When Ashley Colford embarked on a surrogacy journey with her best friend Danielle Quenneville, little did she know she would soon be carrying a miracle of her own.
After seven years, Ashley Colford and her husband, Zach, were still trying.
While everyone else in their circle of friends were getting pregnant, they were trying to be patient, trying to be hopeful and trying to stay positive.
They dreamed of diapers, bottles, blankies and onesies. Instead, their lives revolved around hormone cycles, timed injections, egg retrievals and test…after test… after test.
It was time to choose a new path - one made possible by trust, friendship, and an extraordinary offer. Danielle Quenneville, Colford’s best friend from college, stepped forward to help carry the dream she and her husband held for so long: she volunteered to be their surrogate.
Surrogate pregnancies are laced with complexity, and four times more likely to have severe complications. Colford was understandably hesitant about someone taking the risk on her behalf - especially someone she loved. But, Quenneville was confident in what she was offering.
“I’ve always felt like this was something I could do for someone else,” says Quenneville.
I knew how important it was for me to become a mom and how badly I wanted that, and I saw how much Ashley wanted it too.”
A growing trend
In Canada, surrogacy is becoming a more commonly explored option for couples facing infertility, or same-sex couples. Some studies suggest a 400% increase over the last decade, and between 400-500 babies being born via surrogate each year.
At KHSC, social workers partner with obstetricians, the labour and delivery team and midwives to support parents who have chosen surrogacy.
At KHSC, social workers partner with obstetricians, the labour and delivery team and midwives to support parents who have chosen surrogacy.
Fast forward to summer 2025, and Quenneville was with the Colfords in Toronto for in vitro fertilization (IVF). One of the couple’s embryos was transferred to Quenneville, who acted as a gestational carrier, meaning she would have no genetic or biological link to the embryo. But IVF isn’t always a sure thing – Colford had tried it eight times, herself – so the trio reunited two weeks later so Quenneville could take a pregnancy test.
“I just collapsed onto the ground in tears,” says Colford, recounting the moment she realized the test was positive. “We lived on that high for a really long time.
But soon, the mom-to-be was feeling a bit off. She was exhausted, nauseous, and couldn’t stop eating Ritz crackers. At first, she dismissed everything as sympathy symptoms, but something told her to take a pregnancy test. That’s when the Colfords saw it: two dark blue lines. She was pregnant and already six weeks along.
The couple was no longer preparing for one baby, but two! And they would be born just a few weeks apart.
“We just couldn’t stop laughing,” recalls Colford.
We laughed for probably 10 minutes straight. Then, of course, our first call was to Danielle.”
Jokingly, the women adopted the term “twiblings” to describe the fully biological siblings growing in separate womb sat the same time.
From there, the best friends moved through their pregnancies in lockstep, attending ultrasounds and prenatal appointments together and even sharing the same midwife.
“I loved the feeling of collaboration when we met [our midwife] Romaine,” says Colford. “She talked through our options and how we could work things out. Overall, we felt very safe with the care team in Kingston.”
Together, the women were preparing for their respective spring due dates and deliveries at Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC). Up first was Quenneville.
A mom of two herself, the surrogate was no stranger to childbirth. Halfway through her delivery, she got an overwhelming feeling that something was wrong.
“My nurse had already been coaching me on advocating for myself if something wasn’t feeling right. I knew he needed to come out, so I spoke up and asked for a c-section,” recalls Quenneville.
And it was a good thing she did. Quenneville needed an emergency cesarean section (c-section) and the baby was quickly whisked away to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) down the hall, where he was resuscitated and intubated.
“It was scary, but we knew we were in good hands,” says Colford. “We knew that the hospital was equipped to respond.”
The couple named the baby Sullivan. After four days in the NICU, they were finally able to take their son home, the baby they had waited seven years for, while nine months pregnant with the one they never expected.
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A few weeks later, the Colfords were back at KHSC to deliver their daughter, who they aptly named Sophia Danielle.
By this point, the Colford crew was infamous among KHSC staff. Labour and delivery nurse Dana Volk – a 25 year veteran of KHSC supported both women during their deliveries and says the experience is a career highlight.
”Every birth is different, every experience is an honour to be part of," says Volk. “We deliver a few surrogates a year at KHSC, but this one was truly mind blowing.”
In the end, the Colford family was shaped by two forces at once. One child came into the world because of modern medicine and an extraordinary act of friendship; the other arrived unexpectedly, a serendipitous gift without explanation.
Miracles happen when you let go, but also when you hold on," says surrogate mom, Quenneville.
These days, the Colfords are still trying, just not in the same way as before. Now, they’re trying to soak up every minute, trying to stay on top of diaper changes and trying to get some sleep. With the “twiblings”, it’s much easier said than done.
But the new parents wouldn’t have it any other way.
As the saying goes, it takes a village.
From medical researchers to frontline staff, and the community donors who fund lifesaving equipment - bringing Sullivan and Sophia into the world was a truly a collective human effort.
