I am more of smoldering ember sort of person. Always happy. I think this is because the smallest things make me happy: a good cup of coffee, an unshaved husband, a picture of an animal, a well aimed retort.

There is only one time in my life that I was so consumed with...something. I guess you could call it fire. This something started off as hope, turned itself into rage, and lives on inside me as determination.

It hit me by surprise while I worked at this slave-labor ad agency. The owner locked me into a room everyday and paid me to produce these horrible 30-second spots for radio and on-hold messaging. Dreadful job. But I loved it at the time.

One day this vision walked into the room. Think 50s pin-up girl. Think Betty Paige in her prime. And no, don’t think what you’re thinking about me and my fire and this hot girl.

This was Rachel. If I had a timeline of my life, ‘Meet Rachel’ would be a prominent milestone.

We became instant friends. She had the sweetest voice and the wittiest comments. She was older, more polished, and sexier. She was somehow both goth and butterflies. But she carried sadness around her like a cloak.

See, Rachel had followed all the rules Cincinnati grandmothers tell you to follow in order to have the perfect life. She was a good Catholic. She kept superb grades. She went to college to find the perfect husband (ugh). She had a storybook wedding. And now it was time to have children. And that wasn’t happening.

I’ll spare you the details of all the insane things she tried (including going to South America, ‘cuz you know, honey, the toilets flush backward down there’ hint, hint, wink wink).

We’ll fast forward a few years to the day she introduced me to the world of surrogacy. This was a new concept to me. And, I’ll be honest, I was kind of appalled at first (a reaction I try to remember so that I can relate to people today).

Rachel could not safely have children of her own, and her sister-in-law had graciously offered to carry her children for her.

But this wasn’t the recipe of an upstanding Cincinnati girl. I couldn’t believe the ridicule she faced...not only be strangers but by her own family! Why the hell did these people care how she chose to have a child?

I stood by her side as she battled her family, church, and peers for acceptance in her decision to use an alternative method to have a child.

For years, I went to doctor after doctor with her. I shared in her struggles, helped her through the pain. Unfortunately, there was not yet a system in place to make surrogacy a viable option for her and even adoption was not forgiven in her family.

A few years later, I found myself married and working at a different company than Rachel. We still kept in touch and I still prayed for her resolution.

It came in the form of an impeding birth announcement. I was shocked. And hopeful. My own path to having children was mimicking Rachel’s so the hope I felt with this new doctor was staggering!

Our passion turned from medical alternatives to the very pleasant task of baby shower planning. I have a recorded voicemail in which Rachel, sounding like the happiest angel, told me her son’s name. Gabriel.

A few days later, I received an email at work from a co-worker at the company Rachel and I first met. The message had no subject and the body only contained a link. It led to Rachel’s obituary.

Rachel died at age twenty-seven from trying to carry a baby her body, and doctors, warned she could not handle.

That is when I felt the fire.

It consumed me. I could not see or hear for days. I know I somehow made my way to the doctor’s office and confronted the man that gave us hope. I know I attended Rachel’s funeral and looked each of her condemning family members in the eye.

For months I tried to fight. For what, I don’t know.

Meeting and losing Rachel had a profound impact on my life. I met other women with similar afflictions, all great candidates for surrogacy and adoption, yet still pushing their bodies to deliver a child because of public opinion and difficulty with navigating the legal system.

And while Rachel has been gone for many years now, the fever, the fire I feel still remains. I can no longer produce billboards and PowerPoint documents and be satisfied. I have to DO something to help women like Rachel...women like myself.

If that means building the framework for the surrogacy process, fine. If it means fixing the US adoption system, I’m on my way. If it means telling Rachel’s story so just ONE other person can accept the idea, so be it.

I’m patient and God knows, this world provides enough fuel to keep my ember burning.