Student Becomes Surrogate Mother for Her Teacher After 5 Miscarriages

A teacher in Tennessee lost five pregnancies. She and her husband had tried for years to become parents, and even fertility treatment had ended in disappointment. Then, one day, a Facebook message arrived from a woman she had once taught in high school. Not a close relative, not a doctor, a former student. And, after Ashley Totti read that message, the future she had imagined slipping away suddenly looked very different. Now, what could someone from an old classroom possibly say at a moment like that? And why had this student been thinking about her old teacher? Keep those two questions in mind. The answers are worth hearing. Hello, awesome fans. John here. And today I have two extraordinary stories for you. First, two best friends make a promise that leads to a twist neither could have planned. Then we'll meet Ashley's former student and discover what was written in the message and what she was prepared to do about it. These stories are connected, but they have very different surprises. Let's begin in South Carolina. Caitlin Creech had imagined being a mother since she was little. She and her husband, Matt, hoped to have a child together. But her first pregnancy ended in miscarriage. So did the next. During the third, the couple had seen a heartbeat before learning the pregnancy had ended. There's a painful difference between hoping for good news and having good news briefly placed into your hands, only to lose it. Caitlin was a nurse who worked around pregnancy and childbirth. She understood the medical language, but knowing the terminology couldn't make those appointments easier. Doctors found that she had a condition called antiphospholipid syndrome, which can increase the risk of pregnancy complications. Caitlin tried treatments after treatments, fertility medication, insemination and IVF. Three miscarriages, three unsuccessful inseminations, and four unsuccessful embryo transfers. Years went by. Eventually, she and Matt had to consider another way forward. Her friend Heather Davis had been beside her through much of it. They'd known each other for 23 years, and after Caitlin's second miscarriage, Heather had offered something extraordinary. If Caitlin never needed someone to carry her baby, she would do it. It's the kind of promise that sounds enormous even between lifelong friends, and sometimes when people offer help during a terrible week, they mean it completely, but life moves on and circumstances change. Heather wasn't making a comforting remark that would disappear with time, and when she said yes again, it wasn't hers alone to decide, her own children and husband were were part of the decision. This was generosity with real consequences for a whole household. Years later, Caitlin finally called. By then, the couple had spent so much on fertility treatment with no success that accepting help was no longer a distant possibility. Heather didn't hesitate. She had two sons of her own and a husband, Brandon, supported her decision. Both families worked through the medical and legal preparations. For six months, they got ready for Heather to carry an embryo created for Caitlin and Matt. And then, before Heather's embryo transfer, Caitlin noticed something unusual. Her cycle was late. She took a pregnancy test. Positive. She took another. And another. All three said the same thing. Caitlin was pregnant. Can you imagine making an elaborate plan because one door seemed closed and finding that very door opening just as you're about to walk through another? But this was not the moment for careless celebrations. Caitlin had already endured three losses. A positive test was wonderful news, not a guarantee. She spoke with her doctor and the two families discussed what to do. Given Caitlin's history, they chose to go ahead with Heather's transfer. It worked. Now both women were pregnant with Caitlin and Matt's biological children. Two friends... Two pregnancies, one set of very nervous, very hopeful parents, and while it sounds almost like a movie plot now, they had to live each week without knowing whether the other pregnancy would make it safely to the end. For a while, both pregnancies progressed, but around 24 weeks, Caitlin developed a fierce headache and discovered her blood pressure was dangerously high. At the hospital, doctors diagnosed preeclampsia, a serious condition that can threaten mother and baby. They also found worrying signs in the baby's blood flow. Here's what makes this chapter so difficult. Caitlin had finally reached the stage she'd longed for. Yet now the medical team was trying to buy time day by day. Every extra day mattered. The story wasn't finished because the pregnancy test had turned positive. At 26 weeks, Scarlett Delaney Creech was delivered by C-section. She weighed just one pound five ounces. The neonatal team took over immediately and Scarlett needed a ventilator. Heather, pregnant herself, was there to support her friend. The woman who had offered to carry Caitlin's baby was now standing by her while Caitlin fought for the baby she had carried herself. Scarlett spent six months in neonatal intensive care. Caitlin visited constantly, and while Scarlett was still in the hospital, Heather reached the end of her pregnancy and gave birth to Sloane Hadley, healthy and full term, about five months after her sister. Now, here's a moment from the hospital that I love. Caitlin was right beside Heather at the delivery, holding her hand and comforting her. Heather actually had to remind Caitlin to go and see her new daughter. Isn't that something? After everything Heather had done, the first instinct between these two friends was still to look after each other. Scarlett and Sloane aren't twins. Their family affectionately calls them Twibblings. By the time Novant Health shared their story in April 2026, both girls were thriving, and Scarlett no longer needed supplemental oxygen. There was a whole medical team behind those happy photographs, and six hard months that the photographs can't show. Staff in the neonatal unit got to know Scarlett closely as they cared for her through that long stay. We should give those nurses and specialists a place in this story. So, for me, the remarkable thing isn't simply that this family ended up with two daughters. It's that Heather kept an old promise and that everyone around the family helped them reach the other side. Remember how Heather made her offer? She knew Caitlin for more than 20 years. She knew the losses, the appointments, the exhaustion, the trust between them had been built over a lifetime. So you might think the next story begins with another best friend. It doesn't. This time the person who stepped forward hadn't shared family holidays or hospital waiting rooms with the woman she wanted to help. Their connection began in a classroom. The surprising part isn't just what she offered, it's what she remembered. Ashley Totti and her husband Spencer live in Duck River, Tennessee. Spencer works as a utility lineman. Ashley had been a high school Spanish teacher and later became a middle school principal. They married in 2014 and wanted to raise children of their own. But Ashley suffered five miscarriages. Doctors described their infertility as unexplained. The couple pursued IVF. An embryo transfer failed. Ashley later told a fertility clinic how devastating it was to hope with each pregnancy and face another loss. Five losses. I don't want to rush past that number, as it fits only a statistic. There were five separate times when their plans changed, and each new attempt asked them to risk being disappointed again. It's impossible to want something deeply and still become afraid of hoping for it. Ashley continued working in education. Somewhere among the young people she'd taught years earlier was Hannah Dearman, who had sat in Ashley's Spanish class as a high school junior. Hannah had grown up, become a mother of three, and still remembered that teacher. When CBS News later asked Hannah about Ashley, she didn't point to an elaborate favor or some dramatic moment from school. She remembered someone who was loving, kind, and caring. Ashley had made her feel valued as a student. They had stayed in touch after graduation, but years had passed since Hannah sat in that classroom. I find that detail fascinating. Teachers rarely get a complete account of the effect they've had. Students grow up, move away, build their own lives. There isn't a report card coming back years later that says, here's what your kindness meant to me. Hannah learned that her former teacher had been struggling to become a mother. She thought about it for a long time. She had her own three children and understood. From her own experience, how much parenthood meant to her. According to the message later shared with CBS, she had been praying for Ashley and was worried the offer might seem strange. I love that very human hesitation. Even someone about to do something courageous can be nervous about how it will be received. Eventually, she opened Facebook Messenger and wrote to Ashley. And here is the moment we've been building toward. Because the message wasn't simply, I'm thinking of you. It was a question that could change what both families would do next. Hannah told Ashley she'd been carrying this thought in her heart for years. She didn't know exactly where Ashley was in her journey. Then came the extraordinary offer. If Ashley ever needed a surrogate, Hannah would love to help her become a mother. Just think about the distance between those two lives. Hannah had once needed Ashley to teach her Spanish. Now, as an adult, she was offering her former teacher something far beyond that ordinary thank you. Not a gift you could wrap, not a favor you could finish over a weekend. Months of her life, her body, and all the responsibility involved in a pregnancy. And she wasn't asking to be paid for carrying the baby. Hannah wanted to help because of the woman she remembered. Ashley told CBS that after everything they'd been through, the offer no longer sounded impossible to consider. But saying yes meant entering another long, carefully planned medical journey. Ashley and Spencer worked with the Tennessee Fertility Institute. When Hannah became their gestational carrier, that means an embryo created through fertility treatment, was transferred to Hannah, she carried the pregnancy for Ashley and Spencer. The clinic also worked to involve the intended parents closely through the process. It's important to say this part plainly. Hannah's generosity did not magically erase years of infertility. Qualified doctors, treatment, planning, consent and careful care were all essential. Her kindness gave Ashley and Spencer another possibility, one they could pursue together with medical support. It's a striking difference from Caitlin and Heather. One offer came from a friend who knew every stage of the struggle. The other came from a former student who remembered how someone treated her long ago. Neither woman was obligated to help. Both chose to take the offer far beyond words. On July 29th, 2024, Hannah gave birth to Sophie Lee Totti. She weighed seven pounds. Ashley and Spencer finally got to bring home the daughter they'd wanted for so long. And there's a detail that makes this ending especially lovely. Sophie's middle name, Lee, comes from Hannah Lee. Hannah's part in the family story isn't tucked away in a scrapbook. It's carried in their daughter's name. Hannah later said she loved being a mother to her own children and wanted another woman to experience that love. There was nothing casual about what she gave. It was something she understood personally. I keep thinking about Ashley standing at the front of a classroom years earlier. She couldn't possibly have known that one of the students looking back at her would one day become part of her family story. That's what makes this relationship so unusual. Hannah remembered something Ashley hadn't been doing for a reward. She was simply being a good teacher. Ashley has said she wants Sophie to know Hannah and understand the people who helped bring her into the world. A photograph of Ashley, Spencer, Hannah and their fertility doctors hangs in the family's living room. So, look at these two families together. Heather made a promise to her best friend and kept it when the time came. Hannah reached back across the years to a teacher who had once made her feel cared for. In one family, two sisters arrived five months apart. In the other, a little girl was given a middle name that tells part of her story. And here's my question for you, awesome fans. Have you ever had someone from years ago get in touch and remind you that something you said did or mattered more than you knew? I'd love to read about it in the comments, and if those two families brought you a little hope today, give the video a like and subscribe to Awesome for more stories worth sharing. Thank you for spending this time with me, and whether the person who helped you was a lifelong friend or someone you hadn't seen in years, I hope you get a chance to tell them what it meant. Sometimes they have no idea.