Just recently reported by BBC News, Jake Coates made a hard decision to stop attempting to have a child through the surrogate route after two failed attempts. Not even two years ago, he lost his wife fairly suddenly to thyroid cancer and he was trying to fulfill her dying wish to have a child.
Jake’s wife Emily was only 30-years-old when she was diagnosed with cancer, and 18-months post diagnosis, she passed away. This happened in June of 2016. Prior to her death, they had taken frozen embryos with the plan to have a baby through a surrogate mother, who turned out to be an old friend from high school.
Liz Begg was a year younger in school, but when she heard through Emily’s blog that they were looking for a surrogate she instantly reached out to help. Jake and Emily had met and dated for a while in high school at Hereford Cathedral, and didn’t reconnect until ten years later. Liz, remembering them as a great couple, wanted to do anything she could to help.
When Emily was fighting her last days, they made the first attempt with Liz and she quickly became pregnant with their embryo. Yet, only a couple weeks later Emily faced her death and the pregnancy was later deemed ectopic. This was a devastating time for Jake to not only lose his wife, but also a child.
After the first failed attempt, Jake wanted to give it another try with hope that success would happen the second time. Liz, eager to help, underwent the second attempt, yet sadly that also failed. Rather than continue to try, Jake decided it was of best interest to everyone, including himself, to stop his surrogacy plans.
While this is what Emily wanted, maybe it all happened for a reason. Jake cannot thank Liz enough for donating her time and body to help his family. While he is going through the hardest time of his life, there is peace in knowing that Emily has his little baby up in heaven. They are not alone.
