Posts tagged Gestational Carrier Experience
Episode 129: Family Inceptions – Eloise Drane

After completing her MBA, Eloise Drane founded Family Inceptions, a full-service surrogacy and egg donation agency. Eloise also hosts Fertility Café, an educational podcast on modern family building, and is the creator of digital courses on independent surrogacy, Surrogacy Roadmap. 

Eloise knows that compassion and grace are necessary ingredients for the delicate journey that egg donation and gestational surrogacy can be for all parties. She understands the importance of empowerment and encouragement within the family creation process. 

Eloise’s passion and unparalleled empathy blossomed from her own experience as an egg donor six times and a gestational surrogate three times.

When she isn’t guiding others in making family legacies, Eloise can be found fostering the relationships in her own family, reading, traveling, and spending quality time with her husband and children.

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Episode 128: Surrogacy Struggles in Michigan – Aubrey Gojcaj

Aubrey Gojcaj is a wife, mom, and Michigander, as well as a passionate advocate for eliminating family building obstacles. Medical complications from the birth of her first child ended Aubrey’s ability to be pregnant again. She was thrilled when her sister generously offered to be her surrogate. But the journey to having another child has been made especially difficult by Michigan’s anti-surrogacy laws.

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Episode 127: Three Paths To Parenthood – Brett Griffin-Young

Brett and his husband live in England and are proud parents of three children: one through genetic (traditional) surrogacy, one through adoption, and one through gestational surrogacy. Brett regularly appears in the media advocating for and promoting surrogacy and adoption paths to parenthood. Brett is passionate about challenging inaccurate perceptions of surrogacy and adoption and supporting people in understanding and navigating these paths.

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Episode 116: RESOLVE Advocacy Day 2021 - Jesse Feist and Joe Cody

Jesse Fiest has worked in family-building marketing and content creation for over six years and is proud to be co-chair of RESOLVE's 2020 and 2021 Federal Advocacy Day. She was inspired to take a more active role in advocacy when she began working with gestational carriers and egg donors. "Just seeing women put themselves on the front line as surrogates and donors do, it made me want do contribute in a more meaningful way, to pay forward the luck I have had in my own family-building."

Jesse's educational background is in law and cultural anthropology. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and their young daughter. (Jesse REALLY wants to find a West Virginia attendee for AD 2021 so that all 50 states are represented.)

Joe Cody has been active in RESOLVE Advocacy Day since 2018, previously serving on the Volunteer Training Committee, as a Maryland State Captain, and as Advocacy Day Co-Chair in 2020. He is dedicated to increasing access to family building options and has been blown away by the support and energy from RESOLVE volunteers. He believes stories from constituents and experts like Advocacy Day attendees move policy, drive support, and create real change. He has lived in Washington DC since 2008, where he has worked for a Member of Congress, served as a health policy consultant, and provided health care related government relations and regulatory analysis for multiple medical associations for over a decade.

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Episode 77: Experiencing Surrogacy - Emily Field and Melissa Fleck

Emily Field and Melissa Fleck are co-authors of “Experiencing Surrogacy.” Emily overcame a long, hard, and emotional road for her to finally become a mom with the help of Melissa, her gestational carrier. Emily is very open about her fertility journey and feels that, when you go through something difficult in life, who better than you to do something about it for others. Emily and her husband Gregg started Field Fertility in 2016, which is a legal and consulting business working with intended parents, surrogates, egg donors, sperm donors, and embryo donors.

Melissa currently spends her time as a mom to two very active kids, is a wife to a hardworking law enforcement officer, and is an active member of the surrogacy community. She has been working at the Center for Surrogate Parenting, Inc. since 2016, where she is a surrogate case manager. Having been a surrogate herself, she gets to pay it forward by interviewing and guiding potential surrogates on their surrogacy journey, working for the same agency that brought her and her intended parent and coauthor, Emily, together. Melissa also enjoys working out at her local boot camp-style gym, watching her kids play sports, attending Dodgers games, spending time with friends and extended family, and watching as many movies as she can.

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Episode 76: - Creating Ohana Through Surrogacy - Ashley Mareko

Born and raised on the big island of Hawaii, Ashley Mareko knows the value of “ohana” (family), whether by blood or friendship. This strong tradition has been a guiding principle to Ashley as a 3-time(!) surrogate and through a career providing support to the surrogate community and intended parents. She feels blessed to be doing what she loves making a difference in people’s lives.

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Episode 67: Showing ALL the Intimate and Gory Details of Surrogacy to the World - Crystal Rosburg

Crystal Rosburg is a two-time surrogate. She carried for a lovely same sex couple from France and was featured in a documentary of the journey. Crystal is also Intake Coordinator of our very own Southwest Surrogacy! She uses her professional experience from working at The Fertility Center of Law Vegas as an IVF Department Supervisor and her personal surrogacy experience to support intended parents and gestational carriers in growing families.  

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Episode 62: Three Time Surrogate To Surrogate Mentor - Christina Ewoldt

Christina Ewoldt is extremely proud to have helped three families realize their dream of having a baby, while creating the extended "family" she has always wanted in return. She is passionate about surrogacy and enjoys mentoring other surrogates and intended parents to mitigate risk and create their own beautiful surrogacy journeys. She is currently writing a memoir on her surrogacy experiences to memorialize the stories for those families she helped and has high hopes of publishing it one day!

She is an “almost-Colorado-native”, having lived in the beautiful state since she was 3 years old. She lives in Thornton with her husband, two rambunctious boys, and a sweet, geriatric Beagle. She is a Cub Scout Den Leader and an avid event/theme party planner! Christina recently left the corporate world to start her own business, PM Oh! Services, LLC (www.pm-oh.com), specializing in fractional PMO services, contract project management and business transformation services; where she hopes to share her love of all things project management to make organizations more efficient, effective, and productive.

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Episode 61: Life, (Almost) Death, and A Curveball –Part 2 – Michelle Minucci

Michelle Minucci is a world traveler, and runs a life-coaching business, Stones Unturned, in San Diego (though she works worldwide). She coaches individuals whom are navigating transitions or seeking to gain more confidence, fulfillment, and balance in their lives, including those in the surrogacy, LGBT, and open-relationship communities. She has also been a surrogate, carried twins and now writes children’s books to help families explain how they grew their family through assisted reproductive technology. 

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Episode 60: Life, (Almost) Death, and A Curveball – Part 1 – Michelle Minucci

Michelle Minucci is a world traveler, and runs a life-coaching business, Stones Unturned, in San Diego (though she works worldwide). She coaches individuals whom are navigating transitions or seeking to gain more confidence, fulfillment, and balance in their lives, including those in the surrogacy, LGBT, and open-relationship communities. She has also been a surrogate, carried twins and now writes children’s books to help families explain how they grew their family through assisted reproductive technology. 

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