BabyMoon Family Stories: Rachelle Myers-Nelson’s Surrogacy Journeys with Gay Men and Building Her Chosen Family

All the amazing babies Rachelle carried on her four journeys.

This is the beginning of the BabyMoon Family Stories series.  

This series aims to share diverse perspectives from intended parents (IPs), gestational carriers (GCs), reproductive endocrinologists, and others involved in the IVF and surrogacy journey.

For this inaugural article, I had an amazing one and a half hour conversation with the incomparable Rachelle Myers-Nelson, a 4 time GC who has been interviewed by multiple news outlets across Europe as well as discussed her experiences at several Men Having Babies conferences (www.menhavingbabies.org). 

Rachelle has a unique perspective on how she approached her journeys, how she integrated her family into the process, as well as valuable advice for future IPs and GCs.  

How Rachelle Became a GC and Approached her Journeys

I was originally asked to be a surrogate for one of my college girlfriends. She and her husband tried to have a baby for four years. They were unsuccessful up until the point of us talking about surrogacy. And then she got pregnant. So, she had planted the seed, and I talked to my husband about it, and was like, you know what?  I want to continue down this path.  Let's see where this leads.

Prior to considering surrogacy, Rachelle had her own son, and she and her husband had initially wanted more children of their own.  However, that was not meant to be, but that really shaped how Rachelle approached surrogacy and her own ‘chosen family.’

It took a lot of soul searching to figure out why…why do I only get one baby? Why do all these babies get taken from me? But then, when surrogacy came into my world, I thought, you know what this is meant to be, if I can be there for other people then I'm okay with this.

I wanted really close relationships with my intended fathers and the children, and, in my opinion, there is no better way to build your family.

Just because they aren't biologically mine does not mean I love them any less than I love my own child. I grew them. I felt them, I nurtured them. I brought them into existence with the help of our donors, of course.

But to be able to watch them grow up and not have to worry as much. I feel like that actually fits my lifestyle and my personality, and my husband and my goals of what we wanted our family to be, it actually fits quite better than I could have ever imagined.

Family doesn't mean blood. and if you don't like your circumstance, or you want something different. Go make it.

And make it she did.  Rachelle has embarked on 4 surrogacy journeys with 3 gay male couples, both internationally and in the United States.

Rachelle’s  Journeys and Why She Chose Gay Men

Rachelle’s first journey was with a gay Italian couple, who promoted their amazing relationship and process online with ‘Famiglie Arcobaleno’ or ‘Rainbow Families’ (https://www.famigliearcobaleno.org/). 

Rachelle with the dads after her first experience as a GC.

Through this network, another gay Italian couple reached out, and Rachelle then worked with them for her second journey.  

A collage of Rachelle and the intended fathers on her second journey.

For her third journey, she worked again with her first couple and had twins.  

Rachelle with the dads and their child from their first journey now on their second experience together.

In her most recent journey, she worked with an American gay couple based in Colorado.

Rachelle with the new dads after completing her fourth journey.

As a gay man myself, I was intrigued with Rachelle's desire to work exclusively with gay men.

I started kind of soul searching. Who do I want to help? Who would be the most ideal?  And I kept coming back to gay men.  Because you guys can't have a baby.  Like, I know that that sounds so obvious, but at the end of the day you don't have a uterus.  I wanted specifically to help people who cannot have a baby. I didn't want somebody who wasn't infertile, or, you know, like, had all these female issues. Because I'm a female, I could put myself in their shoes and realize how devastating that would be.

I know that there are women out there wanting to work with other women. That is 100% great.  I am happy for them. It's just not me.

I don't mean to sound rude about it. But I didn't want to deal with female drama. I didn't want the drama. I didn't want the uterus envy.

Rachelle’s motivation to work with gay men also came from her desire to build her ‘chosen family,’ and how this was more assured being the GC for gay male IPs.

I felt like there was a higher likelihood that the mom, whether intentional or not, would take that baby, and I'd never see them again.  Because then they have what they want, and they could cover it up. They would never have to even say I existed to bring that baby into the world. They can say that they had that baby, and nobody would ever know.

Rachelle also expressed her empathy for gay IPs by helping share pregnancy milestones and experiences as much as possible.

Because you guys can't carry a baby, so you don't know all of the milestones. ‘Oh, my goodness, look how big they're getting! I felt them move.’ I made little video recordings of how we would find the heartbeat at home or just little things, and I found that it's helpful with communication, because then it keeps everybody engaged.  

Hopefully, the parents feel included when you're so far away and you can't come to every doctor's appointment. You're literally putting the faith into somebody else to keep your baby safe. I never wanted my intended fathers to ever feel like their baby wasn't safe.

And through these journeys and countless WhatsApp messages, flights back and forth to Europe, and having the new fathers often stay in her home after the birth, Rachelle did become very close with all her intended and now current fathers.  She successfully integrated them into her own family and continues to have almost daily contact with all of them and their children.

Rachelle’s Husband and Son on the Journeys

Rachelle's husband and son were integral to encouraging, supporting, and growing their own family through Rachelle’s experience as a GC.

My husband has always been very pro ‘Do what you need to do.  Do what you want to do. Your body.  You know your decision. I'm here to support you.’  I'm very, very lucky with that. 

And he knew that this was special to me. As we went through our first journey, he very quickly realized that one of my purposes on this planet was to be a surrogate and to help as many families as I could possibly help.

Rachelle’s husband also had his own experience trying to help another same-sex couple build their family.

We have a couple that we've been really close friends with for years.  She and her wife tried to have a baby with donor sperm. They were trying and were never successful.  I happen to mention, ‘Hey! Having kids?  Why don't you try it with my husband?’ So we tried 3 cycles. Unfortunately, they never got pregnant.

My husband and I are both driven to help. If we have the means, we are meant to help other people. I have something that not everybody has, and I should share.  We've raised our son in the same way. If you have something that others don't, you should share. Be a nice human being to other humans and share, of course, within boundaries and sometimes limitations. 

Rachelle and her husband’s desire to help others also showed their son the diversity of rainbow families, an important aspect they wanted to emphasize in his upbringing and his own experience of the surrogacy journeys.

We also wanted to raise our son to know and understand that not everybody has a mommy and a daddy and that not everybody can just get pregnant. So, I have never hidden anything from my son. He was only three years old when we started this. I took him to our first match meeting, which, usually, you're not supposed to do. But I didn't have a babysitter, and I wanted him to experience it from day one.

And so, through every journey, he would have questions.  He would watch me do medications.  I would walk him through it. I told him, ‘Oh, they're going to put the baby inside.’ He's known every journey to be able to teach him that it's okay to have two daddies or two mommies, or whatever the dynamic may be.

And he has actually bonded quite well with all of my intended fathers.  They've taken him to go get ice cream or picked him up from school, or we've incorporated them into our family, so that he knew from day one that you can make your own family. It doesn't matter if they aren't blood related.

And he also got the chance to interact with all of the babies.  We normalized everything, you know. ‘They're having their baby soon. I'm gonna be in the hospital. This is super normal.’

Normalization.  One of Rachelle’s missions is to normalize ethical surrogacy through sharing her story and advice to other IPs and future GCs.

Rachelle’s Advice and Advocacy

Paramount to Rachelle’s advice to IPs and future GCs:  Advocate for yourselves.  Speak your mind about what you want, need, and expect.  This open and honest communication from the beginning and throughout the process will increase the likelihood that your journey will proceed well.  However, this is not an easy task for many IPs.

There is not one size that fits all journeys, and I hope by hearing all of my stories that I push those boundaries. and I will push them for the rest of my life to make sure the intended parents and surrogates know that they have options.

They must advocate for themselves. Just because somebody did it one way does not mean you have to.  You are in charge of making the journey that you want.  Not the agency, not the clinic, not your friend who went through it.  Nobody. You want it a certain way. You can have it that way.

And it's unfortunate, because so many people have fear. ‘Oh, I could never let my surrogate nurse.’ Why? Where is this coming from it? It is clearly an internal feeling for you, which is fine, but find that root cause.

At the end of the day I promise your surrogate doesn't want your baby. Because that fear gets pounded into intended parents.  ‘Keep your distance. Don't let them hold the baby right away. Don't let them nurse. Don't let them keep the baby in the hospital.’  But why? It's just fear.

So by pushing these boundaries, I feel like I give people hope that they don't just have to go off of some script that somebody's already written.

Similarly, for GCs, Rachelle emphasizes that they have to advocate for what they want and need from the process.

I have plenty of surrogate friends who were 100% okay handing that baby over and saying, ‘You know what?  We need 2 separate rooms. I want to sleep. I don't want to pump.’  Totally fine. That's okay, too, because that's what they needed for their mental health. And that's what they needed to round out their journey. And that's also an okay version.

Everyone’s different.  Everyone needs and wants different things from the experience, and Rachelle will continue to advocate for this individuality of experience through gestational surrogacy. 

Rachelle’s Future Plans

With so much experience being a GC, this is still just the beginning for Rachelle.

I am hopeful to be cleared medically for one more journey. I want nothing more than to carry one more time to complete my last couple's family. They wanted two babies. I did have a couple complications that might disqualify me. Hopefully it doesn't, and they let me carry one more time.  If I can't. I hope that we can find a carrier who wants what we want as well as far as involvement with a journey. 

Beyond that. I’ll continue to advocate for ethical surrogacy in the United States. 

It is so important to me that people know what their options are, and know how to do this with an ethical mindset.

It's important to me that everybody knows that it's not just about the compensation.

And it's not just one way. 

A special thanks to Rachelle for being the first to share her unique and powerful experiences in the BabyMoon Family Stories series.  

Rachelle as a proud, breastfeeding GC.

If you have a story about family building through IVF and surrogacy that you would like to share, please reach out to bryan@babymoonfamily.com.