A survivor of chemotherapy, one woman turns to her mother for surrogacy

MOUNT UNIACKE: The old pine walls of Erin Burgess’ Mount Uniacke home are lined with pictures of Brooke, her one-year-old step-granddaughter. Burgess takes her for weekends, which makes for an interesting story, because Burgess is 28 years old.

She and her 40-year-old husband may have a granddaughter, but their wish is to someday have a child of their own. Burgess was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia in October of 2006, and due to extensive chemotherapy that pushed her body into early menopause, she is now unable to conceive.

“I’ve always been a caretaker type person,” she said. “I never imagined that I wouldn’t be able to have a family.”

It was this that pushed the couple to plan ahead.

“We knew that I wouldn’t be able to conceive after my bone marrow transplant,” she said. “I’ve never been a slave to convention, so that wasn’t a deterrent for me.”

The couple had nine of Burgess’s embryos frozen before her transplant, with the expectation that Burgess herself would be able to carry a child. She underwent intense hormone injection therapy in order to harvest her own eggs.

Although now cancer free, she suffers from a sickness called grafts-versus-host disease, brought on by the transplant. The illness developed from her body rejecting donor marrow, and rendered her unable to carry her own child.

So her 52-year-old mother suggested she might be able to help. Back in 2006, the couple was the first to be approved to try gestational surrogacy in Nova Scotia. Burgess’ mother would carry her child.

“We had to jump through a lot of hoops to get it approved,” she said.

Renovations are being completed on the outside of her home while Burgess stays inside its colourful orange and yellow walls. She points out all the baby paraphernalia she keeps for when Brooke visits: a cherry wood high chair in her kitchen, a playpen in her living room, and a changing table. On the surface sits a toddler sized pair of jeans and t-shirt. Upstairs, they have one room devoted for her nursery.