This surrogacy story was made extra sweet thanks to social media.
When cancer survivor Marissa Smith turned to Instagram for support during her fertility journey, she had no idea she’d find a best friend — let alone a surrogate for her baby — along the way.
And that’s how Smith met Ariel Taylor.
“I don’t even have words to describe how I feel towards Ariel — I’ll never be able to thank her enough for what she’s done,” Smith told South West News Service.
The special education teacher from Toronto, Canada had been declared infertile after treatment for tumors found in her cervix and uterus.
Smith, 30, was diagnosed with cancer in 2018, and subsequently underwent a total of 17 surgeries and other procedures to recover her womb. But after many unsuccessful attempts to get pregnant, including a failed bid with in-vitro fertilization, Smith and her partner decided surrogacy was their best shot at having a baby.
“I’m still processing my trauma from my fertility issues,” she sighed. “When I was told I wouldn’t be able to carry a pregnancy, it was very very hard. I had hoped for so long to be a mom.”
Smith was initially matched with a different surrogate, at which point she went browsing on social media for others in the assisted conception community, who might help guide her along the way. That’s where she came across Taylor’s profile, in 2020.
“We became friends over the fact I was a surrogate and she was using one,” said Taylor, a 31-year-old social worker, who had previously completed three surrogacies.
Already a mom to an eight-year-old and two step-kids, she added, “I love being pregnant, but don’t want another baby of my own.”
Unfortunately, Smith’s first surrogate didn’t work out. After two failed embryo transfers, she realized she’d have to look elsewhere — and where better than her best friend?
“We got really close while she was going through that process of losing her old surrogate,” said Taylor — who suggested to Smith that she might be able to help.
In early 2022, Smith made it official: “I kind of proposed to her” — with the help of singer and 2000s heartthrob Jesse McCartney!
Smith used the app Cameo — a platform where people can pay for a recorded video from their favorite celebrities — to recruit the “Beautiful Soul” crooner, who asked on her behalf if Taylor would carry Smith’s baby.
In October 2022, Smith’s fertilized embryo — conceived via IVF using Smith’s egg and her husband’s sperm — was successfully transplanted into Taylor’s uterus.
Their baby is due on July 9.
In the meantime, the women are doing everything to prepare for the baby together, including ultrasound appointments, meetings with the midwife and shopping for the nursery.
“It’s still surreal when we’re together, to think she has my baby in her stomach — I still can’t believe it,” Smith said of her friend and, now, “aunt” to her newborn on the way.
“There’s nothing I could ever do to express the amount of gratitude I feel,” Smith enthused.
“We can’t wait to welcome our little guy,” she added. “Thanks to Ariel, we can finally experience parenthood. We’ve been waiting forever for this.”
