I Became a Surrogate to Pay for My Daughter’s Costly Treatment – But My Husband Left Me Because I Gained Weight While Pregnant

When my daughter's illness turned our world upside down, I made an unthinkable sacrifice to save her life. What I didn't expect was that the real betrayal wouldn't come from her diagnosis—but from my own husband.

I'm 36, and my husband Tom and I share one child: my baby girl Ellie. My spouse and I, married for nearly 10 years, experienced a change. It appeared to be awful, though with reflection, it proved to be positive.

A happy couple | Source: Pexels

My little family and I lived above a laundromat in a tight two-bedroom apartment, where the walls hummed with machines all night. Our home always smelled faintly of detergent and hot metal. The walls were thin enough to hear conversations from the next unit; the paint peeled around the windows, and the heater coughed more than it warmed, working only when it wished.

Ellie was eight years old, and she filled every corner of our lives with light, her curiosity, and giggles. She had Tom's dimpled smile, the one he used to flash at me across crowded rooms when life was still playful.

A man with a dimple smiling | Source: Pexels

I worked as a cashier at the grocery store down the block. On nights Tom wasn't working, I picked up graveyard shifts to keep our heads above water. Tom had a job at a warehouse across town. It wasn't glamorous or promising, but he'd always say the same thing when I brought up change.

"At least it's a steady job," he'd shrug, dropping his steel-toed boots by the door.

That became his catchphrase: a steady job, a steady paycheck, and a steady life. Except there was nothing steady about the weight of bills sitting in a basket on the kitchen counter.

Letters of bills owed | Source: Pexels

We fought more than we laughed. We'd have to decide between things to survive. Either we pay rent or buy groceries, get gas or co-pays, and Ellie's field trips or dinner for the week.

There were nights I'd sit in the dark in the kitchen after Ellie went to bed, staring at our checkbook with my head in my hands, whispering numbers under my breath like a prayer.

And then, just like that, life tilted sideways.

A stressed woman looking at bills | Source: Pexels

It started with Ellie's bruises, small ones, scattered across her legs and arms. She was a rough-and-tumble kind of kid, always climbing trees and jumping from swings, so we didn't think much of it at first.

But then came the fevers, the nosebleeds, and the sudden fatigue that dimmed her spark.

A blood test led to an emergency admission. Then came a waiting room full of fluorescent lights, cold coffee, and silent stares. Finally, a doctor in his mid-40s with kind eyes and a clipboard sat down across from us.

A doctor holding a clipboard | Source: Pexels

"Your daughter has acute leukemia," he said softly. "It's treatable, but aggressive. We need to start chemotherapy right away."

I couldn't breathe. It was as if the walls had collapsed inward. I gripped Tom's arm, waiting for him to say something—anything—but he just stared, unmoving, his knuckles white around the armrest.

I was the one who asked the questions, who signed the forms, who pressed my lips to Ellie's forehead while they started her IV. Time slowed to a crawl. Machines hummed softly, fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, and I could hear every anxious tap of my shoe against the tile.

Nurses moved in and out, drawing blood, checking vitals, whispering things I couldn't quite make out.

A nurse holding a stethoscope | Source: Pexels

I remained awake throughout that initial hospital evening. I sat beside her bed, watching the machines track her vitals, the rhythmic beep grounding me in a new reality. When the sun rose through the blinds, I still hadn't blinked away the fog.

The treatment began fast. Nurses smiled gently and said she was brave—braver than most adults they knew. She never complained, not once. She even made jokes, calling the IV stand her robot sidekick. But every time I stepped out of her room, I cried in the hallway. All I could think was, "Please, not my little girl."

A close-up of a woman crying | Source: Pexels

My baby girl, hooked up to tubes, her hair falling out in clumps, her small body shrinking beneath the hospital sheets.

And then came the bills.

Chemotherapy wasn't just expensive—it was financially catastrophic! Even with insurance paying barely half, the co-pays alone felt like an avalanche! We underwent blood tests, specialist consultations, and overnight stays—and that was just the first month!

Then envelopes marked "URGENT - PAYMENT DUE" started arriving faster than I could open them!

I took extra shifts at the store, but it wasn't enough.

Shoppers in a grocery store | Source: Pexels

Tom changed after that.

At first, I thought it was the stress. He stopped asking about Ellie's health. He'd come home quieter, angrier, muttering something about traffic. Tom would toss his jacket on the floor and lock himself in the bathroom for an hour.

One night, I asked if he was coming with me to Ellie's next treatment.

"I've got work," he said flatly.

"You always have work."

He didn't even look up. "Well, someone's gotta pay the bills."

I bit back the words that clawed their way to my tongue. We were both drowning. The least he could do was tread water beside me.

An upset woman | Source: Pexels

One evening, Tom came home looking annoyed.

"Maybe if you hadn't quit your night shifts, we wouldn't be in this mess."

I stared at him as I sat surrounded by hospital bills. "Our daughter has cancer, Tom."

That night, after another long day at the hospital, Tom came home looking restless. He tossed his jacket over a chair, rubbed his face, and let out a long sigh.

But he was not angry, or tired—just... focused.

A focused man sitting | Source: Pexels

"You ever hear of surrogacy?" he asked, leaning in the doorway.

I blinked. "What?"

"Surrogacy. Listen, when we were at the hospital, I overheard a guy talking on the phone about his wife. He said she became a surrogate. Nine months of pregnancy got them $50,000!"

I sat there in silence, a spoon still in my hand from stirring some soup.

"I mean," he went on, "think about it. That's enough to cover Ellie's treatments. Maybe even enough to pay off my bank debt from my credit cards."

I stared at him. "Your credit cards? Tom, you told me you paid those off last year."

He looked away. "I meant to."

"Of course you did," I muttered.

A frustrated woman | Source: Pexels

But he didn't stop. He stood in the kitchen pitching it like a business deal. "You'd be giving life to another couple and helping someone who can't have a baby. And you'd be helping us!"

My stomach churned. "So I just rent out my body for cash? That's the plan?"

He shrugged. "It's not like that. Come on, Anna, it's not forever. Just nine months."

He made it sound simple, but it wouldn't be his body.

An unhappy woman | Source: Pexels

It wouldn't be his blood pressure spiking, or his hormones turning him inside out, or his feet swelling so badly they couldn't fit in his shoes. It wouldn't be him dragging himself to double shifts after being up all night with a vomiting child and a stranger's baby growing inside him.

But I thought about Ellie and her chemo schedule. The unpaid invoice I'd tucked into a drawer and pretended didn't exist. And I said yes.

As if my body was punishing me for using it for financial gain, the pregnancy was brutal.

A silhouette of a pregnant woman | Source: Pexels

I thought I could handle it. I'd always been healthy, never had major issues, and figured it would just be discomfort and morning sickness. But from the second trimester on, I felt like my body had been hijacked.

I was constantly nauseous, and my joints ached. I had dizzy spells so intense; I sometimes had to sit down on the grocery store floor just to breathe. I was still working—still folding paper bags with swollen fingers, running price checks, and lifting milk crates into the fridge case.

Milk products in a grocery store fridge | Source: Unsplash

On my days off, I drove my daughter to chemo at the hospital, holding her hand through her nausea, singing to her while she cried. With the first payment of my surrogacy, we started her most intense treatment.

There were nights I would get home and fall asleep on the kitchen floor before I could even make it to bed.

And I gained weight fast. It didn't help that I was eating whatever I could afford and whatever wouldn't make me sick. My ankles puffed up, my back throbbed, my face grew rounder, and none of my clothes fit.

A pregnant woman | Source: Unsplash

I didn't have time for hair appointments, skincare, or even washing laundry sometimes. None of that mattered to me.

Tom noticed, though.

"You've really let yourself go. You used to take care of yourself. Have you even looked at yourself in the mirror?!" he said one night as I sat rubbing my feet on the couch, trying not to cry from the pain.

I looked up at him, too tired to react.

"I mean, look at you," he said, waving his hand toward me like I was a mess. "When's the last time you even brushed your hair?"

I stared at him. "I'm growing another human inside me and caring for our sick daughter, Tom."

He scoffed. "Yeah, well, you could still try a little. You're supposed to glow when you're pregnant, not... whatever this is."

A focus on an upset man's eyes | Source: Unsplash

I felt the sting behind my eyes, but didn't let the tears fall. I just stood up—slowly, because everything hurt—and walked to the bedroom without saying a word.

I was running on fumes—working, carrying someone else's child, caring for my sick little girl—and yet somehow, in his eyes, I was the problem.

Most nights, after putting Ellie to bed, I'd stand in front of the bathroom mirror and barely recognize the woman staring back. She had puffy eyes, stretch marks, and hair tangled in a bun that hadn't been brushed in days.

I used to see a wife, a mother, and someone loved.

Now, I only saw a stranger.

A pregnant woman looking at her reflection | Source: Freepik

From that point on, Tom stopped trying to hide how distant he was. He barely came with me to Ellie's appointments. My husband stopped asking how the baby was doing. He stayed out later and later, claimed he was working overtime, but never brought home the pay stubs.

I'd hear him whispering on the phone in the bathroom. He ate dinner in silence, scrolling through his phone, his face lit by the blue glow of a world I was no longer part of.

The distance between us became a wall.

An upset couple | Source: Unsplash

Then, one evening, he came home with that look—the one people wear when they've already made a decision.

He didn't sit or even take off his jacket.

"Anna," he said flatly, "I can't do this anymore."

I froze mid-step. "Can't do what?"

"This," he gestured vaguely around the small, cluttered kitchen. "The crying, the hospital bills, the constant stress. It's too much. I've… met someone."

My breath caught. "What are you talking about?"

He looked straight at me, almost proud.

A man with a pleased look | Source: Unsplash

I didn't cry or scream. I just stared at him and said, "Who is she?"

"Her name's Claire. She works at the gym. She's actually fun to be around. And she takes care of herself. Not like..."

He didn't finish the sentence; he didn't need to.

"You're leaving," I said flatly.

He nodded. "You've changed, Anna. You're not the woman I married. You're tired, bitter, and—let's be honest—you've let yourself go. This life isn't for me anymore. I don't want to be stuck in this cycle. Sick kids and debt and... a wife who looks twenty years older than she is? I want to be happy."

An annoyed man | Source: Unsplash

"You want to live?" I whispered. "While our daughter fights for hers?!"

He shrugged, not even ashamed.

"I'm sorry, but I can't spend the rest of my life drowning in hospitals and debt. Claire makes me feel alive. You… you just make me feel guilty."

He turned toward the door.

"I'll send money when I can. You'll manage."

A man walking away | Source: Unsplash

I wanted to tell him I hated him, how I'd wrecked my body to carry a child for a couple I'd never met, just to make sure our daughter had a chance to live. But I didn't.

He left that night without saying goodbye to Ellie. Didn't ask about the baby, just walked out with a gym bag slung over his shoulder like he was going on vacation.

I stood in the kitchen long after the door closed, my hands on my belly, the silence in the apartment so loud it made my ears ring.

An unhappy woman | Source: Pexels

Months later, the delivery came early. I was alone, and the labor lasted 14 hours. The couple I carried for was kind. They were nervous and grateful and cried when they saw their son for the first time. I handed him over, still weak, and they hugged me like I was family.

And just like that, it was over.

I went home sore, bleeding, and emptied in every sense of the word. But I had a check in my purse, and it was enough to finish paying for Ellie's treatments, enough to breathe for the first time in over a year.

A woman smiling | Source: Pexels

Ellie got better. It was slow at first, then all at once. Her cheeks filled out again, her hair came back, and her smile returned! We celebrated every clear test result with homemade cupcakes and dance parties in the living room.

A year later, my precious baby girl was in remission!

Life was still hard, but it was finally ours again.

I worked extra shifts and budgeted like a pro. I picked Ellie up from school every day, packed her lunches, taught her how to ride her bike, and read her bedtime stories every night without fail. We'd go on walks, bake cookies, and talk about everything she wanted to do "when she grew up."

We laughed. We healed.

A happy mother and daughter | Source: Pexels

I was no longer a wife or someone's burden, just a mother who'd finally found her footing.

Until karma showed up.

One morning, I was folding laundry while Ellie drew in her coloring book. The phone rang. I saw the name on the screen and felt my stomach tighten.

Ben.

He used to be one of Tom's closest friends, whom I'd befriended, who still worked with my ex at the same company.

I answered. "Hey, Ben. Everything okay?"

His voice was uneasy, but he sounded like he was laughing when he said, "Hey, Anna. Sorry to bother you. I just thought you should know... Tom's not doing great."

I said nothing.

A serious woman on a call | Source: Pexels

"He, uh, Claire left. Took his car, cleaned out his savings, moved to Florida with some guy she met online."

Of course she did.

"He lost his job. Been bouncing between motels. I saw him last week. He said he finally realized what he'd done to you and Ellie. Said he regrets it."

I looked out the window at Ellie playing in the sunlight on our tiny balcony, humming a tune she made up. There was a time when hearing those words would have gutted me. But now?

"Thanks for telling me, Ben," I said quietly, a faint smile involuntarily appearing on my face. "I wish him peace."

A woman with a faint smile on a call | Source: Pexels

After I hung up, I walked out onto the balcony and sat beside Ellie. She looked up at me and smiled.

"Mommy, look!" she said, holding up a picture she had just finished. "It's us. You and me. And the sun came back."

I hugged her close and kissed her forehead.

"Yes, baby," I whispered. "It did."

Because after everything we lost—the years, the love, the pieces of myself I thought I'd never get back—we were still standing.

Just me and my daughter. Stronger than ever.

And finally, finally, the light was ours.

A happy mother and daughter | Source: Midjourney

If you're interested in more stories like this, here's another one: Melissa's husband, Ethan, convinced her to be a surrogate twice. But after using the money from the surrogacy to pay his mom's debt, Ethan left her. What he never anticipated was that karma would come knocking.

This story is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Names, characters, and details have been altered. Any resemblance is coincidental. The author and publisher disclaim accuracy, liability, and responsibility for interpretations or reliance. If you would like to share your story, please send it to info@amomama.com.