Episode 164 – Melissa – surrogate

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series with Surrogacy Australia. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen and in turn for helping us spread awareness and appreciation for surrogacy. I’m your host Anna McKie and these recordings are from a regular webinar series that I run. You can find upcoming dates on our website at surrogacyaustralia.org. During the one-hour webinars I will walk you through the surrogacy process in Australia and you can type in questions for us to answer. My co-hosts have all done surrogacy in Australia

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and they alternate between surrogates, gay dads and straight moms. This episode featuring surrogate Melissa was recorded in August, 2026. Melissa from Brisbane has birthed as a surrogate twice, each time for IPs who were previously unknown to her. In 2022, she birthed a little girl for two intended fathers after six embryo transfers. She had a VBAC2, which means a vaginal birth after two caesareans and expressed milk for three months.

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As well as surrogacy, she has donated her eggs seven times, so she’s clearly a giving woman. I hope you enjoy this episode.

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Well, let’s take it from the beginning. As we’ve heard, you’ve done two surrogacy journeys and you’ve been an egg donor multiple times. I guess, why did you want to be each of those and how did you find recipients? Okay. So I started out as an egg donor. The reason I started, my celebrant from my wedding actually put a post on Instagram years ago, obviously saying, if you’ve ever thought about being an egg donor, you should do it. Lots of people that want that need eggs and don’t have them themselves.

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And so, yeah, I looked into it. I contacted a Monash, met with them and they talked me through the process and jumped on board and donated, actually donated five times, sorry, four times anonymously.

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Do they call that a clinic recruited donor? guess. Yeah. So I was on an anonymous donor. That’s hard to say really quickly, five times through the clinic. So I just donated to the clinic. They go to recipients. I guess there’s like a lineup of, of recipients waiting and you know, they go through, okay, we’ve got dark hair, dark eyes, Caucasian. This is the woman that has donated the eggs and they go through and they’re like, would you like their eggs? And I guess it goes through their sort of.

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list of people and then they go to them. From the donated eggs, I believe there is three babies. Obviously I may never get to meet those children unless they choose to contact me when they’re 18. I have also let the clinic know that if the parents or the children want to contact me prior to that, I’m open to that.

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Uh, option. I did the five anonymous and then my best friend was doing surrogacy and she told me, I was like, Hey, I had great pregnancies. I want to do that. And so I jumped onto actually, think.

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I looked into SAS at the time. messages go back six years and we did have some chats about SAS in the early days, but then I think you ended up through the Facebook communities finding IPs yourself. Yes, so I went through both channels and I just happened to find a couple that I just loved their story and it really resonated with me and I ended up going down that route. Was it your egg when you were there surrogate or was it their friend donated? They had one of their close friends that donated the eggs.

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So they had already done an egg pickup prior that actually already been on a journey, but due to

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COVID, it sort of came to a halt, unfortunately. And then I happened to just walk in at the right time. And obviously doing surrogacy, it’s quite a long journey and you spend a lot of time together, the sorrow dating. And so obviously you got to know the dads very well. that you chose to be essentially an anonymous donor. And so not getting to know people well, is that something that that’s the type of calling you felt to do as a donor? Or if you had your time again, would you like, cause there’s, know there’s groups like EDA, Egg Donation Australia.

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would you now have preferred to have no you recipients or you don’t mind? So during the surrogacy journey I did get on to EDA and I saw a story from a lady I won’t mention her name I read her story and I was like I need to give you my eggs like I had this pull towards her we met up it was actually from speaking to her to being in the clinic

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Getting the eggs, you know, getting the whole process started was so quick because I just, I don’t know. just had this real connection with her as a person. thought she was just beautiful. I’m still in contact with her now. She has a little, a little boy. did that sort of was during my surrogacy. I hadn’t started surrogacy, obviously. So I had to put the surrogacy on hold for a month while I did the egg donations.

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boys were totally fine with that. Maybe a little bit disappointed that it pushed it out a month, but you know. I mean, we surrogacy is a marathon, not a sprint. So even in, and what was it when I read in your intro that it still took, was it six embryo transfers in your own surrogacy team anyway? So it didn’t work first go. Seven little B was a seventh transfer. Yes. Yeah. So one month in the scheme of then all of that is just a drop in the ocean, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. So I did the, that, was a known donation with, with

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her and then I went on to do the surrogacy and then after

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I had done my first journey. did another egg donation to a couple down in Sydney. Right. And so you’ve got the real variety there of some of the recipients you’ve kept in touch with. I could just ask you so many questions about egg donation, but perhaps we’ll come back to that just because you know, we’ll do that offline. We’ll do that. Maybe we’ll see how much we get through with the surrogacy because you’ve got your own kids involved too. And so they want to be an egg donor and a surrogate. So what language have you used to explain to your kids about surrogacy and egg donation?

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With the egg donations, was, you know, mommy’s helping other people have babies. her eggs basically. Yeah, you know, and that’s how I sort of explained the egg donation and the surrogacies were mommy is having your cousin, like I’m going to birth your cousin and you know, that will be your cousin. Yes, that’s the language we use, like a tummy cousin to try and understand that connection.

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pregnancies my babes are beautiful like they would kiss my belly at night every night and they actually came up with a nickname for little B when I was pregnant they called her Navy which I thought was just so beautiful so she was baby Navy when she was in my tummy. Sometimes they’re the unsung heroes of this the partners or the kids of surrogates because they come along on this journey too don’t they? Yeah they really do they do and they become the boys were very great with

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with my kids, you know, they’d look after them if I needed them to, or if they’d come over, they’d spend a lot of time playing with them because they were quite young when I went through that journey. Right, see it. Talk us through that journey. So you met the dads and then you’re doing the paperwork and the IVF clinic and so and the sorrow dating. I sometimes say it might take quite a few months, sorry, date and a few months to do the paperwork. Is that sort of how you roughly remember what it took for you?

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So I am a little bit impatient. It sort of wasn’t like a long process. I was like, I’m keen, I’m keen to do this for you. I want to make you dads. Let’s go. so I wouldn’t say I rushed it, but I definitely was like, let’s do this. You know, I’m not getting any younger. I think I was 38 at the time. So I was like, let’s, I want to do this. Let’s go. Let’s do it now. Yes. So surrogates are often determined women and they

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They can get stuff done. They’re busy women and can get things done. so hence the moving forward with the process. Surrogate Danny has typed in a question. She’s a Queensland surrogate to be that says, with both sets of IPs, how long did you get to know them?

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or have focused surrogating before offering and beginning the counseling and legals. And I’m just adding to that. If you could go back in time or give advice to yourself or others, would you do it the same or would you advise longer or that just felt like it was the right amount for you? I think I spent a lot of time with the boys and got to know them. And I think also because we transferred like seven times, guess that sort of, that extended the time. Yeah, it extended the time. We actually miscarried the first

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Transfer as well. Also that extended so but after I went then we did back-to-back like it was it was Quite quick and tracking your cycle with blood tests takes quite a lot of time doesn’t it? Oh, and I hate needles one blood test one of the boys came with me I was squeezing his hand so hard that his ring busted one of these veins in his hand

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Yep. Well, that’s just a sign of surrogates. Yeah. Well, the things you put your body through, hey, I mean, having had a miscarriage and multiple transfers, some surrogates might go, do you know what? can’t keep going with this, but were you just so determined that you’re like, I want to keep going. I want to help you have a baby. Is that how it felt? I’m stubborn. I’m very stubborn. So I was like, no, it’s happening. And actually the last transfer was right before Christmas and the boys were like, no, we need a break. We, we, we’re tapped out and we need it. You’d break. And I was like, no, no, this is the one.

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And it was their last, their last embryo from the second pickup. So this would have been all, all embryos gone. They’d have to do another, a third pickup. I was like, no, this is the one. And that was, that was the one. So yeah.

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Yeah, Danny’s typed in another question, which is about relevant to where we’re up to in your story Was there a personal checklist you wanted to try and check off before making that official offer? Were there things like you wanted to make sure they’d met your kids or certain things you’ve done together or yeah Yeah, definitely meeting my kids. I actually think the first time I met the boys they came to my house I invited them to my house Yep, and they met my kids and the first thing they did was go and hang out with my kids like I was the second choice

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for the hangout day, which is fine. Like it was great. Like you could just tell that they were born to be fathers.

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Definitely that my kids felt comfortable around them because I guess if my kids didn’t feel comfortable then you know, I’d have to sort of look is that a red flag is you know, but yeah, definitely my kids and you know, making sure that is there in a position to have a child as well? Like not just on the fly. Let’s have a baby. Like I wanted to make sure that, know, they were in a great position to have a child and they really were. They were just everything. They ticked all the boxes. Oh, that’s wonderful to hear. What I’m going to do is I’m going to go back to some of the

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photos that you’ve shared and so this photo here I’m pretty sure it would be from a baby shower but in the lead up to that is there anything that you want to tell us from the pregnancy was it smooth or hard in comparison to the previous ones you’d had? my three pregnancies for my Kipper babies were perfect pregnancies I had no pain I had no morning sickness yeah really and this is another reason why I was like yeah I could do that I had great pregnancies

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With the surrogacy, I had a lot of physical pain in my hips underneath my belly, which I didn’t get in my pregnancies. I did struggle with the pain. I think I ended up in maternity ward multiple times with the pains. Boys were always there though. They always came with me. They were amazing. So yeah, this is the baby shower.

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boys put on this beautiful spread like that table just behind us. The whole table is just flowers and food. was magic. Like they did amazing with, um, I did nothing. did nothing for this baby shower. I just turned up. just waddled in with my children. So as some people would say, not that you were doing nothing. You’re growing them up human, my friend. Yeah, but I know, but I’m normally the one that puts on the parties. I’m normally that person. So it was nice just to.

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Waddle in and everything is done to celebrate with their friends and family to yeah village of people that you’re creating a grandchild cousin for and stuff Yeah, exactly. It was so lovely because I like most of their family and friends were there and every like I got I got gifts from people and Like everyone was just so beautiful towards me. That was great. It was really lovely. So yes. Yes, and that’s

12:26
Part of the reason why we do it as surrogates is it’s lovely to feel that love from the whole group. And then we come to the day of birth and as we’d in the intro, you’d had some caesareans, but you’d also had a vaginal birth in between. And so then your surrogate births were vaginal after caesarean, which can be significant. Some IPs at the beginning might be a bit nervous about that, but do you want to talk us through the day of birth or what you think of? When I did my first surrogacy, my doctor was a bit reluctant to let me have a VBAC.

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So we’d actually booked in a caesarian date, which I believe was Thursday morning at 7am. So that would have been my 40 and one 40 days was Wednesday. Yes. The Thursday was the caesarian scheduled on the Wednesday night. Oh, I might cry.

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On the Wednesday night, I remember putting the kids to bed and crying and they’re like, why you crying? I’m like, because I don’t want to have a caesarian. don’t, I don’t want to be cut open. I, I remember getting in the shower and I’m screaming, I’m screaming on my belly going, get out and pushing. And I was just so determined not to have a caesarian. Anyway, about 10 30, I went into labor and had her at two 30 Thursday morning. So five hours before the due date.

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time before the schedule caesarian she came. She helped you have the birth that you wanted there. Yes she did. The boys were there you know at 10 30 at night I’m like all right do you guys want to head up to the hospital and they’re like yeah and I’m like well you better start driving because they lived about 40 minutes from me so I was like it’s time it’s time to get to my house. We’d actually that day spent a few hours together so was in their mind they’re like we were just there.

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Probably not, you know, they might have been thinking that maybe they didn’t I don’t know but yeah So they drove over pick me up drove in the hospital and had the birth and some yeah beautiful photos there of each of you You’re holding little bulbs. Do you remember this particular photo? Was that significant for a reason?

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This would have just been one of the visits that the boys that’s at my house. So they’ve come over with her. And you expressed, you know, there’s so little of them and you express milk for a while. that correct? Yes. Yeah. I was expressing milk whenever I saw the boys, they load them up with all the milk because it was all in the freezer. So they would just take it home and,

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do what they needed to with it. And then I think the last photo here is of a cat chopper with your kids and little surrobub there. She’s grown up, hey? Oh yeah, she’s just got the most beautiful blonde curls. Yeah, so we all caught up at a water park local to us. Yeah, it was great. She said she loved me. She gave me this big hug and you know, the kids just adored her. They were all playing together.

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Yeah, no, was a really lovely catch up. Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing those lovely photos with us. Is there anything that springs to mind from those, you know, the few months post-birth, the navigating hormones and the catch ups there? Was it wobbly for you or smooth enough? The boys were really great. Whenever I needed time with little B, they would allow that.

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and help me with that need. Yeah, so during like the fourth trimester, I did see a lot of her and the boys, which was great. You know, obviously now due to life, I don’t see them as as often as I was.

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I’m okay with that. know that if I was to contact them and say, Hey, let’s, let’s do a catch up. know that, um, they would facilitate that with our schedules. Um, they’re both really busy as well. And you know, they’re obviously both back at work now and you know, she’s nearly four. I should be four this year. Different schedules. would you say?

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couple of times a year now or just depends? It really depends on our schedules and probably easier with technology these days it’s sometimes easier to send a message in a photo. Exactly like I do see a lot of updates on Facebook about what they’re doing and so I get to see I guess watch her grow with these photos yeah. Yes and same for them seeing your kids grow as well too. Now you just two sets of friends that each have kids. That’s it exactly I just help them have that kid. Have that yeah. Pretty amazing thing

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to do to help create life, right? You can’t buy that in a shop. You cannot.

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Well, had a couple of questions come through. Alison says, I have an opinion on this one, but it says, what do you think you did differently to make that last transfer work? every transfer we did other than the last one, I would transfer and I would go back to work. The last transfer we did, I took the whole day off. The boys and I hung out for the day. had a really, like we went out for breakfast. We had a really relaxing, calm day. That’s the one that worked. know, but I suppose at the end of the day, nothing, nobody knows. Oh, and Mac is too.

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Oh, okay. I hear there’s this thing, this Mac is chips. People say that’s what makes it stick, but at the end of the day, it’s just still a guessing game, is it with the embryo and…

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and stuff. The one that’s meant to be will be. That’s it. surrogate to be Dannie typed in says, is there anything you would say is a top three types of support that was provided by the IPs personally or that I guess emotionally that they helped with during pregnancy and during the fourth trimester? What springs to mind? Other things they did well or things you kind of wish in hindsight your team had done or anything? Cooking meals. The boys got me massages every fortnight, which was magic and needed with all the pains that I was going through. They would pay for massages every fortnight.

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the weekends I would go they would often either cook me meals or order meals for me for nights that I just didn’t have it in me to cook. Practical things are really helpful. Yeah practical I’m quite independent so I’m used to doing things myself so it was quite hard for me to ask for help. Yeah pretty common amongst surrogates from what I hear. I have heard that.

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But they were great with offering and I just needed to say, okay. think for me sometimes it was things for the kids lunch boxes, partly meals, but then also awesome snacks for me or for the kids. we worked out pumpkin soup was a winner that the kids would eat too. Cause you can sometimes have fussy kids. Oh yes, very fussy kids. Yeah, right. One question I’ll ask is an Australian law reform commissioner doing an inquiry into surrogacy at the moment and their final reports due out very soon. And I think there’ll be some changes coming to surrogacy in Australia.

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would like to see if you had a think about that at all? Um, I, yeah. Should I pose a question to you? There’s discussion about compensation. Yeah. Like I think we will be going down that path and I think yes, but how much is up for debate? yeah, it’s hard to, guess, to determine what would be a good amount. I know how much the journeys cost my IPs. So then having to compensate, I can see it sort of from both.

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sides like the IPs then having to come up with even more money. But then I guess as the surrogate, we’re putting everything on the line for this stranger basically. So yeah, that’s a hard one. There’s talk about how can we have more IPs do surrogacy in Australia as opposed to going overseas? What could we do to essentially we need more surrogates in Australia? Yeah. Yeah. Anonymous typed in, what attracted you to your IPs? And that could also be even in the egg donor world as well. Were there any qualities

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or life factors or experience or it’s almost a bit like online dating sometimes you sometimes just feel the click and you can’t explain it. Do you remember feeling anything? Well, I know that when I started looking for IPs the first time I obviously had prerequisites. I wanted someone in Brisbane.

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I think that was really my only prerequisite. You didn’t mind if they were straight or gay? No, that wasn’t a children already, no children like that. I just wanted someone in Brisbane, so I know that I did a search for Brisbane posts when I started looking. I just read it and if something in their story sort of was like, oh, that’s, you know, we have different values. That’s not for me. Yeah, just something about the boys.

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post, I was just like, I’m going to message them about that post. It’s pulling me towards it. It’s sometimes hard, like, because our piece is sometimes wondering like, Oh, what can we do to make ourselves seem more appealing? But sometimes it’s just something you might have in common, the same breed of dogs or the same football team or something. They did have dogs that was, they had two dash hounds. So that was a big, I was like, Oh, I like dogs.

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Yeah, and so I guess do you have any advice to IPs then who are wondering, you know, how might a surrogate pick them? Is there anything in particular they should do? Just be yourself. Like you don’t need to put your whole life story on your post, but just be you. Someone’s going to pick you for you and you want them to pick you for you because you don’t want to put this fake story online and then it turns out that’s not who you are and you know, you’re both wasting each other’s time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s some good advice there. Is there anything else that you wanted to tell us about either your egg donation or surrogacy journey?

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that spring to mind? Anything particularly challenging or proud of? I’m proud of doing it. I’m proud that I helped people become parents through no benefit to myself at all basically.

21:25
You know, I did it because I wanted to help people, not because I got anything out of it. That’s it. It’s just they needed it. I could do it. So I did it. Yeah. And I like to think that we’re modeling that to our own children that, I know it’s an extreme case of how to help people, but it’s like, if you feel that it’s within your capacity to do investigate it, go ahead and try, guess. Well, yeah, that will. And that’s why I did the egg donation. I’m like, well, I can. I’ve got eggs. I’m not using. Why not? Why not help someone? It’s not going to cost me anything. Why not help someone?

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I could, so I did. That’s a good line there. I could, so I did. Well, well done. I’m really proud of you, sorry, sister, that you know what you’ve done there for sharing. Lisa, who’s a regular to our Zooms and these says, thank you for sharing that. So you can see that people are really appreciative. Somebody said yes to the Maccas fries theory as well. So have you got any last bits of parting advice then for any potential surrogates or IPs on this journey? I guess to IPs, it can be a long road and don’t just keep pushing, keep putting your story out.

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there put it out to friends and families you know someone will turn up for you someone will you just got to get your story out there because it might be a friend of a friend who hears it from their cousin and they’re like hey that’s something I can do do you know anyone and then it gets back to you and just sharing your story there and for surrogates any advice it’s like do you think there’s value in joining the community and finding support in other sorrow sisters yes I have some amazing lifelong friends that I’ve met through surrogacy

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having them as a sounding board for when a transfer didn’t work or when I’m craving something at two o’clock in the morning or my feet are all swollen because I’m pregnant and fat and don’t want to pick something up off the floor. I’ve got someone to complain to. They get it. They get it. You’re thinking about becoming a surrogate.

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join the community, join the surrogate charts. You’ll make amazing friends if anything. So. Perfectly said there, yes. And because there are days where we’re glad we’re doing this, we wanted to do it, but it’s still hard sometimes. Yeah, well it is. Pregnancy is hard. It’s not easy. And we get older every time we get pregnant. God, we keep getting older. It’s ridiculous. Yeah, I had pelvic instability with surrogate pregnancy and needed the SRC shorts and just the, oh, the walking upstairs was, it’s, oh.

23:36
It’s hard. Yeah, I remember when I was pregnant with little B, I did a lot of walking in my job at the time and I just remember just walking and crying because I was in so much pain just from my hip pain and I was like, this is ridiculous. This is not how pregnancy should be. At the school I teach at, they had to give me the key for the lift just to go up the one flight of stairs. Like my midwife said, that’s what you need to do. I’m like, okay. Thank you all for joining us tonight. Thank you for joining me, Melissa. My pleasure. Thank you.

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Thank you for listening to this episode. see the beautiful images mentioned, head to our YouTube channel to watch the webinar recording. If you’re looking for more support and potentially connecting with a surrogate or intended parents, head to our website, surrogacyaustralia.org, to check out the resources and to learn more about SASS. 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.