Episode 119 – Natalie – surrogate

00:13
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.

00:43
This episode, recorded in August 2025, features Natalie. Natalie birthed a little girl, Ali, as a surrogate in Albury, New South Wales in March 2025 for Cherie and Ferg. Natalie was best friends with Cherie’s sister growing up and they reconnected when Natalie did a Facebook post about wanting to be a surrogate. Natalie was a traditional surrogate, meaning she was also the egg donor. Her journey has been challenging with postnatal depression and communication issues with the parents.

01:13
Natalie is supported by her partner Erin and daughter Olly. Ah, this episode is important because we need to share the stories of when surrogacy doesn’t go well. As you’ll hear, Natalie and her family were out of pocket on many occasions. Surrogates are giving people and are aware of how much this journey costs their intended parents, IPs. So we don’t want it to cost more than it needs to. But it’s not okay for the surrogate and her family to absorb costs like days off work for appointments,

01:42
travel costs, maternity clothes, medication when unwell, and counselling sessions related to surrogacy. It’s not just about money though. Surrogacy is an investment of time. Surrogates want to spend time with their IPs during the pregnancy, at appointments, and post-birth. This is part of the emotional reward for the surrogate. Natalie talked about how after birth she felt like everyone else had moved on with their life, how she felt that the gift she’d given was unimportant.

02:10
and that she had given up 18 months of her life for that. I know there are many, many IPs in Australia who do understand what it takes to do surrogacy well in Australia with our altruistic model of surrogacy. How the payment for a surrogate in Australia is not a financial payment, rather an emotional payment made in the currency of time, friendship, and love. If you’d like to hear more on these ideas, check out a presentation by surrogacy psychologist Katrina Hale.

02:38
It can be found in the further reading section on our website in the webinar section titled, Are You Up For It? I’ll also put a link in the show notes. I hope you enjoy this episode. Thank you for joining us, Natalie. I guess take us back to the beginning about why you wanted to be a surrogate in the first place and then how eventually you found the IPs that you carried for. So I guess I thought about being a surrogate.

03:00
probably for a long time. And I guess I had my daughter in 2019. And when I was at an appointment for the gestational diabetes, the test you got to do.

03:10
There was a lady there talking about how she’d spent like 20 years trying to have kids and she was like, she was working there and she was just saying to another worker, she spent like 20 years. said, I just can’t keep doing it anymore. And obviously I got pregnant like first go was quite easy. Um, and my pregnancy with my daughter, Ollie was really good. So I thought I’m going to be sorry one day.

03:31
So you quite enjoyed being pregnant then? Yeah I did. I enjoyed being pregnant with Oli quite a lot. Like it was a really smooth pregnancy. I’ve had to have a caesarean and at the end that was sort the only thing. The birth was not quite perfect but everything else was yeah.

03:44
And I just wanted to give someone else that opportunity to, you know, be able to have what I was able to have really easy. So, yeah. So it’s that combination of enjoying pregnancy and wanting to help others. Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. And so then as we said in the intro that eventually it was through a connection that growing up there. And so you put out a Facebook post, did you? Yeah. So I joined one of the surrogacy or yeah, one of the sites on Facebook and I just put out a post saying that, you know, I was looking at either been an egg donor or surrogate and I had a lot of people contact me like,

04:14
After that, like straight away, you know, obviously they say you shouldn’t let people do. Yeah, a good friend contacted me, which is obviously the IPs then that I went with. So we sort of got talking and I guess for me, I was like, you know, somebody I know, known most of my life. I thought I could help them. So were they in that Facebook group with you? Yes.

04:34
Yeah, they were. So that’s interesting then that if you hadn’t chatted to them that you had that connection with, in some ways you would have had to sort of date or filter your way through which IPs might have been the right match for you. Yes, that’s it. As opposed to then you went, well hang on, I’ve kind of got this connection with this person, you know, from history. Well, we sort of know, we knew of each other, but you had the, with the sister you were closer with. Yeah, I was best friends with her, yeah, younger sister growing up. So yeah, I hadn’t had much to do with her.

05:00
probably like 10 years, but you know, was a known over and we’re on Facebook and you you say hello, that sort of thing. And so in some ways that can work out really well, or sometimes it can present challenges from, from my experience in the community that sometimes if you do carry for people that you know of, sometimes there’s not the thoroughness put in, that planning of the journey about discussing all of the hard questions. Is that what you felt? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Like I thought it would be easier with somebody you knew. I thought doing it with someone I didn’t know I was kind

05:30
I’m like, no, not too sure on that. It’d be kind of awkward. Obviously now I would be the opposite. I would say the opposite, that I think maybe somebody I didn’t know would be a better option, like for what you just sort of said in that, you know, it might be easy to ask them questions and you sort of talk about so much more. Yes. What was the sort of timeline? Do you happen to remember from when you first started the chats about surrogacy? Cause then you had paperwork to… It was only sort of a couple of months. I posted the post in December.

05:57
2023 and I got pregnant in June 2024, so like six months from when I first posted it. We sort of started talking for a couple of months and then we did the counseling and the agreement and I think I was due for ovulation like six days after we did the agreement. So we of just went straight with it and I got pregnant for the first time. So it was quite quick, I suppose.

06:21
I don’t know if this is too personal to ask of your intended mother, but she needed an egg donor as well as a surrogate then for medical reasons? Yeah, she did. Yes. So yeah, obviously that’s why I was happy to use my eggs. So yeah, a traditional surrogate and we just did the home insemination. As in my presentation part, I mentioned that it’s quite rare. That’s only 15 % or 10 to 15 % of traditional like yourself. So they got quite lucky in you finding the egg donor and the surrogate in one go, I’ve got to say. Yeah.

06:51
it like the cost was less and um you know it was a little bit sort of awkward the process of doing it but yeah absolutely yeah and luckily it worked first time so first good so you don’t do that repeating months there no no that’s it and i yeah my partner she was able to say she kind of got me pregnant so because yeah and we sort of just put it up in you know so and so were the home disseminations done in your house or in the IP’s house? Uh in our

07:20
Yeah. Yeah. So we did three, three days in a row, like three goes of it. And yeah, obviously I got pregnant from that. So one of them days. Yes. And so what’s the distance between you and the IPs? About half an hour. Yeah. 40 minutes. So yeah, not too far. Yeah. Okay. So then we’re sort of saying that that’s six months. So for example, for my team, it was a year. So it was six months of dating and then just having the conversations and then the paperwork.

07:44
with the counseling legals and I guess IVF clinic for us, that took more like six months. So was a year from when we first started chatting until we got pregnant. And I think sometimes we say in the community, it’s much harder to keep a mask on for a year, right? The rose colored glasses start to come off. And so sometimes having that extra time helps with some of those things. You get to see each other in different lights. It doesn’t always work just because you do, plenty of teams that do take the same amount of time as I did and it doesn’t work out like it. There’s still collapses that happen. So it can happen for any team.

08:13
And so then you got pregnant first go. And so then what was the pregnancy like for yourself? Was it a hard pregnancy or similar to your own daughters? Yeah, it was. It was a lot different to obviously my daughter. Like I had really bad headaches. Yeah, I sort of had a bit of morning sickness. Yeah, like a few other health things and that just tired. Definitely not like the first one. So I didn’t enjoy it anywhere near as much.

08:37
Absolutely. And you don’t really know until you get pregnant, I suppose. Like people say, two different pregnancies. Yes. Were there any types of supports then that your IPs were able to offer or do for you? Or were there certain things then in hindsight that they didn’t do that you kind of wish they could have? I think it probably would have been more so like maybe coming to see us a little bit more often would have been nice. So obviously throughout, think like from when I got pregnant and we first sort of did a little announcement thing for them, I think we only sort of seen them.

09:06
once or twice. Yeah, so I think it would have been nice to sort of, yeah, catch up a bit more throughout the time. And it’s that spending time together as friends too, isn’t it? Yeah, and I think for them to, you know, then obviously, you know, see Bub as she like, you know, feel as she got bigger and that sort of stuff. You know, we did sort of sage on come out. But yeah, obviously, they were sort of busy.

09:28
So you didn’t have sort of a structure of, we’ll catch up once a fortnight for dinner at each other’s house. There was no structure like that. No, and look, maybe we should have had a bit more of a, like, you know, I think sometimes you say things like, you know, at first, like, I’ll do this, this and this, and then it just doesn’t always work that way. Were they present at the appointments with midwives and doctors and stuff along the way?

09:49
to like the ultrasound and that like just the general midwife ones. I just attended that. So yeah, they didn’t come to like every session that looked, that was fine. Like I sort of probably felt more comfortable just doing that, like just the normal ones. And I think that’s sort of something I didn’t think of as much is that sometimes it’s a lot of personal stuff about yourself. Like as a surrogate, like then do you want other people in the room when you might be talking about constipation or, know, them sort of awkward things that you don’t want to like, and I didn’t think about that a lot. was like, yeah, it’ll be fine. Like, think some, I think of some teams.

10:19
where they might all be at the appointment together and then they might just leave the room if they’re talking about certain lady bits issues and stuff. But it’s interesting because sometimes those appointments with midwives and…

10:31
or doctors, they’re also teaching them about parenting and preparing to have the newborn. So there can’t, there’s definitely a lot of benefit. If you do. And we did have uh a, a session at midlife, but she was really good. And yeah, she did sort of an information session and we went through a bit of a birth plan and all that sort of stuff and things for them, you know, cause obviously some stuff didn’t relate to me cause I wasn’t having a bubble afterwards. So yeah, that’s true. Was it a plan? it a plan Cesarean for this, for surrogate bubble? It was, but I went.

10:59
into labor like the day before so I ended up having emergencies there at midnight. So she just wanted to come a day early. She did, she was ready. Yeah.

11:09
I’m going to go back to sharing the photos now and because they tell a bit of the story there because some people will be listening to this as a podcast so they won’t be able to see that. So I think in the middle there we’ve got the pregnancy announcement and then either side we’ve got some beautiful bump photos during your pregnancy. So tell us a little bit about each of these photos and what they mean to you. Yeah so obviously the pregnancy tests and the like we just brought.

11:30
that little love heart thing, all things grow with love and a little suit. I put that in a box and got my daughter Olly to give that to the intended parents. So then she opened the box and there was the pregnancy test, you know, we’re pregnant. So we just sort of like, you know, wanted to make it sort of special, I guess for them. Definitely. And then, yeah, we did photos every week throughout like me being pregnant, obviously in that same dress. uh Just sort of, yeah, just something sort of to see. And I guess for, um, Bob, when she gets older as well, for her to sort of see, you she might want to look at them photos.

12:00
Yes, and then obviously the other side is the ones with my daughter Olly as well.

12:05
because she needed to be in the photo all the time. Yes. And so how old was Ollie then when Ali was born? She was five, yeah. So she turned six in about four weeks. And so, for example, my kids were four and six when surrogate baby was born. And we sort of explained to them, you usually need an egg and a seed to make a baby and a girl’s tummy to grow it. Or in the case of your team, some girls’ tummies don’t work. so mum had to share hers. Is that similar language? did you that’s basically what we sort of said to Ollie

12:35
that you know obviously yeah they couldn’t carry the baby obviously mum couldn’t carry baby so I was carrying the baby for her and we sort of agreed obviously because it’s my egg that is Ollie’s sister so she’s her sister and that was something we agreed on with the intended parents that they’d both be sisters as they grow up so um yeah look hopefully that can continue as they get older.

12:59
Well, that is lovely to hear that that language was open between everybody because biologically they are, aren’t they? Yeah, that’s it. Yeah, that’s it. So and like we asked and they were happy with that. Yeah. So we all sort of agree to that. But yeah, like Ollie was pretty good, I think, with it because I was just saying, you know, the Bob won’t come back to us, but, know, she’ll be living with them once we have her and, know, she loves to see her. So.

13:20
Kids are often better at accepting some of these things than adults. I think the adults worry. Yeah, people often say, oh, you know, how’s daughter with it and that? And I’m like, no, she’s actually quite good. Yeah, kids get it. And so these photos that you were taking regularly of your growing bump, would you share them in like a group chat with the IPs? Yeah, we did share. Obviously my partner, she sent a lot of photos to them. Yeah, and she’d take little sneaky photos of me and send on Snapchat or that sort of thing. Was the pregnancy therefore celebrated and…

13:48
Were they excited about it in the way that you would have liked them to have celebrated it? I think they were quite excited about it. Like I think, yeah, that side of it, like that was sometimes a little bit hard because I think that was a lot of, you know, I’m so excited. I’m so excited. Like, yeah, I think like when we had the first ultrasound, like.

14:04
Yeah, they were very, very excited about it. And I guess it’s sort of like, also had to process that, you know, I’m having this baby, you know, I don’t know, it’s sort of hard to explain, I suppose, how I sort of felt. Like it wasn’t that I wasn’t happy. I was really happy for them. But I also had to understand that I’m this baby and that, you know, they’re having this baby and you know, how that affects my life and that as well. And I guess a part of that was the pregnancy wasn’t that great. So I was probably already feeling a bit, yeah, not so good.

14:29
Yeah, so I think sometimes, yeah, maybe just thinking a little bit about how I may have felt as well at that time. Because it’s one thing for them to be excited about being parents, but then it’s also that joy of celebrating you and the gift that you’re… and how it’s…

14:43
like affecting me, like I had headaches and things like that, you know, so it might not have been so perfect for me at that time. Yeah, it’s hard. Although they can’t take the headaches away, they can’t take the heavy belly away. You know, as IP is trying to think of other ways that they could help and support you shows that care, doesn’t it? Yeah, that’s it. Yeah. Well, we’ll move through some photos that we’ve got here. And so then we come to the day of birth. And as you said, it was a caesarean. So we’ve just got a couple of photos here of you and your partner, Erin.

15:11
with little Ali post-birth and then outside the hospital. yeah, anything you want to tell us about the birth or these photos? We were just sitting at home. It was like eight o’clock on like Sunday night. And then I just went up to go to the toilet and then I’m like, oh my God, it’s not really wet. And I’m like, think.

15:27
think my water’s broke and so I saw the same thing happen with Ollie. So I sort of like, I think this is definitely what it is. So we went into the hospital and yeah, they put me straight in for emergency cesarean and she was born just after midnight. That photo there was a couple of hours after when I first met her. So I had her and we just seen that she was okay. And then there was a few complications. So I had to get put under anesthetic. So yeah, I was taken straight to the parents.

15:53
Erin was obviously, you know, had to go out of the room. So yeah, that was the first time I met her afterwards. um, just to that, this could be presumptuous of me, but I know for some surrogates, it’s really important to see that handover moment when the parents meet their child for the first time and you get to see the expression on their faces of the joy that you have created in their life, but you missed out on that.

16:15
Yeah, yeah, I guess I did. you know, it’s sort of hard, I guess, like I thought with Oli that I was just going to go in and, you know, I ended up, yeah, had to have the emergency serum with her and I was put completely under. I didn’t see any a bit because I could feel.

16:28
Yeah, that’s me. She’s like, I feel stuff. So, and I guess I was quite disappointed that I didn’t get to see her for several hours after. like sort of didn’t go in with many expectations this time, just because last time I wish someone had said it might not go that way and you need to be prepared for whatever may happen. So this time I was just like, whatever happens, happens. Um, yeah. that’s a good approach to have then. Yeah. So for me, that was sort of easier, I think for me to feel like, Hey, better than.

16:55
And so often classic questions people at the beginning ask, having a caesarean you were in hospital for a couple of days, does that mean that they had a room next door to you and you were seeing each other in those days in hospital? Yeah, we didn’t go through like private system, it was just through the public hospital, but the hospital gave them a separate room, all for mum obviously and bub.

17:14
And yeah, I had my room. yeah, I was able to sort of see them through them few days that I was there. And then they thought that Bob had an infection. So she had to stay in another day after I was allowed to go home. And then I had to come back and sign her out, oh know, because legally, even though, yeah, she’s going with the parents, but yeah, I could go and sign her out. So yeah, I was able to see her for them times I was in there.

17:36
um Okay, so uh I do want to talk more about these the time post-birth but we’ll just finish up the photos. This is a beautiful photo here of like you’re very heavily pregnant and the inside baby becomes the outside baby. Yeah, I think that was like a couple of days before I had her. So yeah, it was right at the end there and then yeah, she’s out. So that was like two weeks after. So you managed to have a photo with her a couple of weeks post-birth when she’s still… Yeah.

18:04
And then there’s some photos of you holding her at a catch-up at some point and then your daughter with her as well. Yeah, yeah. So and like they’re sort of the one of me holding her there. That was the first time I seen her after I’d been home. So yeah, that was like about two weeks after. uh And yeah, that was just only a couple of weeks ago with Ollie and her. So she’s five months old now. So getting much bigger. Definitely. They do grow up and sit up and things like that.

18:30
Yeah, that’s it, too quick. So when you’ve talked a bit about there about post-birth and seeing her a few weeks post-birth, em it sounds like the frequency of the catch-ups post-birth perhaps wasn’t as much as you’d like. And I’ll be perfectly honest and say in the surrogacy community, one of the guides is that perhaps you might see each other every day for the first week and then every second day for the second week because the surrogate’s body is adjusting to not having the baby with it.

18:56
and so hormonally you often need the cuddles even though your head and your heart know where baby is and you don’t want to raise another child but your body is often still adjusting. Can you talk us through that? Did you feel some of those your body was going through a grief or an adjustment or anything like that? Yeah definitely so and I think because we sort of said you know we’d see bub as much as we can and you know they said we’ll send lots of videos, we’ll send lots of photos.

19:21
you know, anytime you want to see her, you know, just let us know. And then obviously the first time we sort of said, can we see her? So we’re just trying to get her into a bit of a routine. So for me, that was pretty tough, you know, cause yeah, I was sort of like, I was at home then I didn’t have a baby and I didn’t want the baby. Like it’s, it’s always been their baby. But yeah, I was home, you know, everyone else sort of moved on their life and I felt like, yeah.

19:45
I didn’t have anything, I couldn’t say, Bob. Was that almost a sense of being a fear of being used and abandoned? Yeah, basically. it’s like, you know, I’ve sort of got Bob, know, see you later. Thank you. Yeah. So that was pretty tough.

19:59
Were you able to see these are uncomfortable conversations to have with your IP? I’m not sure if therefore you were able to have these conversations with them or did you seek some counseling at some point in time? Yeah, so I had organized a psychologist previous like before I had Bob just to you know in case I did need so I’d already like had an appointment with a local psychologist. I’m sort of had a little bit of like she’s not a surrogacy counselor or anything but I’m just sort of yeah some background in that sort of stuff so she was great.

20:28
So I did start seeing her quite regularly every two weeks. I did, we did, you know, obviously trying to speak to the parents, uh my partner trying to speak to the Intended parents as well. Yeah. Yeah. It just sort of, I guess they were quite busy in their life. You know, that was again, hard. Maybe they asked for a photo, you know, so I don’t have any new ones at the moment off her and you know, that sort of stuff’s like.

20:51
Yeah, difficult because I guess, you know, both me and my partner Erin, spent so much time thinking about our life for all of this and you know, and wanting to be kept in touch with some photos and some videos without having to ask. Yeah, that’s it. And then it’s sort of that thing of, you ask and then, you know, you sort of feel like, don’t want to ask again. And then cause you get more disappointed and yeah. And I think it’s easy for people to say, you know, oh, thank you. They say things to you like, you know, but there needs to be that follow through as well. Definitely.

21:21
Something we talk about in the community is under-promise and over-deliver. As opposed to over-promising beforehand and then under-delivering is it’s not okay. It hurts the surrogate and her partner too who’s been through this enormous journey together. Those psychology sessions that you had, did the IPs pay for that? Yes they did, yeah. Or some for most of them, yeah. um We did end up having a group session.

21:46
So I had asked for that, which they obviously didn’t want to pay for, so I agreed to pay for it. Oh, wow. Yeah, because I just like, just, wanted them to come because my son wanted to try and explain to them as well, like how I was feeling and, you know, how they could try and support me.

22:02
But yeah, again, it just sort of didn’t work. They had their own issues. And I know that we found each other because I think you commented on a post on Surrogacy Australia in the past, year or two or so ago. And so we’ve sort of been in contact. And so I know a bit more behind the scenes of what you say here. so, I mean, well done for trying to bring them in. That’s complicated, isn’t it, when it doesn’t quite go to plan.

22:23
uh And so there’s an example of money there, how you paid for a session, which is actually surrogacy related, but money as a whole concept in the whole surrogacy journey is tricky to talk about, isn’t it? Are there other examples that you can think of of where money was a tricky conversation or things that they could have paid for more or they could have been on the front foot and volunteered? Yeah, I think just more so around, you know, there was…

22:46
sort of things where, you know, they’d sort of say, you know, we don’t like, well, we can’t come out and visit because, you know, we’re trying to save money or we’re trying to work and make money. We can’t.

22:55
do things in bub’s room because we’re paying for all the surrogacy stuff. And that then made me feel quite bad because I’m sort of thinking, well, I want bub to have everything. So then I would pay for stuff myself rather than asking them to pay for things. Can you give an example? Clothes, I paid for most any clothes that I brought. Really the only thing other than appointments, I didn’t charge for any of my leave, oh any of my time driving to appointments. I used all my own leave.

23:20
from work, uh that sort of stuff. Yeah, like didn’t ask for anything for like Aaron to support me. um Cause I just sort of felt bad to ask about that sort of stuff then. And particularly if you’d sort of already brought things up before and they were saying, Oh, are we struggling to afford to pay off the whole journey? And so, yeah, this, yeah, to be honest, it’s not an example of surrogacy.

23:41
done well. It’s where the surrogate is out of pocket. That should not be the case. And then emotionally, you’re not feeling satisfied in the journey. And particularly because post-natally too, your body was struggling. And so you weren’t physically and psychologically supported in that way. So this is, it’s been really hard on you and your family, your partner, Erin, and you guys have given the gift of life here. It’s taken its toll really. Yeah, it has nothing. know, I sort of up like 18 months of my life really. And you know,

24:10
did like, yeah, it wasn’t easy. And I think it’s not hard just to, you know, check in on someone, just ask how they are even like that’s, know.

24:19
Yeah, if even just something like that would have been, you know, made me feel a little bit more like what I did was important and, you know, sort of stuff appreciated. So is that right then? So have you come away feeling like what you’ve done was not really that important? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Basically, you know, I think it was like five weeks after I had Bob before I even, and it was only when my partner mentioned something or said about it, he haven’t even asked how I am or anything. Like just how are you, how are you going? Like, you know.

24:46
Yeah, physical recovery, physical and emotional because there’s a lot of post-birth bleeding and recovery. Yeah, all that sort of stuff and I got this rash which was just horrible like from the stretch marks I got this rash and like oh never never heard of it before but it was yeah like horribly itchy rash.

25:03
Kind of like a chicken pox thing, but yeah, just really itchy and you you’ve just had the caesarean and everything else. It’s a lot. I think just, you know, for me, I just want to, you know, make sure that other IPs like really know what they’re getting themselves into like financially and that sort of stuff. uh

25:21
you know, but also that support after you have bub. Well, yes. So on that then, have you got advice then for IPs and surrogates listening for… Yeah, I think mostly for the IPs, like, yeah, obviously making sure you can financially support the surrogate and their family. And I think also that, yeah, support after the birth, that was probably a big thing for me, you know, that you don’t just have bub and then you move on with your life, like, and, you know, not using the excuse of, you know, yes, I’m a new parent and stuff like you, you know, you still need to make time for your surrogate.

25:51
And like it doesn’t need to be anything big like say it can be photos or you know, yeah, just checking in asking how you’re going and I guess for surrogates I don’t know. You just need to ask a lot more questions like how it’s gonna look, what support you think you might need, maybe talk to other people because I wish I had sort of spoken to other people now. Just to get a bit of an idea of the things I should have talked about more. Yeah as I said to you if I was to do it again like I would do it a whole lot different.

26:17
And I may do, I may do, I’m still thinking about it. It’d be nice to have a really good experience from it, because that’s what I of wanted to do. Absolutely, because it’s not like you got paid $50,000. So for you, it’s the joy of feeling like your cup is full emotionally, that you are loved on by the IPs and it feels nice between them. To walk away from that with that feeling is the goal. That’s what we’re here for. Yeah, that’s it. And to give like…

26:44
you know, obviously having my daughter, everything to me. like, I’ll be with somebody else that feeling. What is the contact like with the parents now? Is it tense and how frequent is it and how like in terms of messages and how often might you see each other in person?

27:00
We just have agreed on that we’ll have Bob every three weeks for a few hours on a Saturday. So we just pick her up and then they come and pick her up from our house in the afternoon. So we agreed on that in my psychologist session. I’ve sort of given up on any other support from the parents or seeing them like outside of that. Like I’ve tried, know, my partner’s tried, it hasn’t worked. And I sort of, can’t keep, like I keep getting myself down on it then because like, I feel like I’ll try again and I don’t get anything. So I just feel like it’s.

27:30
easier just to go with them, contact with Bob every three weeks and yeah, how you going? That’s about it, that’s why. So there’s not really a friendship that’s ongoing, it’s more like an obligation for the children here to maintain Yeah, obviously because for Ollie, you know, I want her to be able to see Bob as she grows up and you know, obviously for Bob to know where she came from and that sort of stuff. So like that’s the reason I’m still doing it. I probably wouldn’t.

27:55
not have any contact with them, like just being honest. But I’ve got to think about my daughter and I got to think about Bob and her, you know, future as well. She’ll want to know where she comes from. Wow. Well, that’s a credit to you. It’s almost as like if this was a partner in your life, you’re constantly pouring the effort in and they’re not giving you anything back. You’d be like, well, I’m just going to walk away from this partner, but you keep trying. But yeah, so it’s a credit to you.

28:17
realizing the connection for the children there. Yeah, that’s what it’s about I think so. But that’s it’s a sad feeling if it’s like this friendship that you did have particularly with the history of being with the the mum’s sister growing up. I don’t know if that’s created any tension among that friendship or if that was sort of more a friendship from the past anyway. Yeah, more from the past so that’s sort of yeah. Yeah, well

28:38
People, if you want to type in any questions, you’re welcome to, but you’ve been quiet, so maybe you’ve just all been listening and I’m hoping those that are here are appreciating hearing this journey. I think it’s important that we share the stories that are not all sunshine and rainbows in surrogacy so that we can learn from this. You’ve sort of given advice there for, you know, IPs and surrogates listening. I’m not sure if this question is still sort of connected then, but therefore, what was your motivation?

29:03
for saying yes to doing this webinar when I asked you, was it a similar type of feeling? I don’t really, like I’m kind of quite, I was quite nervous doing it and you can probably tell that I have a little bit of anxiety on that sort of stuff, but I wanted to do it because I think it might be good for me to have sort of said some of this stuff out loud to other people, like and to yourself, but then also for other people to, know, if it changes one other person’s, you know, journey or helps them in some sort of way, then yeah, that’s, that’s why I sort of did it then too. So then I end up in my situation.

29:33
Absolutely all. You’ve done a fantastic job and for being brave and saying this out loud. As you say, yes, it helps to lift some of the weight, hopefully, um and to help others. So thank you. I think you’ve done it articulately. And I’m sure if anybody wanted to put in chat that you agree, I’m sure that they would there. Just thank you for having me and yeah, ask me to do this. I’ve much appreciated. Oh, I’m so thankful to you for sharing your time and your story and having faith in me going, it’ll be okay. We’ll make it work.

30:01
oh Yeah so thank you. Maybe you know you never know one day I might have a really positive story to come back and say. I would love that and then we could like back to back the episodes there. We’ve just had somebody type into questions saying that they’re loving hearing these different journeys and perspectives of surrogacy. There are IPs out there that will give a surrogate everything they need for a family.

30:22
somebody’s typed that in anonymously. So I hope Natalie, that sort of says to you that there are IPs listening who come to these sorts of things and learn and go, oh wow, we would do this very differently. And so it just sort of feels a little bit like, yeah, your set of IPs. mean, they may not, because obviously I don’t know them, but you know, I’m sure that everybody’s good people, but they just were not educated about how to do surrogacy well, I don’t think. Yeah, I agree, yeah. Yeah.

30:47
But there are plenty out there. if you ever think about it, come look me up. We’ll sort you out. there is communities out there through our Facebook groups and our Zooms that we run. But thank you, Anonymous, for typing that in and reassuring us all that there are great IPs out there that make great teams. So thank you. Thank you so much for joining me. On our YouTube channel, you will find many other episodes, as well as the images mentioned in this webinar.

31:13
If you’re looking for more resources, check out the show notes for this episode and consider joining us for one of our webinars so you can have your questions answered on the spot. Please subscribe to this podcast if you found it valuable and share it with someone so they too can benefit from this conversation. Until next time, welcome to the village.