Kayde Mason

First stop: SEEDS 🌱 The National Surrogate Alliance is officially heading to our very first conference, the SEEDS Spring Conference in Atlanta, and we could not be more hyped to meet more allies and share the mission. You’ll spot us by our NSA pins 👀
So come say hi, ask questions, share your experiences, or just tell us what you think is missing in this space. Because this alliance was forged by surrogate voices and we’re here to keep listening, connecting, and building a better future of surrogacy. Together ✨ Atlanta, here we come ✈️ @seedsethics @hello_kayde @charlotteramberg15 @newyork.surrogate @thatsurrogatelife #NationalSurrogateAlliance #SEEDSSpring26 #surrogacy #advocacy #ivf

I got hitched and then pregnant with someone else’s baby two days later. My Surrogacy Story {part 3} Shortly after making the decision to move forward, we got engaged 💍 Every single step of this process so far had felt EASY. Easy matching, easy conversations, easy medical clearance, and the on to an easy contract drafting (done with legal in less than 2 weeks!) Doors were opening and so I kept walking through them. But then when it came to TIMING things got decidedly less easy. When was this embryo transfer going to happen? The parents were years into their journey at this point and it was important to me to respect their timeline. I had my own wishes… namely, never wanting a long engagement & not wanting to squeeze into my wedding dress at 6 months pregnant OR 6 months postpartum. But life was coming at me fast and there were already so many things to say YES too. So…we decided to keep saying yes to ALL of it. We said yes and on June 1st, 2025 we also said “I do”. We planned an intimate, perfect, so ✨US✨wedding in two weeks time and started meds all at once. I did a progesterone intramuscular shot (huge missed opportunity of not getting a photo of this while in my wedding dress 💀) and met him at the altar a few hours later. It’s not for everyone but it was perfect for me. Our wedding was reflective of our values. Family, love, the simple life, and saying yes to adventure. So I traded a champagne toast for Topo Chico chugging. Had my sisters do my hair and made trader joes arrangements for flowers. Swapped out a fancy venue for a beautiful view of the city we found love in, and housed all our family at a private retreat for the night instead of stressing over schedules and to-dos. The next morning we hopped on a plane for NYC for a FamilyMoon AND for an embryo transfer. And we were rewarded with the sweetest news ever just a few days after that. I was pregnant. 💕 #surrogate #ivf #infertility #surrogacy #birthstory

We kept hearing the same thing from surrogates across the country. So we listened. The National Surrogate Alliance was born from those conversations. Built by surrogates. Centered on surrogate voices. Not another agency, but a vehicle for *change*. This is only the beginning. #surrogate #surrogacy #ivf #surrogatealliance #advocacy

Something meaningful is taking shape. A new voice is coming together for surrogates. 
Built by people who understand this journey intimately from the inside. By the ones who literally carry it. 
Rooted in advocacy, ethics, and *real* community. For surrogates. 
For the future of surrogacy.
 For the conversations family building can’t afford to keep having in whispers. National Surrogate Alliance
Coming soon. If you’re a surrogate, former surrogate, or someone working to shape this space with integrity, keep watching. The door is about to open. 📣 #surrogate #surrogacy #ivf #nationalsurrogatealliance #advocacy

Postpartum high + building families high + “look what I just DID” high = dangerous grounds for planning another journey ❤️ #surrogate #surrogacy #ivf #lgbtq #infertility

Sometimes the reasons for pursuing a surrogacy journey are a little selfish. My Surrogacy Story part ✌️ At the beginning of 2025, life was shifting and I was looking for something different. After working with other intended families and surrogates intimately in this space for 6 years, I *knew* what I could potentially be signing up for by starting to walk a second surrogacy journey. & It’s like knowing so much greatly propelled me AND held me back at the same time. I knew that surrogacy could be profoundly beautiful but also profoundly hard. I worried that I got “lucky” the first time with a smooth experience and that the other shoe could drop this time. But I had quiet motivations that kept my feet moving slowly forward anyway. I wanted to feel the sense of meaning and purpose again that my first journey brought me. I wanted to reframe my first experience and sort of, heal in a way. I wanted to have a surrogacy journey where I could truly FOCUS and savor all the special moments without dealing with my life falling apart around me at the same time. Sometimes surrogates can be a little selfish too. In January the intended parents (let’s call them T & S) and I decided to jump on a no pressure, catch up, here’s-where-I’m-at-call. This intention & tone truly set the precedent for our entire relationship moving forward and I am so,so grateful for that. 💕 And I was honest with them that I still wasn’t sure I was all-in. I wasn’t considering any other match or “seeking” in anyway. But something kept bringing me back to their letter, their photos, and it motivated me enough to sit on it for a bit and open a door together.🚪 But I didn’t know how things would play out because as I was opening that door, another door was opening even further. Because as a single mom, I had tiptoed into the dating world but ended up jumping off the proverbial cliff when I met *him*. And I had no idea how those worlds would work together- surrogacy plus a budding relationship? But we were both willing to keep the steps going. ❤️ So we decided the door would close if it was meant to, and hopped on a plane to NYC for a full medical clearance….just to see. To be continued ✨

I walked in to give birth completely alone. And that seems like as good a place as any to start my story. ✨My surrogacy story Part 1 of ?? ✨ In so many ways, my first surrogacy 5 years ago was beautiful. Perfect. Everything I had long-hoped it would be. But the journey also coincided with some of my life’s deepest hurts. There were struggles and pains I couldn’t yet voice, not even to my intended parents, and that left a massive scar of trauma on my soul. As someone who prides themself on being “authentic”, it pained me, but I hid that part. I focused on the good, not out of a desire to be fake or appear perfect, but because holding onto the good moments was honestly all that kept me going sometimes. I was let down and left behind by the ONE I should have been able to count on to champion and support me. So I marched into the hospital alone, I put on a brave face, I made a social media post, I cried in my intended parents arms and we did the dang thing. It was incredibly beautiful but incredibly hard. So naturally, 2 yrs later when an intended mom reached out to me over social media to gauge my interest in a potential second journey, I said clearly—no. Because (as you might have already guessed) I was, by that time, mid a long painful divorce and never thought surrogacy would be something on the radar for me again. I poured my passion for surrogacy into my work instead. I fought to make sure no surrogate or family I worked with felt like they had to walk their path alone. But the beautiful thing about time is that it can change not just our circumstances but our hearts as well. So I healed. I closed that chapter and a year later when I found myself at yet another huge life transition, that intended mom crossed my mind. And when she let me know their match had fallen through after failed and cancelled transfers and they were once again looking for their perfect surrogate partner, a seed was planted in my heart. A voice that continued to whisper to me for the next several months. That maybe my surrogacy story wasn’t over. That I couldn’t rewrite what had happened before, but I could certainly add a second, beautiful chapter. To be continued ✨

And a million other reasons surrogacy has changed my life for the better hallelujah ✨ #surrogate #birth #lgbt #surrogacystory #doula

As a second time surrogate I’m deep in the throws of pumping with no baby here to give it to. Every week I ship out coolers to my intended parents. Every week they thank me profusely and just like that the long days of sore nipples, leaky boobs, washing bottles… again and again… & counting ounces feels a little bit more worth it. And yet like so many others I find myself thinking— almost daily— how long can I really do this? So I asked the surrogate community for their tips on how to pump without losing your mind, how to keep going when you’re motivated and even when you’re not. My takeaway? We do the things to keep us going. We set goals, we plan the vacation, we take it just a little easier on ourselves. But at the end of the day *nothing* can ever make this job easy. Pumping is more than a full-time job, it’s a super human gift, no matter if you continued for 12 months or 12 days. It’s just one more way the compassionate women of surrogacy continue to blow my freaking mind. So for now I’ll keep taking it day by day. I’ll count every ounce a win. And I’ll remember that *one day* I’ll look back on this time, and I’ll have something to be so immensely proud of. #surrogacy #breastfeeding #infertility #pumping #birth

A friend recently told me, “I’m still re-finding myself again in my postpartum journey.” And honestly? That hit home. It reminded me of these words I wrote 5 years ago shortly after my last surrogate birth. That’s me there. In a shower, in hour umpteenth of labor, with a bagged arm IV and swollen everything getting rocked by contraction after contraction. Preparing to birth a baby that was never mine and experience the most profound emotions I’m convinced we’re capable of as humans. Now who’s gonna tell that girl that the world is going to expect her to just “bounce back” to being the same ol Kayde 2-6 weeks later? So if you too are still “finding yourself” postbirth, just know that’s ✨exactly✨ where you’re supposed to be. “A labor of love💕Is there a better way to describe surrogacy in general? This picture was snuck of me when I was deep in transition and on about hour 3 of laboring in the shower with surrobabe. In privacy, I sang, swayed, and let my body be rocked by the contractions. I was going through it. Like we do. One of the things that has always drawn me to the birth experience is it’s propensity to be deeply transformative and self-enlightening when we let it. Who am I? What is important to me? What am I capable of? There’s a reason you hear birth stories repeated for years and years to come and it’s about a whole lot more than the baby. In labor we dig deep. We face ourselves. We look the hard thing in the eye and do it anyway. It’s a self encounter unmatched by any other experience I know of. And the labor doesn’t stop there. To be honest, I’m still going through it. Three weeks post my surrogacy birth and I’m still processing the last year and what has been the most big, important, life-altering thing I’ve ever done. I’m holding it close to my chest & still asking myself the questions. I’m turning inward and protecting my moment of self-reflection much like I did in the shower that day. There are no more contractions— the hard thing is different but important nonetheless. But there is a lesson in the labor & rarely does it leave us unchanged. “✨ . . . #surrogacy #birthstory #surrogate #ivf #birthdoula Surrogacy journey.

A match made in heaven if you ask me… stay tuned for our Marco+Kayde couples account 😆 . . . Surrogacy. Surrogate journey. Birth story. Married couple. #surrogacy #ivf #surrogate #married #birth

AND even when you didn’t *just* have a baby. . . . Surrogate journey. Postpartum body. Surrogacy pregnancy. Gestational carrier. Birth story. #surrogate #birthstory #doula #bodypositivity #pregnancy