Episode 113 – How to tell your child their birth story – Katrina Hale – Psychologist

00:14
Welcome back, or if this is your first time, thank you so much for taking the time to listen to Surrogacy Australia’s podcast series with me, your host Anna McKay. My guest on this episode was a co-host on the regular webinar series that I run. Those one-hour webinars are free and will take you through the surrogacy process in Australia. You will hear from a surrogate or parent and there are opportunities to type in your questions and we will try to answer them. You can find upcoming dates on our website at surrogacyaustralia.org.

00:43
This episode, recorded back in May 2022, was different to the standard webinars as it featured psychologist Katrina Hale. Hear the simple yet meaningful technique that Katrina has developed to help you create a unique birth story narrative for your child. Katrina is a psychologist and infertility counselor with over 25 years counseling experience. She is passionate about surrogacy and a strong supporter of all walks of the community that wish to create a family through surrogacy or assisted reproduction.

01:13
She is committed to helping intended parents, IPs and surrogates and their partners successfully navigate their surrogacy journey together. If you’d like to arrange your own session with Katrina, you can find her at her website, katrinahalesychology.com.au. Katrina is becoming a regular on my webinar series for which I am very grateful. You can find all of her episodes on our website, surrogacyaustralia.org forward slash podcast, forward slash katrina-hale.

01:40
Most appearances have been converted to podcast episodes, but they are all available on our YouTube channel called Surrogacy Australia. I encourage you to share this episode with your own Surrogacy team or listen to it in the future when you have a team. Even come back to it on multiple occasions as a check-in. I’d love to hear your feedback about this episode, so please send me a message either through Messenger, email, or the Surrogacy Australia social media accounts. In the show notes, I’ll put the questions that we covered in the webinar. I hope you enjoy this episode.

02:09
So tonight the topic is how to tell your child their birth story. And Katrina has been practicing this with her teams, her surrogacy intended parents and surrogacy teams for many years. And so it’s a well-honed technique, if you like. And so we get to share it here tonight and sort of bring some structure to it for everyone. So Katrina, I’m going to hand over to you and take us through your way of helping intended parents.

02:35
they then become parents, how do they tell their child their birth story? Okay, thanks Anna and thanks for the opportunity. So yeah, often people like having a baby via surrogacy, you know, it can be the surrogate themselves, you know, they think, oh, this is so complicated, you know, what am I doing to this child? Am I going to mess them up? Yeah, I’m going to be paying for therapy for them. It just seems like too much, you know, to sort of tell them their story. You know, I think about, you know, surrogacy stories, surrogacy birth stories, the child’s birth story, it’s really a

03:04
very much as the love story. There’s so much motivation, you know, to have this.

03:09
child. At the end of the day, what drives that is the desire for a child. It’s a narrative of love. I’ve got a really easy sort of structure and technique for sort of creating the child’s story. But what I want you to do first is to think about your own birth story. So this is your own story because everybody has common milestones in their birth story, in their narrative. Reflecting on your own birth story. And Anna, we’re going to use you as our example here.

03:39
So have a think about were you planned or unplanned? Were you wanted or unwanted? What were the circumstances of your conception? Was it a natural conception? Did mom and dad have sex? Or were you born, know, conceived through IVF? Who do you call your mom and dad or your parents or your parents? Who was the woman who carried and birthed you? Does that align to who you call your mom or a parent? What’s your genetic identity? Does that align to who you call?

04:08
mom and dad or your parents or were you born by egg donation or sperm donation or were you adopted? Were you the pregnancy from heaven or the pregnancy from hell? How and where were you born? Was it a home birth? Were you born in hospital? Was it a natural birth? Was it a C-section? Was it a smooth birth or was it traumatic and complex birth?

04:27
So post-birth, who held you first? Was there any medical issues that went down? Were you breastfed or bottle fed? What happened next when you came home from hospital? So, yeah, so have a think about, know, like, do you know all that information in your own story? So, Anna, when you think about your story, like, do you know all that information? Yeah, think I know most of it. Yeah. So I’m actually a twin. so, you know, I guess over time I’ve been told the stories of and that

04:56
Mum had a child before in the 70s and then when having us in the 80s had never had one of these ultrasounds before so that’s how she found out she was having twins was speechless. Then dad wasn’t there but when she saw him you know she just held up two fingers and you know that part of the story was told as the worst day of her life and so yes I suppose we had you know because that was just so scary. So suppose you have been told those stories and then yes it was a planned caesarian and I guess there’s photos from the hospital of mum holding up a sign saying she was fasting and

05:25
know, born two minutes apart and there’s photos of the clock.

05:28
at the different times we were born. So yeah, and then I know she breastfed for sort of six weeks and then had a bit of a breakdown and then we were more on the bottle. So yeah, so suppose I know a lot of those things and parents were together, are together. So I think I probably have, yeah, a lot of that information that I’ve been told over time. Yeah, yeah. So just in the chat, you know, if the people listening, like give me a thumbs up or some, just put any emoji in if you got the majority of that information in your birth story. So if they’re looking back on

05:58
there’s going, know, or maybe actually don’t know all of my stories. might be more of a whichever emoji might. Yeah. Well, let’s not let’s say yet. Like if you sort of know, you know, 80 % or more. okay. Yeah. So less than 80%. So anybody else? Yeah. Okay. So

06:16
I want you to think about, yeah, like how did you find out this information? Like, yeah, and you sort of said, yeah, it was just sort of, you know, picked it up over the years, you know, but, you know, we sat down and told it in one sitting, you know, or was it just sort of dribs and drabs? Was it just sort of woven into the fabric of the family narrative? know, so, you know, so for most people, it was, it’s just sort of something that they sort of knew, you know, they might remember being told bits of it.

06:43
or they might remember asking about bits of it, but it was often sort of something that was just there, you know, and people who don’t know aspects of their story, they can often feel, you know, there’s something missing. You know, it can be a bit like an unscratched itch. You people who might not know their genetic identity. So what I want to now think about is creating the story of the child born through surrogacy. There’s all those same milestones in the story. If we think about a child born by surrogacy, are they planned or unplanned?

07:13
This is a super, super, super, super planned child. Are they wanted or unwanted? This is a very wanted child. So what are the circumstances of their conception? It’s either going to be gestational surrogacy, so we’re going to be doing IVF or traditional surrogacy, so we’re going to be doing home insemination process. So IVF, you might have photos of that. I don’t need to know the circumstances of my parents having sex.

07:40
So there might be a privacy boundary around some of that information. Think of what we’ve got as the start of the story that we’re to tell this child. You were really, really, really, really wanted. We put a lot of effort into getting you here. A lot of work went into you. That’s a great foundation of your story.

07:59
So let’s compare that. Because often people doing surrogacy, there’s that sense of like, oh, this is so unfair. I’ve got to jump through all these hoops. I’ve got to do the legals. I’ve got to do the counseling. I’ve got to pay all the IVF fees. people can just go and have sex and accidentally fall pregnant and there’s nothing to stop that. There is absolutely nothing to stop that. But let’s consider the narrative for the child.

08:23
born as a result of a drunken one-night stand between strangers. Okay. So there was no intention, you know, was this child planned or unplanned? No, it was an act of drunken lust, you know, were they wanted or unwanted? You know, it’s like, well, they didn’t swap phone numbers. The father didn’t know that a child had been conceived.

08:42
the woman might have considered having a termination in this. What are the circumstances of your conception? We know what that was, you know? So think of that, you know, the beginnings of that arity for that child. Yes, there was no legal, no counselling. It’s like, oops, you know, you’re a bit of an accident. And that can be hard to knowing, oh, I consider determination with you, how that feels as a child becoming an adult, knowing that you weren’t wanted or unplanned, how you feel about that. Yeah, yeah. There’s nothing to stop that. But it’s a very different story, identity story, but then that

09:11
that child has to unravel for themselves across their lifetime. So then you’re thinking about again, you know, the child born by a surrogacy, you know, who do you call your mom and your dad or your moms or your dads or your mom or your dad or your parents or your parents? And why do you call them that? Because, you know, that role of being a mom role or a dad role or a parent role, that’s a social emotional role.

09:35
That’s a care and nurture role. That’s not related to genetics. That’s not related to who gave birth to you. There might be step parents or grandparents or different people who fulfilled that role for you. So who was the woman who carried and birthed you into the world? Does that align to who you call your mom or a parent or was that a surrogate? again, there’s not a necessary correlation between giving birth to someone and having that social emotional nurture role of being someone’s mom.

10:05
What’s this child’s genetic identity? Does it align to the intended parents? Or was there egg donation or sperm donation that was used? again, in some surrogacy sometimes we can have that alignment, you know, sometimes we don’t.

10:18
We’re looking at this child’s identity. These are your parents. This is your mom and dad or your mom’s or dad’s or whatever person who carried and birthed you. That aligns with your surrogate, not your mom. Your genetic identity might align to your mom and dad or it might not. doesn’t mean genetics doesn’t mean social emotional parent.

10:37
again was that the pregnancy from heaven to the pregnancy from sorry. So that information is available. A lot of those same questions that we have been reflecting on ourselves are still relevant in surrogacy. They might just be split among many people. Different people, yeah absolutely. Yeah, you know like how and where were you born, know was it home birth, hospital, whatever, you who was in the room, who held you first, were you breastfed or bottle fed, what happened next. It’s the same story, it’s exactly the same story.

11:06
that a child born by a surrogacy has, you know, has, it’s got all the same milestones. So there’s no difference in how you tell that story to how you were told your story or how you might tell other children their story, because everybody has unique story. If you compared my story and Anna’s story, they’d be completely different, completely different. It’s my unique story, only mine. Everybody else’s unique story.

11:28
And the thing is there’s big costs. have no on egg donation because we have the surrogate who’s available, not anonymous.

11:37
that information is available if the child wants to ask. So because sometimes when I do this exercise with clients, they’re like, actually, I don’t know some of that. You know, I’ve never and I asked like, could you find it out if you wanted it? And they’re like, yeah, I suppose I can ask my mom. Like, well, yeah, go and ask your mom. Ask the poor woman what it was like giving birth to you. So pregnancy from heaven or pregnancy from hell. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So if there was an egg donor and that egg donor is a non egg donor or

12:06
available or identity release, egg donor, that information is going to be available. It’s like the relationship with the surrogate. That’s why it’s important to have that relationship with the surrogate so that that information is available, entirety of the story, and who participated in that and who was involved in bringing this very planned and very wanted child into the world are all available. So if you think about that, that’s a beautiful story.

12:33
Here’s your story, very different to sort of, again, the story that a child born of a drunken one night stand where their genetic identity may not be known, what that child then has to unravel about how they got here. And they may have gaps in that story and some people might be okay with that, but others might not and wish they could have access to that information.

12:54
information or not. Whereas in surrogacy, we’ve potentially got the opportunity here to maintain access to all of that information and to tell this beautiful story. Yeah, because having missing information, say for example, not knowing your genetic identity. So that can be like an unscratched itch for someone.

13:12
They might be sitting on a bus and there’s a person sitting next to them and they’re wondering, is this person a genetic relative? Is this person a genetic half sibling? Is this person a genetic family member? I don’t know. They might start dating someone and they’re like, is this a genetic half sibling? Is this a family member? How would I know without getting a genetic test?

13:35
So they navigate through life with that uncertainty about who they are and their relationship to others around them. It could be a stranger on the bus, you he’s actually a sibling and they don’t know. So it can be like a missing piece in their identity puzzle or like an itch they just can’t scratch. can’t get the answer for. So we’ve got this opportunity in surrogacy to not have itches.

13:56
Exactly. again, some children are really curious about this story. There’s no right or wrong. Some children are like really, really curious about this story. They want to know everything. the same as you might have been curious about your story as a child and asked your parents heaps of questions.

14:13
Other children are like, yeah, whatever, I’ve got it. Yeah, I know I was wanted. I know you’ve planned a lot of things. Yeah, know, you know, it’s like a lot of work went into me. Can we move on? You know, this is not that interesting to me. You know, this is is this is your stuff. So, you know, does that make sense to you? know it was sort of. It does, absolutely. And I think that’s, you know, so much background in terms of why it’s important.

14:34
to tell the child so that they’ve got the full story, they’ve got access to the information and it’s told as a beautiful story. So then in terms of, I guess, you know, taking a deeper dive in things like when do we start telling our child? In some ways I feel like I can possibly already answer that or how, you know, appropriate language, is there some guidance on that then? So yeah, when do you start telling the story? It’s important to start telling yourself the story whenever, you know, as early as possible.

15:01
Because the story that you tell yourself, that’s the story that your child will pick up regardless of the words that you use. So it’s important that there’s not any sense of shame or secrecy around.

15:14
you know, needing to use egg donation or sperm donation or surrogacy. Like imagine if the story was like, oh, we were so unlucky. know, it’s like, you know, everything was stacked against us. You know, we were sort of forced to use surrogacy. You know, welcome to the world, kid. It’s like, know, bad luck, you know, as opposed to, you know, we were so lucky, you know, that this generous woman gave us this gift or this opportunity to help you help bring into the world. So again, it’s that love story. It’s that narrative of love. yeah, so you practice

15:44
you you create that story within yourself in terms of what’s behind bringing this child into the world, who are the people involved. And that way you get sort of familiar with what words or what terminology, you know, sort of feels right. What’s the family narrative? What’s your narrative? You know, what words are you going to use in this? And then, you know, you can practice telling that story to the child in utero. You can practice telling that.

16:06
child to this story to the child is a non-verbal infant, you know, because think about it, you know, most people would tell their child like, I love you, I’m so happy you’re here. You know, you don’t need to wait until the child is verbal because again, you’re weaving that story into the family fabric and you’re starting to sort of, it’s becoming the family story. know, a surrogate, you know, a surrogate can tell the child the story in utero, you know, it’s like you’re really, really wanted.

16:34
You know, I’m not your mum. I’m the person who’s going to carry and birth you into the world. Your mum and dad or your dad’s, know, your dad or your mum, you know, they’re these amazing people. You’re going to have a great life. They really, really love you. A surrogate, you know, that narrative, it’s a shared narrative. That’s true. I was thinking just two things that spring to mind are that when…

16:56
I guess once you’re in a pregnant surrogacy, as the parents of the surrogate, the adults are probably telling their friends and family, you know, in real time about this. And so they’re already practicing that language like, yes, Anna’s our surrogate and we know her this way. And friends are probably already asking them the questions like, oh, are you going to call her the surrogate or the birth mother? And so they’re probably already practicing telling adults what that story is and who’s part of the story. And then I suppose it’s that, as you said, to a nonverbal infant, it’s when you reminisce about memory,

17:26
or I remember when you, you know, we’ve got a story about when Emily was little and Glen had just cleaned the dishes and he had her on her shoulder and she vomited all over the clean dishes. And so she knows that story. She doesn’t remember it, but we’ve told her that story. And so I suppose your birth story is just like one of any of the other memories that you say, oh, you know, we remember the day you were born and you talk about who was there. So it’s just like any other milestone that you just, you don’t sit them down and tell them one day, is it?

17:56
I think you’ve got the capacity to understand the full story. So we’re going to sit down and have the talk. And that’s what you’re have the talk other times. Yeah. And it was really interesting listening to your story, Anna, because you mentioned the photos that your mum had, you’re holding up the sign that she was fasting, the clock on the wall, showing the time of birth and things like that. How those mementos and those photos were used as tools to tell the story, to illustrate the story.

18:23
You can use books, there’s specific books written for kids on how to tell their surrogacy story. You can keep mementos of the journey. You can take photos of it. But they’re things to help support the story and illustrate the story. You don’t need to of outsource telling each child they’re born by a surrogacy to a book. The book is there to support that because it is your child’s unique story.

18:50
So you need to tell the child their story. So it’s okay to have some books of similar stories about kangaroo pouches or things like that for these children born from suffragacy to see other families that look like theirs. But we don’t want that to be the only story that they hear. We then want it to be, your story is. is yours. is how it’s similar. This is how it’s different. Here’s who’s involved in yours. And it could be a different language. It could be Auntie Anna or it could just be Anna and working out what’s the right fit for everyone there.

19:20
think about how you learn your birth story and you know it’s like I imagine if you were given a book or read a book and that was how you learned about how you were born. You would just read a book so there wasn’t that personalization there wasn’t that family narrative you know like you said those cute stories you know. And also hearing it too from the other people like if you’ve got older siblings hearing your birth story and they’re like I remember when you pooed everywhere or and so that’s why it’s important to have hear your story you know with the other connections too from your

19:50
I remember when the parents of one of the dads visited the day after Baker was born and they came to my house and what a significant day that was for everybody where they met their grandson for the first time and telling those stories too. So because lots of people make up this story don’t they? This love story. So you know can keep a memory box or a photo album. Children as they sort of become interested in their story or as they develop maturity they can go to that memory box and ask questions about it or they can go to the photo album

20:20
and they can ask questions or they can read the book. Kids will read the same book over and over over over again. They’re processed. The unfolding of that story is a lifelong story. It’s a bit like if you give birth to a child yourself, suddenly you have more empathy for them.

20:37
what your mum might have gone through or something like that. And one important thing to remember is that under Australian legislation, one of the things embedded in that legislation is the child’s legal right to know their story. So therefore it’s a responsibility of parents to tell their child their birth story. So if you’re a heterosexual couple, you know, who had sex, conceived a child, you know, and gave birth that way, you know, that’s the sort of the default, you know, the heteronormative default story. So if you don’t, you know, sort of specifically go into a lot of detail, you know,

21:07
that story and your child assumes the default, whatever, then they’ve got it right. Whereas if that isn’t the default story and you don’t tell the child their specific story, they are likely to assume the default. If they’ve got a mom and a dad, they get to assume that mom didn’t take a photo or they get to assume that genetically they align to mom and dad. So there’s that responsibility if you’ve used surrogacy or

21:37
donation or sperm donation, go to ensure that you tell the child the details of that story. So two dads, they always go, well, it’s going to sort of obvious.

21:47
We certainly needed some help. but equally so, know, where it’s not obvious, you know, it’s sort of equally important to tell that story as opposed to sort of, we can sort of get away with not telling the child the story. So, yes, so a has a legal right to know their story. The only person with a legal right to know their story is the child themselves. So we need to look at, you know, there’s a thing I call privacy boundaries, which is, you know, where do we set those privacy boundaries around the child’s information? So the only person who has

22:17
a right to know their story is the child themselves. So some people set that privacy boundary very tightly around the child. The first person who is going to be told their genetic identity or the first person apart from the people who were sort of involved, who’s going to told this child was born by a surrogacy is the child themselves. then that child has a choice as to what they want to do with that information. Do they want to keep it to themselves? Do they want to share it with others? It’s entirely up to them. So that’s a very tight privacy

22:47
Would the main examples of that be in the case of if you’ve got the two dads whose sperm is it and perhaps in a hetero couple if they also needed an egg donor or a sperm donor perhaps then

22:57
They don’t have to tell everybody else who’s sperm is going out. But they have to tell the child. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The classic story, you know, with two dads, you know, it’s like, so who’s the real dad? Yeah. Again, what people are ignorantly meaning there is, you know, so who’s sperm is it? You know, it’s like, you know, you’re not entitled to tell people that, people are not entitled to that information. You know, that is the child’s information. They are the only person entitled to that information. The parent’s choice as to where they set those

23:27
boundaries and there’s absolutely no right or wrong way to do it. You know, it’s the parent’s individual choice. So some choose it to set it very tightly. Some choose it to set it sort of at a mid-range where that information about the child’s birth story, the full details, that’s contained within that close circle of family and friends, that sort of circle of care around the child. So that way the child sort of grows up with those people close around them, knowing their story, you know, with it being sort of woven into that family narrative.

23:56
the people within that privacy boundary, they need to know that the details, the full details, that that is private within that privacy boundary and outside of that, it’s a more big picture story. Have you got any tips then on the language to use that if your two dads and somebody says, who’s the real dad or who’s sperm it is and you don’t want to answer that, what key phrases?

24:17
Yeah, so know the common one that people use is like, oh, you know, we’re both the dads here and sometimes they might go, oh yeah, but we know what you mean. You know what we mean. Yes. And a great answer that is like, no, what do you mean?

24:28
Then they’ve got to go, oh, you know. Which, who’s, know, stuffed. Yeah, yeah. And it’s like, yeah. If you want to make it awkward for them, go there. You just say, look, that’s private. That information is private. We’re both the dads, but that information is private. know, the first person who’s going to know that is the child, or it could be, know, that information is private because you might have that mid-range. Yeah. Okay. So the question that we had, I’ll answer that now. So the question is, once the parentage order is granted, the birth certificate is changed to the IPs. Is the information

24:57
the original birth certificate made available to the child of a certain stage. That depends on which state you’re in. So in Victoria and New South Wales, there’s a central register which is managed by the government. So it’s sort of a part of births, deaths and marriages. So any child born through surrogacy or egg donation or sperm donation, assuming adoption or embryo donation, the details of that birth and who was involved are recorded on a central register. So then when the child turns 18, so their birth certificate has who the

25:27
intended parents, parents or mom and dad, whatever, or dads or moms. So when the child turns 18 and they apply for their own birth certificate, they’ll get their birth certificate as it’s always appeared and they’ll get, I always say it’s a second bit of paper, who knows what it’ll be in 18 years time. They’ll get another piece of information which is, by the way, in case nobody’s told you, you were born by surrogacy or egg donation or sperm donation.

25:51
or you were adopted or born by embryo donation and here’s the details and here was who is involved. that’s Victoria and New South Wales. Other times it’s kept as sort of the IVF clinic. The IVF clinic might have that information but it’s not a formal government register in the same way that the other things do. I’m trying to think South Australia. I mean, I’ve got down here, know, Baker’s original birth certificate and I’m trying to think what’s on the one the dads have got. I’ve got this feeling something says more information is recorded at births, and marriages.

26:21
in a star and then that would hopefully be enough information.

26:25
to prompt the child if they weren’t told that they were born via surrogacy and egg donation, that there is more information. So if the parents choose not to tell at certain points, they’re respecting that, but they’re also giving prompt. Yeah, again, exactly as you’re saying, I don’t think the original birth certificate, it would still exist as a record. There would be no cut and paste and replace in that one. It would exist and then the parentage was transferred legally. There’d be a legal record of that happening, whether or not there’s

26:55
separate register. often, know, like keeping that original birth certificate, again, you said, as a surrogate, you know, like, like you’ve got a copy of that. Yeah, that’s a

27:04
That’s a significant part of the story. You know, like that can be used as one of the tools and the mementos. Yeah, here we go. This is, this is what it was when you were born and then, and then it was changed to this. And, know, this is the new birth certificate that you’ve got. then, you know, that birth certificate, it’s significant part of the story. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn’t get discarded or destroyed. was part of the story, you know, that can be used to facilitate the coming of the story. So yeah, I think we’ve answered that question there that yes. And that makes me think, you know, for SAS in the portal, I should probably include at some point in time, an example of the different states.

27:34
certificates to see what is on the mold and what’s similar and what’s different. But yes, so I mean guess that’s the point that you know the child’s entitled to this you know when they apply for their own birth certificate when they need a copy for driver’s licenses and things like that, that if your parents haven’t told you by you know that point they’re going to find out so you might as tell them on your own terms. Yeah I mean that’s sort of like a backup you know that supports the child’s legal right to know so if nobody tells them you know when they turn 18 the government’s going to tell them basically.

28:04
yeah that’s not the best way to do it. It’s a better idea that your child doesn’t find out that you’ve lied to them at the age of 18. So just continuing on with privacy boundaries. Some people choose to have their privacy boundaries very, very open. They’re very comfortable, they’re very happy for everybody to know their story, for everybody to know their child’s genetic identity, for everybody to know the details. They might do a media interview, they might write a book, they might have a public blog. So that story is very much out there, that child’s identity is very much out

28:34
there. So and that’s their choice. You know, the thing that I say is when you start thinking about where those private where you’re going to set those privacy boundaries, you need to start thinking early and make mindful choices. And the way to make those mindful choices is to think about, you know, this child when they turn 12 or 13 or 14 or 16 or 18, you know, they come back to you and they say, Why did you do that? Like, why did you tell me first? Yeah, why did you not tell anybody? Yeah. And then what? Why did you do that? It’s like, Oh, well, we thought it was important that you heard your story first, and then you had

29:03
choice.

29:04
Or they say, look, I just applied for a job. I Googled my name and newspaper articles came up with my name. It’s like, you know, that talk we had last week about what you put on the internet stays on the internet. So I need to be really careful. It’s like you splashed me all over the place. So again, have an answer for that. The child should know that information about them is out there. You know why we did that. We were very proud of your story. We wanted to inspire. We wanted to help others know that this was available. You know that this is how we are. You know that

29:34
this is how we’ve told your story. So yeah, you know, have a mindful answer. So therefore make these decisions now in a mindful way. So it’s not the child going, why did you do that? It’s like, yeah, sorry. Didn’t really think that one through, did I? Because you might’ve taken away the child’s right.

29:51
to tell their story how they choose. They might be a private person who doesn’t really want people knowing that about them or they might have stolen their thunder. That’s a real spectrum there between tight privacy to mid to if the parents are very open but then the kid doesn’t want to be in the end. So yeah having your answer there. Can I ask a question then about this is you know we’ve got a love story to tell and hopefully most surrogacy teams are created in love and everybody gets on very well during the pregnancy. I guess some teams

30:21
post-birth lose contact or there’s a relationship dissolved there. I mean that surrogacy team could be family, they could be friends, you know and there might be some IPs that become parents that are listening to this and that relationship has dissolved. Does that change how we tell this love story? Should we do it differently? Any thoughts on that? I mean it’s still a love story for the inter-parents wanting to bring this child into the world. It’s still their love, their desire for a child that brought them into the world. We really really really really wanted you, you know we put a lot of effort into getting you here. Again you know in

30:51
the Australian legislation.

30:53
of the parentage order process is what is going to be the future relationship between the child and the woman who gave birth to them. Ideally, there’s a connection maintained. So that can be a robust friendship. Yeah, well, that can be the family relationship where there’s very open, very warm, very loving, very connected relationship. The child learns their story through that. If they want to ask the surrogate or the egg donor, anything that information is just there available. If the relationship’s broken down, there’s that responsibility

31:23
to maintain that bridge to the surrogate or the egg donor or sperm donation. So that then if the child wants information about their story, they want to ask the surrogate, was that the pregnancy from heaven or the pregnancy from hell? There needs to be that bridge that the child can cross over or the parents can cross over to get that information and bring it back. So all the child can cross over to ask that information. So it might be a rickety little goat track. It might be an email address. It might be a phone number, but there’s no contact. There’s no friendship. There’s no other relationship.

31:53
connection is maintained which is an information bridge for to satisfy the child’s right to know. In terms of can be very difficult if there’s been a relationship breakdown that was bitter or you traumatic you know there was there’s been bad blood in the relationship. How do we then tell the story of through this child you know when there was that sort of trauma or bitterness or breakdown there? Like a divorce? Absolutely yeah it’s exactly yeah it’s it’s like telling talking about the other parent you know to it to a child you know when

32:22
been a divorced you talk positively about them you know don’t talk in a toxic way. you a choice really if you want to talk about your father he’s such a such and such or how you phrase that you have to sort of put any of your own thoughts because of the interests of your child. Yeah yeah so again it was sort of then down to that sort of the sort of the facts of it you know it’s like well you know this is the woman who carried and birthed you into the world this is your egg donor she provided the egg you know which helped conceive you you know we don’t have to sort of tell the emotional narrative

32:52
around that. It’s the informational narrative with that. So, and again, like you said, said Anna, at the beginning, know, the intentions were, you know, were loving, you know, everybody wanted this to work out. might have broken down. It’s like, you know, this is the person who carried and birthed you into the world. You know, her name is this, here’s a photo of her, here’s a photo of you being born. You know, look, you know, we don’t have contact with her anymore.

33:13
Yes and so they have a choice as to how you can just leave this we don’t have contact but we can. You don’t have to share a big nasty story and I suppose this also goes to if it’s an anonymous sperm or egg donor you can say that that’s just part of the story we don’t have to cover that up and so yes there are ways to still navigate this aren’t there? Yeah or let’s say it’s an identity release donor so someone who’s agreed that when the child turns 18 the child gets access to their information and the child can have contact with them.

33:43
that into a narrative. It’s like, well, yeah, you were born by egg donation or sperm donation and there was this generous person, was this kind person who did this and you’ll be able to meet them in the future. What would you want to ask them if you meet them? You can give a book with a list of those questions that the child has. Let’s think about why they might have done this. They probably wanted to help someone that they didn’t know. They must be a really generous person if they were willing to do that for a stranger. You can actually create that narrative, that altruistic love,

34:13
narrative, even when there might have been a relationship breakdown or there might not have been a relationship breakdown or the information might not be immediately available. One of the reasons in Australia why the government is so adamant that surrogacy and egg donation and sperm donation are altruistic is so that the child is born of an act of altruistic generosity. The motive, the surrogate, the motive of the donor is an altruistic one, not a material one. So again, it comes back to the child asking that question, why did you do this?

34:43
So for the, you know, for the surrogate or the donut, you why did you do this? You know, it’s like, well,

34:48
I your parents and I thought, you know, they really deserve to be parents. Yeah. I thought that would be able to give a child a great life. I really wanted to help them. That was why I did this. see your parents be dads or mom and dad. And it’s not because I got paid $50,000, you know, it’s because I wanted to help them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so therefore the motive, you know, the motive is an act of love. The motive is that, you were brought into the world. My motive was to help bring you into the world. of, yeah, my motive for doing this was sort of self-interested into

35:18
of, I had debts to pay or there was a…

35:20
a material benefit for me or you was sort of yeah you want sort of a commercial transaction. yeah so that’s why it’s in our legislation you know that surrogacy needs to be altruistic you know because the principle is the best interest of the child. I like that that I think you know initially when I pitched this webinar and I was thinking about you know some of the details of the questions I actually don’t think it comes down to answering them in such detail does it it’s not so much what language do I use the word surrogate is a kid going to understand that word or not. I don’t think it

35:50
and the story might change over time as they get older, you can add more layers in. For example, my kids know, because I’ve done egg donation too, you need an egg and a seed to make a baby and a girl’s tummy to grow that in and that’s all they need. And now as they’re getting a bit older, it’s sort of like, well, how did the egg and seed get a new Anna for us? And you’re like, okay, here we go. And so I suppose there’s an example of, okay, at an age appropriate time, you add a bit more science into it or facts. And so same when you’re telling your child a surrogacy story that

36:20
You just start by telling the story. Yeah, they ask you a question, you answer it. Yeah. And one of the things you mentioned is, like what words do we use? Often surrogates, they’ll be, look, I’ll be Auntie so-and-so. I’ll be Auntie Anna. Often that person can sort of feel like written out of the story. I’m just Auntie Anna. They’re a lot more than just Auntie Anna. I have lots of aunties, but I did something pretty special. Yeah. So I say, you know, it’s like, you know, this is your Auntie Anna. And at the end of that, we have an asterisk. A bit like the asterisk on the bird.

36:50
you know there’s more information here. What does that asterisk? The asterisk is the subtext. This is Auntie Anna, asterisk. The asterisk is she’s also the woman who carried and you into the world, or she’s also your surrogate. This is Auntie Sally, she’s my sister, or she’s my sister-in-law, or she’s a trusted family friend. She makes great chocolate cakes. That’s her asterisk. So that way the surrogate doesn’t feel

37:13
that her role is blanked out through her being given the role of the title of Auntie, which is the same as Auntie Sally, who sort of makes great chocolate cakes, but didn’t actually carry the child for nine months and give birth to them. Then socially, out and about at a picnic, at a restaurant, it’s like, you can just be Auntie Anna and you can just be Auntie Sally because you hear that asterisk. That asterisk is…

37:36
told to the child or told in that sort of family narrative. know, oh yes, it was your auntie Anna, you know, who carried and birthed you into the world. But some people feel comfortable with terms, you know, like, like tummy mummy or surrogate or whatever. Again, it’s entirely, that’s why you practice the story. You know, what feels good coming out? What feels good in your heart? What feels good in your head? What does everybody involve? And that way, you know, every, every, there has to be an agreement. You know, the most important thing is there’s an agreement between the team, between the people involved about the words we’re going to use.

38:05
And then I suppose, think it’s sort of giving to people listening some trust or faith. It’s okay. Try any of the words. If you give them a go. And some of might change over time. Just keep talking to the people in the team. If you say, oh, Anna, we’re not just, we’re not doing aunties. We’re just going Anna, you know, or we don’t want Anna Asterix. That’s right. This is our friend Anna Asterix. You know, she’s also the woman who carried the birth in the world. This is our friend Sally. You know, I met her at university. Yes. Yeah. And so it’s just,

38:34
Practicing that over time, having a context for each, you know, and kids probably know, oh, my parents friends, their uni friends or their work friends. This is our surrogate friends. You know, that’s the family and same for the language for the children of the surrogate and how they’re connected to teams coming up with tummy cousins or whatever language. I think what I’m getting from this is there’s no right or wrong. Your story. The point is just tell the story and give it a go and keep practicing it so that it never has to be a sit down moment.

39:04
the day you were born was such and such and just get used to using that language and it’s okay if it changes. So I think I’m hoping to those listening it would make it feel like okay we can’t get this wrong. Yeah I mean most yeah most people have sort of told this their child a version of their story you know by sort of age two or three yeah you know really love you you know really happy that you’re here you know presuming it’s a positive story you know I carried you in my tummy and I you know gave birth to you or something like that you know I mean I remember telling you know my child that’s that story around the age of three and I remember my

39:34
asking, you know, how do I get in there? Right. Yeah, that was how do I get out? And I was like, oh no, here we go. And I thought, what’s this? What’s this child asking? You know, it’s like, it’s a logic question. You know, they’re asking, how do I get out?

39:47
was like, did you vomit me out? You know, was I cut out, whatever? And I went, okay. I pushed you out. And they were like, okay. And that’s enough information for them. I was satisfied with that. Had they asked another question, I would have answered that question. Yes. As the child gets older, you know, they ask questions and you answer those questions. But then you’ve already got that story sort of mapped out. It’s really everybody involved is sort of on standby, ready, willing and waiting to tell that child their story when they’re ready at an age that they’re ready to

40:17
know or understand or ask a question. Yeah so the story is there but sort of told to the child in the same way that you know you were told your story. And I think as you say you need to be ready because you never know what questions a three-year-old’s going to come at you with and if you’re not comfortable with sort of pulling on bits of the story that’s going to catch you off guard more so than just whatever the question is going to be. You want it to be something quite natural that

40:39
that’s been told many times and you just have to redraw on it as opposed to make it up on the spot and decide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So should we take some questions, Anna? Well, yes, if people have questions. When I was trying to imagine the questions people would have, was how do I tell them their story? When do I tell them? Why is it important? How much information do I share? What language do I use? How often should I tell them? How formal or informal does it need to be? I think we’ve covered that. Yeah, so again, just to sort of reiterate, you know, this is the take home package.

41:09
the milestones in everybody’s story, which is, was I planned or unplanned? Was I wanted or unwanted? What are the circumstances of my conception? Who do you call your mum and dad or parent or parents or your dads or your mums or your mum or your dad? Who was the woman who carried and birthed you? Does that align to who you call your mum or a parent? What’s your genetic identity? Does that align to who you call your parents or someone else, your egg donation, sperm donation or step-parent or whatever? Were you the pregnant from heaven or pregnant from hell?

41:39
and where were you born, who held you first, were you breastfed or bottle fed, sort of what happened next after that. So they’re the milestones in everybody’s story. That’s the structure that you use, that’s the foundation that you use to start to craft the narrative of the child born via surrogacy or donation or sperm donation. So that’s something you can sort of stick in your pocket and take.

42:02
That’s good. Thank you. That was good to hear that set of questions at the beginning and now at the end there. we’ve got a question. Do you think this information should be dealt with in more depth during counselling? So I tend to cover this information in the parent-in-juror counselling. So because that’s when people are ready to do it, you know, in the pre-surrogacy counselling, I’ll sometimes touch on it. It’s like what I look for in the pre-surrogacy counselling is people saying, yes, we plan to be open, you know, with the child and we think that’s important to be open with the child because that’s the sort of the legal requirement going

42:32
into this level of depth, similar level of depth, in the parent-to-child counseling. Because that’s when people are starting to, the child’s arrived. So how do we tell their story? One of the reasons why Anna and I have created this resource, have done this webinar, it’s taken an hour to teach this. So there’s limited time in pre-suggesting counseling. It’s like, if I added another hour to my counseling, my counseling is already nine hours long. People are gonna be going, we don’t wanna do that. Another hour? Yeah, what do we need to do 10 hours counseling for?

43:02
You know, can I fit another hour into that? that’s one of the reasons why we’ve created this resource, you know, and we’re doing this webinar is so that then people can access this depth of information whenever they need, you know, pre-surrogacy, you know, during a pregnancy, you know, or whatever. I would love, I would love to be able to go into this level of depth in every single counseling session pre-surrogacy. I would love to be able to do that, but there’s not the time and people aren’t.

43:25
willing to commit that time, pre-surrogacy , they’re focused on falling pregnant. They are. I think, and every state’s different in terms of the length of time that they do and not like South Australia, we don’t have relinquishment counselling, know, pre-parentage order stuff. So I think, yeah, this sort of conversation is definitely you need to touch on the idea of the pre-surrogacy counselling to make sure that they are open to it. And that’s the language you’re hearing. And then as they get closer to birth or just post-birth, this is when they start thinking about, now we’re going to do it. But you need to make sure they’re going to tell the story.

43:55
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I definitely try to get it in there in the pre-sarcastically counselling. There’s so much else to cover that there’s no way in the world I can cover it in this depth in the pre-sarcastically counselling. And we’re not even sure what every other counsellor’s doing. So we hope that they’ll cover a variety of these sorts of things. So the answer to that question is yes.

44:13
you it should be dealt with? Absolutely. I would love to see mandated ongoing counselling. That’s what I would love to see for both sides of the team there. For internal parents with a traumatic history, their ability to engage with believing that the story is going to come true, that might be difficult until it’s close to birth. So their emotional capacity to start developing that story might not be there pre-surrogacy. When’s the right time? When are people emotionally able to start believing the story? Yeah. As you say, particularly if they’ve had

44:43
trauma there and had lost babies, that was a gestation there. It could be very hard to start imagining the future until the future is reality. Yeah. So, you know, believing it’s going to happen. any other questions? Wouldn’t it be nice to have like, you know, mandated, you know, six months post birth or even 12 months for every team to check in and to see how this story is going. That sort of accountability, but in a healthy way, just to. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, you know, how are you going? How’s this?

45:13
evolving you know it’s like you’re feeling confident a lot of people find that pretty surrogacy you know when it’s all the legals and the counseling the IVF it’s like oh it feels so big and complex but then you know once the child is here you know a lot of the noise goes down on that you know appointments and then it’s sort of more yeah that’s sort of that love story is more apparent it’s sort of

45:32
what the result was. Wow, that was a lot of effort, a lot of planning. We really, really, really wanted you. It was worth it. Very expensive. $60,000 baby. Very. Yeah, it’s like you were worth it. Again, great story. Who wouldn’t want to be that wanted and that much effort going into them. Yeah, have them tell that. Here’s how much we paid for you. Don’t ever say you didn’t want me. This is how much we wanted you.

46:02
Yeah, that’ll be the next generation, surrogacy babies. Well, I think we could sum it up there. All right, well, I’ll say thank you, Katrina, for joining us tonight and for sharing that I get quite an easy way of how to tell your child their story. Focus on the love story, tell it often and just get comfortable with it. And don’t be afraid to give it a go because when you think about your own story and how…

46:25
How much you know of that and if you’ve got any gaps, think of you’ve now got this opportunity with your child to create this beautiful story for them. So it makes, yeah, it’s beautiful. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. Thank you for joining me.

46:39
If you’d like to see other recordings with photos, head over to our YouTube channel to watch other webinars. You can head to surrogacyaustralia.org for more information about surrogacy. 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.

46:59
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.