Beloved surrogacy champion Jennifer Allen mourned by families, colleagues, friend | 24CA News
Jennifer Allen, a Canadian surrogacy champion who helped properly over 100 households obtain their desires of getting youngsters, has died at age 36.
After being a surrogate 4 occasions herself, Allen based JA Surrogacy Canada in an effort to create a much less “transactional,” extra supportive setting for each “intended parents” and the ladies serving as their surrogates, stated Michelle Avery, the company’s chief working officer and Allen’s greatest good friend.
Allen believed strongly that everybody who desires a child ought to be capable of have one, however “she couldn’t have everybody’s baby,” Avery stated.
“So her goal was that everybody that came to her, she was going to help them to build their families and do it with transparency and integrity and compassion.”
Allen died in Calgary on July 28. Her household shouldn’t be specifying the reason for demise, besides to say that she died in her sleep and it was sudden, Avery stated.
She leaves behind her husband, Phil Allen, their 10-year-old daughter Abigail Maria Allen and their nine-year-old son Daniel John Louis Allen.
Her funeral was being held on Thursday in Calgary.
In Canada, surrogacy is predicated on an “altruistic” mannequin, which means that surrogates are volunteering to hold infants for the individuals eager to have youngsters, often known as “intended parents.” Surrogates can’t be paid for his or her providers, however will be reimbursed for bills, together with journey to medical appointments and misplaced revenue if the being pregnant renders them unable to work.
Based in Calgary however with employees working remotely all through the nation, JA Canada matches supposed mother and father with a surrogate and supplies providers and assist earlier than, all through and after the being pregnant.
Allen created the company as a “village” that enables the supposed mother and father “to build relationships with their surrogates and to really get to know their surrogates while their surrogates are carrying their babies and build a lifelong friendship with these women,” Avery stated.
“Everybody was a part of the village. You weren’t just a number on a list. You weren’t just somebody that was hanging out on hold waiting for your profile to be chosen by a (surrogacy) candidate.”
Since Allen began the corporate in late 2018, it has facilitated the start of about 135 infants, Avery stated.
One of these infants is Leah Lipkowitz’s six-month-old daughter Olivia.
“(Now) the family is complete,” stated Lipkowitz, who lives in Montreal with Olivia, her husband Jeremie Lasry and her 14-year-old son Nadav.
When Lipkowitz gave start to Nadav nearly 15 years in the past, she suffered problems and nearly died throughout supply.
When she remarried and wished to have one other little one, she turned to surrogacy as a result of it will be too harmful for her to hold one other child herself.
But plans with two completely different surrogates didn’t work out.
“I truly believe I would have given up and Olivia probably wouldn’t be here,” Lipkowitz stated.
But when she posted her frustrations on-line, Allen reached out to her and matched her with an exquisite surrogate from Toronto who has change into like a “sister,” Lipkowitz stated.
“We are extremely close. You know, even after the birth, she came twice already to Montreal. I’ve gone to Toronto. Our kids are close,” she stated.
None of it will have occurred with out Allen’s dedication to assist, Lipkowitz stated.
“She was just a force to be reckoned with,” she stated, noting that she had change into good buddies with Allen and was devastated to listen to she had died.
“Her legacy lives on in the babies that she helps to bring to this earth,” Lipkowitz stated.
“And that lives on forever, because the kids of those kids and the kids of those kids, that’s her legacy. She left the world different and better than she found it.”
Allen’s demise has shocked the fertility group, stated Carolynn Dube, govt director of Fertility Matters Canada, primarily based in Moncton, N.B.
“She has certainly left her mark on the Canadian fertility world. She has helped so many families who are really struggling at a time when the future of their family is uncertain,” Dube stated.
“She certainly left an incredible impression and changed the lives of so many people not only in Canada but across the globe.”
Dr. Ari Baratz, president of Infertility Matters Canada and an infertility therapy specialist in Toronto, referred a lot of his sufferers who determined to pursue surrogacy to Allen’s company.
“I was always very excited that they were in good hands,” Baratz stated.
“My patients would typically reference not just JA Surrogacy, they’d reference Jennifer,” he stated.
“She was running quite a large agency with many moving parts and you always knew that if you needed to speak to Jennifer directly … she was there.”
“She was always advocating for advancing fertility care in Canada across the board,” he stated, noting that Allen helped many LGBTQ {couples} to fulfil their desires of getting a child.
Allen wasn’t only a colleague, Baratz stated — she was additionally a good friend.
She had an excellent sense of humour, was open-minded, “super intelligent” and decided to resolve any issues that supposed mother and father and surrogates skilled, he stated.
Michelle Avery remembers her greatest good friend the identical method.
“She had the biggest heart,” Avery stated. “Every name we had, (it) didn’t matter if it was work-related or private, it ended with ‘I love you.’”
Allen was also fiercely devoted to her husband Phil, she said.
“He was the man of her dreams,” Avery said. “They were going to renew their vows because they didn’t get the marriage that they wished after they obtained married.”
Her youngsters have been “also her world.”
“She did so much to make sure that they had amazing experiences and opportunities, and loved them so deeply,” Avery stated.
