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Looking for a
Surrogate Mother or an egg donor?
This book
is a moving real-life account of one woman's struggle
with infertility and her journey through surrogacy to
have the family she desperately wanted.
Click here
for more details
Latest Surrogacy News
www.LPGA.com
Jan 15, 2003
Kris
Tschetter, who's in her 15th year on the LPGA Tour,
has decided to add a little something new to her personal
statistics in 2003. This LPGA champion has become a 'Mom on
Tour.' Kris joins approximately 20 other players who manage to
be moms and perform at an elite level of professional golf.
Kris is one of three players who brought new babies into the
LPGA family in this past off-season, however, her story
happens to be a little more unique than most.
Listen to Kris tell her
story about how she and her husband Kirk brought their
daughter Lainey into the world with the help of a surrogate
mother.
A special journey into
motherhood
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Kris and her husband Kirk with Lainey
Elizabeth born January 15, 2003 |
Kris: I went to a lawyer
and said I was looking for a surrogate and I didn't hear from
her for the longest time and then she called me and said I
think I have found you someone. It just so happened I was
leaving for Japan the very next day and so she called and we
met that night and we immediately felt comfortable and decided
to work together.
I think she (Tiffany) had
gone through a few years where she had tried to look for
somebody and things hadn't worked and she was kind of at the
end of her rope thinking that maybe it wasn't meant to be and
then we met. I think we both
kind of hoped to have a journey where we became really good
friends, or at least that was something that I
certainly wanted. But, it is kind of one of those things where
you don't really know how the other person is going to be and
I feel like I am just so fortunate that I was paired with
someone like Tiffany who even if we hadn't done this together
we would have been friends. We just have a lot in common and
we just became really really good friends and it keeps getting
better.
 Tiffany: How did I decide?
Well, I'd had really easy pregnancies and I enjoyed being
pregnant for one, and for two, after I had my first daughter
and had the whole experience of motherhood
I started to think about couples out there who couldn't
have children and experience the happiness my husband and I
felt so I decided to help other people have children.
I didn't know it was Kris
Tschetter. She had just told me she played golf so I figured
she just played golf leisurely. So I figured, hey, I want to
learn how to play golf. I thought it would be great to match
up with someone like that and it all worked out.
Kris: They actually came
out to three tournaments last year but we were very secretive
about everything last year because we had had a lot of
disappointments and it was almost like we didn't want to jinx
ourselves. So, she had been to three tournaments and I was
just always saying, 'Oh, this is my friend
Tiffany."
What is really neat for
me was that Tiffany and her husband
Brian and kids really embrace what I do for a living.
They enjoy coming out to golf tournaments and watching me play
and it has been really fun.
I think that we will
always refer to Tiffany as Lainey's surrogate mom and at some
point Lani will say to me, "Why do you call her that?" and
then that is when she will be old enough to really understand
it and then we will tell her.
So
she will always know that Tiffany is her surrogate
mom.
You know, it was really
kind of an interesting experience because Kirk and I were kind
of like the husbands in labor where you feel so bad someone is
going through this pain for you. She was just very very great
in labor, no whining at all. So, we were at the delivery, and
again we felt so bad she was in all this pain but then Lainey
was born and we were holding her and we were crying. Then she
(Tiffany) just bounced back. We stayed in the hospital right
next to her for a few days and just kind of hung out with each
other. And her kids are just great with Lainey. They really
love her. It is just really neat.
 A lot of surrogates say when people ask if
it is hard to give up a baby and Tiffany's answer always is,
"It wasn't mine to begin with. I was just giving it back to
them." So it was our baby to begin
with and she is just giving it back to
us.
I think it is neat in
this journey that she is going to have so much more contact
with the baby than in her last one. She will always be a part
of Lainey's life. I think a lot of times people may live
further apart or they just don't have the opportunity to be as
close as we were and I am just grateful that it has been so
good for us. You know, if I
had drawn up the absolute best surrogacy journey it wouldn't
have been as good as it turned out. Although
Kirk teases me that I would have had Tiffany live even closer.
But really, I couldn't have drawn it up any better.
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