A single mother of one helped a couple have a child of their own through surrogacy — using the proceeds to buy her and her daughter their dream house.
Teale Kelley, 27, of Denver, was able to beat the Mile High City’s mile-high housing prices and secure herself a forever home with the $75,000 she earned giving birth to someone else’s child.
The registered nurse had always thought she would like to be a surrogate. She signed up with a surrogacy agency, which matched her with the lucky couple and handled all the legal and logistical details.
“I love being able to give back and help others. That’s probably why I chose nursing as a career,” Kelley told South West News Service.
“I was working as an IVF nurse in a fertility clinic so I saw infertile people every single day,” she said.
One struggling mother she worked with, who had already suffered four miscarriages, convinced her of her calling.
“I was sitting with this patient after she just got the news that she was having another miscarriage and had lost her baby. I held her while she cried and sat with her for a while,” Kelley recalled.
“It was at this time it clicked for me that I could be a surrogate, and I could help someone bring their baby home,” she said.
In December 2023, Kelley gave birth to a baby boy. Two months later, she was able to purchase a $500,000 four-bedroom home.
The process, which Kelley has documented on her TikTok account, @Tealekelleyy, began more than a year earlier, with a search for an agency. Kelley said she interviewed 10 different agencies before making her decision.
Then she went through the process of being matched with a family, or what’s known as IPs, or Intended Parents.
Kelley said that she chose an agency that allowed her to match with her preferred IPs — some automtically match the surrogate with the next available couple.
“They honestly could not have picked better IP’s for me to match with,” she recalled.
“They were incredible and we developed such a close friendship over the time of my surrogacy journey.”
Kelley’s joy over the positive aspects of the process were just part of the reward — for years, she’d been saving to buy her own home, but had struggled as a single working mom.
Giving of herself and her time allowed her to speed the process up.
“I had been renting apartments for years and I knew I eventually wanted to buy a house that I could make my own,” she said.
“I had been saving for years prior to doing the surrogacy journey but as a single parent with a one income household it was difficult to save enough.”
Kelley said she has stayed in touch with the new family she helped to create — even sending them her frozen breast milk.
“They became such good friends of mine. I love them and I love that I was able to help them. We talk all the time and the baby is doing great, she said.
I have actually been pumping milk for them and shipping it frozen to them as they live out of state. They also send me pictures and updates and I am going to visit them in the next few weeks, which I am so excited about.”
