Following another path to parenthood with surrogacy

HELEN HAYES’S instinct told her the woman from Minnesota was not right to carry her child.

Helen and her husband, Kevin, had been matched with the potential surrogate by a US agency, but Helen, a computer analyst, had misgivings. “It was a personal thing. I felt something was missing.”

Within weeks, the Carrigtwohill couple, both 40, were back on the waiting list. This was February, 2013. Last November, in New York, they met Philadelphia-based Scottish woman, Gael, a 38-year-old mother of two who has been a surrogate for an Italian couple.