Episode 116 – Kristy – straight mum

Welcome to Surrogacy Australia’s podcast series. I’m your host Anna McKie. Thank you for sharing your time to listen to this episode. These recordings are from the regular one-hour free webinars that I run, which I invite you to attend if you haven’t already. They take you through how surrogacy works in Australia, including how to find a surrogate or intended parents. There are opportunities to ask questions and you hear from a co-host each time about their own journey. Take a trip down memory lane with me.

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as this episode is one from the archives. It features mum Christy and was recorded in July 2022. Christy and Ben from Canberra became parents when their surrogate and now lifelong friend Marnie birthed their daughter Sienna in August 2018. Christy was one of our original SAS, Surrogacy Australia Support Service, parent mentors and has helped many IPs, that’s intended parents, at the beginning of their journey.

01:11
You can hear from her surrogate Marnie in the next episode, number 117. Christy’s team was one that I modelled my own journey on in many ways. She shares many great insights in our discussion, including the feeling of sharing her baby in those first few weeks post-birth, but how that changes in time, how much a journey costs, what she’d do differently, and advice for new IPs. I hope you enjoy this episode.

01:37
So Christy, here we are again. Lovely to have you and to share your story about surrogacy. We’re gonna take our listeners through some of the photos that you’ve shared with us. And I guess we’ll talk through them and hear about your journey. So obviously a lot happens to get up to this point and maybe we’ll go from this photo onwards and then we’ll go back to the beginning. So first of all, tell us who’s in this photo. So on the left is my husband, Ben, myself, Marnie, my surrogate, obviously quite pregnant and her husband, Craig. So this was our baby shower.

02:04
Yes, so fairly heavily pregnant. Do you remember how far along you were? I think maybe about 30 weeks. Yeah, right. And so what’s the…

02:12
the distance in location between you guys? So, my and Craig are in Sydney and we’re in Canberra, so about a three hour drive between us. So, they came down for the weekend and got to enjoy the baby shower with all our family and friends. Wonderful. Quite a milestone to get to as a team, isn’t it? Yeah. And then I think I’ll skip ahead here and here we go. We’re sort of into some births. So, tell me about this photo and

02:35
What you’re thinking and how the birth went? The birth went really well. Marnie did really great. So we went up to Sydney and stayed there. started a couple of weeks prior to birth just in case. Bubbs came early. ended up coming one day early. Marnie was getting contractions at home and we ended up staying overnight at their house so that if anything happened overnight. So as it did, three o’clock in the morning, we all went to the hospital and waited for things to happen. Birth happened about midday.

03:01
She got in the bath as you can see there. She always wanted to give that a try. So once she got in, she couldn’t get out, but that’s completely understandable. Yeah, it was great to see the water birth and to help her out along the way. We were all in the room, obviously, helping her, pouring water on her back and doing whatever the midwives were saying would be the best to help her. And as we discussed previously as well, what she wanted from us through the birth. And this is obviously the moment after and Marnie’s exhausted, holding bubs and we’re just admiring her.

03:31
hard work and the little beautiful baby there that she’s created for us. Yes. And I know for Marnie that these photos are pretty powerful for her. It’s such a great memory. So, wow, what a photo there, right? She looks worn out. Yeah, very emotional and overwhelming. Did she, has she talked through this photo with you and said about what she’s thinking or feeling here? I don’t think so. But I think it was like that was where I was thanking her and she was thanking me and yeah. Very special moment for everybody and for Sienna to look back on as well too.

04:01
her birth story. We’ll get to that later. I’d love to ask you a bit more now that Sienna’s nearly four in terms of the language of what…

04:08
how she describes things. We’ll come back to that one. I’m just flagging that for myself as a question to ask. And then there’s a photo of all the four adults there, holding your little girl in this world. Yeah. Once everything had settled down, we got her dressed and yeah, this was a nice little moment of all of us and money sort of first hold after the initial birth. Getting out of the water and getting dry. That’s right. I’m trying to think of the classic questions people ask. So clearly you birthed in a hospital there. Did you all stay in hospital for a couple of days in rooms next door to each other or how did that work? So the boys went home.

04:38
night and Marnie and I stayed in the same room. I just crashed on the couch that they had in there with bubs and we went home the next day. So a quick visit in hospital which was good. But it was really nice to spend that night together and just kind of debrief on what had just happened and spend the night, just the three of us, just getting to know a little bit Sienna and talking through what had happened and being there for each other. Definitely.

05:02
And then you stayed nearby in Sydney for a while after birth as well? Yeah, we stayed for about a week extra after birth and obviously took Sienna to see Marnie every day or she’d come to us. We were just staying 10 minutes away. So that was nice and easy and taking her dinners and that sort of thing as well. So there’s a follow up question too. So for brand new IPs listening, taking her dinners in terms of that helping, I guess, when you have a baby with four adults, you’re helping the surrogate recover too, aren’t you? As well as navigating parenthood.

05:32
with a newborn. So was that some of the things that you had planned to help out with? Yeah, absolutely. So obviously she’s gone through a big thing and the emotion after birth as well went on for, you know, as they say, the fourth trimester. So being there for her through that period and making sure that she had all the cuddles she needed, all the photos she needed.

05:50
when we did leave and we caught up nearly weekly every fortnight for the first month to make sure that she had that connection still. And then they are being there for her children and her husband as well and making sure they were all sorted with cleaners and meals and all those sorts of things. All those logistical things a bit like as though she was your wife. of things. Yeah. Playing with the team. And so this is Marnie’s children here in the photo. Yeah. So that was their first visit. Look at the excitement. Well, a variety of faces. I noticed they’ve each got their tongue poking out.

06:20
Concentrated look there. And so I suppose they come along for the ride too, don’t they? They’ve watched their mum be pregnant. Did they manage that okay? Yeah, they did really well. A couple of times with Marnie, she’d go to the library with Sophie and the librarian would say, oh, are you having another brother or sister? And she’s like, no, it’s Ben and Christie’s baby, which would obviously start a conversation. But yeah, she knew all the way along that it was our baby and Marnie was carrying her for us and they weren’t going to keep her. And even now they’re like sisters and brother and sister.

06:50
They just run around and love playing together. So it’s really lovely to see. And I think it’s the kids sometimes adapt better than some of the other adults in our lives asking questions. They’re like, it’s going to live in Ben and Christie’s house. That’s high roll. Absolutely. Yeah. I can’t remember how old they were when Sienna was born. Are they like four and six here in this photo? Or I’m not sure. Can you remember? Yeah, I think I’m four and five. Right. Yeah. So at that age where they can understand it and they’ve got the language to communicate it to others and people at the library, as you said. Yeah. And then

07:20
What’s happening in this photo? This is Sienna’s first birthday. We all got together and just had a small celebration just with our family and with Marnie and Craig and the kids. And I guess that’s a good example of how life continues because your team with Marnie you previously didn’t know. And so here’s what this continuing friendship looks like, doesn’t it? That they’re still involved in these milestones. Yeah, absolutely. And in terms of what else have we got here? Well, this is just sort of a photo here of your life, isn’t it? Is this a particular event or just a family holiday or something that you went on?

07:50
Yeah just a family trip, went up to Tare and we’ve got a few friends or family there that do photography so took the opportunity to get some nice family photos while we were there. But yeah Sienna’s probably about two there.

08:02
Yeah. And turning for next month. That’s right. Yeah. One of a four year old. So, and so we’ve got plenty of time for questions people. I’ve got a few to ask while you all warm up and get brave and ask questions. yeah, sort of take us back to the beginning then, Kristy. What brought you to surrogacy in the first place? And then how did you go about connecting with Marnie? Yeah. So I had a kidney transplant in 2019. 2009, I was going to say.

08:28
Due to the way that my kidney was functioning, it wasn’t quite strong enough to have a pregnancy. The doctor kind of said it would be a big risk to myself, my health, my kidney and the baby as well. So I went to a fertility specialist and I looked into surrogacy quite a bit, overseas surrogacy, also surrogacy in Australia and found the then forum that was available, which turned into the Facebook page. found that other people had been through it and successfully met a surrogate and done surrogacy in Australia. And it was really positive.

08:58
to see that it can happen. Decided not to do the overseas route. I felt more comfortable doing it here in Australia. We looked into…

09:05
We thought if we do do it, it’d be great to do it with a friend and somebody we know. But obviously everyone else has their own lives and it is a big ask. So as you say, you can’t ask people and a lot of people do come forward and say, I’d it for you. But it doesn’t go any further than that. Got to a point where we thought, oh, we might just pursue surrogacy through the Facebook page and see how we go with trying to meet somebody, do everything that we can. And I gained lots of great friendships with all other IPs and surrogates along the way as well. And going to the local catch-ups as well.

09:34
was beneficial to see others that are in the same position and to make friendships with those. And then, yeah, one day Marnie messaged me and we got chatting and I had a conference in Sydney. So I thought, oh, good opportunity to see if I can hire a car and go see them, go catch up for dinner and meet her in person. So I met Marnie and Craig in person and had a great chat and good to meet them. And then a month or so later, think they, me and my husband went and met them, had a chat and they kind of said, you

10:04
upfront, we’re going to get to know you first before we put forward any offers, you know, at least six months until we’ll look at doing an offer, which is really beneficial. And I really recommend, you know, you don’t want to jump into it. It’s a big thing as Anna said, this is a relationship between four people and you never kind of have that dynamic. And it is, it is very emotional journey and it is difficult. So I could see how it could be very stressful if you hadn’t had all the conversations prior. so we met up monthly, they’d come here for the weekend. We’d go there for the week.

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and each time once the kids were in bed we’d have you know an hour session of discussing what surrogacy looks like for both of us and what pregnancy looks like and all those difficult conversations that you need to have along the way and make sure you’re all on the same page.

10:48
When counselling does happen, you are able to talk freely and know what each other wants along the way. And then also along the way, you know, whether you’re both going to terminate because of this reason or you’re not going to terminate or you’re to do testing and all those sorts of things. lot of my lessons along the way were to do your research. So those trip advisor type things that Anna has are very valuable. You know, had a lot of people pay, you know, 12 grand for lawyers where it should only cost a maximum of 2k. So.

11:18
can get ripped off easily so do your research and make sure you don’t get ripped off. Counselling is very valuable. Marnie had a lot of counselling through the pregnancy. She had a really good friendship with our counsellor and they met up nearly monthly and that really helped her along the way. It’s a very different thing that you don’t usually go through obviously so for her very emotional. Her husband helped out lot along the way as well with telling us how she was going and helping with financials because you know these surrogates are such generous people they’re not going

11:48
go and say, oh I feel like I am so tired that I don’t want to do anything. She’s got, she’s always trying to be positive to make it feel like we’re not burdening her. So it was good to have her husband there to tell us really what was happening and so that we weren’t just blasé about it and thinking everything’s…

12:04
perfect and when she’s on the couch not being able to get up because she’s so tired and so we were able to take meals every month when we saw her to make sure that she didn’t have that burden at least and get a cleaner for her through those times where she was unwell and can you think of examples so was occasionally when like she’s really tired and struggling to cook it was either make sure you get take away or when we are there we’ll get meals is that that sort of just remind us that it’s okay

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to use your card for those sorts of things or is it that sort of example? Yeah, that’s right and taking the kids when we are there and that sort of thing and coming up if we need to earlier than we had planned. Like it’s mostly like that first trimester where she was quite tired and all that and then she felt good and then obviously the last section as well.

12:48
just couldn’t get up and do the housework and those sorts of things. So yeah, making sure that we’re there to help her any way that we can. It’s a massive project, isn’t it? Like navigating a pregnancy through somebody else. It is definitely, yeah. And then they try and eat. We gave her a debit card to use that we kept topped up for any pregnancy related expenses. So getting her to use that and not ask us prior. We’re like, you don’t have to ask, just use it. We trust you. We don’t need receipts or anything. That’s fine. Just, just go for it. But she always felt obliged to ask and she felt uncomfortable.

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doing that so that’s where our husband stepped in and said this is what she’s gonna do this week which which really helped. Yes, yes, surrogates are bad it feels like you know because they’re so used to running their own households with their budget you know independent women and now suddenly I always say it feels like asking mum and dad for money. And we’re so aware of how much it’s cost IPs to do this whereas our pregnancy’s getting pregnant was so much cheaper that yeah it’s hard to justify those costs but as you say you know you want to support and go it’s fine use it so it’s that sometimes having like a little group

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chat with just the partner of the surrogate then to be helpful, can’t it? Just to do those little reminders. And I guess, again, those listening tonight who are brand new, hearing all of that trust, like you didn’t know Marnie and Craig beforehand and clearly you’re at that point of trust where you’ve got a card connected to our account, I trust you, you’re going to do the right thing. That takes time to get to that point, doesn’t it? Yeah, yeah. And you really do need that time prior to make sure that they are genuine and you can trust them and they can trust you and it is a big relationship to get into. Is there any way of

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knowing, well, for example, something I always say to the IPs is, you know, a surrogate might say, let’s take six months today. But if your IPs listening and a surrogate says to you, let’s go straight away and you as IPs could should go, no, no, no, I’ve heard from people like Christie and Anna that, we should take some time. And as IPs you’re saying to the surrogate, let’s take six months. Would that be a bit of a, you know, a little red flag? We often say red flags as well, don’t we? But if she’s too keen to rush into it, you know, you’d want as a team to slow it down a bit. Yeah, I think so. It is hard because once you get to this point, you just want to hurry up.

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and get it all done. And so I understand those teams that do just rush into it, but it doesn’t generally end well in the long run. Once you get to that pregnancy, it is tough. You’ve got another person that you’ve got to another couple that you’ve got to communicate with and understand their feelings and emotions and a whole nother relationship there. So you really need to understand how to how to deal with that, what they like, do they like, you know, those five touch, feel, talk, space, you know, what do they like best when they’re in those moods?

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And even how they go in tough times and conflict, find unique.

15:22
Are they someone that shuts down when there’s a tough conversation and you have to go through the partner or are they somebody that’s like, I can’t go to bed until we’ve talked about this. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. That sort of thing. My sort of fan girl moment here, you know, for like those that are new here tonight, like your team was one for me that like Marnie and I have become friends over the years, you know, and we have too, but you guys started it before me. And so I watched your team and I think I really modeled my own journey of what you guys did. I love how you both came at that with that sensible measured way of going, no, we both believe in taking

15:52
some time here to six months to get to know each other. And then it probably, well, I’ll ask you that in minute, how long it took you to get through the counseling and legals and stuff until you got pregnant. And I think that that was a model that I went, Hey, that worked. then yes, there are still bumps along the way because any pregnancy can be challenging, but you’ve got that foundation there to navigate that and still come out well at the end. So for those listening tonight here, I think you’re listening to one of the, originals, the OG crew, you know, I’m sorry, and doing it well. That’s what I would advocate for. And clearly you would too listening.

16:22
people there. Oh yes, so therefore what was your time frame roughly from when you first started investigating surrogacy to when Marnie connected to when you first got pregnant? Do roughly remember any of that? Yeah I think so. So I started looking into surrogacy. I think I asked my sister how to kidney transplant as well but she was able to have a kid because her kidney functions a lot better than mine and so she had hers in 2012 and her levels kind of struggled, her kidney struggled through the end of that. I thought well her kidney function is so much better.

16:52
So I asked my doctor and said, so how would I go? And he kind of said, oh, no, it’s too risky for you. So that was kind of my turning point when I realized I couldn’t do it on my own and perhaps I wouldn’t have any children. So I looked into surrogacy. Nobody recommended it. just took the liberty of that step and researched it for years before I actually did anything and went on the forums and talked and just kind of did it in the background just casually. And then as I said, it got to this point where I was just like, I can’t just keep doing this.

17:22
need to know whether we’re going to have kids or we’re not going to have kids because I’m kind of in limbo. And so I thought give myself 12 months and see what happens and give it everything I’ve got. And if we have one, that’s great. That’s fate. If not, then that’s the other side of fate is that we weren’t supposed to. So once I started that, it took six months or so until I found Marnie. had quite a few other surrogates come forward and talk to me along the way, but they weren’t suitable for different reasons either. They didn’t connect with me. I didn’t connect with them. still got friendships.

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so that’s great. yeah, Marnie was the one that we connected with the most and we’re all very alike, which is very good. Yeah, so then we met monthly, got to know each other over about a six month period. And then it kind of, we went through all the counselling and legals. We went through it fairly quickly. We got to a point where it was either November transfer or it was waiting until next year, so kind of February by the time we got around to it. So we tried to get it done before the end of the year. so it only, I think,

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She offered in August and we transferred in November, early December. So fairly quick turnaround from offer and we’re very lucky that our first embryo took their birth in August the following year. Cool, that’s awesome. Alrighty, let’s go to the one question that we’ve got and maybe others will warm up and we’ll still share things along the way. So Stuart asked here, what was the hardest part for both?

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you both in your surrogacy journeys? What would you do differently if anything?” That’s a great question Stuart because that’s one I always end with. I love to ask the co-hosts if you could do something differently what would you do? So thank you for asking that Stuart. All right Kristy what was the some of the anything particularly hard or you do differently or both? The hardest part I guess was was through the pregnancy. You’ve got Marnie who’s feeling unwell and us trying to help her along the way, trying to suggest things and then because we did a lot of it through text you’d take it the wrong way.

19:15
being in the pregnant emotional state that she was as well and so she’d get quite upset and we wouldn’t even realise.

19:21
how she’d taken it until Craig would tell us. It was quite hard to navigate that and we got to about 20 weeks and Craig came to the conclusion. He called us and had a chat with us and said from now on I’ll kind of keep you guys updated so Marnie doesn’t have to do the financials and that sort of thing so that she doesn’t feel uncomfortable. And so we’d catch up regularly just with Craig. Ben and Craig have a really good friendship as well and get along really well. We were able to fix it that way, which was really good. And then she was able to feel

19:51
bit more comfortable about telling Craig how she felt and then him relaying that to us. That was probably the most difficult and then also post pregnancy as well. That fourth trimester was really hard for Marnie and trying to help her from a distance was difficult but we got her all the counselling that she needed along the way, all the cuddles that she needed. She decided to express breast milk for us so that was a good opportunity as well to catch up regularly for her to hand that over. Yeah she did that for the first few months which was really

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great, we weren’t expecting that. We kind of said, yeah, once we leave Sydney, that’s fine, you can stop, but she kept going. So that was very beneficial. think also post-birth, I felt like I had to share my baby when we were in Sydney. So I found that difficult, but now it’s kind of the other way around. It’s like, why doesn’t she want cuddles with Sienna? take her. Interesting. All those emotions from either side at the start, big thing to navigate and understand how to help yourself, but also

20:50
I help the other person and I think we didn’t do post pregnancy counseling because it’s not required in the ACT but I really think it would have been beneficial for us to do that. So something I would have done differently would be a bit of counseling post. I think that would have helped Marnie a lot and probably myself as well because feeling those feelings of sharing my baby as well. As soon as I got home, I was fine and then, you know, once every time we caught up with Marnie, it was great to see her cuddling, seeing her in the room. That initial, that first week. It’s weird because you’re establishing yourself as a mum and

21:20
the routines and the patterns that you’ve got and then suddenly although she’s your friend and you love her you’re like but hang on it just it feels odd doesn’t it? Yeah yeah it’s it’s very different but… Well I think I’ll add my bits in and they’re kind of quite similar that in terms of

21:34
Yeah, so that fourth trimester we talked about as those first three months post-birth was really challenging for me too. I got hit with postnatal depression. I’ve sort of had it with my own two kids, but as the counsellor that Christy’s team had, and I continued to have counselling with Katrina Hale, a Sydney based one, I had Zoom sessions with her. She talks about head, heart hormones for those listening in terms of your head and your heart, know where this baby is. It’s in the IP’s house. We did what we wanted to do. I don’t want to keep this baby, but my body doesn’t know that.

22:01
my body birthed the baby and it’s like, where’s the baby gone? It felt lost. So I suppose my body was grieving that I didn’t have the baby with me. And so my body felt this sense of grief and unsettled for a few months. And so that was in opposition to everybody else is happy. VIPs are happy, their families are happy. I’m happy. did what I did. So why am I feeling like this? So that was mixed and

22:23
So I needed antidepressants to help me out with that and ongoing counseling there. So my IPs would talk about how they perhaps should have both been over the communication with me in that stage. I think we had allocated it out to.

22:35
who would check in on me or who would be there for me at certain times. yeah, just, the dynamic change and I miss my IPs. I’ve done this journey with them, the adults, not kids. And I miss the friendship. did this enormous project together and then it kind of ends with birth, which is of course why we’re doing this project. We know it’s going to end, but then it’s that, you know, we’re in so much communication, you know, so that nine months, particularly, or even a year and a half leading up to it. And then it ends and then you have to adjust to a new friendship. So was a sadness there that I missed

23:05
dads. think Marnie it was the pregnancy so she didn’t miss Sienna as much but she missed we called the embryo Sunny and she missed Sunny and the pregnancy and having that inside of her. Yeah it’s funny isn’t it that that body is craving that baby that it’s had and it’ll be our last pregnancy usually and I express milk too for nine weeks so it was nice to be able to do that but it was yeah it’s a complex thing and I think only once you kind of get a year or so out and you kind of settle into something then you go okay wow we did that didn’t we.

23:35
Quite enormous. Cool. So there’s Stuart’s question there. I’m just going to jump down to the anonymous one. And then somebody has said, was it difficult to bond with your baby then, Kristin? No, not at all. I think along the way, as we’re getting towards the end, there were a lot of people saying, you need to have skin to skin first up and it’s really important to be able to bond. And I bought this up in one of our sessions and Marnie kind of went along with it. But then I found out that she was quite upset about it she wanted to hand the baby over, which makes so much sense.

24:05
than me just taking it, heard her kind of hand it over and say, here, this is yours now, take it. And on the day that that didn’t matter at all, she held the baby for about 10 minutes in the end and she’s like, do you want it now?

24:17
Oh yeah, did not even feel like 10 minutes. It was just that whole emotion at the time. It doesn’t make a difference. And no, as soon as she was mine, we bonded and she loves me as her mum now and knows what Marnie did for her and it kind of. Sure.

24:35
She was in her belly and we’ve got a photo book that we made of the journey and then post journey as well. And she goes through that regularly and as she gets older, she’ll understand it even more. So what sort of things does she say? I was in Marnie’s tummy. Is that sort of a thing? Yeah. And I think for those listening tonight, every surrogate baby has bonded with their parents, be them two dads, single parent. There’s no fear of that. think some kids in life have one parent. For a short time in surrogacy, you have four post

25:05
birth or three type of thing. so, and then you kind of wean off the surrogate and the baby weans onto its parents. So they all bond. Some of us do direct breastfeeding too with surrogate babies. And even though they do that, they still bond with their parents. These are smart little cookie babies. They work out who their primary carers are pretty fast. And this might be a little bit controversial here. And I think I’m rare. I’m rare having had the home birth, but I actually held bubs for an hour and a half. Was it two? I think it was two.

25:32
two and a half because we actually had a clock there’s a photo of the clock when I’m doing hand-on. We went up to the bedroom and put the placenta and did the first feed and the dads are with me during that time but I suppose they said we’ve got him for life like anyway yeah when you’re ready so it’s fair enough at the beginning though isn’t it to be nervous about those sorts of things but as you talk to other people who have done it you hear of their stories and go oh that’s okay we’ll get around to that one. So we’ll go to um Jing’s question asks how to test or what to test if your kidney function is

26:02
enough for pregnancy or not? What sort of process did you go through for that?

26:05
So I’ve obviously got a specialist who’s my doctor and he sees me regularly for blood tests which show my kidney function. I just asked him the simple question as to whether it would be viable. Jing, if you have had a kidney disease or transplant then definitely talk to your specialist or your GP but otherwise I don’t think there would be an issue with kidney function. It’s only if somebody’s got an underlying condition or had a transplant that it would be on the radar, is that how it would work? That’s right, yeah. So yeah, if you are concerned about any health issues

26:35
just go to the GP and they can do all the standard tests as well. That’s good advice. Classic money question here. I’ve got some

26:42
thoughts, but to share yours. So ballpark, what could you expect in terms of costs as IPs, I guess, for the whole journey? What do you think? It all depends on how your journey goes, how many transfers you need. A bit of a tip that often you can get the Medicare rebate for your collection. It depends on your circumstances and if surrogacy isn’t brought up in the initial sessions, you can kind of get through under the radar, but then everything else after that.

27:08
after that agreement is signed, essentially is not.

27:12
claimable by Medicare through the IVF clinic. If you have more transfers, more egg collections, it does add up. So I guess it’s anywhere between sort of 50 and a hundred grand depending on your journey. Yes. What was yours? Ours was around the lower mark. Yes. Because we had only one embryo collection, one egg collection and one embryo transfer. And Marnie did really well along the way. She took a few days off work, which was great, but she was relatively casual at that time. So only a couple of tutor sessions a week she was doing that.

27:42
20 times. So we’d cover any of the costs. And then we covered obviously have a 10 day leave being a self-employed. Yes, that’s right. Yeah. As a guide there for anonymous, but also those listening, I’ve tried to collect data from other teams. So I would say the range is about 35 to 90,000 with an average of about 55 to 60,000. Basically costs the dads 60,000. So if you’re at the bottom end, you perhaps already have your embryos made or you got them made in one go, you perhaps got those Medicare rebates. So that’s advice for people listening.

28:12
and get your egg collection done and embryos made before surrogacy. Even if you’re the two guys, if you’ve got an egg donor, there’s life fertility in Brisbane that often do things, but there are some ways around that. Our team needed two egg collections. Yeah, those that work first, transfer, probably live locally to each other, so don’t have much interstate travel and don’t have many loss of wages. And then those up at the higher end are those that live interstate. So the IPs would have interstate travel and accommodation.

28:37
couple of embryo transfers, maybe multiple egg collections to make the transfers, maybe loss of wages. So that’s how that can.

28:45
bury out, can’t it? At the end of the day, through the pregnancy, a lot of the costs that you’re paying you would pay for if you were pregnant yourself. So just think of it that way. You know, it’s the clothes, the massages, the doctor’s appointments, all of those sorts of things. The main costs that you wouldn’t have usually would be the IVF, which is the biggest expense. And it’s not like you need 50 grand tomorrow. I would say, you know, this is over a couple of year period. Would it be good to start with 10,000?

29:12
20,000 saved before you start surrogacy and the rest you can get along the way. Is that a good number you would say? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. As long as you can get through the initial sort of IVF stuff and then those first bits and pieces. Yeah, the rest is just on an as needs basis. Yeah. And you’re continuing to earn your income along that time. So you’ve still got money coming in there. So yeah. So I hope that answers that one. We’ll finish up with a couple more questions here. Is there a PDF file of reasonable costs surrogates can claim for both IPs and surrogates? I’ll answer that one in our SASS portal.

29:42
have, I guess, those are the stage two teams, we’ve got an expenses calculator. So there’s two levels. I’ve got one where it’s just a list. So it’s just the list of the items that you might expect. So to give you a thought of them all. And then the further one we’ve gone to more effort is putting in estimates and giving examples and also a range so that as a team, can kind of go through that. And also then it acts as like a third party because talking money is yucky for the surrogate to talk about. And so as a team, you can come back to that and go, Hey, we said this was reasonable for you to buy those clothes or have those

30:12
massages. So go ahead and do that. So yeah, I don’t know if that helps anonymous. If you’re in some of the Facebook groups too, there might be a list somewhere in there. If you ask a question, you’ll do a search in the files or the posts. guess reasonable costs just in terms of what they are, if you were pregnant yourself and it was in your body, if those are reasonable things to claim, then they’re reasonable for surrogacy too. It’s not classed as payment. It’s reasonable to cover. And so is being unwell and tired and having extra takeaway and massages and things like that. They’re reasonable. If you’re having one every day,

30:42
that’s probably not a reasonable cost. But if you’ve got a medical reason and your pelvis is out of joint and you need weekly physio, then that’s reasonable. But yeah, talking about it as a team. Nikki asks, what about the parentage order? Was that costly? Do happen to remember how much that might have been? So we, ended up doing the parentage orders myself. did all the documentation myself using some of the templates on the Facebook page. And so it was just really the cost of submitting the paperwork, which was about $1,200. And then we represented ourselves in court, which we didn’t know what we doing, but the judge was very

31:12
very good and just it’s a happy day for them. They love it. It’s almost like an adoption. They don’t usually have happy cases like that. So they were very happy afterwards and helped us along the way.

31:22
Yeah, you can either do it with a lawyer or without. Obviously there are additional costs for lawyers, but it’s probably not too much. Did you know how much? couple of grand. Yeah. Sort of thing. Yeah. If somebody’s charging you 10,000, ask around, get a better quote. And often you use one of the lawyers that you’ve seen at the beginning. So you might ask them about their costs. Some of them do it as package. IP is here and IP is at the end. So yes, hopefully that answers that one, Nikki. And then Jing asks, I guess the SASS question, if you join SASS as a member, do you still need to pay for the access fee for the portal? Stage one and two? No. So if you joined for stage one,

31:52
That gives you access to the portal as well for the stage one. And then stage two is once you have a team. So once you have a surrogate and you decide as a team to stay on.

32:00
part of that includes some ongoing counselling and the second half of the portal. But the first half is certainly a heap of resources to help you as a team get ready for the counselling, the TripAdvisor list of counsellors and lawyers, all those discussion questions to get you pregnant. So that’s the first half there. Well, I think we’ve answered all of our questions here. To bring it to an end there, Christy, you’ve done many mentor sessions with SASS over the three and a half years that we’ve been around. Thank you for helping me get that off the ground. Any sort of parting wisdom that you would say in your mentor sessions,

32:30
you’ve got here tonight to share with us? I think I’ve said most of them but yeah those things that that Sara gets to enjoy is to hand over the baby to

32:39
to be there through the life of the child as well. They just want to see the family that they’ve created and to watch that family grow along the way. So definitely keep in touch with the surrogates along the way and post-birth is a good idea. We had birth photos, which is excellent. I think a lot of surrogacy teams do, because it’s great to look back on those and remember that amazing time, a lot of surrogates.

33:04
like to have that as well. One thing that I learned as well is I didn’t bother getting the original birth certificate printed because I didn’t see an E for it. But Marnie wanted that as a memento, you know, once it’s transferred to us, there’s not really any evidence that she did this. So yeah, I ended up ordering one for her and I did a little plaque and picture sort of board and stuff to mount it in so that she can have that memory there for her. yeah, just little things that know, surrogates are there to help you and to do this out of the

33:34
the love and joy of their heart and they’re not there to take your baby or anything like that. know it’s hard at the start to not think of those sorts of things. Good luck to you all along the way and I’m always available for discussions or questions if you need. Wonderful. Thank you. I think that’s some great advice and hopefully it shows people an example of what it can look like in reality and some really good reminders there for what the surrogates go into this for to help them think about that as well as helping them as IPs to navigate it. So thank you.

34:03
Thank you for joining me. If you’d like to see the photos shared in this webinar presentation, head over to our YouTube channel to watch the webinar. You can head to surrogacyaustralia.org for more information about surrogacy. Also check out our Zoom monthly catch up sessions, which are a great way to connect with others in the surrogacy community. Attending a Zoom is scary the first time, but there’s only ever one first time. We have all been beginners at some stage. As we say, it takes a village to raise a child.

34:32
And in the case of surrogacy, it takes a village to make a child. So welcome to the village.