Today we’d like to introduce you to Ciara Langston.
Hi Ciara, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
MY Co-Owner Aria Simuel and myself met in high school and then came to Los Angeles for college where we became inseparable through each of our lives milestones. In 2013 I decided to embark on a surrogacy journey, Aria was there every step of the way. I did a total of six journeys totaling in three babies. In 2016, I spoke on starting my own agency which later in 2020 at Aria bachelorette’s party, we put our visions together and created a business plan to create the surrogacy agency Modernly Ever After LLC. Aria became the 1st surrogate under our agency delivering a healthy baby girl for our first family out of Michigan. Aria and myself are the youngest and WOC (women of color) owned agency in the country and on the west coast. We are extremely proud to be apart of the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) community. We are excited to help make parenting possible for those who face challenges growing a family.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Aria and myself have had a few challenges since starting Modernly Ever After LLC. Some of our obstacles that we faced with the start-up were not having seed money to help fund the start of the agency needs. We both worked in traditional 9/5 settings and funded our business that way.
When trying to come up with a name for our agency, we picked the name HATCH which later caused problems due to another agency taking the name and trademarking it before we got the chance to. This caused us to have to rebrand completely after spending money on things with the name HATCH creating handles for social media and our website.
Part of learning the ins and outs of the business, we tried to reach out to others in the community and initially it wasn’t a lot of support coming our way.
As you know, we’re big fans of Modernly Ever After LLC. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Our Agency is a full-service Surrogacy and Egg Donation Agency. We help create families the modern way (Utilizing Assisted Reproductive Technology).
We help educate and guide our Intended Parents Surrogates and Egg Donors throughout their whole journey.
From our personal experience, we seen the good and bad throughout this industry and we understand that parenting can seem out of reach for many dealing with infertility or reproductive loss. Same sex couples and more.
We seen the need to make parenting possible with affordable pricing and also having a great bedside manner to all of our clients……
What sets us apart from others we are one of the four Women of Color owned agencies and the youngest. We both have experienced surrogacy firsthand both agency guided and independently. We have made our agency more Affordable and based more on helping families grow.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Our advice to those starting a business of any sort Do your homework/research! Connect and establish relationships in your industry
You belong in the same rooms as your peers! You may feel uncomfortable in some setting but just know you are where you should be!
Pricing:
- Surrogates make up to a base pay of $85k
- Egg Donor make up to a base pay of $10k per cycle
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.modernlyeverafter.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/modernlyeverafter/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/modernlyeverafter
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/modernlyevraft?s=21&t=oBIjL_ybq_vvOJnkTwyYNw
- Other: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTd98Y7yp/
Image Credits
Green dress (Ciara Langston) Co-Owner photo taken by photographer Victoria Moreva (@morevaphotography) peach dress (Aria Simuel) Co- Owner photo taken by photographer Shaarika Boone (@_molliesue )
