Helena resident Rae Vansprang can’t say for sure what prompted her to offer to serve as a surrogate for her younger sister — just that it was meant to be.

“It was like God’s voice telling me, ‘You need to tell her,’ ” Vansprang said last week from her seat at the kitchen table in her home on Bahny Road. “So, I said ‘If you can’t carry another baby, I’ll do it for you.”’

Vansprang said the August 2004 declaration to her sister, Robin, at a family reunion wasn’t initially well received, and she left the gathering wondering if she should have said anything at all.

“I think she thought I was saying she couldn’t have another baby,” Vansprang said, explaining that her sister already has a 2½ nyear-old daughter. “What I was really saying was I would do that for her if she couldn’t.”

In fact, the siblings didn’t speak much in the months following Vansprang’s offer, but all of her doubts were washed away in March 2005 when Robin called and asked if the offer was still on the table.

“I told her, of course it was,” she said.

Vansprang, 42, said the next few weeks were a blur. Within the month, Vansprang traveled to Oregon — where her sister lives — to undergo testing to ensure that she was a good candidate to act as a surrogate.

In May, doctors conducted in vitro fertilization on Vansprang, and she failed to get pregnant. They tried again in June, and once again, the procedure was unsuccessful.

In July, however, Vansprang was able to call her sister with good news.

“If she could’ve jumped through the phone line, she would have,” Vansprang said.

Vansprang is no stranger to pregnancy — she has three children of her own — but she said she tried to take note of every milestone so she could share the experience with her sister long distance.

“I called her when I had a bit of morning sickness, I called her up on the first little flutter kicks,” she said, adding that she also e-mailed her sister lots of photos, documenting the changes she was experiencing.

From a physical standpoint, Vansprang said, the pregnancy was fairly easy. She said she could have done without the hiccups that plagued her in the last trimester, but other than that, she was healthy.

In fact, Vansprang continued to operate her home-based dog grooming service — Tender Touch Grooming — right up until she gave birth.

The psychological aspects of the pregnancy were more difficult to reconcile, however.

Vansprang said it was difficult to feel all the excitement of being an expectant mother, but all the time knowing that she really wasn’t a mom-to-be.

“I was trying to not bond too much (with the baby),” she said. “It was like it was mine because it was inside me, but it’s not of me. It’s of my sister.”

It was at that time that Vansprang said she really looked to her faith to help her persevere.

“I just kept saying, ‘God will get me through it,”’ she said.

In a perfect world, the baby wouldn’t have been 10 days late in coming, and Robin would have been at Vansprang’s side to watch her baby come into the world.

But as it worked out, doctors had to take the baby in a Caesarean section after the contractions that came with Vansprang’s induced labor proved to be too traumatic for the infant.

“He was beautiful,” Vansprang said of her nephew when nurses held out the dark-haired, 9-pound, 11-ounce baby for her to look at after the C-section was completed.

But what was more beautiful, Vansprang said, was the look of love on her sister’s face as she cuddled and cooed at her newborn — a baby boy that Robin named Cruz Nicholas — before the nurses whisked him off to the nursery.

“This was a gift I could give her that will make her life complete,” she said.

Robin and the baby have returned to their home in Oregon, and Vansprang is trying to get back to her daily routine.

She says she’s recovering from her C-section nicely, but admits she has good and bad days when it comes to managing her emotions.

Vansprang’s sister promised to send numerous pictures documenting the little boy’s progress, and Vansprang says she hopes to get to Oregon soon for a visit.

“This has been a very rewarding experience,” said Vansprang, adding that, despite the emotional roller coaster she has been riding, she wouldn’t do anything different if given the chance. “(Vansprang and her sister) weren’t that close before this happened. But now I can tell her anything. The relationship has blossomed.”