Intended Parents Waiting to be Matched!
Meet some of the incredible hopeful parents in our program waiting for a surrogate like you to help build their family!
Meet Jan W
Location: Toronto, ON
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When I was in my late 30s my mom was diagnosed with ALS, it was devasting to me and my family, as it was a death sentence with no hope. I watched with such admiration on the strength of my mother as she decided every day to be strong. And I knew her decision to fight was for her kids, she lived for us, we were her purpose. A lot of soul searching goes on in times of such sadness and I saw in myself that my life that I thought was full wasn’t, I wanted that purpose.
My mom suggested I look at adopting as she said she saw how much I loved my dog and she knew I would be able to love any child, no matter where it came from. Seeing that it was quite challenging to adopt at my age, we decided I could do this on my own – so I went to the fertility clinic and started the process. I will always remember looking at sperm donor catalogues with my mom. I always thought I would use a surrogate as it was important to me that I be able to fly home at any time if I needed to. The process left me with 8 frozen embryos. My mother passed shortly thereafter.
It took a long time to get myself back to a place of happiness after my mother passed. Then knowing you will be doing something like this basically on my own, its very easy to wait until life is perfect – unfortunately while waiting for life to be perfect, life passes by. Life is pretty much perfect for me know to do this – I am financially secure, I have a lot of flexibility with my job, I’ve lived a busy full life and am so ready for the next phase, I think the only thing that isn’t perfect is that my mom isn’t here, and I am 50.
I appreciate the concern that I am older, but I want to share with you that there are many benefits to those years – I don’t have the pressures that younger people have, I am calmer, more patient, am so much better of a communicator than I was 20 years ago and its crazy, I still think I am early 30s. Last year I received a 25-year business school reunion invitation in the mail and my first thought was “I wonder what reunion year I am coming up to …is it 10? 15?” and then I realized it was sent to me, I’m not in my early 30s anymore! I am very active, I love exercising, playing with my dog, running with my dog, dancing at home with my dog and I love to laugh. I just feel like I have so much love to give!
I had a career in energy trading. I am a Senior Advisor at an investment firm, and I sit on 1 public company board – I work now to be intellectually engaged in life but I am happy as I have tremendous flexibility. I just recently renovated a house in Toronto, with a backyard and a 5-minute walk to my tennis club (which has amazing programs for kids). I have 2 brothers, 1 sister and my dad is 85 (they all live in Calgary). I just hosted them and their families for Canadian Thanksgiving – 19 in total! My mother loved Christmas, she would start decorating and baking the end of November. The first Christmas after she passed, I went home to Calgary, and it was incredibly hard. After that, my sister and her family and sometimes my dad will come to Bahamas for Christmas, and we have started our new traditions (well I think we are coming up on 7 years now). It’s so nice that we now have these new traditions that we all look forward to – we get a tree, decorate, put lights outside, my dog will have Christmas pajamas, I have a human size grinch stuffee we bring, we make Christmas brunch and have Christmas turkey.
I am so happy when I am with my dog, and I know that is how I will feel that way with my child, the 3 of us will be a family. I live a quiet life now, Friday nights, Periwinkle (she tries anyways) and I share a frozen pizza and watch a movie, Saturday we mix it up and order sushi. I know I am naïve thinking bringing a baby into my world will be easy, but I really do think that. However I suspect is has to do with all approaches to life, it’s how you look at your situation. Thank you for reading my bio, I hope I get the chance to get to know you too!
Interested in Matching with Jan W?
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