FROM SURROGACY ‘EXPERIENCE,’ TWO BIRTHS
The arrival of Blair Sullivan Cuje’s daughter Chloe, who was carried to term by another woman, gave rise to a new Red Bank business. (Click to enlarge)
Because of longstanding health issues, the advice doctors gave Blair Sullivan Cuje four years ago after the birth of her first daughter, Sophie, was firm: don’t try having another child.
Neither, Cuje (pronounced ‘koo-jay’) nor her husband, George, had a fertility issue: the problem lay in the childbearing process itself, which caused her serious medical complications. Still, the Little Silver couple wanted a larger family.
After considering their options, including adoption, the Cujes took the surrogacy route, in which another woman carried their fertilized egg to term. The process resulted in the birth of their second daughter a year and a half ago, when, by prior arrangement, a maternity nurse in a Wisconsin hospital handed the newborn Chloe directly to Cuje, not the surrogate mother.
And in that emotionally weighty moment, it might be said, was also born the idea for a new business, one that caters not only to couples like the Cujes, but to women like Tina Dettlaff, the Milwaukee woman who bore Chloe.