Episode 108 – Erinna – surrogate

00:14
Welcome back, or if this is your first time, thank you so much for taking the time to listen to Surrogacy Australia’s podcast series with me, your host Anna McKie. My guest on this episode was a co-host on the regular webinar series that I run. Those one hour webinars are free and will take you through the surrogacy process in Australia. You will hear from a surrogate or parent and there are opportunities to type in your questions and we will try to answer them. You can find upcoming dates on our website at surrogacyaustralia.org.

00:44
This episode is one from the archives, recorded in October 2021, and features Erinna. Erinna birthed as a surrogate on the Gold Coast in January 2017 for a couple who were initially strangers. They had a little boy named Sydney for his mum and dad, Alison and Pierce. Unfortunately, when Sid was nearly two years old, Alison passed away from ongoing health issues, and health was part of her reason for needing a surrogate initially.

01:11
Obviously this is not how any surrogate or team imagines things panning out. This recording celebrates their journey and reflects on those teachable moments. In this episode, Erinna talks about how she offered to her IPs, which stands for Intended Parents, and how do you let other IPs know if they’re not the one. We talked about how IPs can pay for expenses, what’s the best and worst part of being a surrogate, anything that she’d do differently.

01:38
and organizing ongoing catch-ups for the surrogacy community and how people might go about that. I had a nice moment at the end because when I was talking about how Surrogacy Australia were about to start hosting Zoom monthly catch-ups, I’m touched because those are still going. And I had forgotten which month and which year we had started them in. So I’m pleased that I edited this recording from the archives and those Zoom monthly catch-ups started in October, 2021. And so they’ve been nearly running for four years.

02:07
If you haven’t attended one of our Zoom monthly catch-ups, I encourage you to be brave and come along. There’s only ever one first time. Hit to the Surrogacy Australia website and you can find dates for upcoming sessions. I hope you enjoy this episode.

02:19
So Erin, tell us a little bit about it. So what brought you to surrogacy in the first place to then go out looking for strangers to carry for? Well, initially I had my first child and the pregnancy was quite easy. The birth was relatively quick and easy. And I thought, Oh, I could do this for someone else. I’ve watched a few shows about surrogacy overseas. think there was a one in the UK and a few. I didn’t really know if it was legal or not in Australia at that point, but I was like, Oh, that’s maybe a thing.

02:49
I didn’t really think about it much and then we had our third child Kaden and he passed away when he was 11 months old so that was kind of SIDS wasn’t it? Yeah, yeah, he died from SIDS which was obviously really really hard but it also made me think wow there are people out there that have lost a baby you know during pregnancy or in infancy who don’t have any living children, who don’t have you know because we still had our two older sons and back.

03:17
kind of that thought and also this kind of needing me to do something positive kind of out of that. Yeah. And it led me to kind of look into it more. Yeah. That was when I joined. So it was about a year after he passed. I just Googled Australian surrogacy. Yeah. And the fertility connections forum. Yep. And then from there found the ASC Facebook page. Yeah. And just kind of started asking questions and chatting to people. I was considering being surrogate for

03:47
extended family member and kind of chatted to them a little bit about that. They ultimately decided a few weeks later that they weren’t going to pursue surrogacy. They’d kind of already come to terms with the fact that they weren’t going to have children and yeah, and just decided that that was kind of where they wanted to go. It’s a little bit like when IPs need a surrogate, they tell their friends and family and get the conversations happening. You wanted to be a surrogate, so you were sort of going, I wonder if anybody in my circle, first of all, needs me before I go out and see if I can find

04:17
a stranger or not so that sounds like what you did there to test the waters yeah yeah so that was kind of the only people I could think of that had tried for a baby for some years and hadn’t been successful I remember I asked a friend who’d been through IVF you know I knew she didn’t need a surrogate but I’m thinking oh I wonder if she’s got any friends in her IVF circle or she’d had twins and maybe

04:38
you know, in other groups, I mean, you’re spreading the word about it, aren’t we? yeah, so then you, you know, we’re in part of the Facebook groups and I guess, you know, back in the days where attending in-person catch-ups was very easy and a special welcome to anybody tonight in, guess, Melbourne and Sydney and.

04:53
in lockdowns. I hope it’s nice to join us and see some faces. So did you initially meet Alison and Pierce in person first or online first? No, online first. So I posted like an instruction post in ASC and Alison commented on that, but it was a pretty short little comment just saying, hi, welcome to the group, like something like that. And then her previous surrogate. So they’d been on a journey before me.

05:20
But that pregnancy ended that baby had some congenital abnormalities that were incompatible with life. So that pregnancy unfortunately didn’t go ahead and their previous surrogate had decided that after that she’d kind of had enough or at least needed a lack of break so that she wasn’t gonna.

05:43
try again for them, at least for a while. So their previous surrogate contacted me, she messaged me and said,

05:52
Hi, this is who I am and this is who my intended parents are. And this is kind of our story. And she said, Alison commented on your post, you know, would you be interested in chatting to her? So I messaged Alison and said, Hey, sorry, get to chatted to me. Hello. And kind of just started chatting from there. Yep. For any IPs listening, you know, this probably sounds like high school or dating or, you know, young adults. And that’s exactly how it often works in this community is that it’s a connection. So another

06:22
surrogate put you in touch. I mean obviously she had quite a close connection to them but um just shows that we do need to be chatting to lots of different people because you just never know who’s going to almost be a matchmaker if you like there. So then so then you you chatted and met and got to know each other. Do you roughly remember from that first message roughly then how long it took to chat together and do some appointments and get pregnant? I think it was four months until I and we met up in person twice and spent a lot of time messaging. When I

06:52
offered to be the surrogate and then we started the process I think

06:56
two months later with the fertility specialist and the legals and the counseling and all of that. a looking back now, doesn’t it? Yeah, it’s like all the masks there, it’s like hanging around with it. So I think it was eight months between when we first started chatting and when I was pregnant, which is pretty short. The Queensland process is a little bit easier than some other states. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. I think we’d say six to 12 months, you know, would be about an average sort of thing. And then pregnant first go and yes.

07:26
Yes, so that worked well. So that might bring me back. I’m going to go back to these these photos now. And how was the pregnancy? As you said, you sort of you seem to be enjoy being pregnant and birth and that seemed to be okay. Did that end up being the case with Cerebellum? We did have some issues. I’d had SPD, Sympathetic Puberty Dysfunction in previous pregnancies, but I’d got it a lot earlier in this one than I had in previous ones. So it started at 16 weeks. So it’s a lot of pelvic pain. Yeah, a lot of pelvic pain. Basically,

07:56
feels like someone stabbed you in your pelvis.

08:00
Yep. And be very sharp and very like a very kind of intense paint but fortunately that doesn’t last very long. But it’s tough going when it lasts. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s not very much fun. It’s the things that women put their bodies through hey to help. But I mean we understand but and I guess the IPs do what they can and just they’re to listen and when you vent about it all. So how far apart did you live? So they live about 45 minutes away in good traffic. Yep. Because they live on the south side of Brisbane.

08:30
and I live on the Gold Coast. The motorway that runs between us can be really, really good or really, terrible. So there are times when it’s taken me nearly three hours to get home from their house. Okay, unexpected. Yes. So still. So they’re not, they weren’t super close, but not too far.

08:48
Yeah, so you could plan, you know, and they were attending most of those major appointments, I’d imagine, during the pregnancy too. Yeah, yeah. Alison tried to get to most of my appointments. There were occasionally ones that were booked at short notice. She had a day when she was in theatre. She was a radiographer that worked with the team that does brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease. Wow, huh. Yeah, so there were some days where she just couldn’t get it, kind of get away from work. But she made a real effort to come to as many.

09:18
you could. Wonderful. So then I think the next photo here is Burst and so I guess sometimes for brand new IPs listening sometimes they wonder are we at the Burst? Do we get to be a part of the Burst? So sounds like, I mean you’re so comfortable with them by this point in time I’d imagine that they’re supporting you in lots of different ways and that’s your husband there too obviously. Putting an ice pack on your back or a heat pack or? A heat pack. Heat pack. Their faces tell it all don’t they in some ways they’re excited but nervous and you remember.

09:47
that these photos bring up feelings or thoughts for you? Yeah, I mean, a lot of this, like I wasn’t kind of aware of at the time because I was just kind of focused on myself and what I was feeling in the birth process. So these photos are really great because I never would have seen like most of those facial expressions and the kind of emotions that were happening for them. So I love these photos. Yeah. So everyone listening, plan on that. And this one here is like almost like

10:13
If I had to like rank a top five, this next one is I just, mean the emotion, the release there and it, you know, how do you capture surrogacy in a photo? Usually the woman holding the baby has birthed the baby, but the woman holding that baby, if you think about where that umbilical cord’s going, that’s going to you. Has this become a favorite photo of yours? It is. It’s, it’s one of my favorites, just seeing the emotion on both of their faces. Um, and little Sydney, they’re kind of.

10:42
face all screwed up because he’s just come out. Yeah, it’s just, it’s so beautiful. And this one here, that’s the one I had front and center. Yeah. Did she say something to you there or just? There weren’t any words. It was just this look and I could just tell that it was just gratitude and I think proud of you. Yeah. Yeah. It was really sweet. And I love that moment so much because it feels like it encapsulates our journey a lot of the time. Like it was mainly about

11:12
the two of us. Like our husbands were there to support and they were really great but it was like mainly about the two of us. Yes and again here I remember having my hand on you know one of my IPs once Bubs was born and I think I hear that in hetero couples, the surrogate and the intended mum bond quite closely almost a sisterly bond in some ways. You’re sharing your pregnancy with her and she’s getting it’s her pregnancy through you I’d imagine. And it’s such an intimate process too like the conversations that you have

11:42
about menstrual cycles and hemorrhoids and all sorts of things that you wouldn’t necessarily talk to like a casual friend about. So it’s a very intimate process yeah. And it’s a fast tracking of a friendship sort of less than two years from you know first message to birth year and how close that you become in that time. It’s a beautiful thing to do and so then we’ve got here Sid’s first birthday I think you said to me in a message box? And catch up at a park with friends and family there I’d imagine. Yeah.

12:12
Yeah, so it was a pretty big party. had extended family and friends and lots of kids running around. It was really lovely. Yeah. And then this photo here is in someone’s rumpus room.

12:23
playroom or something with third or fourth birthday? said his fourth birthday. Yeah. So his birthday this year just gone. The one just gone. Yes. I guess. So obviously there’s in that last photo, there’s someone missing. Alison passed away before Sid’s second birthday. Yeah. Yeah. So nearly three years ago now. Yeah. It was pretty unexpected. She had a heart condition and that was the reason why she needed a surrogate. She wasn’t infertile, but she’d been quite healthy for some time. And you know, she was that kind of a miracle person who

12:53
was still able to work full time, still kept active, had hobbies and things and loved being a mum. She was quite an active mum with Sydney as well. Yeah, but she just had a turn as Piers said and a few days later she passed away. So yeah, it’s not…

13:12
not the journey that the happily ever after picture that you picture as a surrogate when you aim to carry for the friend or go out of your way to find people to carry for you, picturing making them both parents and watching them enjoy parenthood and all the ups and downs of parenthood that that brings. And yes, of course, watching your little mate Sydney grow up, but also watching your friend Alison be a mum. So there’s that part of your journey that doesn’t continue, does it? That’s, guess, quite a lot of emotions. There’s still joy there because Sydney’s still around and there’s still a friendship there, but it’s

13:42
different I’d imagine. Yeah it’s it’s pretty good.

13:45
complicated actually, like obviously there’s a lot of grief, like she was a really close friend and I still miss her. But it’s also really great that there’s a part of her that’s here still. Yeah, in her little man. Yeah. And the story that he has, seeing, looking at this photo, this extended family that he has through you now, it’s tough, isn’t it? And these are the realities of surrogacy that life is fragile for all of us, everybody involved. And it’s a serious thing that we embark upon in surrogacy.

14:15
health, not just the baby, it’s the surrogate and her family and then the intended parents and moving on. So it is a scenario that happens, hopefully not often, but it’s happened to your team and that is a sense of unfairness, but you wouldn’t wish it on anyone of course. So do they still live in the same house? Are you still that same distance apart now? Yeah, So Peas and Sydney still live in that house.

14:40
45 minutes away. We don’t see them as much as kind of we initially discussed kind of before the surrogacy. And I think like partly because that really close friendship was between me and Alison. So there’s obviously a kind of different dynamic now that she’s gone. And also particularly over the last few years with COVID and all of the craziness and then P is being a single dad who works full time. Like life gets really busy. It happens to us all really, but even more so for him kind of.

15:10
Yeah. Juggling everything in the house and this four-year-old. So yeah, I’d imagine that if there’s a main person that you have built the friendship with or the contact with and they’re out of the equation, it shifts things. And it’s probably a slow burn process to never fill in that gap, but to make that connection with Pierce and deepen that. And often it’s in a hetero couple, I don’t know if in your own household, it’s often the women that run the calendar, you know, and scheduling all the catch-ups and the husbands are grateful when they come along. But then if Alison’s out of the equation scheduling in

15:40
catch-ups might not.

15:41
be on the front of Pierce’s mind, it’s probably you initiating it most of the time, I’d imagine, which is trickier, isn’t it? That’s kind of how it’s been, is me kind of initiating that. And there was a bit, like I did have some feelings about that in the beginning, but I’ve just kind of like come to terms with the fact that it’s gonna be different because she’s gone and just kind of getting used to that new friendship, that new dynamic without her there. Yeah. I often think, you know, like if you and I lived in the same city and we were to catch up for a coffee,

16:11
one time I’d initiate the catch-up and then a month or so later you go, Anna let’s catch up and you initiate it. There’s often that even to and fro, it probably sounds like now it’s pretty much always gonna be you driving it and I’m sensing when you do catch up it’s fine, but it’s just you’re the driver now and sometimes you’ve got the energy and the capacity for that and then imagine other times you’ve a bit overwhelmed and going, I don’t have the time, just I wish it’d be different. Damn you universe.

16:37
but come to accept that that’s just kind of how it is now. So what your team looks like. that’s okay. is still like more than happy to catch up with us when he has time and when we have time and can get those calendars to match up. Yes. So yeah, that is good. Yeah. So, I mean, so we’ve got one question here, but I guess for anybody listening, it’s a very unique experience that you’re here tonight on this webinar, joining us with Erin and this unique story that I’m not familiar with, you know, it happening very often, you know, in my five years. You know, I’m sure there’s some

17:07
take away moments from this all to reflect on for what type of journey that we want and and to embrace all the joy that along the way because you might not sure how long it’ll all last but hopefully everybody to build these solid friendships so that there is you know a friendship between everybody there so so let’s go to our first question I guess here tonight I’ll read it out an anonymous question what does post-birth look like from IPs

17:30
to surrogates, example, what if there are complications after birth and the surrogate needs surgery or postnatal depression? Do they cover the costs and how long after birth would IPs expect to care or the costs for their lovely surrogate? Erinna, did your team have an agreement in terms of like, did you have a debit card that was connected to their account and how long you might keep that for? No, we didn’t have a debit card. So I would just send them photos of receipts and things like that. Or if it was something that they could pay for upfront, then I would get like get bills sent to them.

18:00
Did you have birth complications? Like a physio needed post birth? No, all my issues kind of disappeared with the birth so without having that

18:11
baby putting extra pressure on my pelvis and back, those things kind of cleared up on their own. So there was no issue there. The only specific thing we had with the date was the extra life insurance that they’d bought for me ran out three months post-birth. And we all decided that I hadn’t had any issues. I’d been given it all clear from my healthcare providers. So we just kind of let that pass.

18:33
So was a moment to reflect as a team going, that’s lapsing at three months. Let’s have a check in. Are there issues? And I’m sure they would have continued it, but because as a team you went, there’s not, but it’s not like they just left at laps and didn’t tell you, you had a conversation about it as a team. Um, apart from that, we didn’t, we didn’t really discuss that much. We just kind of thought like, if anything came up, then we’ll have a conversation about it. And there was enough trust there that you knew they were good for it. So to speak, can speak from my experience on the postnatal depression.

19:03
I got slammed with it myself.

19:06
We probably should have used a different counselor for our mandatory, somebody that had much more experience in surrogacy. We had Katrina Hale as our ongoing counselor. We should have had her at the beginning and she would have unpacked my past struggles. I had reassured them that if I would struggle post-birth, I’m an articulate woman. I’ll let you know that if I’m struggling, but anybody that’s been in anxiety or depression and you’re in the cloud, you can’t speak up often at the time and articulate that you need help or you don’t want to be a burden. So that was tricky for us. Your body changes post-birth too. And so I needed

19:36
in between clothes as well before I got back to my normal size. So there was an agreement there for some costs. Up to 12 months post-birth could be reasonable, but as a team, you might have a check-in at three, six months. You know, if she had some ongoing physio or some pain and she was having ongoing appointments, I guess the way to look at it would be as an IP. If the pregnancy was in your body and you’d had the baby and you’re having these issues as a result of carrying that pregnancy, then it is reasonable to expect that there would be some care. But again, you don’t want to know how

20:05
Is that an open door forever? You do want a little bit of planning. For me, once I then did a mental health care plan and went on antidepressants as a team, we then agreed that I would have ongoing counseling up until 12 months post-birth. And so to yesterday, I think I had my 12 months just session with Katrina.

20:23
to round out the year. So because I’m on the mental health care plan, though, the dad’s a large portion of that was covered by Medicare. So they were just paying the gap. So I guess their last payment happened this week, 12 months post birth. But that was all discussed. And surrogates don’t want to cost you more money than they need to. So we want to buffer it as best we can for you. So Anonymous, I hope that answers that question for you. If you’ve got a more specific question, come back and ask it if you need a bit more detail. you probably know the answer to this one. Is it possible for both the IPs and the surrogate to have the same lawyers if they live in the

20:53
same area? No, no. They need to be independent of each other. Why? Well, the idea is that you want one lot of lawyers for the surrogate who is looking after her interests and one lot of lawyers are looking after the IP’s interests. And there’s a potential for a conflict of interest if that person is the same. Yes, because I suppose they could.

21:13
be preferencing the IP or the surrogate and influence things in a particular way. So, yeah, it’s the law. That’s how it works in Australia. Two lawyers, the IP start, the agreement gets drawn up, they send it to the surrogate’s lawyer and the surrogate speaks to her lawyer independently and then it gets sent.

21:29
back and signed. Yeah, but often lawyers who specialize in surrogacy work in pairs. So yeah, ask the community for pairs. So that’s why they have to be separate for independent legal advice. That’s the main reason there. Are there any other sort of takeaway moments that you’d like to pass on, Erinus, some particular guidance that you often find you give other people or some learnings? I wanted to say a little bit more about the kind of post-birth kind of journey. It was a, didn’t have any complications as such.

21:59
I didn’t get postnatal depression, there weren’t any physical issues. But I did find sometimes asking to see the baby as much as I wanted to was a little bit awkward. We hadn’t really talked about like how I would see him.

22:13
IPs like you can see him as much as you want or as little as what you know, we’ll have an open door policy whenever you like but we hadn’t really talked about how that was gonna look and Would they come to you sort of thing? Yeah, and it turned out that they just kind of assumed that I would do all the traveling because I didn’t have a small baby I was recovering from birth and was often quite tired and Still navigating your own two lads. Yeah. Yeah, and I still and I had a five-year-old and eight-year-old at that

22:43
So not babies, but you know, I still had to be there for school pick up and that kind of thing. Yeah, so there were like several kind of conversations about how are we gonna do this? Cause I really felt like I needed to see him quite regularly to kind of reassure my body and my brain that he was safe and he was happy. Yeah, so I would encourage people to have those conversations in depth before the baby’s born.

23:09
in what does it look like? Whose house? One little thing that we did is one of the dads Matt he was in charge of organizing the next catch-up when we’re in a catch-up so I never wanted to finish a catch-up without knowing when the next one was coming and so yeah we had a plan of every day for the first week then the next week every second day but yeah as you said it was and whose house and what time of day who’s the logistics there um yeah yes and because yeah you got a post-birth report

23:35
body to recover from too, which can be tired and bleeding for weeks. So yeah, that’s some good advice there. And did you talk about how much contact in terms of messages and photos post birth? Was that frequent and forthcoming? We did.

23:49
really talk very much about that. mean, Alison just kind of had a habit of when she took a really cute photo or a really cool photo, she would just send it to me. Like she’d send it to baby’s grandparents and then send it to me as well. So sometimes that would be, you know, every day. Sometimes it would be, you know, once a week, just kind of whenever she did it, we didn’t have anything specific and that was okay. There were a couple of times when I wanted to see a new photo. So I would ask, but most of the time the kind of haphazard photos were enough. Yeah. And you knew that you were part of that special group.

24:19
like grandparents and stuff, but they were getting the photos and so were you. So it’s nice to feel that you’re part of that special circle. Yeah. And it was just something that happened. wasn’t, it didn’t feel kind of like forced, like she knew that, you know, every Monday and every Thursday she had to send a photo and it was just kind of when she thought of it. Great. Yeah. There’s spontaneity there. So if you’ve got time, look, the questions that they’ve finally warmed up for us. I saw Kate’s come through first, which said, how did you offer to be a surrogate? My offer was

24:49
was quite boring. Since then I’ve seen all these people do these really fun surprises and messages and presents and things. I didn’t do anything like that. I had a bit of a timeline in terms of when I wanted to become pregnant by and I’m not super creative in terms of surprises, things like that. Mine was a text message. We had our second face-to-face catch up and we’d been chatting for about four months online as well. At that second catch up,

25:19
kind of talked about a lot of the more difficult things in terms of, you know, ideas about termination, what kind of birth I wanted, you know, did I want to express after baby was born? Like a lot of those things that can be a little bit difficult to talk about, but that are really necessary to talk about before you become a team, because we were like pretty much on the same page for all of those things. I just sent her a message saying, I’ve, you know, had a talk to Chris, my husband, and we both really like you.

25:49
no issues, like we’d like to have a baby for you. And that was like pretty much it. Good, yeah. And that’s all it really needs to be at the end of the day. So I’ll just add in my story then, my little advice is that I guess, yeah, you guys were dating. So for me, the second time I met them, but lots of messages in between, I said to them, I’m offering to be your surrogate, but I’m offering to date you. I want to get to know you for six months before we start any of the paperwork. And so let’s have these nights where we date nights where we catch up.

26:19
want them going off looking for another surrogate and I didn’t want to go off looking for other IPs. I wanted to be exclusive in that sense so I wanted them to know that and then about six months later I was ready and we actually did an escape room like an adventure room and I had a little thing planned when we escaped the room so that was my thing. Anonymous, what if you start chatting to IPs and you don’t

26:38
click, it could be awkward to end that relationship and you’re worried about getting IP’s hopes up. You’re right. But it is like dating, isn’t it? If you meet a life partner, a person that you think could be a life partner and then they’re not, you don’t owe them. You wouldn’t stay together in a relationship because you’re worried about getting their hopes up or hurting them. We don’t owe anybody a baby and they’ve got to be people that you’re going to be friends with for life. So have you got any suggestions on that, Erin, to somebody that’s worried about hurting people’s feelings, I guess? I haven’t been in that position. I was.

27:08
chatting to three sets of IPs but it just kind of naturally turned out that there was one set that weren’t ready, didn’t have the same timeline as me and there was another set who had some family issues come up in the meantime and that they couldn’t continue at that point. and then Alison Pierce just it was so easy with them they felt like kind of family from as soon as we met them like it seemed like a no-brainer. Trust your gut instinct in that sense. It’s got to feel easy. Yeah.

27:37
That’s it. think if you’ve got to force it, then they’re maybe not the right ones. Yeah. So it could be a tough conversation, but it needs to be had and do it gently and imagine you’re in their shoes. They’re tricky conversations. can’t, we’re not going to lie to you. are tricky to have. So yeah, just be honest and kind. I think when you have to have those conversations and thank them, you know, for the friendship that you do, you have built. And maybe you might be able to be friends and support each other on a journey. So what happens if something happens to the IP?

28:07
while you’re pregnant, like worst case in case they split or pass away. These are all talked about in counselling. That’s something your team talked about, in counselling, what would happen? Yeah, so we discussed it a few times on our own and then again in counselling. They had basically said that it would be the same as if the child were already there. So if they were to split up while I was pregnant, then they would organise a custody arrangement after the baby was born. And it would be just the same as if they had divorced years down the track.

28:37
And then pretty much the same thing if one or both of them die.

28:41
like they had wills and the baby would either go to the living parent if they were still alive or if both passed and they had, well not sure, there was a family member that had said that they would step up anyway. Yes. So yeah. And for us it was, that was the impetus for us to make sure I had the mobile numbers of the two grandmas. So I’d met them but it made us go, oh so although the grandmas might not necessarily be the one to raise the baby, they would help facilitate it. I, surrogates don’t want to be carers of the baby, I’m sure we would all help

29:11
to make sure baby goes into someone’s care of course and we’d still want to be connected but um yeah all of that stuff is talked about in counseling. Bobby lovely to have you here asks us as surrogates and with the benefit of hindsight do you have anything you’d probably do differently with ips which i might tie into the question that Kate’s asked what’s the best and the worst part of being a surrogate and and what would you do differently therefore? that’s a big question the best part was oh there’s so many like the amazing relationship

29:40
that I built with them and that I now have with Sydney, as well as their extended families. Like I hadn’t really thought of grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, like that kind of thing. But when I was 12 weeks pregnant, my parents had a barbecue and they invited the baby’s grandparents and kind of all those close family and friends. And it was really touching to see everyone and how grateful they were to me for carrying their grandchild or family member.

30:10
And yeah, because it wasn’t something that I’d really thought about, was like, wow, it’s not just about them, it’s kind of about everyone else as well. So that was really beautiful. It’s the village. You got to see the village that he was going to be a part of when he grew up. Yeah. And I’m still like,

30:25
seen them at birthday parties and various things. Alison’s mum still sends me birthday presents every year. Yeah, so that was a really kind of surprising kind of positive from the surrogacy. Yeah, worst things. Sounds like navigating the post-birth initially. Yeah. At the time it’s intense, isn’t it? And it’s a big deal. know, we’re years past it now, but it’s hard. It is. Like even when it’s pretty easy, like even when you have a great relationship like I

30:53
And even when you don’t have any complications or postnatal depression, it’s still rough. You still have those hormonal kind of ups and downs, that roller coaster. You still have that kind of need, or at least I did, to see the baby regularly and make sure that he was okay. And then I could kind of go, ah.

31:10
Like, it’s all right. And there’d be like a bit of a relief there. Yeah. So kind of navigating how that was all going to work. And, you know, would they reimburse me for some of my travel? Because I did do a vast majority of the traveling, at least in those first kind of few weeks. Yeah. And the awkward, awkward discussions about money. Like that was.

31:29
Difficult and there’s all these little things that kind of came up and I was like is this a surrogacy expense? Is it not and I know some surrogates are happy to absorb some of that those costs but for us we couldn’t really because my husband was studying full-time and I was working part-time So our budget was pretty tight at that time. So we kind of needed to watch all those little pennies. Yeah Yeah, and it’s nice to have a bit more buffer and to know what’s reasonable and so sometimes trying to find ways

31:59
like SAS, we’ve written down those lists of expenses and I’ve created like ranges and averages. And so the teams might have a joint spreadsheet, for example. My husband was like a bit of, we’re both maths teachers. And so having that spreadsheet that we could all refer to took some of that emotion out of that. For example, I don’t know if you had a similar one, like as a team, we’d estimated how much I might need on maternity clothing, particularly bras can be quite expensive. And that when I then needed some at a couple of different points in time, I could look back at that and go,

32:29
team we’d estimated this many hundreds, I’ve only spent this. I now don’t feel so bad if I’m going to spend more because we as a team plan for it. So, but those conversations, it feels like you’re a little kid asking your parents for money, doesn’t it? When it’s a bit yuck. So did your team go okay on the whole or there was some icky moments? There was some awkward moments. It was mostly pretty good. And there were times where I was like, this isn’t really a need in that, like I absolutely need this thing. was like, like the dress that I’m wearing in the photo of the baby shower.

32:59
I was like, I want to buy a new dress because I kind of don’t have any nice maternity dresses except for the one that I wore to my third son’s baby shower. And I felt awkward about wearing that to the new baby’s one. And she was like,

33:12
that’s fine like we thought you might want to buy a new thing for the for the baby shower anyway because you know we take photos and want to look nice because it’s a big party lots of people yeah yeah so a lot of times even though there was that I don’t really know if this is appropriate or not we could mostly discuss it and kind of come to an agreement which kind of made things easier yep but yes money’s awkward every team I think says that I’m sure there’s not one that ever does our last question here from James and student and thanking you for sharing your

33:42
story with us. A question then, if they wanted to organize a surrogacy or IP catch up in their state, how would they go about advertising that? And to Erin, if you had your time again looking for IPs, would you have attended a face-to-face catch up? You did though, but would you say that that’s an important thing to do then? I did really enjoy the catch ups.

34:02
There weren’t any that were on kind of at the time when I was kind of actively looking for IPs, but I have enjoyed them since like I went to a few while was pregnant and I’ve been to a few since he born as well. And it’s really nice seeing people in person because you know, you’re typing words on a keyboard, a bit more impersonal than like talking to someone face to face. And you get a really good kind of feel for what someone’s like. I think when you see each other in person, like Alison and Pierce were pretty keen for us to meet up in

34:32
pretty quickly after we’d started chatting because they’d had a couple of surrogates that they’d talked to and they thought they got on quite well but then they met in person and they were like, oh it just doesn’t feel right. So they kind of wanted to do that early on before everyone got their hopes up kind of thing. Yeah it is really important to catch up face to face whether that’s a big group catch up or just meeting someone coffee. Yeah. Yep that’s good advice. In terms of and in terms of organizing those catch ups I’ve organized one it’s really something that you have to keep

35:01
bumping. If you put it up in either your local group or the big ASC group, you need to keep bumping it like reposting or commenting on your post about catch up. Like a couple of weeks out, a week out, a couple of days out and then like the day before to keep it fresh in everyone’s mind. Cause otherwise you’ll get like hardly anyone turn up. That’s my tip. And yeah, my tip to that when people do say they’re going maybe even message them privately and you can follow up with them if you want to. You’re doing an in-person one.

35:31
doing it in your Facebook groups, if you’re in those state-based ones. And even if you start small, my advice would be even if you find one other couple to meet with a coffee and then, or.

35:41
meal and then you’ve met them and then the next time around you might bring in some others but then you already know somebody so it doesn’t have to be big because then sometimes you’ve got the opportunity to be let down if not many people come. Sometimes it’s better to go small and build up a network there. Funnily enough in the next day or so we’re announcing something that we are doing. Service Australia is going to be running monthly zoom catch-ups on a Friday night. We had a trial run last week so they’re nationwide so anybody can join.

36:07
them and we’re going to make that a regular thing. So you’ve got that to look forward to that you’re welcome to attend James and Stu and it’ll be interesting to see how many people come to that. And again, so that you might’ve been messaging people like Erin was saying, but then even Zooms are something in between, isn’t it? To get tone of voice and see people. we, in our trial run, we did some breakout rooms so that you can get a chance. If there’s 20 screens that are attending, 20 couples and some surrogates too, it’s very hard to talk to everybody. So we’ve been practicing some breakouts.

36:37
so that you get a chance to chat in small groups. Yeah, so James, you might do an in-person one or you might organize a Zoom one as well. So I hope that helps. So before we wrap up then, Erin, any last minute thoughts or parting advice? No, I think we covered everything that I would have like active wanted to share with everyone. yeah, just thank you all for listening and for having me. Absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing your story. We really appreciate that. You’re welcome. Thank you so much for joining me.

37:04
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