A couple’s experience shows how surrogacy and loss can strain a marriage—and how shared responsibilities, therapy and room for different grief can help.
Surrogacy can change a couple’s relationship in ways they may not anticipate. For one couple, a stillbirth during their first surrogacy experience exposed strains that had been building through years of illness and fertility treatment. They eventually found ways to reconnect, but their account makes clear that shared hopes for a family don’t guarantee that partners will experience the process or grief in the same way.
The writer and her husband, Ethan, had been together for 24 years. Friends viewed them as a strong couple, but after the loss they felt more like strangers moving through the same home. She describes avoiding eye contact and feeling that their daily routines barely overlapped. Their distance followed years of health challenges that had affected her body, their intimacy and her career, with Ethan often taking on a caregiving role.
Endometriosis, adenomyosis and early menopause were among the conditions she faced. She writes that delayed diagnoses and years of symptoms contributed to diminished ovarian reserve and repeated pregnancy losses during in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intrauterine insemination (IUI). The couple had already been navigating illness and fertility treatment for years when they began considering another path to parenthood.
She had long felt uncertain about becoming a parent, but the idea of raising a child with Ethan eventually began to appeal to her. By that point, she wanted a hysterectomy, while Ethan still hoped to become a father. They chose an egg donor and a gestational surrogate, seeking a route that would avoid further hormonal treatment and pregnancy losses for her. She says the decision initially felt freeing, even as some doctors criticized it as premature.
Where the first experience went wrong
The couple expected finding a surrogate to be their biggest challenge. Instead, the first journey brought financial and relationship pressures they hadn’t prepared for. They relied on an agency to introduce them to a surrogate and manage pregnancy-related reimbursements. They later learned of the agency’s history of fraud. At the time, they were new to surrogacy and felt vulnerable, grateful to have found someone willing to help them, and unsure how much influence they had over a process involving their funds and a pregnancy carried by someone else.
They noticed concerns, including what they considered inflated reimbursements and changes in the surrogate’s mood, but neither spoke openly about them. The writer believes that sharing their worries earlier might have helped them address the situation together. Instead, she carried much of the anxiety alone.
That isolation sharpened during pregnancy. At an ultrasound, Ethan spoke happily to their active baby on the screen. The writer, meanwhile, felt detached from the pregnancy and uneasy about the agency and her relationship with the surrogate. She found the surrogate’s communication difficult to navigate: at times distant, at other times concerned that the couple weren’t supportive enough. The writer had never reached that stage of pregnancy before, but rather than feeling uncomplicated happiness, she felt overwhelmed.
The division of work added to the strain. Ethan thought of himself as supportive, but his wife handled most conversations with the surrogate, along with the legal and financial paperwork and agency communication. He appreciated her ability to manage those tasks, which he saw as more familiar to her. She experienced the arrangement as a heavy, stressful responsibility at a vulnerable time.
The loss brought their different ways of grieving into sharper focus. The writer wanted to sit with painful feelings and understand them; Ethan tended to compartmentalize. At the hospital after the stillbirth, she wanted to spend time with the baby, while he preferred to leave the room and hold onto happier memories, including the ultrasound. Neither response was wrong, she reflects, but the difference left them disconnected.
In the months that followed, she became depressed and angry when Ethan told his parents they were fine. He wanted to spare them distress; she didn’t want to conceal what they were going through. She also says doctors wouldn’t counsel them about why the baby died because she wasn’t the pregnant patient. The couple, who had rarely argued during their 24 years together, began snapping at each other as he sought normal routines and she needed space to grieve.
Three changes that helped them reconnect
Over nearly a year, self-awareness, respect and therapy helped the couple make changes in how they approached the next stage. Ethan disliked attending therapy, the writer says, but went when it was needed. Their experience doesn’t offer a formula for recovering from loss; it shows how they tried to make room for both partners’ needs.
First, they aimed to act as a team throughout the process. With a second surrogate, they worked with an agency the writer describes as more transparent and supportive, one that didn’t require them to place funds in trust. Their surrogate treated them as a team and welcomed their involvement in appointments, decisions and everyday communication. Ethan made a point of joining conversations and responding to group messages when his wife couldn’t. The three shared concerns, hopes, recipes and jokes, building a connection that the writer hadn’t expected.
Ethan also took on more of the administrative work. He followed up on emails and sat with his wife when they had paperwork to complete, offering support when it became overwhelming. That practical involvement helped address the imbalance that had left her carrying so much alone.
Second, they made room for grief to look different from one person to the other. They lost a baby with their second surrogate at the end of the first trimester. This time, the couple and surrogate grieved together, sitting close with their hands gathered in the writer’s lap. At home, Ethan became more willing to listen on difficult days. She, in turn, tried to understand his need for social activities as a way to manage stress.
They also changed how they spoke with family and friends. Ethan became more open about their emotional and financial strain and agreed to ask for help, including a loan, after two surrogacy journeys and 13 years of fertility and ongoing health expenses. The couple set boundaries around surrogacy conversations, choosing not to discuss it on weekends or just before bed so they could have time to unwind. Dark humor gave them a shared way to acknowledge painful reminders, without expecting either partner to grieve in exactly the same way.
Third, they made an effort to remember their life beyond fertility treatment and loss. The writer says a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder after the first surrogacy experience shook her sense of self. The couple made time for play, nature and conversations unrelated to surrogacy. They also tried to set aside money for leisure and travel, alongside living expenses and surrogacy costs, so their shared future included experiences they could look forward to.
They found that rebuilding didn’t require solving every question about what came next. Often, they focused on the next half-hour: where to walk, what to cook or how to support one another in that moment. When they noticed themselves withdrawing, they tried to pause, hug and make contact. The writer says they’re still considering whether and how to continue with surrogacy, and she can’t be certain what the future holds for their marriage.
For couples facing fertility treatment, surrogacy or pregnancy loss, the account points to the value of naming worries early, sharing practical responsibilities and seeking support when grief or distress becomes difficult to manage. A doctor or therapist may be able to help people find appropriate support, particularly when a loss raises medical questions or affects day-to-day life. In this couple’s experience, staying connected meant accepting that grief could take different forms and returning, repeatedly, to the care they could offer each other in the present.
Related:
- 7 Ways to Prepare Your Relationship for IVF
- I Have a Child, and Now I Can’t Seem to Have Another
- I Could Not Goop My Way Out of Infertility
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