Dear Surrogate,

Thank you so much for reading this. We don’t take it lightly that you are giving us your time.

We are Lukas (41) and Manuel (37) and we live in Berlin/Germany. We have been together for ten years, and we are getting married next year. Yay! We live with our rescue dog Goldie who obviously sleeps in our bed.

Somehow, on our very first date (Manuel invited Lukas for ice cream), we went from “how was your week” to marriage and children before the ice cream was finished. We both always knew we wanted to have a family, but for years we had no real idea how it would work. We only knew that we wanted it and that wish grew bigger and bigger.

Everything changed at a surrogacy conference here in Berlin six years ago. We went and spent a day with people who had actually been on this journey. We talked with so many amazing and helpful people and met the agency that we would choose later.

For the first time our wish started to materialize.

After the conference we went for Indonesian food around the corner, which is a bit absurd, because Manuel is allergic to peanuts and almost everything on that menu came with peanut sauce. We found him something anyway and somewhere between the plates we looked at each other and said: are we really doing this? We both laughed, said yes and kissed.

That is how our journey started.

In the last couple of years we have filled our apartment with so much baby stuff. Lukas’ mom kept his cute baby clothes and gave them to us. We have tried them on Goldie, but they don’t really fit her and she hates wearing clothes :D

There’s also the crib that Lukas slept in as a baby, and it has gone round the family ever since, so nearly every cousin’s child has slept in it. We are the last ones in line, so at the last family gathering it was handed to us. It is in our basement, waiting to be put back together.

We chose Canada for our journey because we love how surrogacy works there. What moves us is that there are women like you who do this for no other reason than to make a family possible for someone else. That sits so close to our own values. Lukas has spent his working life in hospitality, where the whole job is building a good room for other people. Manuel is a stylist and spends his days dressing people so they feel like themselves. Giving something to someone is where we are both most ourselves, so a system built on exactly that is one we want to be part of.

Right now we have six embryos waiting at Victory Reproductive Care in Windsor, all PGT-A tested, with both of us as genetic fathers. So everything in place.

The picture we keep coming back to is the flight home. We have spent years on planes watching parents with small children, the baby screaming, half the cabin irritated. We were not annoyed but just thinking: one day that will be us. When we land, our families will be waiting at the airport. We will be probably be completely wrecked but completely happy. After that we will go home and lie in bed together: the two of us, Goldie, and the baby, in our small nest. We have had that picture in our heads for years.

If you asked us why you should help us in particular, the honest answer is that everything in our life is ready. There is a room in our apartment that has been the children’s room in our heads for a long time. We’re both self-employed and are lucky to be able to set our own schedules. Lukas’ mom just retired and moved to Berlin to be close to us (and our future baby). Our building is full of families and there are playgrounds all around us. On both sides of the family everyone already has children and we are the last ones. The only thing missing is the child.

One more thing, and we mean it whatever you decide. Thank you so, so much for doing this! We know you are well supported and that the people around you will look after you. We also know what you would be taking on: your body, your time, your family’s life, perhaps your work, a good part of a year, so that someone else can have a child. If you chose us, we could not thank you enough. And if you choose a different family, we hope you know what an absolute superstar you are for doing this, and you have our support either way!

We would love to tell you more. And much more than that, we would love to hear about you!

All the best,

Lukas & Manuel