At the memory, Tiegs flashes the brighter-than-sunshine smile that helped make her famous as the magazine cover girl of the '70s. "Kids, they're funny that way," she says. "They accept things you'd never expect them to. If it's normal and okay for you, it's normal and okay for them."
In fact, Tiegs herself had a tougher time getting used to the idea of using a surrogate mother to carry her children. "It's a very scary thing to do," she says. "It's about giving up control over something as important as your baby."
But it was also her only option. Wed since 1998, Stryker, 42, and the thrice-divorced Tiegs had tried unsuccessfully for more than a year to have a child together. The couple met in his yoga class in 1997. "She just fell in love," recalls a good friend, Irena Medavoy, the wife of Phoenix Pictures CEO Mike Medavoy. "She said, 'He just levitates me in my soul.' Stryker was equally smitten. "The idea of us being parents together was something I wanted from the moment I met her," he says.
After trying in vain to get pregnant on their own, the couple underwent several attempts at in vitro fertilization, but those too failed. Then at a party one day last June, Tiegs and Stryker found out that a friend was having a baby by a surrogate mother. That night Stryker suggested they pursue that route. "I'll never forget the moment he said it," says Tiegs. "My whole world turned around at that point because I knew then there was a real possibility that we would have a baby."
A fertility expert recommended a surrogate (whom Tiegs and Stryker decline to name). "We thought she was just wonderful," says Tiegs. "We found this angel who was willing to carry our baby." Again, Tiegs underwent fertility treatment to increase the number of eggs that could be harvested and then fertilized. The resulting embryo was transferred to the surrogate's uterus, and the procedure was successful on the very first try. "It's my egg and my husband's sperm, so they're our babies," says Tiegs.
Seven months later, the couple are eagerly awaiting the day in July when they'll rush to the hospital to be with the surrogate when she gives birth to their fraternal-twin boys. In the meantime they see her twice a month. "You feel very protective," says Tiegs. "At first I was constantly thinking about whether or not she was eating right, what if she got sick, is she doing okay. I had to let that go." Adds Stryker: "I'm not trying to impose my life on [the surrogate], but at the same time I'm trying to be completely supportive and nurture her through it."
Tiegs's friends are just as supportive of her decision to use surrogacy. More than 50 of them recently gathered to swap baby stories at a shower held at the Brentwood estate of Lyn Lear and her husband, producer Norman Lear, whose 5-year-old twin daughters were also delivered by a surrogate. "I didn't have a baby shower when I expected my girls, because surrogacy was so new and people were just not used to it," says Lear. "This is a very well-thought-out decision," adds actress Mimi Rogers, a longtime friend. "She's prepared, and she's good at [being a mother]."
As for Tiegs's decision to have more children in her 50s, her pals are nothing short of impressed. "We're about the same age, and I couldn't imagine having children right now," says Suzanne Somers, who has known Tiegs since the '70s. "What she is doing is amazing."
For Tiegs, though, there's no better time for her baby boom. "There is no question that I will be a better mother today than I could ever have been when I was really young, because I was so excited about my career," says the former model, who plans to continue working on her sportswear and wigs lines after the babies are born. "I have a lot more patience today. I don't have to prove anything anymore. I can concentrate on my family now."
Julie K.L. Dam
Ulrica Wihlborg in Los Angeles
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- Ulrica Wihlborg.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
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