Episode 106 – Why did you want to be a surrogate?

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you

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Why did you want to be a surrogate? Many surrogates often feel called to surrogacy and know that it’s something that they can do. Some common motivators include wanting to help others to be parents, enjoying being pregnant and or giving birth and want to experience that again without raising another child, wanting to help same-sex families who need a surrogate and an egg donor to help them have a family, wanting to pay it forward, watching others experience infertility and feeling helpless and being a role model to their children.

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For me, it was many of those reasons, certainly wanting to experience pregnancy in birth again, but not to raise any more keeper children. Also a student that I had taught, Michael Wood, had cancer as a teenager and it came back as a young adult. He ultimately stopped treatment in late 2021 and passed away in his late 20s. I remember meeting with him during his treatment in his early 20s and realizing that nothing I could do could help Michael.

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I couldn’t take his cancer away. I couldn’t change his life. But maybe I could help someone else in a big way and help to create life. Surrogates come in all shapes and sizes and so do their motivations. There is no one size fits all, but as a general rule, surrogates are usually aged between 25 and 50, have finished growing their family, those who enjoy pregnancy, are fit enough for another pregnancy, and are helpers and givers.

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Are you interested in being a surrogate? Head to our website and follow the links to SASS, Surrogacy Australia Support Service and learn more about that as an option for being a surrogate. Are you thinking about being a surrogate but have some concerns and want to hear from real surrogates about what it’s like? Are you an intended parent, IP, and are wondering about who those surrogate women are? Do you want to share with your friends and family that you’re learning about surrogacy but not sure how to? Then I have a video for you.

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Community member and Dad Through Surrogacy Tyson has created a video in the style of the show You Can’t Ask That, where three surrogates from Australia were interviewed. I was one of them. We were asked questions. Why did you want to be a surrogate? How much did they pay you? How did you get pregnant? After you gave birth, did you want to keep it? Did you breastfeed? Do you get to see the baby anymore? Would you do it again? I’ll share a link for this in the show notes.

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or you can look it up on YouTube under the title, Interview with a Surrogate, Tyson Smith. I encourage you to share that video link far and wide, and this episode too if you like, so we can encourage Australia to talk more about surrogacy and to normalise it. If you are finding these discussions useful, I would love it if you could leave a review wherever you listen to this show, and you can find more information at surrogacyaustralia.org. If you’re looking for more guidance on how to navigate surrogacy in Australia,

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Please check out SASS so you can have me as your navigation tool on this journey. Until next time, welcome to the village.