About | Theintendedparent

We're Kreena and Frances, founders of The Intended Parent. For us the traditional route to parenthood became an impossibility when in 2013 we were both diagnosed with cancers that left us infertile. Despite very little knowledge and only google and Facebook to guide us we set off on a path that led us not only to be parents through surrogacy but also to each other and the passion we share for educating and empowering others.

In 2019 we started The Intended Parent podcast to share our journeys and explore surrogacy from the perspective of the girl next door. Our mission was to dispel myths and sensationalism and to provide stories of hope, much like those that we wished we had access to ourselves.

Now we're going one step further, we've created a set of courses that will support you regardless of your chosen surrogacy path. We will equip you with all you need to choose between an independent or agency based journey; and if you choose independent surrogacy we will provide you with the right support, ensuring you never feel alone. Our courses are fully flexible so you can dip in and out to find exactly what you want, when you want it.

It was a rainy day in October 2013 when I sat in the GP's office and was told I had cancer. In that moment my life completely changed.

I'd always assumed I'd leave school, go to uni, get a job and start a family, cancer at 32 wasn't part of the plan. Fortunately my cancer was treatable, curable even, but I would need surgery to remove it. The more tissue that was removed, the better the chance of it never returning so I opted for a radical hysterectomy, giving myself the best chance of life but leaving me un able to carry a child.

Before having my ovaries removed I was able to have IVF which gave us the option to explore surrogacy at a later date. The only problem was I knew nothing about surrogacy and unfortunately neither did my consultant.

When I felt strong enough I started to research and realised quickly there wasn't a great deal of support available. The leaflets I'd been given had next to no information and the agencies I found online were full. I was beginning to loose hope when one day I stumbled across the world of independent surrogacy and for the first time time I felt like this path to parenthood was possible for someone like me.

About 6 months later I met Gina, a mum of three who had finished her family but had always thought about helping someone else have their own child if she could. Together we navigated a pathway that was new to both of us, learning from others along the way and becoming part of a thriving community.

Three years after my world came crashing down Evelyn was born and then two years later Grace came along, the fog that had descended in that GPs office finally lifted. The route to parenthood wasn't easy, the last nine years have been incredibly difficult but it's led me to a place where I can now help others and give them the type of support I needed when starting out.

Let's do this!

I vividly remember the day I began looking in to surrogacy as a route to parenthood. A family member has mentioned it to me following my cancer diagnosis but neither of us had the slightest idea of where to start. From that point questions kept flying around my head, would anyone I knew be able to help me? How would I even go about asking? Were there people in my extended network who might want to help? How would I find someone who would want to make me a Mum when I myself had no idea of how long I would live for.

Then came the fear of how my community would react, would I my children be accepted if someone other than me birthed them? Would a white woman carry a child for a brown couple? Every demon that sat on my shoulder raised its head and I frequently wondered if I'd lost every chance I ever had at becoming a Mum. It was such a lonely time for me, my immediate family struggled to get their heads around surrogacy and much of the research I carried out, I had to do alone. I knew that my loved ones were afraid and thought to myself, if I can get comfortable with this route to parenthood and gather all the evidence I needed to prove that we could do this, then eventually, they'd get it.

I looked into all my options, commercial surrogacy, surrogacy in India, Eastern Europe and the USA. I decided that our journey had to be here in the UK for a number of reasons, being close to my baby and having a lasting relationship as well as an altruistic path were key for me.

In the midst of my surrogacy research I suffered acute heart failure, an illness that cemented this route as the one for me.

I matched with my first surrogate through independent communities, and welcomed my daughter into the world in 2018. Sadly, we lost all our remaining embryos after Amaala's transfer which forced us to find an egg donor for a sibling journey. Two and a half years after the birth of my baby girl, our family doubled in size as we welcomed our triplet sons into the world. A pandemic pregnancy and birth made for a complex journey. Their lives, the result of surrogacy and known egg donation gave rise to a number of glass ceilings that had to be smashed.

Today, we are literally living the life I once dreamt of, and I pinch myself about that almost daily. But the journey was not simple and the struggle was very real. To date, I've still never met another South Asian girl who became a Mum in the same way I did, I firmly believe that I am not alone in seeking parenthood in this way, so I want to do all I can to help support fellow Intended Parents on their road to parenthood. Our podcast, courses and stories of hope are fundamental to that.

Here's to making many more 'Happily ever afters,'