Emily and Chris

We would like to thank you for taking the time to read this letter and for considering joining us on our journey to fulfill our dream of becoming parents for the very first time! We truly cannot thank you enough and would love to tell you a little about ourselves.

We were married in 2017 and have been together since 2013, though sometimes it seems like life did not really begin until we met. We both work for the same company where my husband is a supervisor in the IT department, and I am a Registered Nurse in the Medical department.

My husband was born and raised in West Virginia. While growing up he was very close with his mother and great-grandmother. He comes from a very loving and supportive family, and despite being an only child, he is close with his cousins who he would often spend summers and weekends with. He loved his childhood which was filled with playing basketball, soccer, football, and golf along with bike riding and generally being outdoors. Both of his parents are engineers which inspired his love for mathematics and science and ultimately led to his interest in computers. After graduating from high school, he attended college at West Virginia University where he would eventually graduate with three degrees. He is down-to-earth, considerate, reliable, and ambitious. He is my best friend, my better half, and he is patient, kind, supportive, and would make a wonderful father.

I was born in Shenyang, China. I was raised by my wonderful grandparents, and was surrounded by aunts, uncles, and cousins while my parents were in the US trying to build a better life for all of us. My parents immigrated to the US after I was born. They wanted me to stay in China to learn the language and be immersed in the culture. Because of that, I am fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and still hold some of the Chinese traditions close to my heart.

Growing up I went to Boarding School where we had tai chi lessons, piano lessons, zither lessons, and English classes among others. However, when I came to the US at age 10, I had to start the language learning process all over. At first it was challenging to go to middle school and not be able to fully communicate, but I was eventually able to learn English fluently. I graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and became a Registered Nurse. I found my calling in helping others and I consider myself loyal, empathetic, and a caretaker.

I have a sister and she is 12 years younger than I am. Growing up I often took care of her, taking her to places, and even attending parent teacher conferences. We loved to do puzzles, play games, sing together, play piano duets, watch football and basketball games, play tennis, and conduct DIY science experiments. We have a very strong bond and to this day we are extremely close, and I often have a maternal instinct with her. I am and will always be one of her biggest supporters.

It has been my dream since I was a little girl to become a mother. I can still remember when I was only four or five years old that my cousin and I would put balloons under our shirts and run around the house pretending to be pregnant. I can still remember how happy I was at the time.

My husband and I enjoy traveling and have visited many places within the US including Las Vegas, LA, Washington DC, and San Diego among other smaller trips. We lived in Atlanta, GA in 2018 and we enjoyed how diverse the city is along with the great food! We like spending holidays with our families at the beach in the Alabama/Florida panhandle. We have also been fortunate to travel outside of the country where we visited Italy on our honeymoon and several different cities in China. We also enjoy reading, binging TV shows, watching movies, great food, playing board games, card games, puzzles, trivia, and listening to music. Chris is an avid Star Wars, Star Trek, and sci-fi fanatic. In addition, we both enjoy following college and professional basketball. We love the Harry Potter series, and at some point in the future, we hope to be able to take a trip to Harry Potter World and if we are fortunate, to bring our future little one with us when we go.

We had hoped to start a family in 2018, but unfortunately it was during our trip to China that year that I fell ill. When we returned home, I started feeling a plethora of unusual symptoms and found myself unable to get out of bed all day as even a short trip to the next room left me unable to breath. At first, we believed it to just be jet lag, but after several days my fatigue and shortness of breath had not gone away. We went to see several different doctors in the Atlanta area and thus began what has been a two-year journey as we worked to find a doctor that could help me recover.

The process has been extremely difficult for me and while my health has improved in the years since returning from our trip, I still suffer from a myriad of symptoms and am on a handful of required medications that make it unsafe for me to carry a child. Due to my conditions including Fibromyalgia, Peripheral neuropathy, Hypothyroidism, and Chronic Lyme Disease, some of these medications I need are unsafe for pregnancy. Due to my chronic conditions, the safest way to bring a child into the world is with the help of a surrogate.

Thank you for taking your time to read this and getting to know us a little! We are extremely grateful that you would consider carrying our child for us. We welcome you to join us on this journey and hope that you will choose to become a part of our family. We are nervous as it is our first time, yet thrilled for this to begin! You will always be a large part of our lives and we hope to continue to have a relationship with you. We cannot wait to meet you and start this journey!