Arli Cruikshank is a 40 year old runner from Manitoba and a mother of two preteens. She is also currently halfway through her second pregnancy as a surrogate mother.
Her first journey with surrogacy began in 2016 and after three long years of emotional highs and lows, she gave birth to surrobabe Noah in October of 2019 for a woman named Aleah. Getting pregnant the second time around was much more seamless, and at the time of this recording she was 20 weeks pregnant with a baby girl for another couple.
Throughout all of this, Arli has continued to run. She takes it easier when she’s pregnant, and pursues it quite seriously when she’s not. In between pregnancies in 2020-2022, she ran several virtual and in-person races, qualified for and ran the Boston marathon, and set a personal best of 3:23:11 in Chicago. Arli plans to run the Manitoba Marathon this year at 29 weeks pregnant!
While we spent the majority of this episode learning about Arli’s personal experiences with surrogacy and running, she educated us a lot throughout our preparation for the show. We learned that surrogate mothers are in very high demand, and often have the tough job of personally selecting who to have a baby for. In Canada surrogacy is altruistic, meaning that mothers cannot profit financially, but all of their expenses related to the pregnancy are covered by the parents. In both cases Arli was a “gestational carrier,” referring to the common practice of not using her own eggs. There is also a standard psychological screening process that Arli’s husband, Tyler, had to take part in to ensure she would be fully supported at home.
We loved every minute of this fascinating conversation and hope you do, too.
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