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Pregnancy Outside the Box
A Surrogate Journey By Kelly Burgess
It's the ultimate gift: giving someone a child. In the case of Jennifer Phillips of Burleson, Texas, and Melissa Boykin of Tyler, Texas, it's the ultimate gift between sisters. In an exclusive report, we will follow their journey through surrogacy; how they arrived at the decision, the pregnancy itself and, hopefully, its successful outcome.
"I look at her and marvel – and how much she's gone through – and she just keeps her chin up and keeps going," says Phillips. "I know it's very hard on her, but she doesn't let on. And I know it's hard on me that she can't have that ultimate happiness that a child brings."
Phillips knows because she's experienced that happiness. Her daughter is now 19 months old. She also knows a little something about the pain of infertility. Before she conceived her daughter, she had a miscarriage and then underwent a procedure to remove fibroids from her uterus. After that, she had an easy pregnancy, but she wasn't sure if it would work out until she actually held her child in her arms.
The first time Phillips mentioned to her husband, Michael, the possibility of surrogacy, he was not for the idea. He just felt that he wasn't sure if it was a good plan or not. Then, after Boykin and her husband, also named Michael, learned on Christmas Eve that the birth mother had backed out of the second adoption, Michael Phillips changed his mind. This time it was he who approached his wife and asked if she was still interested in the idea of surrogacy.
"Just as Melissa and I are very close, our husbands are good friends as well, so my husband really felt for what they were going through," says Phillips. "After the second adoption fell through, he came to me and said this is something I feel we have to do. I told him I wanted him to take a few days and I wouldn't even mention it at all, because I wanted to make sure this was completely his decision. We have a very precious daughter, and he knows how much we love her. His final decision was that if this was the only way they could have a baby, that this is what he wants to do."