Our Surrogacy Story

Waypoints in Our Journey

Intended Parent Profile

Flip through our Google Slides deck for our story. This is what helped us to match with Jessie, our surrogate!

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Note: This presentation was created in 2024; some of the details of our lives have changed since then!

The People Behind the Magic

• Melissa & Martin Cade, Arthur's "cousins" from Atlanta, helped to make Bailey a home. Without them, there might be no mountain paradise to raise a family. While the original plan, before Chase's coming into Arthur's life, was for the Cades to help support Arthur in being a single father, the time together and their support over the last four years has helped set everything up for success.
• Jen Rachman, the Director of Intended Parent Support at Circle Surrogacy and our social worker, has been with us along the entire journey, from initial consultation to managing intended parent support groups that we've participated in, to helping to smooth some of the dynamics of the overall journey and process. Her guidance, care, and warmth have been instrumental in this process going as smoothly as it has.
• Brit Benjamin, our egg donor, has provided not just the most spectacular contribution to Dax's genetic blueprint that we could possibly have hoped for, but has been an enthusiastic supporter and cheerleader for our family building. We cannot wait fox Dax to meet Cool Aunt Brit and for us to be a big, non-traditional, extended family!
• Amy Nielsen, a lawyer friend of Brit's, graciously offered to review and sign off on the egg donation agreement that Brit and Arthur mutually drafted, since we needed a third-party lawyer's approval of the contract for it to be suitable for San Diego Fertility Center's process.
• Eran Amir, the CEO of GoStork, was so generous with his time and guidance in helping us to navigate the early days of selecting a fertility clinic and surrogacy agency, as well as navigating some of the speedbumps along the way.
• Dr Said Daneshmand, the lead physician at San Diego Fertility Center, won us over with his warmth and humor. He cinched the deal for our selecting SDFC as our fertility clinic, and we couldn't be happier with our choice.
• The team at Maven Clinic helped with overall guidance of the whole journey, from working with surrogacy agencies and fertility clinics to genetic counseling, to financing, to legal questions, to logistics and planning. Numerous individuals there were instrumental in supporting us, including Ashley Mareko (surrogacy coach), Allison Margolies (egg donor consultant), Rawan Awwad (genetic counselor), Alice Shapiro (reproductive endocrinologist), Paulina Padilla (mental health consultant), Rijon Charne (fertility lawyer), and Cheyenne Brown (care advocate). Our access to them was courtesy of a an employee benefit through Arthur's employment at Ookla.
• Heather Clark, our matching coordinator at Circle, first helped us through the waiting and the delays (what started out as a 12-month waitlist ultimately turned into 20 months!), guiding us through creation of our Intended Parent Profile and navigating the matching process once we started seeing prospective surrogates' profiles. She is one of the best parts of Circle Surrogacy! She lives within a few hours of where we'll be staying in Kentucky after birth, and she's excited to visit Dax when he's born!
• Herasight is the genetic testing company that we used to help us understand the risks and potentials of our different embryos. By using models built on GWAS datasets and validated on real-world siblings, they are able to predict highly polygenic traits (including health risks, physical traits, mental health traits, and cognitive potential) with greater accuracy than previously possible. (Read more on the Eugenics page!) The folks we worked with most include Michael Christensen, Jonathan Anomaly, and Lauren Moissiy, and they have been wonderful and patient, and we're so enthusiastic, proud, and grateful to be able to both use and support such a life-affirming and great technology!
• Jessie Baird, our surrogate, is just awesome. We are so grateful to her for doing the lion's share of the work to help make our dream a reality. She is kind, strong, intentional, and caring. We clicked with her from the very beginning, especially over how well suited she and Arthur were to one another dispositionally, being open, communicative over-sharers who could just talk forever!
• Sandy Baird, Jessie's mom, aside from being there to support Jessie in her journey, has also been so warm and nurturing around this whole process. She helped us with finding a place to stay in Kentucky, gave us advice on local pediatricians, and generally provided moral support throughout everything.
• Sarah Harris, our program manager at Circle Surrogacy, has been a rock for us and Jessie throughout this process. She has provided emotional support, counseling, and resources to help us navigate the ups and downs of this journey. We are so grateful for her presence and guidance.
• Sarah Veksler is a local friend in Colorado who has been extremely helpful across numerous dimensions of our journey, providing guidance on pre-prenatal nutrition/supplementation (for me, Brit, and Jessie), prenatal supplementation for Jessie, the hippiest-dippiest-crunchiest baby equipment and gear, baby nutrition and supplementation, and lactation expertise for Jessie's upcoming breastmilk pumping. We couldn't be luckier to have a friend who has been so helpful and supportive in navigating some of these issues!
• Jennifer Barnett, a long-time friend with whom we've recently gotten closer, has recommended numerous Montessori books and materials to help us prepare Dax's environment to give him the best cognitive developmental environment. Her expertise as a Montessori educator has been invaluable, especially as we've been reading parenting books and needing to bounce ideas off someone who really understands the principles and their application!
• Dr Shira Miller, another long-time friend, has been very helpful in recommending resources to evaluate vaccines and the risks of the diseases they target. In a world where the government-recommended vaccine schedule is seemingly overly aggressive, guidance by medical professionals is informed by public health policy more than individualized risk management, and the scientific/cultural discourse is highly influenced by ideological commitments, it has been so valuable to have a friend who has been able to provide advice and direction, helping us to think through the issues carefully, methodically, and scientifically.
• Dr Rita Tenenbaum is a pediatrician and family friend who generously offered her time to help us think through prenatal care, neonatal hospital care, and postnatal elevation considerations.
• Catherine Clore is our landlord in Kentucky, where we're staying in her farmhouse on her 300-acre farm. From our first call with her, we were overcome by her warmth and generosity; she has been so eager to support us in our journey and make our stay as comfortable as possible, including connecting us with local resources. We are so eager for her to be a part of our lives!
• Igor Zey and Masha Goldenberg are Arthur's parents (dad and stepmom), who have been encouraging, enthusiastic, and sometimes-overbearing cheerleaders in Arthur's quest to be a father! Soon after Dax's birth, they will come to Kentucky to help support Arthur and Chase in the early weeks, and then around the March 2026 timeframe, they are welcoming Arthur, Chase, Dax, and the zoo (doggos Max and Thor and kitty Murrby) into their home in Tarzana, California for a handful of months. We couldn't be more grateful for their generosity and help!
• Emily Goldenberg is Arthur's sister, who had her own baby, Adam, in early 2025, and that has equipped her with recent knowledge and expertise, as well as physical baby equipment, both of which she is sharing. On the way to Kentucky, Arthur will be making a detour to Chicago to pick up Adam's baby clothes and gear. We're all very excited about Dax's having a cousin so close in age!
• Kimberly Sharpe is our attorney at Circle Surrogacy, who helped with the surrogacy agreement with Jessie, as well as coordinating with local attorneys in Kentucky for establishing parentage.
• Courtney Townes Sewell is our local attorney in Kentucky, who is getting all the paperwork filed to make sure that parentage is properly established as part of the whole surrogacy process.

Thank you all for your help, and thank you to everybody else who has supported us along the way, in big ways and small!