Melissa is an author based out of Kansas City.

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Would you risk your life to follow your dreams? I did. Only I didn’t know it at the time.

For years, I longed to be a surrogate. I offered for friends struggling with fertility, even before I had my own children. My heart has always hurt for women who yearned for a family that their bodies couldn’t give them.

After completing our family, my husband and I embarked on the journey of getting matched with a hopeful couple who couldn’t conceive.  We did, and what unfolded over the next few months was something no one could have expected, even putting my and the baby’s lives in danger.

I survived by the grace of God, started writing, and these are my memoirs of a surrogate.

-Melissa

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Melissa was born and raised in Texas, moving to the Kansas City area with her family when she was sixteen. She went to college at the University of Missouri and Avila University, studying psychology. Melissa began her career as a mental health therapist in 2013 and continues practicing today in a private setting.

Melissa met her husband, Brandon, on a blind date in 2009, who she often refers to as her “Kansas Chip Gaines.” They married in 2012, have two daughters together, and live in a small community in Kansas. Despite always having a knack for writing and being trained as a psychological evaluator, Melissa never considered herself an author until she was encouraged by her peers to write a blog while on her journey as a surrogate. Even then, she resisted until she needed an outlet after the first upset during the process, which began the foundation for the novel.