Episode 107 – Dane – gay dad

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you

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Welcome to Surrogacy Australia’s podcast series. I’m your host Anna McKie and my aim is to raise the level of awareness of surrogacy through these conversations. This podcast is a recording from a webinar that I host and you can find more details about those and upcoming dates on our website at surrogacyaustralia.org. The webinars are free, go for an hour and we’ll take you through how surrogacy works in Australia. You can ask questions, typing them in anonymously if you prefer.

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and you hear from a co-host who has navigated surrogacy in Australia, either a surrogate, a gay dad, or a straight mum. This episode, recorded in June 2025, features Dane. Dane and his husband Wes from Sydney became dads to their son Theo or Teddy in January 2025. Their surrogate Storm, who is a single mum living locally to them, connected with them in one of the National Surrogacy Facebook groups in January 2023.

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and now they’re friends for life. This is a full circle webinar as Dane and Wes joined one of these webinars in June, 2021. And now four years later, he is a co-host and sharing their story to inspire others. For the long time listeners of this podcast series, firstly, thank you. I’ll let you in on a little secret of mine. The title for each episode usually comes directly from what the webinar co-host has said in the recording. Their little gems of wisdom.

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or admittedly a type of hook that I can use when titling the episode to entice people to listen. And there were so many positive potential titles from this episode. My list included, Now I Know What Our Speed Bumps Look Like, In Such Awe of What She Had Done, I Feel Like I Grew An Extra Heart, I Love Her Like A Sister, I Still Don’t Know How To Repay Her, The Most Fulfilling Experience Of My Life.

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A special shout out to some of the community surrogacy village members who sometimes help me decide on the titles. I’m grateful for your support, friendship and laughs we share together. I hope you enjoy this episode. We’ve got Dane with us tonight and we’ve got some beautiful photos to work through here of his surrogacy team. So I guess Dane, take us back to the beginning and what’s happening in these photos, I guess how you met your surrogate storm, but there’s probably a bit of a beginning before that too. Yeah. I mean, I’ve always wanted to be a dad. I can remember that for as long as I can remember, but, but.

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growing up when I did, it just wasn’t the done thing, right? So I often had to just park it. Anyway, as time went on, know, and I connected. And I remember saying to Wes one day, we knew we were aligned in wanting to have kids, right? But I remember we were sitting in the bath one night and I said to Wes, like, how would you feel if we just didn’t ever have kids? And he said, I’d be devastated. And I remember just thinking, it’s not an option then. We have to just jump in and it’s, you know, he feels the same way I do. Let’s do this. Right. So that was kind of like the moment I remember everything going, we’re doing this. me being as

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in orders as I am. wanted to be married first, I wanted to have the house, wanted to do all these things in a certain order. We got married, did all of that, had to find an egg donor as well. But what happened is we got to 2023 and that was what we said, this is going to be the year that feels right for us now. Let’s jump in at first. And the first thing we wanted to do was start looking for an egg donor. What unfolded there was agonizing over a post to make. So we started drafting that. But in the meantime, Storm put an introduction post into the ASC group. and I were not highly active in the group.

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the group for many years, however, that was sort of a research gathering thing for us. I saw Storm’s post and I just made a comment on there, her and the boys had, she’s got three boys and Elora wearing matching pajamas and I’m in

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absolute psycho matching pajamas. So I commented. And the next day she sent me a message and from that point on we messaged every single day back and forth, back and forth, massively long messages, right? And I remember saying to Wes a couple of days after that, I feel like something’s happening. I felt something in the air to be honest, but I was very cautious going, oh, I don’t want to be that person that just jumps in blind, right? Thinking this is all going to be perfect. So then,

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We thought, okay, well, we’re now sort of more now into the surrogacy world. Let’s start looking for the egg donor. Posted into an egg donation group. And as is recommended, we also put the feelers out there to Wes’s or to our family and friends. And crazily enough, we got a phone call an hour later from a very close friend of ours who said, I would absolutely love to give you eggs. Which blew our mind. Like the way it all just sort of happened was absolutely insane.

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So that all unfolded. that year was basically spent, sorrow dating and going through the IVF at the same time. The photo you can see there on the left is the night that the three of us went on our first date, I suppose. We’d met for coffee. I remember walking for coffee thinking, oh, well, I hope she likes us, but I hope we like her. You know, like all the different things that go through your mind. But we hit it off. think the half hour coffee day ended up going for about three hours. Strongwood and I just chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. Yes. Had dinner and then yeah, we’ve had a great time. I’m like,

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take you back just a little bit. Because you said this is the start of 2023. And as I said in my intro post, you attended one of these webinars in 2021. So as you said, there was that researching and, you know, gathering, but then just also pausing on the fact that I guess how lucky right like that. Oh, absolutely.

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And so that couldn’t have dreamed of that type of scenario unfolding for us. And I wonder if there’s any advice then to any IPs about, I mean, it can happen clearly of how that could be the next IP. Do you ever have any advice on that? Oh, look, I’ve thought about this many times. To be honest, I actually carry a little bit of guilt about the fact that we never put an introductory post into ASC. I see those posts every time I see them. I just kind of go,

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Because we didn’t do that. look, I actually, yeah, I struggle with that a little bit because it kind of, I guess it sounds like it fell into our lap a little bit. You know, but I’m a big believer in everything happens for a reason when it’s meant to. It felt serendipitous at the time as well. So it has to happen for some. So, you know, I think you’ve got to be in it to win it. And it was just that commenting then on her post is engaging.

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Yeah, that worked. So then you did the sorrow dating and getting to know each other and then at some point started all the paperwork and stuff too? Yeah, mean Storm in that photo on the right, that’s three months after we’d been sort of seeing each other in that time, what I would also recommend for, so that wasn’t just us being friends at the time.

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It was that, but also really assessing whether our views on pregnancy and surrogacy and all of that aligns. There were about 90 questions in a workbook somewhere that we’d gone through. And we made it a goal of the team to work through all of those questions to see where we all sat. That included deal breakers and all those tricky things to discuss. would encourage everyone to do that. We were able to learn so much about one another.

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which I think has really helped us set us up for a successful journey. Yes. On that, what’s the distance in terms of travel between you guys? And then how did you do those questions? Did you go over to her house and grab some takeaway and have like date nights or something like that or come out or? We would have dinner every fortnight at Storm’s Place. So we’d go over there and sit there and chat. But when it came to this particular, all this workbook that I’m talking about, I actually put all the questions. So again, I’m organized. So I put everything into a document and it was a table of a question.

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at top of the page and we would answer ours in a shared document and she would answer it in the same document. So it was a live document that we could all just jump in at any point when we had the time and put our answers there side by side. And we just had to do four or five a week to get to where we wanted to get to. So that was our approach. And of course, whenever we’d write things in there.

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catch up for dinner, we would also usually sort of debrief about different questions or things that were sort of written in there over the past week or two. That’s great and to have that all there and then you can revisit it over time but it’s just having that on the page to start with to see where everybody’s at that’s really valuable isn’t it? Absolutely it was really valuable to revisit because once you we did all of that back at the start of 2023 but I was referring to it during the

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course of the pregnancy, I’d get back in and be like, oh, I’m sure there was something in here, Storm said that was important to her. What was that? And I’d go back and have a look and like, oh, good. She mentioned this. I’m going to make sure that we’ve got that done. You know, it was a really, really good resource to have. Yeah, that’s really powerful. My team kept minutes like an agenda. So my ex and I, both high school teachers, he, I’m the chatty one. He’s the quiet one. So he kept minutes and he had a template for it. So I gave him something to do, but there was also help keep us on track about the things that needed.

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discussing. I think every team comes up with a something that works for them. So well done. Should I move to the next photo or? yeah move on. So that photo there just shows John making her official offer to us. Super exciting. Yeah. Okay and then did it work first embryo transfer out of interest? It did, yeah it did. So we finished 2023 with 13 embryos amazingly. Yeah, 23rd December that was the goal for 2023 was to finish the year with embryos and then 2024 was the

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Yes. The year of the baby, it was the plan. So. And was that from one egg collection with your egg donor? Yes. Yes. We got 21 eggs in that first collection. That was only from one embryo too. So again, it was just one of those things where things just sort of fell into place very, very well for us. Right. On the left there, that’s embryo transfer day. So we were affectionately dubbed team.

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So when Storm gifted us some items when we found out we were having a little boy, there was a whole bunch of little peacock onesies in there. we just found out the name Team Peachick with our little matching shirts there on Embryo Transfer Day. You can’t tell, but poor Storm actually has the flu in that factory. We didn’t know that at the time, but that’s unfolded. All right, it’s a resilient. Absolutely, yeah. And on the right there is that first ultrasound day. So.

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No, you couldn’t hear the heartbeat. We could see the heartbeat. Oh, sorry, here. Yes. Yes. Pretty special time, isn’t it? It is. was, do you know what I would probably say is as an intended parent, it’s when you go in with what you think your journey is going to look like, right? You think of all these ultrasounds and you think of all those celebratory moments, but it was exciting. But it was more emotional and then it sort of dissipated very quickly and it was replaced again with different fears and anxieties and thinking about the next scan and the next scan and the next scan.

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which was a little bit, I was unprepared for that. Once we were in it, it wasn’t quite what I expected it to be. Okay. So you’re saying that when you thought about it going in, you were thinking about those moments of celebration, but then when you’re actually living and breathing it, you had anxieties about all the things that could go wrong in pregnancies. Is that sort of what you mean? Absolutely. Yeah. And witnessing it through Storm’s eyes, where she was feeling an immense amount of pressure for there to be a viable baby developing, right? I know that she…

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carried that pressure significantly. And as an intended parent, how your surrogate feels is going to make you feel a certain way. You’ll want to fix it. And there’s some things you can’t fix. Right. So for us, it really just meant being supportive as much as possible, trying to be positive, but also making sure that she also had a safe place to talk about those fears and concerns. there one that springs to mind off the top of your head or that’s probably more an overarching?

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comment there. Do you mean fears and concerns? Yeah, I guess is there in those early days, it was really just about, you know, was everything going to develop properly, you know, and even though as we could say, there’s no pressure like it’s because you know, it’s out of someone’s control. There’s nothing that she could do. We knew that she was giving it 110 % every single day. Right. You could tell.

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But ultimately, we could say to her, there’s no pressure, there’s no pressure till the cows come home. But that’s just not that simple. No, we know she’s going to feel that weight. Yes, when you’re carrying somebody else’s baby, sort of all the decisions that you’re making for your life, you’re thinking, oh, gosh, how is this impacting this child? Absolutely. Yeah. Right. So we’ll move on. so then so Storm is a single mum. And so, as you said, she’s got three boys. And so there’s a photo on the left here with her and her kids and you guys at an ultrasound. Is that what that is? Yeah, that’s actually the I suppose they call it a gender

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reveal ultrasound. That’s why there’s a blue light there. We already knew we having a little boy, but they’d put the light on for the fun of it anyway. So that’s, guess, our first family photo or Framily photo. Charlie, the little one in the middle, called says Framily. Friends plus family equals Framily. So that’s our first Framily photo. And do you know what’s actually really shocking and really storm online?

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Yeah, filming. Yeah, she is. Yeah. Storm, literally when you get back to Tasmania, we have to do a proper photo because we don’t actually have a photo of all of us yet. That’s still the only one we’ve got of all of us as a group. So anyway. Done. Lock it in. Yeah, lock that in please. Everybody here is witness. I want to see that photo sent through to me. Thank you. Yeah, that’s bad. Anyway, yeah, but what I will mention is, so this is what we exist. It was in August sometime. So communication is like super important.

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What I want to do is just sort of talk about one of the little speed bumps that we went through. And for us, was just a little bit of miscommunication or misinterpretation, I suppose, around what was to do with the 12 week scan, I think, and the private midwife, our midwife, the first midwife appointment. Effectively, what Wes and I thought was that Storm didn’t want us to attend the 12 week ultrasound appointment, which wasn’t the case.

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But we thought that’s what she wanted. So we were little bit upset and then we let her know that we’d be upset we wouldn’t be at that appointment. Then she got upset because we got upset. And we said, look, ultimately, like we respect that you don’t want to say no problem. But she was only referring to the private midwife appointment. We didn’t know. I mean, we’re two dumb guys. We don’t know the difference between all these different appointments you’ve got to go to. Right. And so the lots of tears for us all at that point. And it wasn’t until maybe a week before the appointment storm said, oh, don’t forget the appointments on this date and this date. And we were like, we’re not coming to that appointment.

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like yes that’s not what I’m talking about so we went through this little speed bump and yeah we got through at the time.

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But I guess what I would just say is when you communicate with each other, be clear, like, just don’t be afraid to ask questions. Because I look back on that and go, oh, if I had just asked a question and said to Storm, oh, are those two appointments different? We probably would have understood straight away. Yes. But as you say, like, you haven’t done a pregnancy before, so you don’t necessarily know all the steps that are involved in that. My own team had conflict and resolution. And in some ways, it made us stronger because we learnt how the other ones…

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manage conflict and if somebody needs a bit of time and then you come back and talk about it. Did you find as your team then once you had repaired that sort of misunderstanding, you felt stronger as a team in some ways because you went through something? Absolutely. I remember saying to some, oh, I feel really good that we got through that because now I know what our speed bumps look like. You know what I mean?

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Because until then it was just a big question mark of like, is something going to happen which is going to cause conflict or will we be fine? We didn’t know. Yes. When it happened and we all got through it and relatively unscathed, it was a good feeling. It did help sort of just reinforce the stability of that foundation that we built. Good work team. Yeah, yeah, it was good. And then the photo on the right there out in a field who you guys and would look to. That was January. Look how good Storm looks. She’s so heavily pregnant there and you can’t even tell. Oh you can’t.

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This was in January. This was about four weeks before he was born. On the left is our egg donor and her husband, obviously Storm in the middle and then myself was on the right. So that was a little maternity photo shoot that we had with one of Storm’s favorite photographers at a location that is significant for Storm. So, yeah, it was lovely to get that photo and that particular photo I actually have hanging up in Theo’s nursery above his cot. So, yeah, it’s my favorite photo of the day. Beautiful. And then we go on to the day of

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birth, hey? day you guys became dads. Yeah, I remember that so clearly only four months ago. Yes. When you look at these photos, how are you, what are you feeling and thinking? Oh, I am still, I have to struggle not to get emotional because I look at that, like I look at Storm and I remember just being in such awe of what she, what she had done. I just was not prepared for that. the other thing I wasn’t prepared for in that moment too, and I, and some IPs might have fears around people talk about skin to skin.

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Right. When when he was born, the joy that I felt seeing her hold him was just phenomenal. And I know it hasn’t changed. I absolutely love seeing her hold him. It fills me with so much joy. And she held him for about an hour and a half skin to skin when he was born. And again, I could have just watched all day. Right. It was such a beautiful feeling. But yeah, we were in awe of her. And that photo of her there is my favorite photo with her beaming like that. Yeah, I love that. She’s so proud of herself. And she’s like, I did it. She should be. She should be. Yeah.

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I think that’s really powerful for IPs who are at the beginning of their journey to hear that, that some of those fears that people have at the beginning that like, I need to have skin to skin straight away. And it’s that idea that you’re going to have this baby in your life for the rest of time. And therefore even watching your surrogate hold your child is you’re still a part of it. It’s a beautiful thing to to witness, isn’t it? So yes, I think that’s helpful for people at the beginning. Yeah, I had a real fear to leading.

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towards, or actually probably throughout the entire pregnancy, I had a real fear of bonding. was fearful that I wouldn’t be able to bond with our son because I did spend, as an IP, I became, I don’t know if this is true for all, but I became pretty sensitive towards how Storm was feeling. Any ailment, even if Storm said she was feeling tired one day, I’d be thinking, oh my gosh, what can I do to help? I want to help.

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It’s our fault, right? So, and then… She’s feeling this tide because she’s carrying our child. We’ve put this… Yeah, you were straight away to link it in, you know? So I struggled with that and my fear as a result was that when he came along that I wouldn’t be able to bond with him because I was going to continue to be so invested in her.

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But what I learned was that those two things can be true at the same time. It’s actually totally fine. That didn’t change. I was still absolutely wanting to make sure that Storm’s trimester four and beyond was perfect for her, right? But I guess when you become a parent, it’s almost like I feel like I grew up an extra heart. There’s this heart over here for Thea and the other heart that I’ve got which cares about Storm and other loved ones in my life continues on.

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So that fear was completely unfounded in the end. Yeah. But again, really powerful for people to hear at the beginning that that fear of will I bond with my child or not that they know who dad is or dads are. They can bond with many people, really, I guess. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we’ll just move through these photos. And so this is, guess, part of the handover moment. Is that right? It is. Yeah, it is. It was a beautiful moment. Seeing the man you love become a dad. Pretty special, hey? It was really special. Yeah. And then some time in the hospital. Often a classic question is,

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How did it work in the hospital? Were there for a night? Were you rooms next to each other or something? So for us, we originally had this, the ideal for us originally was to have two separate rooms. We ended up having one room together, which I think all of us agreed that that was just for our team. So fantastic. It meant bonding time together. We got to see each other. I got to see her. So I get to enjoy spending time with Theo. She got to see us holding him. We all in the same room together.

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We were able to comfort her. had some really beautiful emotional DNMs like in the days that followed. And it was just our own little bubble, which I’m so grateful for. And also, yeah, there was nothing like it. Yeah. That first week post-birth for us when the boys stayed at an Airbnb nearby, that was like the highlight of the journey, the week of the birth. Because you’re riding that high together of all these adults coming together to create life. Pretty powerful. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I used to get worried about too was like the hormones post-birth. I was a little bit

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around how that could play out too. And I hate seeing people cry and I didn’t want to see Storm cry, but it was so good to be there when those emotions would get and you know, she would cry, I would cry.

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we’d all cry. again, it was one those things where it didn’t, the thought of it was so much more worrying to me than the reality of it. Yeah. Well, that’s powerful to hear. mean, you know, to get to that point with your friendship, who had been a stranger, that you can be that vulnerable with each other, you know, the credit to your team. And then you did some newborn photos and I always love it when the IPs include the surrogate in these photos. So again, some lovely photos. Yeah, it was lovely to have Storm there. She got some beautiful photos as well. So gosh, she’s so little there. My gosh, she’s so much bigger than that now.

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I know right, little buddy. It was lovely to have her there and that was like, again, I look at those emotional awards and it was important that we want to storm to feel that throughout all of trimester four.

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Again, well done for including her in that. And then he starts to grow up, hey? Yeah, that’s just a random selfie at our place. One day during one of Storm’s many milk drop offs. Yes. Well, that probably leads me to another wonderful photo. So because Storm and I have kept in touch and I with her milk pumping journey. And so now on a little trip to Tasmania. So she wanted that done. And so she pumped milk for many months here and it was a photo of 100 litres. Is that right? Yes. A little I made a little shirt with the A2S. So we knew that.

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Storm’s volumes were approaching the 100. So I probably made that around the 80 mark, I think. And at that point, we’re thinking we’re pretty sure she’s going to hit 100 litres. So I made that little shirt for Theo and to surprise her on the day that she did the 100 litre drop off. So that was really fun. I was very excited for her to get that. yeah, and that’s him surrounded by Storm’s last drop off, which was

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a little bit two weeks ago, think. about that. Amazing. They are some, I’m just looking at those. They’re like 150 mils per packet. That’s significant. Yeah, I know. I know. That’s how much she’s having in the bottles now. Yes. Wow. And so what an extra start to life. She’s grown him and then nurtured him with her milk and phenomenal. It is. And then life goes on and you two guys being dads. Yeah. So that photo there. our embryo transfer actually took place on the 15th of May, 2020, what year? 2024.

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Sorry, the dates are so puzzling. Dad brain, yeah. Yeah, baby brain. Well, that’s four years to the day. So Wes and I got married and where we’re standing right there is the background where we did get married four years earlier. So it also was commemorated one year from the embryo transfer and four years from our wedding in that location. So it was fun to get that photo. Yeah, that’s pretty special. Yeah. And so that’s our little family. Beautiful. Just take me back to the egg donor. That was somebody that was unknown to you. And how did you find them? Was that through, oh no, was

22:07
through egg donation? No, so we started off in looking for an unknown egg donor but then just posted onto our socials and a friend of ours reached out. Yeah, yeah. Who was basically like a sister to Wes, like I mean we couldn’t have written, we wouldn’t have dreamed of that outcome to be honest. It wouldn’t have dared. Wow. You know. And has she had her own children as well? No, not yet. Right. Yeah. But so if she does then, which is interesting to be a donor and not have had her own children. Yeah. Yes. Do you sometimes get asked one of the questions,

22:35
that two guys often get asked like, all the time. You know what I’m saying? I know what question you’re going to ask. Yeah. Which firm did you use and how did you decide? Yeah. The way that people, yeah, people have asked that question to us. The way they say it is who’s the real dad or who’s Izzy and stuff like that. Who’s Izzy really? So when that started to happen, kind of just, we kind of our guards up a little bit. So for us, and this took a little bit of discussion through for us and I, and some counselling, I would highly recommend counselling throughout the whole process.

23:04
But for this particular aspect, decided that his biology will just be his to disclose if and when he wants to. He can share it from the rooftops when we tell him. It’ll be no secret if he wants it to be a secret. But I guess, yeah, he’ll be the first person that we decide to tell. So at this point, a few people know and we see those in our close, close, close circle, but not everyone.

23:24
Yes, I do know of some IP couples where I think it’s important to think for any of them, but it’s really important to have the conversation because there could be one of the two IPs who really feels quite strongly about being the genetic father, so to speak. And the other one might not be so worried. And it’s OK if somebody has that calling and they should definitely voice that because it would suck to get to the end of the journey and then go, I really wish I’d spoken up about that. Interesting conversations as a couple. And yeah, I’m sorry that society is still at that point where, you know, they ask these sorts of questions. Yeah, I mean, it’s funny thing people

23:54
the question when they know that you’re expecting but then people will ask the question since he’s been born or people will say things like oh he looks so much like so and so oh it looks like so much so it’s kind of a bit of a constant at times so yeah. Yeah and you mentioned counseling as well and I know for your team you did have some ongoing counseling during pregnancy can you talk us through that was there a rough pattern that you had and how often it was?

24:16
Yeah, I think during trimester one, I kind of went through a period where the way I would describe it is we’re kind of on the same journey, right? But you might be on the same train, but you might be in different carriages sometimes. And Storm might be looking out the left window and her experience is different. And cause we’re looking at this window, sometimes you end up in the same carriage and everything’s like totally the same. But quite often I was finding that what I was thinking it was going to feel like was very different. And even the support that I could offer was also very different. I kind of wanted to fix everything all the time.

24:46
And I really struggled as an IP not being able to make Storm feel better all the time. Right. So I did need counseling for that. That was a challenge, you know? Yeah. And we had counseling a few times, Storm had a couple of sessions as well. And then towards the later stage of the pregnancy, I mean, we were all feeling fantastic, but we still had counseling anyway, just as a bit of a hygiene check, talk it through, just kind of see how we’re feeling. Did anything bubble up to the surface that maybe hadn’t been discussed, but we found the counseling really beneficial.

25:15
And so to be clear that you use Katrina Hale, who you’d also use for the mandatory counseling at the beginning, is that right? Correct. So we use her all through IVF stages, all through the sorry busy stages, know, and then for adult counseling. terms of what you said about wanting to sort of fix things for Storm and help out as much as possible, what were some of the supports that you were able to offer her? Because I guess I piece at the beginning, listening like if you do live locally, how can you help out with is it time? Is it meals? Is it what is it? Yeah. So so my love language is

25:45
of service. So one of the benefits of having a local journey was I thought, oh great storms only 10 minutes away, like 10 minute drive, right? So that meant I could be really hands-on. So for us that meant obviously babysitting, looking after the boys on some days, sometimes taking them to the extracurricular activity on weekends. We did by trimester three start picking them up from school on a couple of select days per week. What else did we do? did some

26:11
cleaning it did the housework. I cleaned the house on very fortnight, which is quietly. I absolutely love doing that. Do you know how satisfying it was for me to walk out going, Oh,

26:19
I just know she’s going to walk in and the house is going to be perfect and she’s going to feel so good. That was the most rewarding thing for me. That’s great. I love doing that. Is the office still there? Are you going to head back any time soon? I have time to clean my own house at the moment, let alone hers. That’s true. Yeah. So there all those types of things that we did. Did you say some treats for the boys for lunchbox? Yeah, lunchbox treats for term three and term four. We were making some snacks. think Storm ate most of them to be fair. Well, she was feeding your son.

26:46
Absolutely. I’m not complaining. It was fun. I know they were all enjoyed. Good. And then in terms of what does it look like post birth? So for people who are at the beginning listening to this, how often now on average do you keep in touch and see each other? Like in terms of how often are you messaging and sharing photos and stuff and how often do our messages are generally, so our main form of communication is on messenger. Sometimes we’ll chat on the phone here and there. Usually when one of us is going through something probably work related or family related, to be honest, and we want to get it all out of chest. But usually we have daily contact. It’s usually

27:16
every day most of the time. It can vary as to how much we’re communicating on a daily basis. We send photos of the day to Storm pretty regularly, probably not every day, but pretty often I’ll send videos and photos and things like that. And at the moment, we’re probably at a point now we see Storm every week.

27:34
We could every year, probably. Yeah, probably once or twice a week right now. Wow. Yeah. And again, for people at the beginning who don’t have a surrogate yet and might have to find a stranger to do this, hearing what this can look like. mean, every team will be different, but it could look like this. And it turned this person will become a very close friend for life. Oh, absolutely. Being there in the room with her when she birthed Theo was incredibly bonding and the time that we spent. So for us, what trimester four looked like is storm would pop around every morning. Basically,

28:04
the mornings for the first maybe five or six weeks locked out. So we weren’t doing anything in the mornings. Storm knew that she wanted if she wanted time with Teddy or Theo, she had that. And I remember saying to her early on, like, no, it doesn’t matter. I think a head heart for my mate and that Katrina Hale talks about sort of says 14 days is what it could look like. But I said, don’t cap it. I don’t there’s no cap on this. Like you the experience for you has to be right for you. And I wanted her to work through a semester for it.

28:31
at a pace that was good for her and healthy for her. And like I said, that wasn’t hard to do. That was so easy because I loved seeing, I love seeing her with him and vice versa. It’s beautiful. And again, no fear and jealousy of the birthing mother holding your child and fearing the bond that might be there. not at all. I love Storm like a sister and I still don’t know how to repay her other than every time she walks in, I just take him, grab some cuddles. Yes. And I think one thing we did do actually, if we don’t mind mentioning this was

29:00
just to recognize the two women that brought help bringing him into his into a life is he’s got two middle names and each one. So one of those names is to honor his link to Storm. They share he’s got a male variant of her middle name and another middle name that is linked to his egg donor and their family. His origins are just so important and I wanted to give something like that to them to recognize that. So can I say so many things you can do I guess to.

29:27
reward, you know. And I think that’s beautiful. That’s it’s such a massive gift for a surrogate when the name has had some consideration. I mean, we don’t expect it, but particularly when a female surrogate births a boy, obviously you can’t necessarily name the same name or matching middle names or something like that. But I’m well done finding an equivalent there. And so he’s got his story connected. So heaven forbid if you even, you know, stopped contact with each other, it’s embedded into his name. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I want him to have that carry that with

29:56
you know, you’ll always know. Yeah. That’s beautiful. Oh, this has just been for me. It’s been like years like, you know, being friends from afar and supporting you guys, part of your cheer squad. Have you got any bits of parting advice for people at the beginning or any parts of your journey that are worth mentioning that we haven’t touched on? Look, we did a lot of research in going into it and I felt pretty prepared to be fair.

30:19
but it was a lot more emotionally challenging than I was prepared for. I carried the weight of the emotions quite a lot. I don’t know if that’s because someone generally will take on some of those other responsibilities like the financial management and sort of just coordinating the appointments and keeping everything on top of the finances, all that stuff, right? But yeah, for me, it was just the emotional elements that were the hardest. I would also say though, that it’s also the most fulfilling experience I’ve ever had in my life.

30:47
and it was worth every second of it. Right. Yeah. Is there anything you could do differently in hindsight then to help with that emotional burden or complexity? I think a little bit around, so we’re gonna go back to communication, not so much the emotional component, but it probably does link in a little bit. I would say I’d be a little bit more open with communication during the pregnancy. What I found was that it became like real, this real strong desire to protect Storm from

31:15
we were feeling. So if I was feeling nervous, I didn’t really want to share that with Storm. So what effectively I feel happened was Wes and I closed a bit of a communication, communication valve and it wasn’t until after he was born that that flicked open again and we were back to normal, right? And I later learned too, I think it probably went both ways. I think probably Storm did the same thing. I know she was doing that in the later stages of the pregnancy because we talked about it too.

31:37
So I guess I’m not sure if it’s right or wrong. I just think maybe if we’d done that a little bit differently, but the challenge is as IPs, you don’t want to create any more unnecessary stress, worry, anxiety. You don’t want them to think you’re ungrateful or pushy or anything. So I don’t know. It’s hard to say if I would change anything or not. don’t know. It’s a fine balance between being authentic, but also…

32:00
navigating this balance of a pregnant woman, you know, and she’s a single mum too. So yeah, it’s a tricky thing. I wanted her experience to be so positive that I was also willing to be uncomfortable that I would rather have been uncomfortable so that this experience for her was positive. But isn’t it tricky though, because if you’re keeping parts of yourself from her, then she’s sort of feeling like, where’s my friend? Where’s all of Dane? Yeah, absolutely. And she probably did have moments like that. And I remember feeling the same too in trimester three, like I remember saying to Wes at one point,

32:30
I miss my friend storm, like not surrogate storm, I want my friend storm back. Yeah. You know, you go through all those things, but I honestly never at any point though, did I feel as though it was a situation where we were walking away from each other. It never felt like that because we built a really solid.

32:46
foundation. So I didn’t have those fears, you know, I knew it would be okay. We just had to get through it. Yes. Well, I think it’s a credit to your team that you’ve navigated this journey and brought a little boy into this world. Yeah, yeah. He’s a great little guy too. Yes. Yeah, we’re very lucky. And you know, well done to your team for the ongoing friendship that is there too. And yeah, thank you for joining us and for, you know, bringing hope to others at the beginning that this this really can happen. Absolutely. Yeah, it can. And it’s worth it. Spot on. Oh, somebody has just typed it. Okay, hang on. We might have a question.

33:15
Stelios says, thanks for your story, Dane. Is there a resource to get those questions you went through with Storm? Or how did you come up with the questions about your Sorrow journey? So those questions can be found in Australian Sorrow community in the Files tab.

33:28
in there and there’s 90 questions. remember the name of the file but it is in there. It’s just a big grid of a million different questions. It’s always much easier to navigate on a computer. Stelios, you’re, because we got permission to use them in SAS too, they’re in our portal. I think it’s called the 101 questions or 90. Maybe it’s increased. it might have gone up maybe, yeah, but there was 90 when we did it. Yes, and I think somebody’s done them, well one version is sort of like a grid. can cut them out and you can like put them in a hat and pull them out. There’s different ways you could do it. So

33:57
Stelios, if you wanted to send me an email, I could hook you up with them. Thanks, Dave. Thanks, everyone. Bye. Thanks. Good night. Thank you for sharing your time with me for this episode. If you’re finding these episodes helpful, please share them with friends. If you’d like to see the images mentioned, head to our YouTube channel for all of the recordings. If you’re looking for more individualized support, consider joining SASS, Surrogacy Australia’s support service, so you can be connected with a mentor and also with me to help guide you on a journey.

34:27
might think of me as your Siri for surrogacy. Until next time, welcome to the village.