as a surrogate. “They asked me if it would be hard to give them back. They weren’t my babies to begin with.”
In fact, Tara said just minutes after giving birth on Easter Sunday that it felt like she was visiting a good friend who’d given birth, not that she’d carried those babies for nine long months.
“It was amazing,” she said of the speedy birth. “We talked throughout the night about how it was awesome for everyone; it couldn’t have gone better. It went so fast that there was no time to be nervous or expect anything. It was perfect. I think emotionally it helped me a lot to have such a good delivery. I didn’t feel sad afterward.”
Mila, weighing 6 pounds, 2 ounces, was born at 7:11 p.m. April 5. Her twin brother Blaine weighed 6 pounds, 1 ounce and was born 15 minutes later.
Although the women are the best of friends now, Sara and Tara hadn’t even met a little more than a year ago. Sara was working with Surrogacy Together — an organization whose mission is to raise awareness of the surrogacy process — to find a surrogate.
The group doesn’t pay for the process but instead works with professionals — reproductive lawyers, surrogacy agencies, reproductive specialists, etc. — who offer their services pro bono or at a significantly reduced cost making the financial burden one that the McCarters, both 29, felt they could bear. A typical surrogacy costs between $60,000 and $120,000.
Sara was talking about her search for a surrogate at work when co-worker Chris Pearce, Tara’s husband, overheard. The Pearces had talked about the possibility of surrogacy so Chris approached Tara with the idea.
Soon the families met, a contract was signed and the deal done. Tara agreed to be the surrogate with no financial compensation — typically a standard part of a surrogacy arrangement. She’d been blessed with being mom to five children of her own and wanted to help McCarter experience that same feeling and couldn’t imagine taking money, Pearce said.
‘It’s time’
“When my phone rang I just knew it,” Sara said, still struggling to suppress her giddiness months after the phone call. “But I guess every time my phone rang I thought that. I picked it up, and Tara was so excited I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but I knew. I started screaming back. We were talking in jibberish together.”
Sara nearly jumped over her husband to get out of the restaurant booth and head to the hospital.
Sara and husband Zach, of Wheatland, were waiting outside the hospital with their hospital bags and baby supplies ready to go.
But Tara wasn’t in much of a hurry. She’d had a hankering for Taco Bell, and even with her water broken and contractions starting she was vacuuming her bedroom. Tara also still had her sights set on hitting up the fast food restaurant before going to the hospital.
She even asked her husband Chris if he thought she’d have the babies that night or the next day. As he was trying to rush her along he answered, “Definitely tonight.”
Tara checked into Vincennes’ Good Samaritan Hospital at 7 p.m.
“As I was getting changed and they were all in the hallway I knew,” Tara said. “It’s time!”
Sara thought there were still hours left before she’d become a mom. As a surgical nurse at the hospital, she was visiting in the hallway with staff she knew well.
“I heard her scream, ‘Get in here now!’” Sara said. “I ran in and asked what was wrong. She was ready to push.”
Before an obstetrician could even arrive, Mila “just popped out on the bed.” The anesthesiologist delivered his first baby that night, just 11 minutes after Tara checked into the hospital.
“I remember instantly crying,” Sara said of the moment. “I was so excited and happy to see her but so terrified because we didn’t have an OB. I left Tara’s side and ran over to the warmer. I kept asking the nurses, ‘Can I touch her?’ I was sobbing. It was the most amazing feeling — instant love. I’d dreamed for this day. I can’t even express what it felt like. I’d never experienced so much excitement and pure insanity in one moment.”
The on-call OB arrived and prepared to deliver Blaine. The care they received, even in the midst of such a speedy delivery, was impeccable, the women said.
In all of the chaos, Sara was finally handed her daughter, who she slipped inside her shirt so the two could bond via skin-to-skin contact.
“I was so happy but still at this point scared for my son who was breach,” Sara said. “Watching him be born was so scary but amazing to see. I’d be looking and then have to turn away but would have to look back. Once he was born it was instant relief.”
Blaine was checked over, and then given to Zach for skin-to-skin contact.
“I knew Tara was OK because she instantly said, ‘When do I get to go home. I need to go to the bathroom,’” Sara joked. “I knew then we could focus on the babies.”
‘It was so natural’
Sara and Zach stayed in the delivery room with Tara and Chris for quite some time switching babies. And then Sara held both of them at the same time.
“They were hungry so I nursed them,” Sara said matter-of-factly, “both of them at the same time. They latched right on. It came so naturally. They instantly knew what to do.”
She’d spent months leading up to their birth preparing her body to lactate, having to take special medications combined with the use of a breast pump. This was something Sara wanted to do. She felt robbed being unable to carry her own children. But this was something she could provide them.
“I was so scared my motherly instincts wouldn’t kick in because I didn’t experience pregnancy,” she said. “But it was so natural. I started crying instantly saying, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m doing this.’”
From time to time the nurses came to get the babies from Sara to take them to the nursery for needed procedures, and while Sara knew it was routine and necessary, she could barely let them out of her sight.
“I just sobbed if they took them,” she said. “I waited so long for these babies and love them so much. Even when Tara was pregnant, I know I couldn’t bond with them the same way if I was carrying them because they were in her stomach. But I still grew to love them like anyone would who was pregnant. I was attached to them. If I went several days in a row without seeing Tara, I truly missed them; I’d have separation anxiety not being by them. So now, I finally had them, and I didn’t want to let go of them.”
The relationship that had grown so strong over the last year didn’t just stop after the babies were born. Both women said they’ve found a new friend for life.
“I love her so much, and she loves me,” Sara said of Tara. “She has become one of my best friends through this experience. I couldn’t stop talking to her all the time.”
Tara said the two will always remain close friends and the twins will always be a part of her life, although her relationship with them will be no different from that of the children of her other close friends.
“It’s odd,” Tara said. “You’d think it would be different with them, but it’s not. I’ll always like to love and snuggle on them, but it’s not different. During this whole process I never was afraid of what would happen after the delivery. I knew I wouldn’t be attached to the babies.”
Tara didn’t even hold the babies until the next day, the day she was discharged from the hospital.
“We didn’t know what to expect with this experience,” she said, pointing out she would do this again with the McCarters in a heartbeat. “It was a great experience. I have always had a special place in my heart for women struggling with fertility. I feel guilty that Sara couldn’t experience this for herself. So anything I could do to help that, I was glad to do.”
Changing priorities
Life for the McCarters is drastically different.
“Our whole life revolves around them and their schedule,” Sara said. “Priorities, everything totally changes. It isn’t about us anymore; it is always about them.”
But with those changes come an infinite amount of love and fulfillment, she said.
“The amount of love and satisfaction with my life, now that I have it my heart finally feels full,” Sara said. “I finally feel truly happy. I expected all of that. What I didn’t expect were the challenges with multiples.
“When you live it, woo! It is worth every second, but it is harder then I ever thought it would be.”
It took Sara and Zach a few months to get the hang of things but Sara said they have life down pretty well.
“It really is the best,” she said. “My life, it has changed completely. I go to bed at 8:30 p.m. Before the babies that would never have happened. Zach and I may have gone out on the deck and drank some beers on a Saturday night until midnight or 1. Now my Saturday night consists of trying to help my son to roll over and going to bed by 8:30. But I’m so happy with that. It’s a great change.”
Her gratefulness to Tara and the entire surrogacy experience hasn’t worn off yet.
“We are so lucky, we have so many people who have been so supportive throughout this process,” Sara said.
From an egg retrieval party and surprise shower from work friends to gifts and showers from families, she said the support has been strong.
Next steps
Life suddenly has meaning for Sara.
“It feels so good to have purpose,” she said. “Before I felt like I had no purpose in life. I would ask, ‘What am I here for? What am I doing?’ Now I have these amazing two babies. I wake up every morning because of them, because they need me. I love that feeling. It’s amazing. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
“I can’t picture my life without them. I think back to life before babies and say, ‘What a crappy life. It sucks. I can’t believe I did that for so long.”
In the throes of raising two infants, Sara and Zach are focusing on the children they have and giving them the best possible life.
“As far as a sibling, we’re just not sure,” she said. “We’re not opposed to it but we’ll just see what the future holds. ... Either way, our lives are complete with Blaine and Mila.”
Tara isn’t ready to become a “professional” surrogate anytime soon but said she would carry another child for Sara and Zach in a heartbeat.
But for now, Tara — who has five children of her own ranging in age from 2 to 13 — is looking forward to the next step in her journey, nursing school. She is a registered X-ray technician so the medical field isn’t completely foreign to her.
“I love helping people,” she said. “This is another way I can do that. And now that the kids are getting older and I’m done with surrogacy for now, it just seems like a good time.”
Her goal, once she becomes a registered nurse, is to work in OB.
‘Don’t give up’
The idea of surrogacy can seem like an unobtainable and overwhelming process, Sara said. But for those couples struggling with infertility it can be a feasible option, she said.
“I wanted this so badly,” Sara said. “So I found a way to make it happen. You could too, that is the amazing thing about surrogacy. It is a second chance to have a family, even if your body is broken, and you are incapable of doing it. There is still a way to get your baby home.”
For Sara, even before Tara was pregnant, she loved the babies so much. She loved the idea of them. When she learned surrogacy was a possibility, Sara couldn’t shake the idea.
“When I knew I could do this, how could I not do it?” she said. “You do what you have to do. We gave up a lot, made a lot of sacrifices, so we would have the funds to do it. I researched grants and programs. And that’s how I discovered Surrogacy Together.”
But once the surrogacy is underway, the challenges haven’t subsided, the roller coaster journey is just beginning.
“I know it can be so hard,” Sara said. “It is a constant waiting game. There are so many emotions up and down. And someone else having your baby is so hard. But you have to stay focused on the end results — at the end of day you’re going to have your family. No matter how hard it is, it’s worth it.”
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