My memories how all this began are clear. I wasn’t trying to build an empire. I was trying to solve a problem that kept tugging at me. Women deserved better. Intended parents deserved steadiness and honesty. And the industry, small as it was in Canada at the time, felt like it had stopped asking whether it could do more. That was ten years ago. My compassion had led me to surrogacy and the women I met became my community. So many of them kept referencing how little they felt supported by the agency they were with. And the problem continued to tug at me.
I still remember the exact feeling of sitting at my kitchen table long after I had put my kids to bed, the house finally quiet except, but my mind very much awake. My laptop was open, a mug of warm tea beside me, and a pad of paper full of scribbled notes. Brain dump, as I now call this, was the first thing I did when actually sorting out the concepts of starting my own business. Because I had zero business knowledge or experience. But the one thing I had was determination. Even when the ideas felt far too big for a single mom of four young kids, I focussed on my why and kept forging ahead. I was the newcomer to the industry – the two-time surrogate who dared to believe that care could be structured differently. I had nobody helping me. I had few to no resources. I had conviction, a stubborn streak, and a deep sense that if families were going to trust me with something this sacred, I had to build it on the one thing that would always shine through – my passion for being a Mom.
My children were small when this began. I would toggle between bedtime stories and late night emails, between fielding questions about my new website and packing lunches for the next day. The business grew in the margins of motherhood. It grew in parked cars between appointments, in voice notes recorded late in the evenings while in bed trying to shut off my thoughts. It grew because I refused to let it be just another agency. It had to feel different. Warmer. Safer. More intentional.
There were moments I questioned whether I was naïve to think I could shift anything at all. Moments when exhaustion blurred my focus and doubt crept in. But each time I spoke to a surrogate who needed reassurance or an intended parent who needed clarity, I felt that original pull again. This work was not about transactions. It was about people. It was about women offering something extraordinary and families placing their deepest hopes into careful hands.
Ten years later, when I look back at the woman I was and the oversized vision, I see how much she did not know. I also see how certain she was that if something could be done better, it was worth trying.
When I first stepped into the world of surrogacy, there were only a handful of agencies in Canada, and they had all been operating in much the same way for years. The systems were established, the pathways familiar, and the industry felt settled into its habits. I remember thinking that something essential was missing. Not structure. Not experience. Care. I did not enter this space because I wanted to disrupt it loudly. I entered because I believed women deserved to feel protected, prepared, and deeply supported. I believed intended parents deserved more than coordination. They deserved guidance. I believed patient care should not sit on the sidelines of a business model but at its very center.
So I built my program differently. I prioritized screening, not as a formality, but as a safeguard. I prioritized support, not just at the beginning, but throughout. I slowed matches down when necessary. I asked harder questions. I said no when something did not feel aligned. I invested in emotional infrastructure when it would have been easier to focus only on growth. And I took accountability when I was wrong. I made mistakes – plenty of them. But those mistakes taught me what worked and didn’t work and that if the foundation of it all was strong, it would be possible to fix any cracks at the top. At the time, it felt uncomfortable to go against the current. Today, I see echoes of that approach throughout the industry, and while I do not need acknowledgment, I feel proud knowing that raising the bar helped make this path better for women and families.
All of this unfolded while I was raising my own children. I was guiding intended parents through transfers in between learning everything I could about clinics, common fertility practices, and new research. I made it my job to understand not only how agencies worked, but everything about the newest protocols and what each clinical test was for. I have taken calls about failed cycles while standing in my kitchen making dinner. There have been mornings I woke up sick, exhausted, or discouraged and still had to be the steady one for someone whose entire future felt like it was hanging in the balance. There have been moments when I quietly questioned outcomes, when I carried other people’s heartbreak home with me, when I wondered how much more emotional weight one person could absorb. And still, I showed up. I’ve built teams of professionals in the industry who I now call friends. I have learned how to say no when I need to stand up tall. I’ve learned that advocating for the people in my community will always come first.
Leadership has not always been graceful. I have hired people I believed would help carry the vision, trained them carefully, trusted them with the heart of this work, only to watch them leave. Some discovered the work was heavier than they expected. Some just didn’t grasp the fragility of what I was doing. Some simply were not meant to stay. Each transition required protecting clients from instability they never needed to see. There is a particular fatigue that comes from constantly reinforcing the foundation while ensuring the structure above it never wobbles. The stability of the program will always rest on my shoulders.
Managing others has stretched me in ways I did not anticipate. I care about details. I care about tone. I care about the way an email reads, the way a call feels, the way a surrogate is spoken to when she is vulnerable. Letting go of control when your business is built on care is not simple. Teaching someone to carry your standards without carrying your intensity is not simple. I have had to learn that leadership is not about doing everything myself, even when that feels safer. It is about building something that can breathe beyond me, even if that requires discomfort. But the future of the company will always still rest on my shoulders.
This year marks ten years in this industry. Ten years of growth, recalibration, setbacks, resilience, and relentless commitment to doing it well. We are approaching one hundred babies born through our program soon. Families who once sat in uncertainty and now sit in the beautiful chaos of parenthood. When I think about that number, I do not see milestones. I see courage. I see women who chose to give. I see intended parents who chose to hope again.
Ten years is long enough to build something meaningful. It is also long enough to pause and ask deeper questions. About sustainability. About evolution. About where passion shifts and where it expands. I am still here. I am still showing up. I am still committed to the families and women who trust this program. And at the same time, I find myself reflecting more often on what growth looks like from here, on how impact changes shape over time, on how seasons in business, like seasons in life, eventually transition.
If the first decade was about building and raising the standard, perhaps the next will be about redefining it in ways I have not yet imagined. Perhaps it will look similar. Perhaps it will not. What I know is that the heart behind the work has never been about standing still. It has always been about moving toward something better.
And I am beginning to wonder what better might look like next.
M(Other) starring Angela