About Us Hello! We’re the Ratner’s! My name is Elaine, I am 34 years old. My husband William just turned 41. We were born and

About Us You never realize how hard it is to describe yourself until you have to. V and I met 4 years ago, he was

We are Julie and Stephen. We know it takes someone extraordinary to be willing to help others in this way. Because we are hoping for an experienced GC, we are offering $75,000.

I have always planned and dreamed of becoming a mother, even long before Stephen and I met and fell in love. I’m a folk country singer/songwriter and recording artist. In my time waiting to become a mother, I’ve worked as a volunteer court-appointed advocate for children in foster care and spent many years as a Make-A-Wish volunteer. While I’ve had an exciting music career, my greatest wish has always been to be a mom. With this in mind, I froze 28 eggs in my early 30s, way before egg freezing was the norm. Then I waited and hoped to meet someone as wonderful as Stephen.

Finally, 4 years ago, we met. Stephen works in finance, and he has a very artistic side that makes us a great match. We love traveling, cooking together, art, and spending time with friends and family (especially our nieces and nephews).
When we did genetic testing to prepare to thaw and fertilize Julie’s eggs, we found out that we had the unlucky, one-in-a-million odds of both being carriers of a rare fatal genetic disease. What?! We were immediately worried this would reduce our number of healthy embryos from my frozen eggs, but we stayed positive. After all, we were working with 28 young, healthy eggs. However, bad news hit us again when the lab made an error and destroyed the majority of the eggs during the thaw. It was a devastating shock after being told for a decade that I had enough eggs for at least 2 biological children. As a result, we were only able to get one precious embryo.

While undergoing a polypectomy to prepare my uterus for a transfer, it was discovered that I have an incompetent cervix. This coupled with a blood clotting disorder led to second and third opinions from multiple doctors that determined I would be unable to carry a pregnancy to term. It has been a lot to process this past year. On the bright side, the embryo we have is genetically PGT-A and PGT-M healthy and ready to be transferred. I have also undergone 3 egg retrievals this year (plus 2 rounds of ovarian PRP under anesthesia) and am about to undergo my 4th egg retrieval in hopes of getting more embryos.

We have had some tough breaks, but we remain hopeful that our dream of becoming parents is possible with the help of someone very special.

Preferences:
*Near West Coast states would be ideal since we are most concerned about your comfort in flying back and forth to our doctor in Los Angeles (but we are open to any GC-friendly states)
*Must be ok with termination being left up IPs- would only terminate if GC’s life was in danger or baby would be born incompatible w/ life or with very poor quality of life
*At least one previous uncomplicated surrogate pregnancy