ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Jill Stewardson remembers learning crochet from her grandmother when she was in middle school. Now it’s one of her favorite ways to give a heartwarming gift for loved ones.

“This is a paper blanket. As you can see, it’s kind of big,” Stewardson smiled. “I just really enjoyed it. It’s very meditative and I love making things for people. So that’s mostly what I do, is I make things for people."

Some would say Stewardson is the ultimate gift-giver.

“I knit a little hat for the baby,” she showed.

The gift was for the surrogate baby she carried for a single gay man in New York City.

“Our kids are going to know that they had help being made because, science, like you know, they’re just... I think they’ll figure it out. They’re smart kids,” she laughed.

She and her partner of 14 years form what they call a “two-uterus household." Their first child was conceived by Intrauterine insemination (IUI), and their second through reciprocal in vitro fertilization (IVF).

“I think our first has like 30 half siblings and our second has like 14 siblings. So yeah, it’s a lot,” Stewardson said.

When the couple decided they were ready to start a family, IUI was the easiest route at the time. Stewardson’s partner later changed jobs, which made reciprocal IVF an option for them. Stewardson says it was a little untraditional, but they made the experience personalized to them. She recalls her partner injecting the embryos into her with a smile.

They made the most of their experience and it wasn’t anything they weren’t prepared for, but it was still a lot for the Stewardsons.

“It’s expensive. And, you know, seeing doctors and trying and like seeing other people around who can just like, have a kid super easy and there’s no problem, like, it is, it is frustrating. I mean, we knew that that’s what was going to happen going in, but still doesn’t make it any easier to have to go through all of those steps just to have your family, you know?” she said.

After her second pregnancy, she became a doula, which is a woman who’s trained to support a woman during labor.

“So, I did training for what’s called a full spectrum doula, which is fertility, birth and postpartum,” Stewardson explained.

Stewardson’s passion for giving continued as she began researching surrogacy.

“I really enjoyed pregnancy and we had so much help with our pregnancy, whether it’s medical professionals, donors, blah blah blah, that I was like, that would be amazing to be able to give back to the community in that sense. And I love being pregnant, so like, why not? You know, let’s give it a shot,” Stewardson smiled.

Brownstone Surrogacy is a full-service surrogacy agency dedicated to providing the highest level of professional, ethical and personal support to surrogates and parents. Stewardson refers to her surrogate company as a match-maker service. Brownstone surrogacy connected her to a single gay dad in New York City.

“I would rather work with someone within the queer community, whether that's a single father, a gay couple, could be a single female, just somebody in that community because I wanted to kind of give back to my own community,” she explained. “Just from like seeing the profile of like, somebody, you know, like I worked with a single father. And just knowing that they’re going to be able to have a child and I can help with that, it’s just amazing. It really is an amazing experience overall, and it was great."

Jarret Zafran is the founder and executive director of Brownstone Surrogacy. After having two children of his own through surrogacy, he wanted to use his law background to help the surrogacy industry.

“Prior to 2021, New Yorkers could pursue surrogacy, but a New York woman could not be a surrogate, especially not if she were paid and compensated at all for the burdens, the sacrifices, the risks of carrying this pregnancy for somebody else,” Zafran explained. “So you could become a surrogate without compensation in New York prior to that point, but this practice of compensated gestational surrogacy was legalized in 2021 by the Child Parent Security Act. And there had been a fight in Albany for more than 10 years to get that law passed. The nice thing as a result of that fight is that New York’s law is the best in the nation in terms of protecting a surrogate’s rights."

The Child Parent Security Act established protections for surrogate mothers and a simple path to legal parental rights for all parties involved. The law was passed in 2020, and took effect in 2021. Before its legalization, intended parents could pursue surrogacy, but with surrogate mothers who lived outside of New York State. Zafran says New York is the 47th state to legalize gestational surrogacy, but it was worth the wait because now intended families and surrogate mothers have rights and protections to better guide their health and their agreements.

Since its legalization, Zafran and Stewardson are working to educate others about surrogacy. She says her first step was months of research, and she encourages others to do the same.

“I have learned a lot going through like all of the medical parts of it, and just figuring out how strong of a person you are because just even us going through it, even though we knew that we needed help, it’s still like such a long process that I like I said, just having support is the best thing ever,” Stewardson said.

“There’s just a lot, some people don’t know that this opportunity exists. Full stop, some people have misconceptions about what that entails, and then it just feels too sort of foreign and complex and it seems like something other people do,” Zafran added.

Earlier this year, Pope Francis maintained that marriage is a lifelong union only between a man and a woman. He called for a global ban on parenting via surrogacy. However, Zafran says surrogacy is a great opportunity for the LGBTQ+ community to start a family. It’s something he’s hoping to educate others about.

“Ultimately you need sperm, egg and a uterus to have a child. And for a single man or a same-sex male couple, we unfortunately only have one of those three elements. And so to have a biological kid, it takes a village. The nice thing is that that village is really, a wonderful component, and it’s a really beautiful process, but that’s why surrogacy is so important in the LGBTQ community because there is a biological necessity for somebody to help us in creating our family,” Zafran explained. “In reality, agencies like ours exist to guide people through the process, to hold their hand at every step of the way and to make sure that they are empowered, that their voices are heard, that they are on an equal playing field with the intended parents that are entrusting them with the most precious gift of all, their little embryo that they hope to raise to adulthood."

Zafran says he couldn’t feel more lucky to have had two surrogate mothers help him and his husband start their family.

“This opportunity exists and if you’ve been blessed with easy, uncomplicated pregnancies, you know, we all know as parents how important parenthood is to us and how much of a blessing, even if they’re sometimes a pain kids can be. And to give that ultimate gift to another individual or couple, there’s really nothing more generous and incredible,” he said.

He says the lack of knowledge, and only recent legalization, has delayed many intended parents from starting their families.

“On average, intended parents might be waiting somewhere between six and 18 months to match with a surrogate. It’s very difficult to become a surrogate. Only about 5% or less of surrogates who apply are actually eligible based on their medical history, their psychological history, their social, financial history. There’s a lot of screening that goes into this. And ultimately, because people are Turning to surrogacy for all sorts of reasons: unexplained infertility, LGBTQ family formation, cancer diagnoses,” Zafran explained. “The need is only growing. I mean one in every 50 babies in the US is a product of IVF. And while IVF is an incredible modern miracle of science that does help with certain infertility conditions, if you have a factor like a man without a uterus or, a couple with, you know, a previous history, you know surrogacy is the only solution to having biological children. And so the growth on the parents' side has been astronomical. And, just since the pandemic, you know, we’re seeing 50% increases year over year, while the number of eligible surrogates remains largely stagnant because it is such an elite group that can qualify. And so, you know, as a result, match times really have skyrocketed in the last few years.”

It’s why Stewardson is thrilled to give the ultimate gift to someone who otherwise might not have the opportunity of parenthood.

“It gives me all the feels of just the amazingness of knowing that sounds weird, but like, you know, he wouldn’t have this kid without me helping," she said. And I don’t mean that as a like a look what I did sort of thing. It’s just, it’s amazing. Because, I don’t know, it’s just such, as it is, it really is an amazing thing. Like, I don’t really know how to describe it any better than that. It’s such a good feeling to know that I’ve helped someone in such an amazing way.”

She says it’s given her a new feeling for life and expanded her family in a supportive way to her community.

“I felt like an aunt, I guess would be the best way to describe it," said Stewardson. "Or like, you know, I’m the godparents to like, you know, my best friend's kid or something like, that’s how I felt about it. And that’s kind of still how I feel about it. Like, love the baby, she’s super cute, but I don’t feel sad that I don’t have the baby. I didn’t feel that attachment,” she explained. “You kind of have, like, a life, a lifelong friend of somebody who hopefully, you know, I’ll get to see their child, like grow over the years and pictures and stuff like that, because, they’re going to know they didn’t come out of their father."

Stewardson says it’s a long process, but she's looking forward to doing it again.

“It’s great. I can’t wait to do it again. It’s going to be great,” she smiled.