A story of giving this holiday season and how kindness and gratitude can truly change people’s lives.
A story of giving this holiday season and how kindness and gratitude can truly change people's lives.
NBC Bay Area Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban and his wife Kelly are parents to 5-year-old Rayah and 2-year-old Ziyad.
"We eventually adopted our daughter," Kelly said. “My son, we got one embryo in the IVF process."
Kelly then became pregnant again.
“It's not my baby," Bigad said. "My wife is pregnant with another man's baby, but I'm OK with it."
Kelly is a surrogate for her best friend since high school, Natasha Weinstein-Dawes.
At first, Bigad told Kelly he didn't think it was a good idea because of her health. Kelly suffers from retina detachment, which is when the retina lifts away from the back of the eye. She’s undergone 10 eye surgeries in six years and has lost a substantial amount of vision in both eyes. The surgeries and medications prevented her from having a baby.
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“We had many, many, many years of infertility," Kelly said. "With these blessings and these miracles that we were given, it felt like it was my turn to kind of pay it back a little bit."
And pay it back is what Kelly did – in a big way. Natasha developed a heart condition after giving birth to her daughter and was told she could not carry again.
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There was no ask, just an offer from Kelly after getting the OK from her doctors.
"The pendulum has really swung in both directions of feeling like, 'God, why am I so unlucky?' And then also, 'Why am I so incredibly blessed?'" she said.
“The ramifications of all that, of her having lost vision, and it doesn't seem fair, it's not fair," Bigad said. "And I think her choosing to want to do good in the midst of that, I just think is a testament to who she is.”
On Oct. 17, 2024, Beckham Ocean Kelly Dawes was born. Natasha was in the delivery room with Kelly for the birth.
"Immediately she was just like, 'That's your son!'" Natasha said. "There's definitely always been a part of me that's like, 'Is this real? Is this really going to happen?' And then he was just there, perfect."
Kelly said there was never a regret through the process.
“I feel like it was something I felt called to and something that I just felt just made sense in light of how our family formed," she said.
