Here’s a story that ought to redeem your faith in the human spirit. Albeit it is a bitter sweet tale.
It involves that of Laura Yoho who has since gone on to die of brain cancer.
Despite her diagnosis, Yoho a gym instructor and her husband, Nate Yoho, wanted to have a child. Which leads to the introduction of Laura Yoho’s best friend, Kara Stetson who agreed to carry the woman’s impregnated eggs as a surrogate in her womb.
The couple had gone on to marry in 2012. Laura first learned that she had brain tumors after passing out at a gym in 2010, a few weeks after the couple got engaged.
With the Laura’s frozen eggs by then fertilized and swapped into Kara’s womb (isn’t science marvelous?) there was hope that Laura Yoho would live long enough, despite the knowledge that her time was short, to at least see her child born.
But sadly it would not be. Laura Yoho, age 30, died four months prior to the birth of her daughter, Caralyn Yoho.
Yet as devastated as Kara and Laura’s husband Nate were by Laura’s death, they are thankful that baby Caralyn exists as a legacy to the temper of love.
Tells Nate: ‘It’s such an amazing gift. There are no words that could possibly recreate what she’s done for myself and my family,’
Reiterated Kara: ‘I just felt so happy that there was something I could do for her family and his family, and selfishly for me, to keep a part of Laura alive on this Earth.’
‘Laura and I are very close so I think it came easy to both of us, the idea.’
After Caralyn’s birth Des Moines Register reporter Daniel Finney wrote an open letter to the baby, telling her about her mother and how Kara helped bring her into the world.
Tells the letter: ‘You’re barely a month old now, too young to read this letter. But one day soon, someone will show you this, and maybe it will help you understand the wonderful confluence of love and hope that brought you into this world.’
In the open letter to Caralyn, the baby girl is told how her parents met and fell in love, about their wedding day, and also the moment they discovered Laura had cancer.
The letter also goes on to quote Kara: ‘It’s hard to explain what having a best friend like Laura for 24 years meant to me. We were different enough and alike enough to get along perfectly. We never argued. We never got sick of one another. We were like sisters, soul mates and a best friend all rolled into one.’
After Caralyn was born, Nate and his baby stayed with Kara’s family for a few days as he settled into his role as a dad.
‘Caralyn’s birth was certainly up and down,‘ he told the Des Moines Register. ‘I wish my wife was here but the joy of having [Caralyn] here, I know she wouldn’t want me to be sad.’
Nate has since told he will make sure Laura remains a big part of their lives, and has plenty of photos of videos of the couple, including a reenactment of the moment he proposed to Laura.
Went on to reflect Nate: ‘Part of it’s having a little bit of my wife back … I can see her when my daughter smiles.’
And somehow life will go on for Nate who has one of the most cherished treasures in the world to join him….the gift of life.
