Written by Dean Field
Sixteen years ago, shortly after my wife Tracy and I got married, we made a decision that would change the lives of our friends forever and allow us to play a small part in helping them become the family they had always dreamed of being.
When you get married, typically, you board a plane and fly away for some well-deserved RnR. Tracy and I didn’t. Instead, we agreed to become surrogates for her best friend Nikki and her husband Dan, who had been trying for a child for around three years. Nikki had been born without a womb, and their previous surrogacy arrangement had fallen through at the last moment when the surrogate backed out on the day of insemination.
Rather than let their hopes end there, we offered something in the moment that felt simple at the time: we would do it ourselves. We saw it as a wedding gift to them. We already had our young son, Oscar, and it felt like a way to help two people we loved experience what we had already been lucky enough to have.
There were no immediate doubts. No hesitation. Just agreement, trust, and a belief that we were doing something good.
The medical process that followed was structured and clinical: blood tests, scans, hormone injections, and counselling sessions to ensure we were both emotionally and physically prepared. My role was what it has always been in our relationship—supportive husband, present at every stage, administering injections, attending appointments, and trying to keep everything grounded in normality.
On paper, it was straightforward. In reality, it became something far more complex. The shift for me came the moment the insemination happened. That was when it became real. There was no undoing it.
I remember thinking: Why did I agree to this? Is it too late to step back? They deserve this… but what have we done?
From that point on, something in me changed. I knew logically that the eggs weren’t Tracy’s and the sperm wasn’t mine, that everything had been done correctly, but emotionally I struggled with a feeling I couldn’t easily explain. I found myself thinking: Tracy is carrying someone else’s child, and I don’t know how to be close to her right now.
It affected everything. Including intimacy. Not because I didn’t love her—in fact, I loved her deeply—but because I felt like I couldn’t access the closeness we had always had. I didn’t talk about it. Not to Tracy, not to friends, not to anyone. At the time, especially in 2010/11, there wasn’t the same openness around men’s mental health or emotional struggle. I worried people would either dismiss it or tell me I should have expected it. So I carried it alone.
And I felt guilty for that every day.
There were moments I wished we hadn’t agreed to it, even though I knew it was an incredible thing to do. I was proud of what Tracy was doing, but privately I was struggling to live inside the reality of it.
The hardest moment came around six months into the pregnancy. We were in bed, and I put my hand on Tracy’s stomach as I cuddled her. The baby kicked my hand.
That moment broke something in me. I cried for a long time afterwards—not out of anger at the child, but out of confusion and emotion I couldn’t process. It made everything feel undeniably real in a way I wasn’t prepared for, and I hated myself for how it made me feel about my wife.
Looking back now, I understand that I was overwhelmed. At the time, I didn’t have the language for it.
I never told Tracy what I was going through until years later. When I finally did, she was disappointed I hadn’t shared it at the time, but she understood. We both agreed that communication would have made everything easier, even if the situation itself couldn’t have changed.
When the birth came, it was a caesarean section. I was in a separate room with Dan while Tracy and Nikki were in theatre. The atmosphere was intense but also full of anticipation and relief.
When Lennon was born, everything shifted again.
Tracy handled it with remarkable calm. She had no emotional attachment to the pregnancy or the baby in the way some people might expect. After the birth, she was exhausted and slept for hours.
For me, the overwhelming feeling was relief. I cried, not out of sadness, but because I felt like I had my wife back. The emotional weight I had been carrying for months lifted almost instantly.
And with that, something else surprised me: there was no regret. Only pride. What we had done had worked. Nikki and Dan were parents.
In the years that followed, something even more unexpected happened—the four of us became closer than ever. Our friendship didn’t fracture; it deepened. Today, we are still very close. Lennon knows his story, and Nikki and Dan have always been open with him about how he came into the world. He has grown up surrounded by love from all of us.
Looking back now, I would describe the experience in two ways.
Yes, I would do it again—because it was one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever been part of. But also no, because I wouldn’t want to go through that emotional distance from my wife again.
It taught me that marriage relies on communication more than anything else. I believed I was being strong by keeping my feelings to myself, but in reality, I was isolating myself from the very person who could have helped me carry them.
It also changed how I see friendship, trust, and surrogacy itself. Too often, people misunderstand surrogacy as something transactional or impersonal. In reality, it is built on trust, love, and a level of emotional complexity most people never see.
And one thing I think is almost never discussed is the experience of the surrogate’s partner. They are expected to be supportive, and rightly so, but they are still human—still processing emotions that can be confusing, uncomfortable, and difficult to express.
If there is one thing I hope people take from our story, it is this: if you ever find yourself on a journey like this, talk. Speak openly. Ask for support. Don’t assume strength means silence. Because silence doesn’t protect relationships—it tests them.
And if there is a second thing, it is this: surrogacy is not what many people assume it to be. It is not transactional. It is not dirty or secretive. It is, at its core, an act of trust, love, and extraordinary generosity that can change multiple lives at once.
