Hello everyone and here is our story.
Make sure you are sat down somewhere comfortable because our journey is a long one :
Following 5 years of unsuccessful IVF treatments ; I will leave out the the emotional and physical details for my wife – but we finally came to the conclusion that surorgacy was our last and only chance. After some initial research, we knew we needed to decide on a country to carry out our project :
- GREECE: administratively too vague lacks structure
- RUSSIA: Surrogate mothers have rights over the child. They make it clear that they can keep the baby and can demand additional payments to get the baby back.
- USA: well structured but financially impossible
- UKRAINE: this is the country which in our opinion brings together the best consistency between all highly structured legal framework (notary, lawyer, administration, embassy and pregnancy care). All of these organizations are very organized, very responsive and fast. Financially very accessible.
So with this information, we then decided to start a more precise search in Ukraine.
We had no support or advice from doctors in France, who are very cautious about saying anything related to surrogacy.
During our search we were very convinced by some agencies and their financial proposals; but then after closer inspection, it seems like they don’t really understand what they are talking about and don’t make an effort to.
Only one person, HELENE, stood out. She provided us with clear, precise and assured answers, approaching specialists (doctors, laboratories, etc.) with whom she is in constant contact to find answers to questions to which she could not answer directly.
Reassured by her approach, we began our project in early 2019 with Hélène’s former company, where she was employed until the end of summer 2020.
We were well supported by Hélène for the administrative procedures and medical requests of the doctors. They had clear and very elaborate protocols to increase the probability of success, something which unfortunately does not exist in France.
In the end, much to our amazment, we obtained very good results, 9 embryos after 6 days of cultivation and 6 healthy embryos after PGD testing (something which does not exist in France but would prevent many miscarriages).
This was followed by an embryo transfer to a gestational carrier who became pregnant after two transfer attempts.
So far so good. We are living the dream.
Suddenly, the global COVID-19 pandemic begins to wreak havoc and borders are closed, etc…. Couples can no longer travel to Ukraine.
In addition to this and as a consquence of the pandemic, we suffered another big blow when the big surrogacy company we were signed up with started to break down and poor financial management put huge strain on the team and couples in programmes.
Hélène, being the person she is (as they say: the first impression is the right one) never once gave up and had the will and the courage to create the company NEST AND CO with a local team based in Kiev – a team which emcompasses the very same values she has.
Together, they were able to help many couples in the same situation as us, as well as surrogate mothers who were left without support and help everyone to finish their journeys.
The mantra of the very young and new company NEST AND CO focuses on the people not on processes, which is exactly what surrogacy is all about.
The short, NEST AND Co’s personalised approach respects and understands couples with the sole objective of helping them, comforting them, supporting them as best as possible in the success of their project and providing them with joy and happiness.
After this long and difficult journey, strewn with pitfalls, we resisted and achieved our dream. Since the arrival of our wonderful little Laura at the end of March 2021, we have been delighted – she will soon turn 2 months old.
Thanks to Chrystina, our wonderful surrogate mother, who was very sweet and very involved.
Thank you to Alena, our guardian angel, who during our long stay at KIEV has always been by our side to overcome everything (guiding us, translation, accompanying us, supporting us, liason with various Ukrainian organizations…).
Thanks to Anya who looked after Chrystina like a mother with kindness and firmness.
Thank you to Hélène for her kindness, her empathy, listening to us, her patience and her professionalism. Thanks to her boundless involvement and unwavering determination, she made our project a success.
Here is our story which we hope will give hope to future parents.
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