What there was, instead, was a kind of joy I had not expected and cannot fully describe — the joy of being useful in the deepest possible way to people you love, of having a body that could do a thing their bodies could not, of being, for a while, the bridge across which a family walked to reach each other.

My own children I carried for myself, and that was its own profound thing.

But Grace I carried for love of other people, and that turned out to be a different and equally profound thing, and I would not trade the memory of it for anything.

When people express sympathy, I always correct them gently.

Do not feel sorry for the surrogate, I say.

She was not deprived of a daughter.