Kingwood woman offers to be surrogate for cousin after years of heartbreak, miscarriages

KINGWOOD, Texas – Seven years ago, invitro fertilization gave Laura Werner a chance to have her first baby and then, years of heartache.

“We went through two really, really hard losses and I guess four total IVFs,” Werner said.

After two miscarriages, countless shots, failing therapies, Werner was giving up on her dreams of having another child.

“I just knew I couldn’t do it anymore, I had done six total rounds of IVF and my body just couldn’t do it anymore,” she said.

Since her cousin, Michelle Eby, considers her like a sister, she felt Laura’s pain and offered to carry a baby for her.

“We had seen them struggle for so many years,” Eby said. “When their last one failed, we said we’d like to do this for you guys and here we are less than a year later.”

“When the first one took it was – oh my goodness we were so excited. Our whole family, I mean texts were going off all over the place!” Werner said.

 Dr. Timothy Hickman with Houston IVF said he has about 60 patients a month going through an IVF cycle. On average, he said only 1% have a surrogate, even fewer are surrogates within the same family.

“Infertility is pretty common these days. About one in six couples is afflicted with this, so it’s more than you know and a lot of people will end up needing assistance,” Dr. Hickman said.

Eby said even though the fear of giving a baby to another family may be what scares women away, she’s found it to be the biggest reward.

“Mentally I went into it knowing I was doing this for them and as a gift and just seeing how excited they’ve been when we went through it and the testing,” Eby said, “If anyone ever had the chance, it’s a pretty amazing experience.”

The whole experience shows this family that it is possible to have an even closer connection. Baby Landry Michelle will be born Wednesday at 5 p.m.

Dr. Hickman said Houston IVF is sponsoring a walk for infertility awareness, “Walk of Hope” on April 23 in Sugar Land.