Erin Andrews Wants to Change the Way We Talk About Surrogacy

Experiencing pregnancy with our surrogate was amazing. I tell everybody she was the perfect fit for us because she was calm, positive, and just so loving. Maybe the opposite of me with the calm part, which I think my husband was very happy about. My girl was very special. When the baby was starting to get bigger, she’d turn on the playoffs because she’d say, “I want him to hear your voice.”

It was wonderful. Look, it’s scary. You don’t want to force a relationship. But she had done it before, and she is an angel. She has two kids of her own. She’s a good mom, she’s a great wife, she’s a fantastic friend. So our friendship with her and her husband just started growing and growing and progressing. We’d go to lunch with them and see them. I had them go to a hockey game one time.

There’s still a stigma surrounding surrogacy, and some people feel shame. I think people think that if you are not carrying the baby, it’s not your baby. I know the one thing my husband kept saying to people is, “It’s our baby. It’s our baby.” And I was like, “You don’t have to say that.” But that worked for him for a while, you know? He wanted to just say, “This is our DNA.”

I’d like to see it not be such a sensitive thing in conversations. I know people don’t know what to say, but lean in a little bit. Also, I want people that are going through it not to be embarrassed about it. I think in the beginning we were like, “Oh, gosh, we have to go this route.” Now I don’t care.

I didn’t know how I was going to do during the birth, I didn’t know how it was going to be. But when that nurse grabbed me, and said, “She wants to hold your hand,” I was like, “Let’s go. “ I grabbed her hand. My husband and I turned into sports fans. We were like, “You got this! Come on!”

It was awesome. We have this one picture that’s really, really special. They put Mack on her chest as they were cleaning him up and my husband was cutting the cord. In the photo I’m kissing her head. It’s the picture of what surrogacy is.

After everything, in that moment, you forget about what got you there and you just are so grateful that these people are in your life, that there are people that help you find them, and that they’re willing to do this. You forget about all the loss, you forget about all the facts that I was unable to carry—I’ve had so many losses—and so forth. You are just so happy that your baby is here. You don’t care about what led you here.

I could scream from the rooftops that if this is the route you have to go down, don’t be ashamed. We have to start talking about it more, being comfortable about having this conversation. And then maybe insurance companies can help, maybe organizations can step in that want to help families fund these kinds of things. People don’t know that there are certain nonprofits out there that will help you go through this journey and help you get a baby.