Born from the Heart is a deeply personal and courageous memoir that chronicles Barbara van der Maaten's journey through infertility, international surrogacy, and ultimately motherhood. From the earliest chapters, Barbara shares her lifelong longing to become a mother and the heartbreak of discovering she could not carry a child due to diminished ovarian reserve, endometriosis, and invasive fibroids. After years of failed fertility treatments and a four-and-a-half-year adoption waitlist that led nowhere, she and her husband Koen chose a new path: gestational surrogacy.