Meet Jen & Kyohei

Location: Tokyo, Japan

View Our Look Book Here

We are a Canadian–Japanese couple living in Tokyo, Japan: Jen is from Newmarket, Ontario, and Kyouhei is from Kashiwa, Chiba, and we’re both in our late 30s looking for a surrogate mother to help us build our family. We were both fortunate to grow up in loving homes, and our deepest motivation for becoming parents is to share that same sense of love, kindness, and belonging with our own children, raising them with strong ties to both Japanese and Canadian cultures. Hearing friends describe the fulfillment they find in watching their children grow has shaped our values as future parents and strengthened our commitment to creating a nurturing, welcoming home. While living in Japan presents practical challenges such as distance and time differences, we are eager to build a close, trusting relationship through regular communication by chat, email, and video calls, and through in-person visits when possible. We travel to Canada a couple of times each year and would love to meet along the way, and you would always be warmly welcomed in Japan as well. This path to parenthood has been a shared journey spanning many years, made possible only through the generosity of others, and we are truly excited to meet you and walk the next steps together.

—LETTER TO SURRO—

Dear Surrogate mom,

Some of my earliest and warmest memories involve playing dress-up with my neighbour and best friend, a lovely little girl a few years older than me. I remember my mom seeing us playing when she came to pick me up and feeling a sense of shame that her little boy was wearing a dress like a Disney princess, though I think she found it funny herself. I must have been about 3 or 4 years old and didn’t understand what gender was, but I understood from her reaction that it was not typical.

On the other hand, my childhood was typical for a young boy growing up in the GTA; I played hockey, baseball, and eventually started running later in elementary school. But I grew up from a very young age with a nagging feeling that my body wasn’t right. I lost contact with my friend when we moved away when I was in Grade 1. The feeling of safety and comfort that I felt with her was replaced with a deep sense of fear that someone would find out about my feelings and expose them. Unfortunately, I became closed-off, retreating to my room and only making a few friends as I navigated what I felt was a hostile and unwelcoming environment at school. On the other hand, I spent more time online, seeking out and eventually finding a community of people who were similar to me.

I had “figured it out” when I was 13, but it still took me 3 years after that to finally tell my parents that I wanted to be a girl. To say that was difficult is a complete understatement. But they took it seriously and treated me with respect. Coming out at that time was absolutely nothing like it is today in our society, but I was introduced to competent and unbelievably respectful professionals who helped me get through transition—mentally, socially, and physically. By my first year of university, I was living in my own skin for the first time in my life. My family and friends were behind me and loved me. And the hurt and pain that I felt from the years of suppressing my personality and true self began to melt away.

When I graduated, I lived a few years in Toronto before making some friends from Japan and decided to give a working holiday a try. That turned out to be one of the greatest decisions I had ever made, because it gave me room to breathe, develop new friendships, and eventually, I fell in love and married my husband.

If you asked my 13-year-old self who had just “figured herself out” if she would ever get married, she would have told you that you’re crazy. When I was going through transition, the things that I naively attributed to “normal” like getting married, having kids, building deep friendships, or having a fulfilling job, would be permanently locked away for me. When I had surgery in Montreal at 19, one of the forms about risks I had to sign had a big checkbox next to an item that said this will make you permanently infertile and I thought nothing about it.

But that was more of a rejection of the role that nature had originally decided for me, not as a rejection of parenthood itself. I have never regretted my decision for even a single second—I truly became comfortable as my own self as a woman. The worry about not achieving “normalcy” was a completely internalized falsehood that crumbled to dust. And after getting married, it turned out that I wanted to be a parent after all. I just wanted to be a mother.

“Normal” was such a loaded term for me as a teen, but as an adult I learned just how ridiculous it was to define it. I faced my reality and accepted it a long time ago: there’s no possible way for me to get pregnant or carry a child. But—so what? It turns out I am capable of receiving and sharing love and can have a family, if we look to build one. So, when we talked about what we could do; the options on the table for us included adoption and fostering and surrogacy. When I looked into the system for surrogacy in Canada, I understood it to be true to the values that I understood to be Canadian and aligned with the system that helped me become who I am today: respect, empathy, and honesty. That started us on the journey we are on today.

My child won’t be connected to me through a direct genetic relationship, but that never bothered me. The community of people who have helped us, and this would include you, is the physical manifestation of the love that we want to surround our child in. We look to build their character and strength through those unbreakable bonds. I know that this is going to be tough, and having kids is not to be taken for granted, but I’m ready for it.

I’m truly looking forward to getting to know you. You really would be changing our lives.

Thank you.

Interested in Matching with Jen & Kyohei?

Submit your information here and we’ll be in touch shortly.