Episode 169 – Rin – surrogate

podcast 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

00:44
and they alternate between surrogates, gay dads and straight mums. This episode featuring surrogate Rin was recorded in September, 2026. Rin gave birth to little Jack as a surrogate in March, 2026. Jack’s two dads, Dan and Stu, originally from the UK but living in Sydney, were initially strangers to Rin and her family. Rin and her partner, Aaron, live with their two children near Wollongong. They have been a SAS-supported, self-matched team for their journey.

01:13
Despite Jack arriving early and some post-birth complications, their team and friendship is strong. You can hear from one of the dads Rin carried for, Dan, in a future episode, 176, and also hear Dan talking on a previous episode, 59, discussing when surrogacy doesn’t work out. He talks about having been in chats with two previous surrogates and how as IPs, intended parents, to allow yourself time to grieve those journeys

01:42
and to pick yourself up and try again in the community. And as you can see, it worked for Dan. They finally got there to be parents when they met surrogate Rin. As mentioned, they are a SASS team and came to us self-matched. If you’re looking for similar guidance for your own surrogacy team, please get in contact with me from the website or email SASS at surrogacyaustralia.org. I hope you enjoy this episode.

02:06
Well, let’s go back to the start. Why did you want to be a surrogate in the first place? I am a lesbian woman and my partner is a trans man. So assigned female at birth now identifies as male. So we were not able to have kids in the traditional way. We had to rely on sperm donors. So we had used two different sperm donors for our kids. It was so valuable to us that two beautiful men decided to donate to our families so we could have our kids.

02:31
able to pass that on to someone else and that’s something that we’ve always done in the queer community is help each other out to have babies because obviously it’s a little harder for us. So yeah I wanted to give another family that chance to grow their family as well. Yep that’s beautiful motivation that the gratitude that you experience to have a family and to give it back. I mean it’s a pretty big way to give back. Yep there is a pretty big difference between you know donating into a cup and carrying a child. I think still that same sense of the outcome is the same yeah.

03:00
with me in the peanut gallery. Being able to pass that on has been fantastic.

03:05
Wonderful. Katie’s just said in the chat same, two children are donor conceived and this part of the same reason brought her to surrogacy. Were your pregnancies fairly smoothish? Was that part of the reason why you thought I could probably do pregnancy again? Very much so and I definitely enjoy parts of pregnancy. I love bonding with the babies and playing with them when they start moving around and it’s a beautiful thing even though for both of my kids I suffered from very full on postnatal anxiety to the point of sort of needing to adjust medications and things because I am a medicated.

03:35
for mental health issues so I had my own mental health history in my own health journey previously. I am definitely an example of how that’s not going to count you out for surrogacy. If you’ve got a good team on board, if you’ve got good supports, if you’re stable with your medication, medication is not necessarily going to stop you. There’s mother safe, GPs will talk to you about medications to make sure that you can continue those or adjust to something else. I was lucky that I didn’t have to do any adjustments just post birth but…

04:01
despite that sort of post-natal anxiety, it was definitely a thing that I could do this again. Thank you for sharing that. That is really valuable for people to hear because they wonder if that might discount them or not. But I guess in some ways it shows that you’ve had challenges in life and you know how to recognise them and so you’re already prepared to be open and talking about them. Absolutely. And between my kids, we did have a fertility struggle. So it did take us a good time to actually conceive our second child. earlier you talked about sort of weight problems and BMI, an ideal BMI. And I can say that

04:30
for me having a higher BMI did actually contribute to fertility issues.

04:36
That was something that I had to, like, had to get my health in order. had to lose some weight and I had to get really well before I was actually able to conceive my son. But having those struggles, being able to go through those struggles was actually really valuable in my team because when I connected with Dan and Stu and some of you guys would know their story, they had about three to four years of journey before we even met and they had sort of some chances and some disappointments. And so we had a bit of a similar story. It helped us be able to connect and come together as a team a lot better. That’s So valuable.

05:06
Good point. So what some people might see is, oh, too many struggles they might not want to hear at all. It actually can be the thing that bonds you. We are going to be having Dan on as webinar co-host a little bit later in the year. So that’ll be great. He actually did already come on quite a few years ago about when surrogacy doesn’t work out and you have to sort of pick yourself up and go again. So we’ve already got that recording. And so suppose while we’re on Dan and Stu, how did you meet them?

05:28
So I didn’t already know them when I decided I wanted to become a surrogate. I sort of did a bit of research. I found the Australian surrogacy community Facebook. Yeah, talked for a little bit. As you said, it’s it’s nice to just hang out in the background for a couple of weeks. And Dan and Stu weren’t my first IP. I matched with a couple who lived in South Sydney and we got to the point of where we were about to meet and start discussing and we were getting along really well. And they discovered that because their MROs were in Canada, they would have to use a Canadian

05:58
surrogate they weren’t allowed to bring their embryos here. So unfortunately at that point our relationship didn’t. We sort of wished each other the best of luck and went on our way and so a couple of weeks later I came across a post from Dan and at that point I couldn’t tell that he wanted a surrogate because he was posting about his pub lunch. Obviously he’d been part of the community for a while so he was just there to hopefully have something come along but he was supporting everyone else. I him an audio comment at his post, can I direct message you? He said yes and I sent him a message

06:28
and said, are you looking for a surrogate? Because I can’t tell. He said, yes, I absolutely am. And we sort of got chatting. We started messaging. I think a couple of months later, we met in person for the first time. And it just blossomed from there. We hung out.

06:42
as much as we could. talked on Messenger a whole lot after about six months. Six to eight months later, we invited them to come along to the Rainbow Family’s Halloween disco. We take our kids to every year, which is a beautiful little celebration that we go to. And when we were there, I offered to be their surrogate. Wonderful. And so I’m just doing the timeline there. It was probably about two years then from that first message to birth, would it have been? Just about. Yeah, right. So there you go. So you you chatted, you offered and then you started the paperwork and the counseling, the legal.

07:12
the IVF and then we’ve got some photos that we’re going to go back to. I know the first photo is of an embryo transfer, so is there anything that you want to comment on about that part of the journey that springs to mind? We got very, very lucky, I have to say. And I got very lucky with Dan and Stu as well because we immediately, we were already on the same page with a lot of things. Like our first meeting together we talked about our non-negotiables, which I think is a really important thing to cover early on. You don’t want to be getting a relationship with a person and get halfway down the road and then realise there’s something that you’re just not

07:42
going to agree on. So we found it really important to bring up those non-negotiables really early and we’re on the same page with those which was fantastic. Smooth relationship, got along really really well. Jack was conceived first go which is incredibly lucky. Yeah well done. Yeah it’s almost unheard of so we got very very lucky that that happened. Well I’ve been doing data gathering over my

08:01
many years in the community. And I mean, there’s so many factors at play with IVF, as you know, and conceiving. But in this from the surrogates, maybe it’s because the surrogates are more fertile. Of those that have a baby on the first transfer, by my data, it’s like 55 to 58%. And which is much higher than traditional IVF. And then within three embryo transfers, 90 % have had the baby. So I often recommend people having three embryos at least. So clearly Dan and Stu have still some in the freezer. They do. Absolutely.

08:31
And so then you got pregnant and so let’s go back to that, the photos there. So yes, tell us more about in that lead up to doing the paperwork and the transfers or anything else that springs to mind. It is a tough slog getting through all that paperwork and the hardest part of it is a lot of the time you’re relying and waiting on other people. So there was a point of time where we were ready to go, but we had to wait for the committee to approve us for our surrogacy team essentially. And when we sort of were ready to go ahead at that point, they only met monthly.

09:01
and they had just met a couple of days before. We had to wait a whole month for the approval, the legal approval to come through. it’s, yeah, it’s a lot of waiting. Like you said, it is absolutely a marathon. Me and Dan sort of had conversations about two weeks after he joined the Facebook group and said, why don’t I have a baby yet? And I said, yeah, I know I’ve been doing this surrogacy thing for five minutes. Why aren’t I pregnant yet? Like it’s, it is a bomb, but you do, you do get there. It’s important to keep a bit of a sense of humor about it and, know, and talk about it with your team as well, because you’re going through that weight. They’re going,

09:31
through that way. It’s really good to sort of be on the same page and be chatting about how you’re both going through that. But I see in that photo that is Jack’s embryo transfer. You can see my two kids there. The little blondie guy is Arthur, he’s three, and Delia, he’s now nine. You can see how comfortable they are with Dan and Stu. They’ve just sort of become family. There’s a photo later on where Arthur’s just casually chilling on one of their laps. So we have become quite close over time, which is…

09:57
kind of what you want as a team very much. And I often find that they’re trusting us to carry their baby. I think it’s quite important if we get to that point where we can trust them with our kids and they feel comfortable and safe and vice versa. I think it’s a nice point to get to as a team. yeah, credit to your team for having that means that’s a sign that you clearly spent time together for your kids to get to know them. then we

10:20
go through the pregnancy and so you were pregnant over Christmas? that’s just at one of our local pubs. So they came down to us quite a lot. We went up to them quite a lot. We hung about in different spaces and we spent some time at Christmas together down the coast a couple of times down to Jarvis Bay and stayed down there.

10:38
Yeah, it hung out as family, which has been really lovely. Yeah, it sounds like you’ve really created a modern family there. So it wasn’t just surrogacy appointments, it’s actually spending time as friends. Absolutely. And I think that’s really important if you want to have that ongoing relationship. And it does depend on what kind of relationship you have with your IP. If you want to have that ongoing relationship, it’s beautiful to hang out in different spaces. So one of those photos is actually us at Fair Day for Mardi Gras. So they came along the year before we got pregnant. And that’s obviously me pregnant at Mardi Gras and at Fair Day.

11:08
So that’s helping introduce them to the community because it’s such a big family day. They’ll be very long next year. Absolutely. Yes, with Jack alongside them.

11:17
And then we head into the time of the end of the pregnancy. Jack did come early. Tell us now what was happening with your health and Jack’s and as much as detail you want to go into as we lead up to birth here. So I am an example of sometimes things can go really wrong and I’ll try not to get too emotional but it was a very emotional time. So like I said like our everything was so smooth like getting to know each other on the same page all the way. Jack conceived first go really smooth pregnancy no health issue.

11:47
except I had gestational diabetes, but that was diet managed, totally smooth until about 32 weeks. I started experiencing abdominal pain just sort of halfway through the day and I’d had a scan that morning. So I just thought maybe the stenographer was just a bit rough. But it got worse during the day and then by the time Erin got home from work, he took one look at me and went, no, you’re not okay. You need to go to hospital. Ended up in hospital that night. By that time I was in an enormous amount of pain. I was kept in the birthing unit for observation

12:17
so much pain, all the tests, think pretty much every team in the hospital came to look at me at one point, including the ICU team, infectious diseases, so many bloods. had ultrasounds, had MRIs, I had CTs, everything to try and figure out what was going on with me. What it turned out was that I had caught a virus from my son, which is one of the downsides of having your child at daycare. They do like to make you sick, but that virus had turned into septicemia. By the time Jack was born,

12:47
I had been in hospital for about a week. We’d finally figured out what was going on. I was being pumped full of every antibiotic under the sun at that point. Jack had maintained beautifully for that whole week until at one point my blood pressure dropped.

13:00
And blood pressure is usually about 120 over 80 and mine got down to 60 over 20 Which is the pool pretty much before your organs start shutting down Wow and at that point Jack’s heart rate started to fail So that’s when it was decided he’s got to come out. I the lads because they’re up in Sydney We’re down in Wollongong said we’re not sure what’s happening But get down here because we might be meeting Jack tonight So they helped me for the steroids to try and straw up his lungs a bit better by that time He was 33 weeks and four days which is close enough to term that

13:30
They went, yep, we can bring him out, but he’s in breach, so it’s an emergency cesarean. And then within about half an hour, I think, of the lads getting there, he was out.

13:39
So you can see that middle photo is mid-Caesarian. Yes. But what it did mean, so Anna, you talked earlier about, this is my daughter Delia who’s just joining us, who’s supposed to be in Hello. You talked earlier about one of the defining beautiful moments of surrogacy is having that hand over, having the arms and then being able to say, here is your baby. Yeah. I thought. No. So through all of that, you may not get that moment. Yes. Important to know. You’re always told with babies, babies don’t come to a timetable, babies don’t follow your plans.

14:09
So it is important. No. And you do always kind of think, you know, here’s my ideal birth plan, but we’ll follow whatever the baby needs. It may go further away from that than you think. We weren’t expecting to have an emergency seizure at 33 weeks, but sometimes that’s what happens. So I did miss out on that beautiful moment of being able to hand him over because the second he was out, he was straight off to the NICU. None of us even got to hold him for the first couple of days because he was, his lungs were struggling. He had to be on a CPAP for the first couple of weeks. It does

14:39
mean that some of the parts there, where we are in hospital, having some skin to skin I’ve put these photos up now and I’m…

14:46
looking in your eyes there, there’s a sadness, a tiredness as well. the other photos of, yeah, we’re seeing you have some skin to skin with Jack. And I remember getting photos from Dan and seeing him on his CPAP machine, little Jack and, you know, just as your whole team riding this wave. I mean, I have so many questions. Were they able to come down a bit earlier or there wasn’t the need for them to come down that earlier? And the other thing to point out is Stu’s actually a doctor himself. And I have always wondered how that might go for a team as a surrogate when like if they bring

15:16
stress to it because of their own background or if it was still a good team. Stu is the calmest man I’ve met in my life. Wow. I have a day. Actually quite sweet. We went through Katrina Hale for our pre surrogacy counselling and she’s absolutely fantastic. But she said that you could throw a bomb at Stu and he wouldn’t react but Dan would be that bomb. Yes, Dan is very good. Dan is full of life is Dan. Yeah. But he is an absolutely beautiful human. Dan was lucky enough to be able to stay so

15:46
the hospital offered him a place to stay nearby because obviously Jack was in the Nycote Wollongong hospital. So Steve was sort getting down of an evening when he could because he was still working through that time. It is incredible that he was able to do that and then come down and support Dan. But Dan was right there and then I was in the hospital. I was there for four days after Jack’s birth because I was still covering from what I’d been through. think four days he started to have some gastric issues and he was transferred up to Randwick.

16:12
So he went to the children’s hospital up there. And again, that was a further hardship because it meant that I couldn’t be there right there with him. So for the four days I could access him. I think it was probably about a week later actually that he got moved up because I had gone home by that point. I was travelling back into the hospital and spending hours with him. Then yeah, me and Dan were tag teaming it and just spending time with him and skin to skin and making sure. And I was expressing colostrum and breast milk for him as well in the NICU. So he was having just colostrum from me for a little bit and then a common

16:42
breast milk and formula a little bit later on. I think the hardest thing I found over that time was the lack of consistency between, like within the hospital and between the hospitals because

16:53
Because surrogacy is still sort of fairly, it’s not unknown, but it’s not super common. A lot of hospitals don’t have standard policies. Then we found Wollongong Hospital, I could pop in there any time. Dan could pop in there any time because we were both regarded to be parents. So that was fine. But then when he went to Randwick Hospital, I wasn’t on the list. So we went up to visit Jack and then they wouldn’t let us in. And I just absolutely broke down in the waiting room because I hadn’t seen him for two days by this point. And then the nurse unit manager came out and said, I do actually know what’s

17:23
on. So I was able to go in at that time and then they sort of sorted it out so I could go in when I needed to. But that lack of consistency between hospitals and within hospitals and no one quite knowing what the rules are just that little bit of extra stress. Definitely. mean and I think you’ve had some counseling post-birth but if not you know this is would be good opportunities for it. So there’s so many things there. It’s the didn’t get to do the end of your pregnancy, it’s the unplanned cesarean, it’s the early, it’s the you with your ear

17:53
Infection and your own life at risk and then the recovery from that infection But then the recovery from caesarean the not getting the handover moments They’re not even even if everything after that was smooth But you’re still not getting regular cuddles with Jack and seeing this baby on CPAP and then your brain going well Sometimes brains go is it my fault have I done this you know? This is not how I had planned this and then the hospital transfers my goodness There are so many like any one of those things would be enough

18:21
enough for any one surrogate but you’ve been through so much in that time that would have taken quite a toll emotionally on you reflecting on that part of your journey. We’ve got some photos here of you expressing the breast milk and some cuddles but I mean yeah I mean how are you going now and what has helped you in that time to heal? It was very rough immediately after because like I mentioned earlier I always get really severe postnatal anxiety as well.

18:47
So that on top of all the other things and then the hormones and all of that, it was very emotional afterwards for a good while. But we did have a post-surrogacy counselling session sort of a couple of weeks after Jack was born where we were able to all come together in the same space. Like we weren’t able to be in the same space physically, but we came together on Zoom and we sort of talked about our experience of the birth and the surrogacy. And it was really healing for Dan to acknowledge at that point that he felt really bad for me that I hadn’t been able to.

19:17
sort of have that handover moment that I’d sort of talked about wanting to have and I hadn’t been able to carry the pregnancy through to when it was supposed to happen and it was really beautiful to hear his perspective on that and hear his acknowledgement and Stu as well obviously but Dan Tick Talker. Being able to hear the acknowledgement of that was really good and then you know seeing all these beautiful photos of Dan and Stu with their baby and you know Jack getting to meet all their friends and some of their family and then growing as a family is incredibly healing. Being able to see their

19:46
having those moments and they got to have those moments a bit sooner than they wanted, which then they were expecting, which was you know that was quite nice for them. yeah, being able to see them being a family kind of brings back into perspective why we do it. It’s not for that glorification, it’s not for that you know that acknowledgement of how amazing we are, it’s to help someone have a family. And you did that my friend, you did that. It was a rough road at the pointy end of things but you did that. So proud of you, sorry sister. Thank you. And then you know photos of your modern

20:16
family just catch ups go on with the three kids now involved isn’t it? Absolutely so that’s us at Symbio Wildlife Park in Helensburg. We do you know we do little hangouts at restaurants and things and sometimes we try to find spaces for the kids that you know Jack can’t experience it wholly at the moment but when he’s a bit bigger he’ll enjoy sort of zoo trips and park trips and all of those things that we’ll do together. That’s beautiful and I think you said

20:40
some last photos here and then of your kids, your daughter, know, cuddling Jack too. They’d be quite aware of it and you would have used particular language to explain it to your kids. they are mad, well Arthur’s three so he doesn’t know a lot of what’s going on but Delia is madly in love with Jack.

20:54
But the way we explained it to Delia when we started the process and Delia went through the IVF process with us with Arthur. So she was involved the whole way. She was there with embryo transfer. She was there shortly after he was born. So she’s known about the whole trip. She’s known all about Jack. And so the way we explained it to her was we’re to have a baby for someone else. We’re not keeping this baby, but it will be like a cousin for you. That’s what they regard Dan and Stu to be their uncles and they regard Jack to be their cousin. It’s our chosen family.

21:24
We sort of come together as a big rainbow family and that’s it’s a beautiful way for us to go forward. Absolutely well said there. Yes. And it’s the family you make for yourself, the family you choose. Yeah. It’s lovely there. Danny, who is a surrogate in the making and she’s regular at these webinars and she always asks great questions just so that I’ve got some questions there to ask in case we didn’t have any. But I think the theme that’s running through the questions that Danny’s typed in here is about the hospital support there. One question is, was the hospital able to support the dad’s

21:54
as Jack’s parents and seek them out for medical decisions or did they have to go seek medical approval through you because you’re the legal parent? Both. Starting off in Wollongong, because I was there the whole time, I was the first part of call for them. Things like the heel prick test, the vitamin K shot, all of those things, they came to me first. And I said, yes, I give my permission, but you also need to talk to his parents. And I know they’d be on the same page, but I say absolutely yes as the legal parent, the legal parent, because I’m on the birth certificate.

22:24
same.

22:25
Yes, but it’s actually not my decision. So I did say you do need to talk to Dan and Stu and make sure they’re on board with that. After Jack went up to Randwick, it sort of went the other way around. They talked to Dan and Stu first for their preferences and then said, we have to get the legal parents permission to do that thing. So there were some forms I had to sign and there was a couple of phone calls where I basically said, yes, I’m happy for whatever Dan and Stu say. So there was a bit of a legal process that we had to go through. I did have to be consulted on a lot of things again as the legal parent.

22:55
something that yeah will probably happen for a lot of people. Hopefully there won’t be as many medical decisions for everyone else. That is part of it. I think it’s really valuable for people listening to the webinar or listening to this back as a recording to go we can have a smooth pregnancy and the whole lead up but you just never know what’s going to happen and you have to be prepared for it. So hopefully they could talk about it going what if this happened to our team how would we navigate this? And they do cover that a little bit in the pre-surrogacy counselling. So again as I said with Katrina Hale

23:24
it was incredibly valuable because she took us through things that we hadn’t considered before. So things like what happens if your baby gets to near full term and you discover that they won’t survive the birth.

23:35
or they will die shortly after birth, what will you do at that point? What will you do if you find that your baby will be profoundly disabled? Or if there’s this percentage chance that they’ll be profoundly disabled and those kind of things that you don’t want to think about. You never have to think about that for your baby. You never have to want to think about that for a baby you’re having for other people. But it is important to know those things and to be on the same page. And then the big one, if it comes down to if there’s something goes horribly wrong and it comes down to the life of the baby or the surrogate, you’ve got to be on the same page for that.

24:04
And it has to be the surrogate usually already has children and a family and needs to be her first as hard as that is, but that’s it has to be rough. But that’s the things that you need to actually think about at some point. Yes. You were also a SASS team where you came to SASS together. What did you find was any of the advantages of being a SASS team?

24:23
The wealth of knowledge that you guys have, you especially, is absolutely invaluable. So already knowing about psychologists, already knowing about the legal processes, about lawyers who have done the process before. So not having to go out and do all that research and find all those things on our own. And Dan did a lot of that as the IP, that’s kind of his job, but not having to start from scratch, not having to reinvent the wheel is so

24:46
valuable when you’re already going through this long process where there’s so many steps. Just streamlining that any way you can is amazing. That’s great to hear. You said something at the beginning of it. I wondered if other people might ask but weren’t sure to ask. You said it’s important to be on the same page about your non-negotiables. I was wondering if there were any then that you feel comfortable sharing because I wonder if people listening might have those. I’m wondering what because they might be like oh I’m about to form a surrogacy team. What are the non what should my non-negotiables be? My non-negotiables and

25:16
don’t have many but I will not work with anti-vaxxers, absolutely not. When that baby is born they need to have all their vaccinations, need to have the vitamin K shot, the heel prick test, all of those things. I’m very fortunate that my team were a doctor and a nurse, so they were very much on the same page with that. But there are some medical people who are anti-vaxxers, which is strange but they do exist. My non-negotiable was I will not, if you have a male child, you cannot circumcise him. I do believe in circumcision, I do believe that it’s genital mutilation.

25:46
Medically, yes. Unless it’s medically necessary, which case absolutely. If it’s not medically necessary for me, I don’t believe in circumcision at Yep, good. But everything else, like there was some desirables. So after Jack was born, I wanted to do that first feed. That’s such a beautiful thing. I absolutely wanted, obviously I didn’t get that. That happens. After the birth, we did us, Dan and Stu, getting an Airbnb down here for two weeks. I could have that long contact after the birth. Yes. That was a desirable for me because obviously if things happened, if there was a ability that that couldn’t happen,

26:16
kind of negotiate that that’s okay. It’s not a robot. My two non-negotiables, I will not. See, that’s powerful. I thought you were going to say it was something about termination, but I mean, that was probably in the list of heavy discussions, of course. But yes, so yeah, terminating and just having those conversations about the different stages or the different diagnoses and things too is often a heavy conversation for teams. Yeah. Well, I think we’ve done a lot. We’ve covered a lot. I mean, there’s so much of your journey. We could go into so much more depth. I hope in some ways being able to

26:46
talk through the birth and have people listen and care and be interested. I hope it’s healing in some ways to get to that point.

26:53
Is it the type of thing that the journey that you’ve been on now is a that’s it, I could never do it again? Or have you had thoughts about any more? So as you already know, you’re being very sneaky. We started the process just this week of a sibling journey for Dan and Stu. You heard it in live. was very exciting and it came about quite a bit sooner than I was expecting, but I am very excited. The way that came about is so Jack is now five and a half months old and I sort of thought I can probably dip my toe back into the surrogacy community.

27:23
kind of see what’s going on, see who’s around at the moment. And I came across a couple who lived in Sydney who were looking for a surrogate right at the beginning of their journey. So basically just going, we’ve decided we want to have a baby. Does anyone have any info for us? So I thought they would be a really good team because it take a while. We’d get to know each other. They’d have to go through all those processes. It would take a good while to get to that.

27:45
point. But I wanted to reach out to Dan and Stu first to see kind of what their timeline looked like because they had discussed potentially having a sibling for Jack. So I wanted to see to make sure that that wouldn’t get in in the way of their timeline. And Dan said, well, actually, we would be ready to go again now, which was very unexpected, especially considering everything that we went through with Jack, everything they went through to get to Jack. They’re a little bit older now. They didn’t want to be having another baby in their mid 40s. So they were happier with a smaller, absolutely

28:15
happy with a smaller age gap so I said to them I would be more than happy to do that for you absolutely and that’s really good for me because I already know them I don’t need to get to know a whole new couple I don’t have to go through the dating again and when I was sort of looking going back into surrogacy I was thinking to myself I don’t want to have a baby for another couple I just want to have more babies for Dan and Here you go. We’re right at the beginning of that process but hopefully gonna be a bit more streamlined this time we won’t have to wait quite as long but because of the caesarean I’m not a

28:45
allowed to be pregnant until January. As of January next year, if everything lines up, we’ll be good to go. Fantastic. And I think that’s really inspiring for the surrogates and the IPs listening to go, wow, I might find a surrogate and heaven forbid, she might actually be crazy enough to offer a sibling and there’s two children involved here. So yeah, that’s wonderful.

29:04
you go through something, you know, if everything doesn’t go according to plan, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re sorry it’s going to drop out and go never again. Indeed, you just don’t know which way it’s going to go. But I think it’s a credit to your team that you have clearly felt emotionally supported by your team during this, because if you didn’t, if you felt left, you know, out to dry, so to speak, then you would be much less likely to do this again for them or anybody. Yeah.

29:28
And also a credit to, I know Erin’s sitting off to your side there, but it’s that the Partners of Surrogates are sometimes the unsung heroes of this and so it’s a whole family that have come along for this ride there. So we thank your whole family. Just for people that are listening, I have had Partners of Surrogates on as a previous episode, that’s episode 36 or also on the YouTube channel. So that can be a great resource for teams who are planning because the Partners of Surrogates often have a lot of questions about, know, what’s this going to entail, this crazy ride that we’re going to go on here. As some parting bits,

29:58
of wisdom. Have you got anything else then from your journey that you’d like to mention that we haven’t covered or some bits of parting advice for people starting out? enjoy it. Part of it, is a really big journey but also be very upfront with each other. Be very upfront with your IPs. Be very upfront with your partner about how you’re traveling as well because you do want that support and especially like every pregnancy is different. You never know what’s going to go on. You need that support from all around you if something doesn’t go the way you wanted it to. If something doesn’t go

30:27
exactly according to plan. It’s really important to be really upfront with how you’re tracking and what kind of supports you need. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your IPs. Absolutely not. may, they may, and I do know that Dan sort of wanted to hold back a little bit because he’s the kind of guy that can just take over a conversation and jump in and want to do too much. And your IPs may be doing that. They may be going, Oh, I don’t want to smother you. I don’t want to get too involved. Absolutely reach out because a lot of the time I feel like IPs kind of feel bad that they’re not doing more because you’re

30:56
creating their family, you’re carrying the baby for them, you’re going through all this stuff and they’re kind of going, I wish I could be there more, I wish I could do more, I wish I could be more involved. You never know, like reaching out might actually be really beneficial to your IPs, be really beneficial to you. Yeah, I think that’s really good advice, yeah. Reach out and keep the team strong there. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. It’s been amazing. Thank you for listening to this episode. To see the beautiful images mentioned, head to our YouTube channel to watch the webinar recording.

31:24
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.