Ellen Pompeo "held hands" with her surrogate when she was inseminated.
The ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ actress and her husband Chris Ivery recently welcomed their second daughter, Sienna, into the world via a surrogate and the couple were present for every stage of the process.
She said: "I was present for the insemination. I held her hand. So, they take the sperm…Medically, Chris has to do what he has to do and provide, and then I had to provide something as well, you know? You have to retrieve the egg.
"And then they put it together in a dish, the lab technicians, and then they make the embryo. Then they insert the embryo into the woman who will carry the child.
I was there with her when they inseminated her and we held hands. I looked into the microscope and I saw the embryo, I saw the baby, and they put it in a thingy and they inseminated her. And then we held hands and we prayed, we talked to God, and if she was meant to be. He said he was going to try to help us out and now we have a gorgeous baby girl."
The 44-year-old actress – who already has five-year-old Stella with Chris – will be "forever grateful" to the unnamed woman who agreed to carry their child.
She told talk show host Jimmy Kimmel: "This is an incredible thing to do with your life, to give the gift of carrying someone’s child, so I am forever grateful and feel very blessed and grateful to her – she who will remain anonymous."
Ellen Pompeo was with surrogate for insemination
