Episode 106 – Charmaine – surrogate

00:14
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.

00:41
This episode recorded in May 2025 features Charmaine. This one is slightly different because the original co-host for the webinar had to pull out at the last minute due to family reasons, but we will have her back on in the future. So my dear friend Charmaine stepped up at the last minute. I have always intended to have Charmaine on as a co-host, but previous timings didn’t align. Let me try and summarize Charmaine and her 12 years in the surrogacy community since 2013.

01:09
Originally from New Zealand, she’s 41 and lives in Brisbane. She’s a mum to five children herself, one who is an angel baby, and she’s also nanna to a five-year-old. In her time in the surrogacy community, she has done the whole surrogacy paperwork journey with five sets of IPs, intended parents, had 11 embryo transfers, four of which resulted in losses, and there have been two live births so far.

01:35
Hopefully another baby in the coming year for her new intended mother, Jess. Charmaine had many pearls of wisdom to share in this episode, as would probably be expected after so many years in the surrogacy community. It hasn’t always gone well for her, as she says, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. There are plenty of lessons to be learned for both Charmaine and for the community as a whole. I hope you enjoy this episode.

01:58
Thank you Charmaine for joining me and helping fill a gap in this webinar series. As we’ve heard in your introduction, you’ve been in this community for 12 years, multiple IPs, two live births, embryo transfers, losses. We’ve got some beautiful photos to share of your journeys here. Maybe we’ll start with these photos and we’ll perhaps we’ll go back to the beginning of why you wanted to be a surrogate in the first place. So we’ve got some beautiful photos here of not the first set of IPs, but the one that led to your first birth, James. See those listening to the podcast won’t be able to see this photo. This has always been one of my favorite photos.

02:28
describe that photo on the left to us?

02:31
Obviously it’s been photoshopped, but it was just when I was pregnant with James and then when James was in his mum’s arms. it’s you being pregnant and so it’s James inside your belly and then outside in his mum’s arms, hey? Yep. And then a photo there of you continuing to have catch-up. So this is a family that you see from time to time still? Yeah. And this was actually a catch-up after James’s mum had her heart transplant during COVID. So I hadn’t actually seen James for a very long period of time and my

03:01
anxiety of will James remember me? Will he want to have a bar of me? was creeping in and as you can see by the photo like he just gives me the biggest hugs no matter how long the distance of time is because of his mum making me a presence in his life even not physically there. by keeping your presence you mean either they talk about you or there are photos or all of that? Yeah, yeah. That’s beautiful. And how old is James now? He’s eight now.

03:24
And is he able to tell his story? He is. He actually came to a surrogacy conference to listen to me talk on a panel when he was I think about five or six and I was

03:36
talking about how one of my biggest fears would be that if I didn’t see him for a long period of time that, you know, he wouldn’t want to know me or he’d forget me. And bless his little heart, he just yelled out in his little cute voice, I could never forget you, Aunty Mayne. And it just, you know, it just melted my heart because it’s just so true. Like we could go months and months without seeing each other now because obviously it’s been eight years, but when he does see me, he gives me the biggest hug and his mum says he’s not a hugger. Like he doesn’t hug just anybody, but he will always give me the biggest hug. He knows all my kids’ names.

04:06
He knows what I like in my life and he asks me questions about things that I haven’t told him. So it’s just a real credit to his parents because he knows me. Yeah. And I think that’s in some ways the ultimate gift for a surrogate that they…

04:20
that the child that we’ve birthed knows their story because if the parents don’t tell the story, then they’re less likely to know it. And so that’s a credit to your team. On Mother’s Day, Nicole actually sent me a message to say that, you know, at night time she was saying, thank you for making me a mum. And he said, you need to thank Auntie Mayne. She brought me in here, you know.

04:38
So it just, the fact that he can just get it, if a eight year old can get it, it’s yeah. Beautiful. And then this beautiful photo here, as I mentioned before, I share in the webinar every fortnight as one of the birth photos. What does this photo mean to you? Oh, it’s everything to me. It just, yeah, it’s a moment in time that it’s, yeah, it’s to my heart forever. And seeing Nicole become a mum there after so many years waiting, hey? Yeah, best moment. Yeah, beautiful team. And so then.

05:06
like the crazy surrogate that you are, know, wanted to go again. And then there was another set of IPs that you were chatting to in between. Well, not just chatting to you, you did the whole process with, think you had one embryo transfer and then called it a day. Yeah. And that was, that was a hard one. I think a real eye opener and something that IPs need to be very aware of. At the beginning of that journey, I did say to these IPs that look, I know it doesn’t always just take the one, obviously it never has for me. I can’t go into this process unless you’re open to doing.

05:35
donor eggs after because they couldn’t do another egg pickup. And they said to me and assured me, no, no, no, we’ll definitely go into donor eggs if this embryo doesn’t work. And unfortunately, they didn’t go ahead with that. And the way that it all broke down after the failed transfer was quite hard as a surrogate. And I totally get until you’re in a situation, you don’t know how you’re going to react or what your emotions are going to do. That’s that’s totally fine. It’s the communication breakdown that was really hard on me and my family because they were so adamant that they were

06:05
going to do a donor, we were literally signing a donor paperwork for them with a donor that had agreed to be their donor. And then they just pulled the rug out from underneath me and said, we’ve decided we’re not doing it now. And it was just, it felt like it was overnight, but it obviously wasn’t. They just didn’t include me in any of those conversations. remember that time, obviously in the community and being your friend, that was unexpected. I’ve done some data gathering on

06:29
the number of embryo transfers it takes and at least half, it’s 50 something percent, it does happen in the first transfer. But by my data gathering, 90 % birth within three transfers. And so my recommendation is often to IPs have at least three in the freezer. Have you as a result then of that team not only had the one in the freezer, do you now recommend to IPs or when you look for IPs want to know how many embryos there are there? Yeah, definitely. But then I kind of contradict myself because my current Lieutenant Mum didn’t have embryos when I offered. So

06:59
But I knew that she was very committed to going for more egg pickups if need be and she was very open to donor if it came to that. So we had a lot of conversations around it about that. But yeah, I do recommend that IPs don’t put off making the embryos because it is a lot more beneficial for them when looking for a surrogate to have some put on ice ready so that that

07:23
part of the process has been done. It was nice though with my current, um, Intended Mum Jess to be around when she was doing her egg pickup though, because we were able to do that as a team.

07:33
So that was really nice. You’re to get lots of gold nuggets of advice, people listening tonight. The advice that Charmaine’s giving there for IPs about having some embers in the freezer. Then we move on to the next set of IPs of which there was a live birth. And this team was an interstate team. I know they’re in Adelaide with me. And then this photo here is you being heavily pregnant and you having a support team of women behind you. Obviously there’s a long journey to get to this point in pregnancy. Is there anything that you’d like to summarize from that

08:03
journey in a bit of a nutshell for us or it’s a bit too hard.

08:06
And it’s not hard. It’s obviously been a few years now. I just really want people to know it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. It’s not how people portray it online all the time. And I just wish that people would allow stories like mine to be shared because I think a lot of people can learn from them. They shouldn’t be scared of the stories. And unfortunately, mine was a very hard and horrible journey with not a great outcome, but they need to be shared and they are real life.

08:36
and it can and does happen but I’m proof that even when it does happen it doesn’t have to consume you, it doesn’t have to scare you to go again. I just think that these stories need to be shared and they’re unfortunately not allowed to a lot of the time. Interesting that not allowed to some of the online groups is probably what you’re referring to there that silence people sometimes don’t they? Yeah which is it’s crippling for the victim to not be able to share their truth is very very traumatic.

09:04
and something that I’ve had to work through myself and I’ve, I don’t think I’ve accepted it, but I’ve been able to move past it. I’ve just stayed true to myself now and I just try and teach where I can teach about it. So. And that’s what I was going to say. You find a way to tell your story to people who will listen. Yes. Yeah. And so I guess those listening that have not been in the community when that whole journey was unfolding and they perhaps don’t know.

09:28
the end. I’m not sure, should we do that bit now or will get to that? So it’s the relationship started to crumble, didn’t it, during the pregnancy, essentially? Yeah, it kind of started crumbling after our first failed transfer. And unfortunately, I was in a very naive bubble. And considering I’d been in the community for so long.

09:47
It came as a bit of a shock when I look back at how I could be in such a bubble when I should have known better. And unfortunately, I didn’t pay attention to the red flags and I continued to go on with this journey and had another transfer, which resulted in a pregnancy. And it kind of went downhill further as the pregnancy progressed. being an interstate team brought challenges there and the some of the limitations that I know that the IPs had physically, but then also it was that it was that emotional connection to it was the friendship crumbling there. Yeah.

10:17
photo is this, this is your, the children that you have birthed and you are pregnant with that second surrogate baby, I think we can say his name. It’s George. Yeah, so that’s a very important photo that I wanted to have and I was basically told that my Lieutenant Mum did not want me to have. She didn’t think it was fair that I was having it and I did do this behind her back.

10:37
because I thought I want this photo and I’m so glad that I did it because at the end of the day this is a photo that speaks a thousand words and all my children that I’ve birthed are in this photo barred the son I lost and it is a very special photo to me. James was very attached to me being pregnant and being able to see how it was when I was pregnant with him.

10:58
Yeah, I’m very thankful that I got this photo because it means a lot to me and it’s for James to look back on as well when he’s older and for George hopefully. Yeah, that’s a really good point that for the first surrogate baby you birthed he was able to enjoy that. We’ve now got a really powerful photo here and so your birth didn’t go to plan.

11:15
and it ended up being an emergency cesarean very quickly and that was not part of your, yeah, obviously anybody’s plan. This photo is very raw. Do you want to summarize parts of the birth or this photo, what does it say to you? Again, it’s just that it doesn’t always go as you plan. You can have all the things written down that you want and sometimes it just doesn’t work. think, you know, I went in to get inducted and they broke my waters and I think because my body was so stressed and so

11:45
I think maybe it just went into shock and within my waters breaking and George being born was eight minutes because I actually had a category one where I was put to sleep.

11:55
So not only was it my first C-section, it was where I actually had to be put to sleep and I was just with my own midwife at the time. And I’m so thankful for that midwife because she made all the difference in my delivery and my post-birth. Yeah. So to be alone in that and therefore to not have the birth and often for surrogates, it’s some of that handover moment too. And you being physically able to do that. So that didn’t go to plan.

12:17
No, no. So this was me up in the NICU where George had to go straight from birth. So this was after I came out of recovery. And thankfully my midwife did make sure that my intended mum waited for me to be there for her to meet her son for the first time. So we did get to do that moment together, which I’m thankful for. You know, even though it wasn’t the best of journeys, it was still really nice to be there to see her become the mum that she had just become. Yeah.

12:43
And so then in these two photos here, it’s first surrogate baby James holding little George. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. That’s up at the hospital. Yeah. But it’s lovely that your first surrogate family came and visited you. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think a photo, is that George’s first birthday in Adelaide? It is. And that photo means a lot to me because I knew that was probably the last time I was going to see him. So I went down to Adelaide for his first birthday, but I knew it was getting to the stage where for my own emotional wellbeing and also for George’s emotional wellbeing growing up,

13:13
I knew I had to make that hard decision to walk away. So I took that time at his birthday to be able to just be present with just him. And I’m glad that this photo as well as a few others got captured because it’s yeah, it’s just a very special photo to me.

13:29
And so it was a very strained relationship in that year post-birth too, wasn’t it? It was, yeah. How old is George now? He’s coming up three, I believe. It sounds really bad, but I kind of block it out a little bit. So I kind of, every year I kind of forget until it’s the time. But yeah, I believe he’s turning three this year. Yeah. An example to people that it doesn’t all go to plan.

13:50
Feel free to type in questions and ask Charmaine about them if you’d like to. But as surrogates do, sometimes there’s this sense of, want to take the learnings that I’ve got from this journey and go again. Did you want to explain anything in between the current intended mum, Jess, that are in these photos that you’re going to carry for and, you know, in the time post George, is there anything you’d like to mention there? I did a lot of self help with myself. I had Sarah Jane and Katrina Hale both work with me and

14:17
They both offered me something different. I found with my counseling with Sarah, I was just crying all the time, but it needed to happen. And with Katrina, she made me feel really empowered and helped me. So both of them were my saving grace and helped me get to the stage where I was as okay as I was probably going to be. And then I stepped away from the community quite a lot and just focused on myself and my family. And within like probably about two years, I thought, well, I don’t want to go out like this. I don’t want this to be my ending to such a massive

14:47
of my life. So I decided to slowly creep back into the community just to see if there was anything going that I was interested in learning a little bit more about. And then I noticed Jess a couple of times on the community page and she commented on my anonymous post of

15:03
that I was looking at going again, who was Brisbane based IPs. And then I decided to be brave and go to home birth event, cinema movie that some surrogates organized that was for surrogates and IPs to go to. And that’s where I met Jess. And it was kind of like just instantly we just clicked. yeah. Beautiful there. There might be a good time to weave in a question that’s been typed in that says, what if the surrogate gets postnatal depression? Do IPs cover the cost of treatment? I’ll mention for myself, I did get slammed.

15:30
with postnatal depression and so I needed antidepressants which I weaned off but I’m back on and I’ll be on for life and I’m happy to say that publicly. And I needed ongoing counselling and I used Katrina Hale, I mean she’s in Sydney but I did Zoom and yes we did get a mental health care plan but yes the IPs covered the cost of my counselling and I had it up until a year post-birth. I mean not as frequently towards the end but certainly in the early days. You mentioned there Charmaine that you had ongoing counselling whether or not you classed as postnatal depression or not. My question is did your IPs cover the cost

16:00
any of that counselling? Yes and no. obviously we stayed friends up until that, well we stayed in contact for the first year and my IPs did

16:11
cover my counseling when I did ask them for it. Then when I really needed it, when I had really realized the depth of what was happening, my IPs basically said they’d pay for one more session and that was it. But thankfully, Katrina Hale was able to help me and I got went to my doctor and got a mental health care plan. And yeah, but unfortunately, when it broke down, I was kind of left to my own devices. But yes, to the person asking that, yes, ideally, the IPs should be covering the cost of all of that, because ideally, you know, if it was

16:41
their body or their wife that was going through the postnatal depression as a result of having birthed their baby, their keeper child, then yes, you would be covering the cost of that. It’s very tricky to talk about these sorts of things. And that’s one thing we do part of our SASS program. Charmaine has been a mentor for that in the past. And particularly when we started SASS, she was my beginning Queensland mentor for that many years. We have ongoing counseling.

17:04
prepaid for SAS during pregnancy and post-birth. And that if there’s top-ups needed for the counseling, that’s my job to go to the IPs and ask for it so that the surrogate doesn’t have to ask for money because talking about money can be really awkward. And then as you say, you met your lovely Jess and big beaming smiles that you two girls have got here. Just a couple of photos to share. Did you want to say anything about what’s happening in these photos? One was just a sleepover when I went camping. And then the other one was when we went to see Glenn at Life Fertility who knew me the minute I walked

17:34
He’s like, oh, you’re back again. So for people who are not familiar, that’s Dr. Glenn Sterling at Life in Brisbane, and he’s a bit of a cowboy in the community. He’s done one of my egg collections. So, and then a beautiful photo here. Tell us what’s happening. I basically knew that I really wanted to offer to Jess. We both love Disney kind of stuff. And I really want to take my granddaughter on a Disney cruise. So thought I’ll just ask Jess if she wants to come.

17:57
And Jess is very similar to me and she lives in the moment and she said yes. So we booked a three night cruise on a Disney cruise and I thought what better way to offer than with Mickey Mouse. yeah. Wonderful. And we’ve already agreed that on the baby’s fifth birthday we’ll go to Disneyland together. Wow. Right. Yeah.

18:15
And then so Jess has been through an egg collection as you mentioned and so I know you are one for gifts and you love like themed cupcakes and all sorts of things. Themed donuts here? Yeah, yeah so I’m just turned up after she got the call from the fertility clinic with donuts and I kind of didn’t notice that she had written on the box I just like oh yum donuts but she had actually written on the box that um two embryos made it to the freezer and there was 10 more growing so

18:41
It was her way of telling me what the eggs embryos were doing. yeah. Great. Looks like you have a lot of fun among you guys. Oh, we do. Good. Off the IPs then. So James that you have birthed is locally to you roughly. What’s the distance between you guys? So he’s about 50 minutes away from me. And you intended mum Jess. I think you told me before it’s similar. Yeah, it’s very similar. I think the difference between the two journeys though is that Jess and I travel a lot, both of us together. Whereas with James’s

19:10
I kind of traveled a lot more to them and that wasn’t it wasn’t they’re doing it was me always just saying I’m gonna drive to you but it is really nice that it’s a two-way we both drive to each other and we both yeah Gosh that takes me back. remember years and years ago when you were reflecting on that your children being connected to that in terms of that give-and-take if sometimes the IPs come to you sometimes you go to them I remember that was something that you said you wanted to do differently in future journeys. Yeah

19:34
And think was even learnings like that that I took on board from my own team. So that’s why we make a point of doing that because friends do that, don’t they? From time to time, you alternate where you catch up or if you meet at a park halfway between each house or something.

19:46
Yeah, yeah. Let’s answer a couple of questions and then we’ll just come back to some of the summarizing the learnings of your journey overall. An interesting question here from anonymous. I might advise the anonymous might need to come to an IP specific webinar, but Charmaine interested in your thoughts on any of this. So the question is, what if something happened to the baby, be it premature or disabled and the intended parents declined to take the baby? What does the surrogate do in this case? Do they have to keep the baby and put it up for adoption themselves? Even if there was an agreement with the IPs, I assume legally I can decide not to take the baby. I know that

20:16
there would be a discussion prior to starting the process, but absolute worst case scenario, what happens if the IPs back out? Did you want to say something on that or me? I think that’s a really tricky one because I think until you’re in a situation, you don’t know how you’re going to cope. And going back to when I lost my son, I always said I can’t have a child with a disability. I just don’t think that’s something that I can do myself. But then the minute I found out my son was sick, it was like, what can we do to save him? So I think until you’re in that situation,

20:43
You’re not going to know how you’re going to react. But my belief would be, or my understanding would be if the parents walked away, then you would be within your rights to keep the child or to adopt the child out. So it’s a matter of what you’re wanting to do yourself. And again, you’re not going to know that until you’re in a situation where you’ve been handed those cards. So I think it’s probably worth saying this doesn’t happen in Australia. It would all get sorted out in counseling. And I remember the IPs telling the story where they would have a lot of friends ask them quietly, are you sure? And it’s not going to want to

21:13
keep the baby. And what they said is the more time we spend with Anna, the more we are absolutely certain that Anna does not want any more children. And so them having that their fears put at ease. But also for me, you have these conversations about disabilities or what your limitations are with termination. And perhaps if you’ve got some differences, either maybe you’re not a good fit as a team, or you might need some counseling to work all of that out. So yeah, that’s the sort of advice I would give some counseling on that. So Jess has typed in a Jessica has typed in.

21:42
Shaman, can you tell us a bit more about how the relationship with the second set of IPs broke down? How can we try to ensure that that doesn’t happen to us? What were the red flags? I think the biggest thing comes down to communication and accountability. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of accountability from the Intendant Parents’ side. Obviously, this is my story and my truth, and they may see it completely different. I can only speak from my side. There was a lot of unresolved grief from the Intendant Mum.

22:08
Some people might call it baggage that they haven’t been able to resolve. And if I look back now, I can clearly see that, but I couldn’t see it when I was in the love struck bubble. So I really do think that as IPs, really need to do that extra work at the beginning before you look for a surrogate. And if you’re a surrogate, you need to make sure that your IPs don’t have any unresolved grief. Obviously there’s going to be things that might.

22:34
come up and I have actually said to Jess that, you know, during this journey there will probably be triggers and there has been triggers already that as a team Jess and I have been able to deal with because we’ve got that communication and I have that trust that I can talk to her openly without being judged.

22:48
we’re able to validate each other and work through it. Yeah, I think obviously communication is the biggest thing. Two things that spring to mind there. Each of your IPs have always been hetero couples and so therefore they have a reason for needing surrogacy. Whereas if it was two guys or a single guy, they don’t come with that grief. Yeah. And also you talk about your current intended mum, Jess, you’re able to validate each other and work through some topics, which is interesting because in some ways then you need time as a surrogate team before you’re pregnant to almost have some conflicts and have some differences of opinion

23:18
come up so you’ve got a chance to see how each other work under different situations, would you agree with that? Yeah, yeah, I do. And as I said, we have had some, not so much conflict because we haven’t really had conflict, but we, as I said, we’ve had some triggers that I’ve had because of my fear of, I have, I’ve got a fear of going again and I’ve got a fear of being blindsided or, you know, being in this love bubble. So we’ve spent a lot of time in each other’s environments. We spend a lot of time where we literally just sit in a room and we’re comfortable in each other’s presence.

23:47
You know, we’ve gone on a holiday together. We’ve done so much together that we’re just comfortable with them, you know, and we know when each other is not themselves and we can feel comfortable enough to say, hey, you don’t seem okay. Is everything okay? And then.

24:00
you know, we can then talk about it. So. there any advice then that you would have for future teams? Like it’s, hard to make up conflict just to see how each other goes, but are there any little tests that teams can put in place? You mentioned spending time in each other’s environments is one good thing. I think, and I’ve said it to Jess before and I said it to Nicole because Nicole was always saying yes to everything. And it made me start thinking, you know, like, is she just saying yes, cause I’m carrying her baby. So I said to her, like, you need to say no to me sometimes. And when she said no, did it hurt? Yes.

24:30
But it made me go, okay, this is a real friendship. It’s not always going to work. It’s not always going to be ideal. It’s not always going to be what they want to do. And that’s okay. So I’ve said the same to Jess, you know, and we are both comfortable with saying to each other, that’s, we don’t want to do that right now. Or that’s not something we want to do. So I think having those conversations to say it’s okay to say no. that down.

24:53
I think that’s, that’s, remember you saying that years ago. Because yeah, we need IPs to say no, it might even be you’re organizing a catch up or you’ve got something booked and then they have to cancel or they go, do you know, that doesn’t actually work for us for these reasons. It’s tricky though, because once you are pregnant, a lot more of the yeses need to come because it’s got to fit around you and your life and your family. to be a true friendship down the track, you need to be able to say no to each other, don’t you? So, good one.

25:19
And also I think a big one is I think IPs need to, know, us surrogates aren’t going to settle. So IP shouldn’t settle, you know, make sure that you’ve got deal breakers. Don’t, don’t just go in and say, yes, yes, yes, because that’s what the surrogate wants. Make sure you’ve got your own deal breakers because if you don’t, you might start have that resentment because you didn’t speak up at the beginning about something that you were passionate about. Oh, told you lots of wisdom here. Yeah. It’s the, the IPs there. It’s okay to say no. As I said, presentation part, like I was dating IPs before the ones that I carried for and essentially

25:49
they called it off with me. Yeah, well, I’ve seen a cold turn someone down before me and she thought she was being pecking. I said, no. I said that she was worried that I would think she was pecking. I said, no, I admire you because that could have been your one and only offer and you weren’t prepared to go ahead with it because you didn’t feel that it was right for you and that’s okay. Yeah. Really valuable. An anonymous question here asks, as surrogates, what emotional attachment do you have to the baby in your experience and what’s more common to maintain a relationship or not?

26:15
So I see my surrogate babies like they’re my nephews. So I love cuddling on them, but I love giving them back. With George, it was a little bit different. I was actually in hospital with him for five days by myself and then tenant mum would come in for an hour or so each day and then go back to our hotel. So obviously I had a lot of contact with George beforehand and then they left when he was a week old to go back to Adelaide. So I really struggled with that, not struggling because…

26:41
I wanted him to be mine, but I just struggled with the little amount of time from birthing him to him going back home and not having easy access to him. So I did really struggle with that part of it, but I didn’t feel like they’re mine at all. I’d agree with that too. No, because it’s not a surprise when you birth this baby that, oh, do I have to give it away now? It’s been two and a half years or four years. You’re dreaming of that vision of your friends holding that baby. And that’s the vision. So no, for surrogates, they don’t handle it.

27:10
struggle to hand over the baby at all. I would say most teams do keep in contact.

27:16
I agree. It might depend on like the amount of contact my team has is different to the amount that it was during the intensity of that two and a half year project. And that’s probably where I grieved the ending of that project and the friends that I was in communication with every day slowly eases off to now they’re friends that we see each other a few times a year. Yeah. So that’s, that’s the difference. But yes, every that’s the goal in Australia and probably surrogacy anywhere in the world. That’s certainly the goal to maintain contact, particularly for the child born from this.

27:45
that they have contact with their birth story there? It’s very similar to you. The biggest thing I struggled with post-James was trying to find our normal, you know, because we had four years had consumed us where we became a team and we were striving to get James. So we had a lot of time together, a lot of emotions of things that had happened. And then we got James and then our lives kind of changed a lot and we weren’t catching up as often. And it didn’t mean that our friendship wasn’t there. It just meant it was a different type of friendship. And I really struggled with that because

28:15
Nicole was, Katrina explained it perfectly, Nicole was an indoor plant and I’m a rainforest for our social energy. So Nicole was able to be a rainforest when we were getting everything together because we had so many appointments and we had so many, you know, things to get done for the surrogacy. But then when that was all over with, she kind of went back to her indoor plant, which is fine. So it’s just, yeah, I think finding your normal is really hard. And this is what I’m looking forward to the most with Jess is because we’re both rainforests.

28:43
So, you know, like I said to you earlier, I went over to Jess’s house and I stayed there for five nights. I became a part of the furniture, you know, like, it wasn’t too much for us. was just, we were just chilling, you know, like we’d go shopping or we’d sit around and watch TV or we’d play board games. And, you know, that’s just our normal. So I can see that being like that post baby as well, because it’s just how both of us are. And we’re both in different parts. I’m in a different stage of my life now that I’ve got older children and I can do that. Whereas before I couldn’t go off and spend five nights at someone’s house because I’ve

29:13
children you know so yeah I think it’s finding your normal friendship outside of surrogacy can be a challenge especially if you’ve met them.

29:21
to do surrogacy. Yes, finding what that pattern of frequency looks like in the future can be tricky. As we start to come towards the end here, are there any changes that you would like to see for surrogacy in Australia as a whole? I personally, going through a journey where I’m no longer in contact with my surrogate baby and every year I will ask for a photo and unfortunately I’m not sent one on his birthday, I would like a little bit more protection for the surrogate, for the surrogate baby to know when they’re older that they were born from a surrogate because it’s

29:50
the end of the day he’s only going to know what he’s told. So if his mum decides to say I gave birth to you that’s all he’s gonna know because his birth certificate is gonna have his mum and his dad’s name on it. There’s not gonna be something on there to say that there’s an extra birth certificate to show who your birth mother was.

30:06
I personally would like something to be documented where the child can see without having to ask, where it’s just something that’s actually on their birth certificate that they will see when they have to go get ID or whatever and they can say, oh, hang on a minute, what’s this mean? So that if they wanted to look for me, he could find me. I was on the impression maybe in some states it does say that. I thought perhaps in some states it says more information is held at birth deaths than marriages. Oh, maybe I haven’t seen, I don’t think it But it would be even nice even on that first, sorry, so that’s the

30:36
birth certificate that you’re referring to which has the two lifelong parents on it, not the birth mother, it’d be nice to even say they’re born from a surrogate and perhaps donor conceived there.

30:47
Yeah, that’s something that I would feel very strongly to advocate for because I think again until a child has told their story they’re not going to know it’s any different and I think they have a right to know. yeah. Any advice that you’d like to give for those at the beginning of their journey after having listened to your story here and you’ve given advice to many people over the years at the beginning. What are some of the standard things that you might say to people? Be yourself, don’t try and be anybody else because if you do then that’s where…

31:12
things can go wrong. You can’t continue to be someone that you’re not long term. For my intended mum, she was pretending to be someone that she wasn’t.

31:20
promise things that were out of her limitations. Whereas if she’d been upfront from the beginning, things could have turned out very different. Be yourself and take your time and go to community meetups, meet people, you know, don’t be shy. Go in and I still get shy going to a meetup. Like, you know, when I went to the big meetup after meeting Jess, I was so nervous going there, even though I’d been in the community for so long, I still get nervous going, but I love going. So I will continue to go now that I’m back in the community. But yeah, just my biggest thing is just be yourself.

31:50
I think that’s beautifully summed up there. That’s good advice for any journey, really, isn’t it? I think just at the, you you’ve got to remember at the centre of it all there’s an innocent child and just remember that that child didn’t ask to be born, didn’t ask to be born part of surrogacy and that child has rights. 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.

32:20
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.