Episode 136 – Will – gay dad

00:13
Welcome to Surrogacy Australia’s podcast series. I’m your host Anna McKie. Thank you for sharing your time to listen to this episode. These recordings are from the regular one-hour free webinars that I run, which I invite you to attend if you haven’t already. They take you through how surrogacy works in Australia, including how to find a surrogate or intended parents. There are opportunities to ask questions and you hear from a co-host each time about their own journey. This episode, featuring Dad Through Surrogacy Will,

00:43
is one from the archives and was recorded in May 2022. Will and David became parents through Australian altruistic surrogacy when Megan, David’s cousin, carried and birthed their little boy Harrison in December 2021. It took three previous embryo transfers for this fourth one to stick, with the egg coming from their generous friend Carla. Will is passionate about discussing his journey as an LBTQ parent through surrogacy,

01:11
and to bring hope to others to know this could be their journey too. You can hear from Will Surrogate-Megan in the previous episode, number 135. Will has gone on to be a mentor for us in SAS, Surrogacy Australia’s support service. He’s helped many gay IP couples who are at the beginning of their journey by meeting, sharing his story, answering questions, and helping people to feel less alone on this journey. If you’re looking to be connected with a mentor yourself,

01:39
Join SASS so I can coordinate that for you. I hope you enjoy this episode. So we’ve heard about what my happily ever after looks like. And so now we’re going to be joined by Will and hear about his happily ever after. So hello, Will. There is quite a lot of background that would have gone on to get to this photo, right? Yes, all right. Who’s in this photo? In this photo, obviously me, all the way on the right. On the left is my husband, David.

02:06
Next to David is our egg donor, friend Carla, and then Megan, our surrogate in the middle there, and one of our dogs PJ peeking around just behind me there.

02:15
Beautiful. Well, the fluffy members of the family, hey? I reckon what we do, we might go from this point forward and then we can come back and talk about how you got here, you know, because as I said in the intro at the beginning, there was quite a few embryo transfers and things. It was a caesarean in the end, that’s right, around Christmas time. Yep, in the end it was caesarean. We knew that was always potentially an option as Megan’s previous birth with her fourth child was a caesarean, but that was, I think, three and a half years prior.

02:42
So the plan was to have a natural birth, but then ultimately it wound up being cesarean because my son has no sense of direction. He’s trying to exit Megan’s hip, her left hip. So yeah, was just the doctor called it. It would have been, yeah, not an easy birth. No. And so we’re glad the options are there. so this is actually us on Christmas day. So he was born on the 23rd of December. We came home Christmas Eve, actually, just the following evening and spent Christmas together.

03:12
which was amazing. Amazing, right? Christmas baby there. And so big smiles on everyone’s faces there. What you’ve done together as a team. Beautiful. And so then I think the next one here is a family photo. This is Megan’s family, husband and kids. Yes. So that’s Megan, her husband, George on the left and her four kids. And then David, myself and Harrison. I think that’s actually was taken on our anniversary, our wedding anniversary.

03:38
as well. My parents had flown in from the States after Harrison was born and we were all out to dinner. Lovely. And how do Megan’s kids feel about all of this? I think they were kind of interested in it and not curious the way a lot of other kids might be or confused about what this is. I mean, she might have talked about it in her session as well, that her older kids were not very fussed about or confused that she was doing this. They were very accepting of it. I’ve got the other dog here now.

04:05
um Her youngest Matteo always knew that Harrison was, you know, more cousins, I think he still says. That’s baby Harrison. And he knows that when Harrison was in Megan’s belly, that was not her baby.

04:20
Yeah. And I think I find that kids are very accepting. It’s the adults worry about how the kids are going to be with it. And the kids are like, that’s fine. You need a lady to grow a baby. They’re two guys. Mum’s helping out. And he’s got a really, really, I think special relationship with her daughter Giselle on the left. There’s a connection between the two of them. I don’t know why that is, but there’s a really special bond he is just in love with.

04:46
Interesting. It’ll be fascinating to watch that over time. And Megan’s joined us tonight. So if anybody’s watching chat, her son says, my belly is small now. No more baby Harrison. That’s right. And so anybody that’s in SASS 2 in the portal, you can see um Megan’s webinar that’s in our portal too. So then moving on, what are the beautiful photos here?

05:06
one of the fluffy creatures here? The photo in the middle and the two photos on the rider actually when Harris, the one with Hugo, who’s the Ruby dog there in the middle, that’s the night we came home and introduced him to all the dogs. And then we’ve got our youngest pup, Doddy. We’ve got three dogs. Her just sitting with him on the couch thinking, you know, she’s got a new playmate around because she was born in September, so she’s not much older than Harrison. Wow.

05:31
And then we’ve got Mama Penelope in the bottom corner there. He’s just always doting on him. And as you can see on the left-hand side, that’s when we came home. This was just a few weeks ago. He had his first overnight. He stayed at a cousin’s. This was us coming home and how, you know, she was like, oh, he’s back.

05:47
She missed me so much. All my boys. Yeah. That’s beautiful. And I’m sure lots of people listening have pits themselves too and can imagine these moments of the introduction and the photos growing up together. I think this is what people dream about, isn’t it? It is. What else have we got here? We’ve got you boys. Yeah, that’s us with our bub. The picture on the left is actually at my Australian citizenship ceremony a few weekends ago. Congratulations. Eight years. Thank you.

06:14
went out one morning. David loves this hat on Harrison with the winter hat with the pom pom there. David’s birthday was yesterday. So Harrison got him the same hat. he has to wear it now too. And then this is just at and about one day and Harrison with his, know, sass, which I’m so proud of. See, I love the word sass. See, it’s in my line of work and it’s so appropriate for here. So, and this is, these are the photos. This is the man that you love.

06:42
holding your little baby, that must be lovely to see those photos. Beautiful. very proud papa. Yes. He shone like lions when Harrison’s in a picture with

06:50
Yes, and I think we saw from the beginning when he brought him in there before the webinar started. Do you have terminologies? My guys are Dad and Pa. What are you guys got there? I’m Daddy and David is Dada. We’re trying to instill that. I don’t know how many queer listeners we’ve got going, but you know how like, because David, there’s a bit of an age difference between David and I, um and we don’t want to perpetuate any gay stereotypes with the older of us being the daddy.

07:17
So I’m daddy and David’s we’re trying data because you know between his like my dad like his granddad’s and everything else and who’s poppy or pop up and pop at like all the different terminologies where you get into what a granddad is. Yes and I think they’ll as they’ll work it out over time but yeah you practice it don’t you? I know I remember speaking to someone very early on in the process who you know

07:40
when any of their kids call out for daddy, they’re referring to one of them and not the other. And it’s just somehow you just know. Yeah, I hear that from the two mum groups too sometimes. hear that. Yeah. And then another catch up here with Megan and just some beautiful photos of your smiley boy. This was Easter. This was just a few a few weeks ago. Yeah. And this is what happily ever after looks like, isn’t it? It’s just continued catch ups. mean, you already had a family connection there, but a little bit stronger bond now, perhaps. That’s right. And your boy. All the different faces of Paris. All the different photos that

08:09
Thousands, tens of thousands of photos. now have. I could imagine. And this one too, all the different expressions. Yes, he’s very expressive. So he’s nearly five months old now, is that right?

08:22
Yes, five months next week. Next week. There we go. Okay. Well, that was a little snapshot of a photo journey of yours. So we might unpack your journey a little bit more, but I’ll lead over to the questions. I’m going to do the anonymous one first that says, can healthy females qualify to become IP parents? Anonymous without knowing your full background. My quick answer would be no. As a female, you need to have a medical reason as to why you can’t carry. If you missed the beginning of the webinar, when I talked about that, a fertility specialist has to declare you eligible for surrogacy. You can’t just

08:52
not want to be pregnant or have other things going on to do surrogacy here in Australia but overseas, yes you can choose to engage with a surrogate and you don’t necessarily have to have a medical reason is my understanding of it. While I’m here I might actually there’s another question there about international isn’t there? So John asks are there any laws prohibiting using an international IVF clinic for example a surrogate traveling overseas for transfer? I’ve got a rough thought on this one Will do you have you got friends who’ve gone in these similar situations? I wouldn’t say friends um I’ve

09:22
in conversation, we talked about it, I’m just trying to, are there any laws prohibiting using an international audio clinic surrogate? From what I remember in our research, I don’t think there’s any laws prohibiting that. this referring to an Australian surrogate who’s traveling to an overseas clinic? believe so. you’re embryos are somewhere overseas. I don’t think there’s any laws prohibiting that, if I remember correctly off the top of my head, but you’d have to do more research into that.

09:49
And I’ve got, wonder if I can, while I’m sitting here, go back in, you guys can’t see it, but I’m going back in my slides. I have a feeling some states are strict on that. And John, cause I know I recognize your name from emails and I’m just trying to, I can’t remember what state you’re in. I’ve got a feeling that I feel like Victoria’s strict that the Embryo transfer must take place in Victoria. And so that’s a bit prohibitive. I mean, it’s quite tricky though, because you, you’re Sydney. Well, you might be right then. I’m just going back to Sydney.

10:15
I don’t think Sydney has that law, because I remember that, but you would know better than me.

10:21
Well, it’s funny. It isn’t funny. you, I feel like, no, I don’t know much, but it’s me accepting. Well, I’ve been around for a few years now. I do know lots of little things. So I’m positive if it matters where you’re going internationally for, for the transfer as well. Yeah. And so how do we find out the answer to that one? You’ve got to think about though, if I was your surrogate or Megan was your surrogate, we’ve got family, we have jobs, we’ve got schedules and appointments. The inconvenience of having to travel overseas every time you need an embryo transfer, tracking your cycle,

10:51
and lining all that up is not very convenient for the surrogate. And seeing as we’re not getting paid, you need to make surrogacy, it’s already going to be inconvenient. You need to make it as convenient for the surrogate as possible. So preferably uh having the embryos in the same state that she is would even be more preferable. And so I guess my advice would be it might be possible in some states, but I would seriously consider getting your embryos shipped over here because of the costs that’s going to weigh up of travel. But also, what was that? Yeah, it’s much cheaper to do that, John, I promise.

11:21
Yes, and also for that inconvenience factor for the surrogate to consider that. So that might be something to be worth investigating now. So I hope that answers that one. One other one I might do, is there an age limit as a gay man to be an IP? Age limits are not restricted for gay or straight. IPF clinics sometimes require

11:40
one parent to be at least one to be below 54, I wanna say, is my guess. There’s no legal law in Australia that is set in stone that says you must be. So don’t let any IVF clinic tell you differently. It’s their rule. So you have to push back a little bit. So I hope that helps for that one. Lynn.

11:57
Question on citizenship. wonder, oh, well, this may be relevant to you, but seeing as you’ve just become an Australian citizen. So Lee’s question, sorry, is do IPs have to be Australian citizens to do surrogacy in Australia? Similarly, do surrogates or egg donors have to be Australian citizens? So Will, in your situation, you wouldn’t, So you were a permanent resident?

12:17
I was a permanent resident when we started this. Just through the way I came to Australia, I had to be a permanent resident for so many years before I could apply for citizenship. And so at the time that we started, I was still on my PR and then applied for citizenship. Well, already well into that surrogacy journey. Yes. So that

12:34
um wasn’t a prohibiting factor for you. I would say it’s not. No. I don’t imagine why it would be um resident of course um I would say is um at least for the surrogate um that the surrogate is is at the very least a resident. So yeah my only little my thought knowledge on that one South Australia is annoying in that factor and unfortunately for the surrogate too so it means because

12:58
Surrogate Charmaine who carried the second time, she’s in Queensland, but she carried the South Australian IPs the second time. And so it goes by the laws of the state where the IPs live. Now Charmaine is a Kiwi. So she’s been out here, but a lot of them don’t go to that effort of, because they don’t need to get citizenship. So they had to find a way to do it in a slightly different way to overcome that. So Lee, most states are no, don’t require that, except if you’re South Australia, then we’ll have to dig a little bit deeper for that one. Yeah.

13:25
So keep the questions rolling in peoples. Will, anything you want to take us back to? the beginning? I’m sure I could start from the beginning of our journey that will get some questions going for some folks. So how did Megan come to be your surrogate? Yeah, David and I were doing a lot of research into overseas surrogacy for probably we started in 2017, put it on hold while we were planning our wedding.

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because you know, planned too much and then ramped up to it again and we spoke to dozens of clinics between the States and Canada and the UK about what our options might be. We have an egg donor at that point or a surrogate so we didn’t really know what that was looking like.

14:11
I’m to favorite cousin. We were very, I would say private. We didn’t talk about it a lot with people that we knew that we were doing this. And then ultimately one day we were out to lunch. had a cousin visiting from overseas with her and a bestie and Megan. And someone asked the question, I forget who it was. If we were ever thinking about

14:36
having children and well we said yeah we’ve actually been looking into it and all this other stuff and Megan was just like yeah I’m doing it I’ll be a surrogate and I’m not a speechless person I think that was like one of maybe three times in my life I’ve been a bit speechless and that was that I’m a surrogate. She’d been thinking about doing it for quite some time but then became pregnant again with Mateo so obviously put

15:00
put that on hold. So then we started that journey with Megan. We asked a friend of mine, one of my close friends who’s based in the States, if she would be interested in being our egg donor. We both got big families, so it’s a lot to think about in asking relatives and who is at that kind of appropriate stage in their life to be able to do this. And I’m not talking age, I’m just talking like where they are with their family and everything else.

15:26
That was in 2018, I think, the end of 2018 when Megan jumped on board. So about a year after David and I actually kind of really delving into the process, or the research rather, my friend came out in…

15:40
June 2019 to do an egg retrieval. And ultimately from that retrieval, all of our, I think we had seven embryos, nine embryos, none of them made it to day five. But we knew then that she was very, apparently she’s like, I really think I can only do the one retrieval. I mean, she traveled from overseas. So it’s a big thing and we absolutely respected that. So it kind of put us back at square one, basically.

16:06
she had offered like to do it again, but she would have to do the retrieval. She would have felt more comfortable doing it at home, her home. And that was absolutely fun. And we looked into those options and getting our specialists said that getting an egg, frozen egg to travel is much more uh less successful and much more delicate to travel frozen. Whereas embryos are not. the analogy she used was think of it like a frame. Like if you have a frame with

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a picture or glass in it and you know, make it track like it’s that’s, that’s it. It’s, it’s, it’s much, much more. Yes. That’s good. Fine. Properly. Um, so we thought, okay, well that’s obviously not a good idea. We don’t want to risk that, especially given what had happened. And that’s when we met Carla, we put, we’re that in all the different, um, forums looking for, for an egg journal.

16:56
Again, like you said before, it’s like that online dating. It’s a very odd, kind of online dating and putting up like a post that is engaging and engrossing and doesn’t scare anyone off. Where, like, know, being honest and, you know, sharing your quirks. Yeah, sharing your quirks and without the drama and like all that kind of stuff. We had a lot of women who were interested in being our egg donors, carried out conversations, I think, with it.

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least, I would say, legitimate or continued conversations with them about six different women not really feeling it at all. Carla was actually the first person to respond to us, I think. I think David’s nodding in the other room. We kind of knew immediately that that was that. I’m very intuitive and we just kind of knew right then and there that that was the direction we were going.

17:45
And so Carla came, Carla’s based in Adelaide as well. So she traveled to Sydney December of 2019 to do a retrieval. And out of that, we had two viable embryos. Both of those transfers in January and February the following 2020, both were failed transfers, they’re unsuccessful transfers. And the day we got the news that the second embryo was a failed transfer,

18:13
was like the week that everything shut down. COVID. We planned for Carla to come back out, I think in June or July, in line with when the borders opened up. Carla had actually started a cycle. I think she was on like day four and they said, oh, we’re not opening the borders because was it Delta at that point hit? can’t Maybe, yes. Delta hit and then that was that. So it wasn’t until November 2020 that Carla came back out again.

18:39
And we got three, no, sorry, four embryos. Four embryos that were viable for a transfer with that. End of February and then also April we did transfers. The first one was not successful. I think you mentioned earlier that our specialist suggested we might need to find a new surrogate, that this is the third transfer it’s not taking. I kind of was like…

19:02
we’ll hold up because it’s been a whole year. It’s been a whole year in between. where are these statistics coming from? Like surrogacy, are these statistics from like, what is this statistics? Is this all IVF births? know, whether it’s ICSI or IVF and all that. And for any parent who, turn a parent who doesn’t know what all those different terminologies are, what the difference is, you will learn. Yes, you will. m

19:25
But yeah, so I said, well, that’s really not an option because this is surrogacy. So we did another transfer on Megan and George’s wedding anniversary. uh That was the embryo that…

19:37
brought us Harrison. Wonderful. Wow. So much there. I didn’t know that Carla was an unknown donor to start with. Did you meet her through the Egg Donation Australia group then? one of the other? Which group it was? If you remember Carla, which Facebook group it was, cannot remember. She is here. She’s actually coming to Sydney tomorrow for the first time. So she’s meeting Harrison. Oh, wonderful Carla. Oh.

20:03
four year journey from start to birth. for me, think Megan, it was about three years from when she joined until birth. Granted, you know, some of that was, you were navigating through the restrictions of COVID, border restrictions and everything with COVID. And that’s really good because some of the classic questions are how long does it take and how much does it cost? So Will, dirty question there. Because if you count now, the egg donor friend that you had from the States, I’m going to guess close to

20:32
close to a hundred thousand. Yeah, we would have spent well over that is all I’m gonna say. I mean, we brought our friend over from the States and other things that add up as well that I’m sure if you speak to any counselor, like any other surrogate might tell you whether it’s medical or if, know, potentially your surrogate cannot work while she’s pregnant. And if you have to, if part of your agreement is that you make up for any lost wages or if she requires extended leave after birth,

21:02
you’re making up for any wages that like just those kind of things that that might add up for you. Yeah, we were kind of in a unique situation, I guess, in that it’s our cousin. Well, I thought you need to set about 80 % of the birds are from known donors. Maybe not so many. And you know, so when we kind of all talk finances a bit, it’s, know, like, whatever between us, it gets awkward. There’s this awkward conversation. That’s a transaction. Where we kind of just go, like, David’s actually just put in the chat that you should

21:31
put 120 aside and you should be well covered. I’m going to, yes, David, absolutely. You would be well covered. My, my stats and I have gathered data on this from IPs. Maybe I should send you my survey link to do. That’s domestic. just want to start before you continue. That’s thinking domestic. know when you go internationally, so much more expensive. Yes. America would travel. You’re probably looking closer to the 200, Canada, bit closer to this, but so by my data gathering too, the average is about 60,000 though with a range of 35 to

22:01
So my team, was about 60,000 because we had two egg collections there and because you don’t get Medicare rebates. The people that are down at the 35,000 are listeners.

22:10
are those where if you’re hetero couples, you might already have embryos or you, it works first egg collection, it works first transfer. Your surrogate lives locally to you, so you don’t have much travel or accommodation costs and she doesn’t need lots of wages. Then some people do it for about 35, but up at the 90,000 or more, as you’ve heard, you you’ve had three egg collection cycles really, and one from overseas, topping up wages and those sorts of things. So you’re up at the 90,000 of the people that interstate from each other and need multiple possible collections and transfers. So bear in mind,

22:40
was two and half years, yours was four. So you don’t need all of that up front. would suggest. Yes, and we had a lot of change throughout ours as well. know, we had two different egg donors, we had a lot of cycles and retrievals and other things happen through that process as well. that’s why you know.

22:57
And so he’s a very wanted child is Harrison in every circle. He’s very wanted child. You he does something silly where I’m like, Oh God, he’s going to damage himself. I’m like, you’re too expensive. Stop. Exactly. You’re breakable. So, but I reckon for those who are brand new, if you’ve got 10 to $20,000 saved in the bank to start with, and you’ve still got your wages, you know, that’s a start. And it’s an ongoing process. It’s not like you’re paying.

23:20
that cost upfront either. Yes. You’re really not. Things are staggered. Yeah. So the question that Derek asks, if you’re looking for a surrogate or an egg donor, so Will, I don’t know if you’re in the main group, the ASC group. Yes. Yeah, we’re in all of them, I think. OK. They can get quite political in high school sometimes. So Derek asks, what things should the IPs talk about and post on the ASC, the Australian Surrogacy Community Group, when seeking a surrogate without sounding too desperate? This is something that I think David and I, we talk about this more often than

23:50
I think it’s a very common topic. think for Dianna, as two men, we all know why we’re seeking a surrogate if we’re involved there. Whereas for other couples, particularly women, there’s a lot more to that. They’ve gone on a really possibly very traumatic journey before they get there.

24:08
which is absolutely understanding, I suppose for a lot of what we noticed in a lot of these groups and people reaching out to fund donors or surrogates, I’m trying to sound diplomatic and not judgmental about this because I’m not judgmental about it at all. I know what you’re trying to say. Not seeming too desperate. Is that? yeah, you just, you don’t want to seem too desperate. like, we’re obviously we’re all desperate, but you also don’t want to scare people away. With your long story.

24:33
the really awful parts of the story you can come out in conversations as you’re on your second, third, like whatever someone, as you reveal and get to know each other.

24:40
um It’s about you want people to know who you are. And medical history is only a part of that. Medical history is a part of that. It’s not definitive. It wants to know like, know, who you are, what personalities might be a good fit. So those are the kind of things you might want to think about when you type, you know, a bit of your story as we did and a lot of people do. We did how we met, how we came to meet, how we just got married, all that kind of stuff. You know, what we do for work, what we’re passionate about. At the time we didn’t have

25:10
three dogs, the three dogs came throughout the entire surrogacy process. But yeah, just those kinds of things that allow your potential surrogate to feel comfortable with you enough to reach out to you. And then you can kind of

25:25
go from there. Yes, I think that’s good advice. I’ll add to that and say, I guess if you’re part of SAS, you’ve got a mentor that you could run these ideas by, but if not make a friend, you might come to a zoom catch up or one of the in-person catch ups and go, hey, could you read my posts and check it and get somebody else’s eyes or find experienced surrogates because they like to help. Not that she’s going to be a surrogate, but it’s also, yes, you’ve got that post. If you’re part of SAS, you’ll do a written profile. And so you can often, if you’ve done what the ASC post first, you can use them. Like they’re very similar.

25:55
But it’s also about being active and then it’s supporting others because your post in those groups is going to get lost in feed eventually. And so new people will come along. So you need to show that you are active as a person. It is a bit like another part-time job when you have to invest time into supporting people, checking in, isn’t it? Like the time consuming. And getting the information. It’s incredibly daunting, especially when you’re in those early stages before you have a donor and or a surrogate. it’s you just like.

26:24
you want to get so many other people’s stories as well and what their experiences are. So what you know to expect, support other people. And as you said, it gets quite political or there’s other things that arise because everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. But um it’s a support group. It’s a communication group. It’s not about. But there is a little bit of sometimes there’s us and them. Sometimes the almighty surrogates get on their high horse. But then also there’s bit of this competing among IPs to try and, well, we don’t want to side with the wrong people. It’s very high school going, well, what if I disagree?

26:54
with an experienced surrogate. Am I allowed to say that or not? But people will love you for who you are. I did a talk at the conference last year about it’s about making friends. It’s not about finding a surrogate. If you come in just finding a surrogate and that’s or donor, that’s all you’re after. You’re actually going to miss out on a lot of other connections. so engage with the people that are coming in and doing their posts to, and even the silly posts about memes and gifts and uh things like that. Um, engage with them and kept popping up of trying to remember who’s who. That’s a lot of energy. So you

27:24
have to set time aside so you can pace your energy of going okay, you know, twice a week for an hour in the evenings, I’m going to invest time and go and comment and connect people. Otherwise you might find yourself in there all the time and you can get caught up in the dramas. I don’t know Will, if you then ever attended real life catch-ups too or once you did. a handful. I know we attended some with Megan very, very early on in the process just to meet other

27:49
IPs and experience surrogates. we’re all in, Megan, Dave and I, all in the Sydney area. That’s where we would have done it. So yeah, I would encourage definitely going to that. It is absolutely exhausting. uh There’s no denying that. It feels like it’s all you can eat, sleep, drink, breathe, all of it. So that’s really good advice, Anna, to just set aside particular times in the day. know at…

28:13
very early on at some point I actually had to set my my feed so that I wasn’t seeing all of these posts from all the different groups in my feed and I had to designate time to go look at the groups like that because it it just it plays can really play with your head.

28:28
For some couples, if you’re not quite in the head space, particularly for the women, if you’ve just been told surrogacy is your path and you’ve had quite a lot of trauma to bring you here, it can be very overwhelming. So yeah, I would suggest unfollow the groups and just go in and don’t get notifications. I might read out a couple of the comments that the girls have written here that so Carla who’s been their egg donor said that she was attracted to their honesty, openness and the similarities in our lives, even from another state. So that shows you have to share with yourself. If you love 80s music, share that. If you like cooking, if you like something silly,

28:58
jigsaw puzzle, whatever, something will connect you. And so that’s what Carla was connected to and the honesty there. People can see through a mask and if you’re not being open. And then Megan’s commented about from the post she saw, you wanna make sure you show who you are and can get a feeling that they could be friends or family forever. You gotta trust gut instinct there. Megan’s also adding that they’re surrogate. The main thing I feel for our journey is if you’re looking for an egg donut or surrogate, being that majority of surrogates are known people, talking about it and showing

29:28
vulnerability with family and friends is a must. If she wasn’t there that day when that question about starting a family didn’t come up, I wouldn’t have offered right place, right time. So that’s it. As I say, we change the world one conversation at a time. You need to be having these conversations with people, not just once. You need to tell people from time to time. So the other thing I would just add is to just know and I say this being on the other end of the journey. It’s something I was cognizant of throughout, but it’s very difficult to

29:59
execute and believe is to just really be prepared that like as you said before, it’s a marathon and it evolves. Literally expect the unexpected. You know, I don’t want to go into too much detail with that because everyone’s experience is so different. Whether we’re talking medically, administrative, what administrative whatever, you can have another, know, gay dads with a surrogate and egg donor, you know, very similar situation to David and myself, similar, you know.

30:24
background, like everything and their experience is going to be totally different to what ours is. There’s no rhyme or reason to that, bringing a baby safely into the world. You know, you’re to have to have difficult conversations with your partner and difficult conversations with your surrogate as well, because you you mentioned termination, like those kind of-

30:42
things that, you know, and that’s not political, it’s things that need to be considered, things that you’ll be asking counseling as well, I’m sure. So that evolves in your mindset, kind of evolves. You can’t get tunnel vision with it, but you certainly have to, for me at least, know when it’s a time that, okay, now we get upset, or now we have to focus, or now we just have to power through and all that kind of stuff. And sometimes it’s really hard and it’s awful, but you get there. Yes.

31:07
And so what has that meant for your relationship with David? Has it strengthened it? I think so. Yeah, absolutely. I’m more of a presenter talker, but David’s more of a talker socially. I think he would disagree with that, but he is. I’m a bit more stoic in that sense. You really just need to have those conversations and make sure that you’re still on the same page. For us, it was four years later and we never, our minds never changed about having a child together. We knew that was the end goal, even if it got

31:37
so difficult where we just wanted to cry and cry and cry or tear a hair out or you know whatever that was it was never at each other and that’s really important to remember as well it’s very difficult to you know maybe act you know like your partner’s there you’re gonna lash out at them in frustration but um we really made sure to never do that it’s a situation that it’s not it’s not each other for my team we we learned from another team we could call

32:02
annual leave on surrogacy if we needed to. as a teen, if I just needed a break from the blood tests or from just talking about surrogacy in my life for a bit, doesn’t mean I didn’t love them. But I just went, we just need a break for a few weeks. Can we just not talk about it? And so that’s okay to call for leave. It doesn’t mean anybody’s walking away from the project, but you just need a holiday from it. I mean, you’re probably not spending money on holidays during this because…

32:26
The conversation is just crucial, whether it’s your partner or you’re just saying surrogate, everything. You just need to do something else to maintain your own sanity and your relationship with whether it’s a known surrogate or an unknown surrogate and just keep that on good terms and making sure your communication about when you want to stop it, like you’re using right wording and talking and just being honest without just being like, we’re not doing this right now.

32:54
being that frank, can’t really, even though like, Megan and Carl and David are all very frank people, but you know, it’s about knowing your timing and your tone and all that as well. Yes. But I’m remembering too that you are then dealing with a pregnant hormonal woman at some point. was also, yeah, was to say emotions run high for everyone, especially the pregnant person. Rightfully so, I’m not denying that. You really need to be cognizant of all that as well.

33:21
Yes. Well thank you for joining us Will. I think we’ve captured your journey briefly. Good snapshot and some really teachable moments there for people and some good advice to not give up hope. This too could be their journey. It might take four years but if you want it to happen like you guys it can make it happen yeah. Thank you for joining me. If you’d like to see the photos shared in this webinar presentation head over to our YouTube channel to watch the webinar. You can head to surrogacyaustralia.org for more information about surrogacy.

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Also check out our Zoom monthly catch-up sessions, which are a great way to connect with others in the surrogacy community. Attending a Zoom is scary the first time, but there’s only ever one first time. We have all been beginners at some stage. As we say, it takes a village to raise a child, and in the case of surrogacy, it takes a village to make a child. So welcome to the village.