An Intended Mother’s Story

An Intended Mother’s Story:

About us

My name is Diya. My husband Raj and I met in November 2002 in New York and we have been together since then. We both grew up in India and moved to the United States separately. Our first meeting was at Thanksgiving and we instantly liked each other. We still do to this day. We married in 2010 and moved to San Francisco, where we now live with our dear 8-year old daughter Aarya.

Who we are as a family

As a family we love to read, travel, socialize, explore museums and zoos, go to beaches, check out new restaurants, and go for long walks by the lake near our home.

Aarya loves reading, music, dancing, and being outdoors to bike and ride her scooter. She loves the beach. During the pandemic, she fell in love with theater and acting. Since summer, she has been performing on stage in various theaters in the Bay Area. 

Raj is the co-chair for Aarya’s school’s PTA. In his spare time, he writes children’s stories. I have been involved in a literary society for 20 years. We know all our neighbors on our street and we get together for birthdays and special occasions. Aarya loves our block parties for Fourth of July, Halloween, and National Night Out.

Raj is an engineer who has been at Google for 11 years. I am a lawyer and used to work in international law. Following Aarya’s birth, I quit working for several years but volunteered to provide free legal services to nonprofits. Now I work at a tech company in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Our journey with Aarya

When I was 21 years old, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. At that point I did not know it was going to severely impact my ability to conceive and to carry a pregnancy to term. A decade later when I married, I had an ectopic pregnancy and one of my fallopian tubes ruptured. For several years, we were unable to conceive. In 2013, I began fertility treatments.

In 2014, I became pregnant. We were overjoyed. Then I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Raj cooked special meals for me daily and I took time off from work to focus on a healthy pregnancy. But I went into premature labor at 28 weeks and Aarya was born at a mere 30 weeks. My doctors believe that her premature birth was caused by my Crohn’s disease.

Aarya was in the NICU for 8 weeks. I quit working and focused on her for the next several years. We moved from California to New York where she was able to get specialized therapy for delayed milestones and we were closer to my brother and my extended family. We returned to California because the warmer weather suits her premature lungs better.

For many years, Aarya has been asking us for a sibling. In 2019, we returned for fertility treatments but we again failed to conceive. Then my Crohn’s Disease flared-up again. I was advised to stop trying to conceive for risk of miscarriage.

What growing our family means to us

When I was eight years old, my parents divorced. Divorces were extremely rare in India: I never met another divorced family. I have a brother who is 2 years younger. My mother left our family and our father raised us a single dad. He was a devoted parent who worked throughout the day, and spent all his free time with us. He came from a large family of siblings. My childhood consisted of a lot of extended family who rallied around and supported us.

However, my real family unit consisted of my father and my brother. My father always taught us to love, respect, and support each other as siblings through all of lives’ travails. When I was around 21 years old, my father passed away. My brother moved to the U.S. to be with me. He has been my lifelong companion and supporter. During Covid, he and his family moved to California so that we could live close together. 

Raj has an older brother who lives in England with his wife and two sons. We are very close to them. We regularly visit them and they come to California to celebrate Aarya’s birthdays. They are planning to move to the United States so that we can all live closer together.

As you can see, family means everything to us. However, we are unable to provide a sibling to Aarya who can be her companion, her supporter, and her friend in life. As our gestational carrier, you would give us that most meaningful gift, for our family and for Aarya. We are grateful for you considering us as Intended Parents and eagerly wait to meet you.

 

*the names of this brave family have been changed