I’d never heard the Canadian National Anthem before but the crowd at the Toronto Raptors vs Sacramento Kings basketball game in downtown Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena sang it loudly and proudly. However, the US National Anthem was met with boos due to the current political climate.

We arrived in Canada at the start of April to meet our surrogates, egg donor and spent the first day and a half exploring Toronto. We enjoyed the basketball game, visited the CN Tower and St Lawrence Market and even attended our first baseball game at the Rogers Centre with an old work colleague who now lives in the city. This was our second trip to Toronto, the first in 2023, and it felt more familiar this time. It was colder but that didn’t matter as it was pretty much the same temperature back home.

We checked out of our city centre hotel and caught a train that took us about an hour outside Toronto for our first visit. After months of video calls and emails, it was wonderful to finally meet our first surrogate face-to-face. It felt like a diplomatic mission! This trip was all about giving her a chance to truly see who we were and build a real connection. We planned to spend a few hours over two days in their company without any real plan, which felt more natural and allowed us to really get to know each other. We even got to meet her family, her mum, step-dad and extended family and tour their apartment.

Saying goodbye was sad but we knew we’d be back soon once everything settled down. We were familiar with the town and knew where their apartment and local hospital were. Boarding the train back to Toronto, we made a brief stop at Union Station before continuing an hour east. At our final stop, we contacted our other surrogate. For context, we’re on a tandem journey and will have two children, one from each woman. She suggested we meet at a local bowling alley and fun zone their family frequents. We hopped on the bus heading there and finally arrived.

The initial contact was somewhat muted but after a few minutes we settled into a comfortable conversation and warmed up to each other as her three children entertained themselves in the play centre. Shortly afterwards her husband arrived and we all joined in a game of five-pin bowling, a different experience from the ten-pin we were used to. We then headed to a local restaurant for some food and continued discussing our journey. She even pointed out the hospital where our baby would be born as she drove us to our hotel, making the experience feel more real.

The next day, we met again for an Easter Egg Hunt at a local family-friendly farm. However, a cold Canadian afternoon blew through our limited layers of clothing, making our experience quite chilly. Before we had to drive back home, we had a meal at a Boston Pizza nearby and then got a lift downtown. We walked the rest of the way back to our hotel, relaxing for the evening while talking about the experience we had visiting the two women who’d be giving birth to our children in a few months. The next day, we packed our bags for our morning train back to Toronto airport before our final meeting, this time with our egg donor.

We also met her husband and baby son. It was wonderful to see her in person; photos can only show so much and body language reveals so much more. They’d driven an hour from home and we all went for some food before heading to a local mall’s Bass Pro Shop. Throughout the trip we chatted about her egg donation experience and our own journey. She was genuinely surprised we were embarking on a tandem journey to have two children. Her husband jokingly suggested the embryos could split and we’d end up with six kids a few times. They were incredibly kind to drop us off at Pearson Airport and promised to meet again when the babies were born.

Returning home on the plane, we considered the trip a success and attempted to sleep through the night flight. However, I stayed up watching movies because I had so many thoughts about the months ahead.

O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all of us command.