Gabrielle

Gabrielle Moreti had always known that the road to her dreams wouldn’t be easy. Orphaned at the age of eight, she was raised by distant relatives who didn’t have much to offer. Despite the hardships, Gabrielle had always managed to hold onto the one thing that kept her going: a dream. A dream to help others, to make a real difference in the world. To be a social worker.

She had grown up in a world where people cared less and less about one another, and she wanted to change that. But how could she make it happen when life had stacked the odds so high against her?

At twenty-two, Gabrielle was already juggling two jobs in an attempt to fund her college education. She worked as a waitress at a local diner and spent her late afternoons as a home care aide for Mrs. Ralston, an elderly woman who lived across the street from her tiny apartment in Minnesota. Mrs. Ralston, once an independent woman, now struggled with the slow decline of age, and Gabrielle was there every day, helping her with everything from meals to medications.

The hours were long, the pay was low, but Gabrielle didn’t mind. She was determined. She had to be. Her dream of becoming a social worker wasn’t going to be put off by anything.

Most evenings, after taking care of Mrs. Ralston, Gabrielle would sit in her small, cluttered apartment and study, her textbooks spread out on the kitchen table. She had no social life to speak of—her friends had long since drifted away, not understanding the sacrifices she was making. But Gabrielle wasn’t bitter. She knew what she wanted, and she would get there, no matter how difficult it was.

Despite her best efforts, though, the bills kept piling up. Tuition was expensive, and no amount of tips from the diner seemed to make a dent. It was an endless cycle—earn enough to pay rent, then pray there was enough left to cover the next round of textbooks, or groceries, or—on bad days—utilities. She often wondered how she managed to get by, her fingers numb from washing dishes and scrubbing floors.

One quiet evening, as she finished cleaning Mrs. Ralston’s house, she sat beside the elderly woman, staring at the small ad in the newspaper. It was one of those advertisements that seemed so out of place in the pages of a small-town rag, but it caught Gabrielle’s eye: Be a surrogate mother. Help others. Earn money for your future.

The thought seemed absurd at first. Surrogacy. It wasn’t something she had ever considered, but at that moment, the idea of earning enough money to cover her tuition—and maybe even have a cushion to breathe—felt like a desperate but real solution.

She wasn’t naive. She knew the physical toll pregnancy could take on a person’s body, the emotional weight that came with carrying a child for someone else. But Gabrielle had always been a fighter, and when the desperation clawed at her, she was willing to consider anything. She knew what it was like to struggle, to have nothing, to fight for survival. Could helping someone else achieve their dream of a family be any more difficult than her fight for an education?

With hesitation, Gabrielle made the call.

A week later, she found herself sitting in the office of a surrogacy agency, signing contracts and undergoing medical evaluations. She told herself it was only temporary—just a few months of discomfort for a few years of security. The money would be enough to cover her tuition, to get through the next few semesters. She could finish her degree, and then everything would be different.

It wasn’t that Gabrielle hadn’t questioned the decision. Every time she closed her eyes, her thoughts were filled with what-ifs and doubts. But she pushed those aside. She couldn’t afford to give up now. Not when the future she had always dreamed of was within reach.

Gabrielle’s parents had died in a car accident when she was just eight years old, leaving her with nothing but a handful of memories. She had lived in foster homes, bouncing from one family to the next. Some were kind, others not so much. But she had learned early on how to take care of herself. How to be strong, how to keep going no matter the circumstances. That was what had brought her this far.

As she sat in the sterile, fluorescent-lit office, Gabrielle thought about how far she had come—how many years of struggle it had taken to get to this point. And yet, there was always this gnawing feeling deep in her chest, a voice telling her that the world wasn’t fair, that even if she worked tirelessly, things would never get easier. Still, she fought against it, because there was no other choice.

Now she was waiting for a call to see if she was a match. There were far more experienced surrogates out there and this was her very first time. So she didn’t keep her hopes up. Instead she kept working,hoping someone would consider her.