Episode 150 – Kody – gay dad

00:03
Hello everyone and welcome to Surrogacy Australia’s webinar. I’m your host Anna McKie. Let me tell you about my co-host. Kody and his husband Jamie from Melbourne became dads to their son Ezra in August, 2025. Their surrogate Marlena lives with her wife and two sons in Newcastle. Their team connected through our Surrogacy Australia monthly Zoom catch-ups. So surrogacy with strangers really does happen. Their egg donor Shannon, who was also previously a stranger,

00:31
that they met through Egg Donation Australia. Kody and Jamie advocate for surrogacy by speaking at conferences, being active in the communities and supporting those at all stages of their journey. Welcome Kody . Thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you for having me. Long time coming. It has been. And we were just saying beforehand that Kody and Jamie have been attending these webinars pretty regularly and listening to the podcast series that they get converted into. And I just looked at my spreadsheet and I reckon it was March three years ago, 2023, they attended their first one.

01:01
And so how cool is that? Right. Like, and I knew from, when we met on the zoom’s like, I will be having you on one day and here we are three years. The time has come. The time has come.

01:41
Kody , I finally have you here on the webinar. I’m very excited for this. We’ve got the beautiful photos of your journey to work through, which are one of the photos here is of heavily stages of pregnancy. But anyway, tell us who’s in these photos and what special things are happening. All right. So on the left, you’ll see there’s Jamie, myself, Marlene, our surrogate and her partner, Maren, and they have two boys ah all in our matching crocs. So that’s actually kind of what started our relationship is that

02:10
Marlene I reached out, I worked for Crocs and that was kind of what opened everything after all the Zooms of chatting together. And so I thought it would only be appropriate to get us all matching Crocs for the journey. So we wore these at many intervals, transfers, catch-ups, pregnancy, birth, lots and lots of time. So ah we called our team Newborn, so new for Newcastle and born for Melbourne and also newborn because… You’re having a newborn. Correct.

02:39
And the middle one is at our baby shower. So you’ve got myself and Jamie there, Marlena. And then on the right, we’ve got Shannon, our egg donor. So we flew Marlena and her family down and then Shannon over from Perth to make sure everyone was present. So we had a bit of a big baby shower, I think, and just kind of brought everyone together and it gave opportunity. Being an interstate team, we didn’t have the luxury of always being able to introduce all our friends and our family to them.

03:06
So was just really nice at this point to kind of make sure everyone got to see each other and everyone kind of broke off and had little chats and got to get to know each other little bit better. I guess that’s a vital part of an ongoing relationship. So. that’d be really valuable for your friends and family to meet these sort of amazing unknown women that your egg donor and your surrogate and to see them in the flesh and for them to meet the people that are your village that are going to share and grow and love Ezra together. Yeah. They heard about them daily for years and they will hear about them forever.

03:35
So it was nice to finally get to meet them and spend some quality time with them. So that was great. Good. And then the last photo is the long drive from Melbourne to Newcastle that we went up before birth. So we had our car full to the roof with everything you can imagine, including the dog. And it’s just a little montage of us having coffee at McDonald’s at four in the morning, because it was the only place that was open, obviously. And just a few little pops along the way. And I thought it was quite interesting that the next turn on the GPS was 500 kilometers away.

04:06
Yes. It’s a long straight line. A long line, yes. And I know I’m jumping around a bit with this question here, but do remember how long before birth you went up there and how long you stayed after birth? um I’m going to say we went a week before due date, but we were packed and ready to go probably two weeks prior to that. Yep.

04:33
So we’re already, had a backup plan. We had emergency flights on standby. We knew how to get there. We knew that if we couldn’t get to Newcastle, we could fly to Sydney and drive. So we had multiple things in place because it’s pregnancy. Anything can change in a heartbeat. But a week before, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, Jamie and Marlena. And then we stayed for three and a half weeks after birth in Newcastle. And that’s really valuable to hear for people who are at the beginning of their journey to go, right. Yeah. It’s not just click and collect your baby. Off we go.

05:02
There go. knew someone would correct me. 10 days. The two of them both corrected me. There you go. I thought, I thought those two might. I mean, you’ve had a baby and your brain goes to mush. So that’s okay. But that’s really valuable. Yeah. For people to hear about how long they might need to factor in with time off work and Airbnb’s or whatever types of accommodation to factor in there and to not just run away once the surrogate’s birthed it, to spend that time together uh to navigate it post-birth for a little while.

05:32
Yeah, it’s valuable time that you will never ever get back. And it’s time that you should want to and enjoy sharing like it’s, it’s special. It’s also gives you this weird little bubble. think also be any state team. We kind of didn’t have the friends and family constantly knocking and wanting to be there. We did have a couple of family fly up to see us in Newcastle just to help out for those first few days. Um, but it was just nice to a little bubble with Marlena and also allowed her to kind of find her new normal as well.

06:02
Um, while we adjusted into parenthood, but also to find what life would look like in that little short pocket, to transition away from that. Yeah. I very, very, very highly recommend that three weeks, I think it should be a minimum time if everything allows it. Um, I, yeah, some of the best time we ever spent together. A percent agree. And that was exactly for my team. was that a week post birth, the lads were at an Airbnb near us and that bubble was

06:31
the best week of the whole two and a half year journey for me. Cause yeah, you were living and breathing this newborn together and celebrating the journey that you’ve been on. So these photos here are of a maternity shoot. Is this right near birth or did you go up for a trip beforehand?

06:48
A trip beforehand. Yeah, was definitely a trip beforehand. Yes. It was a trip beforehand. We spent some time. I think we tied it in with a scan. Yes. Lovely. So we an appointment and then we did this as well. And so for those listening to the podcast and can’t see this, was some… The 34 week scan and photos. So we have Marlena Surrogate on tonight as an attendee and she is joining us on the next webinar. So please come along and hear her journey from her point of view.

07:18
So surrogates often know all the dates and those sorts of things. But these photos, they remind me a little bit of my team, that there’s one photo of you and Jamie in the forefront and Marlena in the background there and one with her wife, Maren. And it’s that, how do you capture surrogacy in a photo where it doesn’t look like a pregnant woman with like two husbands? um And it’s sort of there’s like this distance between you. So this is set back sort of feeling. Yeah, do you look back at these photos and think that they’ve captured it well? It was…

07:48
chaotic and it was beautiful and one of the I cannot recommend just photography in general, especially being two men who have never been through birth before photography. I think at the very starting point before we started getting to know each other felt like something that was unnecessary. We didn’t really understand what it was and why it was important. And in hindsight, looking back at it, all these moments that happen, you are so emotional. You’re so driven. You’re so into what’s happening that you sometimes forget to really

08:17
take a step back and appreciate. So it’s nice to have little reminders to look back on once life with that month old calms down a little bit as it comes down. But you kind of once this part of the journey is over, you forget these things. Life’s busy. So it’s nice to have those little reminders. And we have some of these photos on our little digital photo frame that’s always playing when Ezra’s around. So it’s just nice little ways just to acknowledge the journey we went on all the time. Well said. And people pay photographers for their weddings.

08:47
And so this is an enormous journey, creating life together. And that brings us to the day of birth. And so what a special thing, Hay, to be present at the, not only to witness a birth, but to witness the birth of your own son. What do you think when you look back at these photos? What are you feeling and thinking?

09:09
Emotional still. Yeah. Yeah. It’s um, was a big day. was a big moment. It was beautiful. Sorry. I’ve known you all these years and this is beautiful to hear. It gets me every time I say these photos. Um, it was just so special to be there and be so welcomed in there. And it something that was very important for us. And I know it was equally important for Marlena that we were not just there, but also active in it. It’s something that

09:38
I think a lot of having a domestic journey for us was so special and navigating that kind of interstate piece obviously was there’s a little bit of a challenge there, but making sure that we didn’t miss this. This was the moment. This was the biggest, this is what all those years of hard work went into is what all that building friendships and forming connections and all those sacrifices everyone made is for this moment. Yeah, it was pretty spectacular. is. it, and

10:07
It’s beyond words in some ways. It’s from a place in our brain that doesn’t have language often. Yeah. And I think this is probably the only photo where it doesn’t look like I’m in middle of a sneeze or doing a poo because I’m crying for probably an hour straight hysterically crying. So yeah, lot of the photos look like I’m either disgusted or I’m just me me blowing my eyes out. Right. This is probably one of the better ones where I like I was being tortured, but it wasn’t the case at all. But

10:36
Yeah, those two moments weren’t funny. Oh, I’m sure we’ll hear from Marlena when she’s on and she had her V back. And so you talked about being active. Is there anything more you wanted to add in terms of that watching a woman go through labor and the struggles and being so grateful to her for doing this for you, but also wanting to support your friend? It’s this fascinating dynamic, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s kind of. I didn’t expect you to be so primal.

11:04
I didn’t think we were equipped for that. Just fundamentally, I didn’t think that was going to happen, but it becomes this primal survival instinct almost where you need to make sure that everyone’s okay. So you’re running around, you’re making sure that my job was water boy, making sure that Marlene had water and just little things like that. it just becomes natural. You’re in that moment and the world does not exist outside of that room.

11:33
I just muted because I had a sip of water and it went down the wrong way. As you’re talking about a beautiful moment there. Speaking of water. and so yeah, somebody has just said in the chat, know, it’s beautiful to hear. um So yeah, you’re really connecting with people tonight by sharing this story. And for you to have these photos to look back on too and Ezra can say, that’s me, that’s the day I was born.

12:03
Yeah, very, very important, very special for us. And so then people often ask, you know, how did it work in the hospital? Did you stay overnight or it was discharged that day? So we went privately. So I think the journey will look a lot different to I think a lot of people would go publicly or even I think other some private hospitals wouldn’t be as flexible and generous as Newcastle private was. ah We were very early on had the discussions with the OB and with the hospital.

12:31
We went and took pre tours of the hospital to walk through and understand what the space would look like. We made sure that regardless of how the birth went, that we would always be welcome. So we’d had those discussions that obviously the plan was always VBAC as what everyone worked towards and put a lot of work into that. But if that was to pivot, what did that look like for us? And it was always made very clear from our team, but also from the team that we worked with medically that every accommodation would be made to get us in that room when he was born.

13:00
Then we stayed, so very lucky we had two double rooms next to each other, down in the very back corner of the ward, which was lovely because was nice and quiet. then we still, Jamie and Marlene are going to get me to get on this details. I’m going to say three nights after birth. So we both at three in the morning and then we stayed for three nights after that. Yeah, that’s cool. And it sounds like you were great advocates there. nights.

13:30
Four nights. Four nights. But it was good because we separate spaces, separate rooms, but we also three steps from each other. Perfect. Yeah. That doorway apart for lots of cuddles. Yeah. When feeding all those kind of little bits and pieces. So it was nice to have your own space, but also be so close to somebody who was so important. And then the photos, we move on.

And so you stayed nearby for those few weeks and I’m assuming you were seeing each other fairly regularly if not daily or second. Yeah so that was kind of the time where we it changed so to start with it was two three times a day and then it graduated down and over that three week period it became to the point where Marlon went for a whole 24 hours without seeing us and it was kind of that weaning process.

14:29
Puzzles are just felt what was right. So we had our own space. Um, and that was always respected and my line would always let us know in advance. When she wanted to come in, it was always planned. It was never just a rock up and you felt that constant stress of, Oh, am I looking okay? Do I feel okay? Is the house okay? There was still like boundaries, but there were boundaries that were in there for everyone’s interest. So we stayed there for that three weeks. And then this is the day we left. the day we jumped in the car and drove home for father’s day. Yes. Right.

14:58
Exciting and it’s like, oh my gosh, this is real. We’re on now. Well, you had been, but it was that leaving that bubble of the surrogacy team and starting the next phase. yeah, driving a very long way with a baby and not knowing, a dog and not knowing how it was going to go. And it was a dream. It was very easy. We stopped halfway, but just those things as a new parent, like how are we going to go for 14 hours in a car? Yes. Yes. But you do it. Correct.

15:25
And then life starts to move on. so we’re near the end of our photos, but I know. a quick back one. Yes, certainly. Just on the right there. So that was the first 48 photos we did. 48 hours after roughly four hours after Ezra was born, the photographer came to the hospital and our mother’s family came and we went to the hospital grounds as a garden and stuff. So we just walked around, took some new little fresh 48 photos around. They were also very good. So you kind of got that birth moment. You’ve got the first 48.

15:53
And then you’ve got the maternity photos before that as well. it’s a little progression. Yeah. And to have those memories for you and Ezra to look back on and your whole serious team. It’s nice to take that time because those first few months really, just, you don’t think to stop and make yourself look nice and take photos. It’s just survival and getting through. So it’s nice to have that in place already that kind of someone forces you to stop, have a shower.

16:22
respectable and go and just sit in the moment and spend some time together and just document it. And I think too it’s powerful to have you the parents in the photo we often take so many photos of the baby but for your child to look back on and see you guys holding him I think that’s really powerful. to this day something we struggle with. Yeah. Lots of photos of Ezra not a lot of photos of all of us together. Yes agreed so the person taking the photos is doing most of them but um yeah.

16:49
And so then we can see the change here that you look back at this little Bubba and then here he is now. Well, this was recently-ish. And so Marlena came down to speak with Jamie on a panel at the Growing Families Conference. Is that right? Right, yeah. And stay with us for a couple of nights. We’ve got to spend some college time with us and Ezra. So that was a lovely little bonus of that. So that’s just us in our backyard with Ezra and his full head of hair. Yes, full head of hair.

17:15
And I think again, for people at the beginning to go, wow, your friendship here has grown to the, you’re comfortable staying, you know, with each other type of thing. so do you roughly remember from when you first started chatting to birth, how long it was for your team?

17:30
I would say it would have been early 2023 that we first kind of started socializing in a group setting. And then birth was August, 2025. Yes. Math teacher help. Sure. Yeah. Two and a half years. But your team from when they, it’s like dating, isn’t it? From when that interest sparked going, Oh, hang on. I think this friendship feels a bit more than just friends. That would have been a little bit later in 2023. Correct.

18:00
Yes. You can get the specifics on the next webinar if you join. That’s right. Come in here from Marlena. Marlena is great with dates and I’m awful. I’m great with numbers. Dates. Well they are numbers really, but anyway. They’re that different Anna. But letters involve too. then just some last photos to finish up from your first Christmas having a photo with Santa and then yeah, holding a little man in your arms.

18:28
Yeah, that photo there’s only on the right, only a few weeks ago. So that was us in Tasmania, another baby shower. There you go. All the dates. So if you want the dates, I’ll read them out. So they started chatting in April, 2023, started dating November that year. So the friendship was there from the community first. Marlena offered April, a few months after that, did the paperwork, November transfer, that worked first transfer then, is that correct, team? Correct, transfer.

18:58
And so August, 2025 birth. So pretty much from when the intensity of their chatting started, it’s probably two years. Yeah. So that you are spot on average, my friend. Look at you average man said nobody to you ever.

So before I launch into any questions, is there anything that you wanted to add, Kody , having just gone through those photos that we didn’t quite cover that you wanted to say, oh, I should point that out or? No, I don’t think so.

19:49
But after these conversations now, there most likely will be. There might be some, yes. One thing we have talked about is that, um well, surrogacy is an emotional journey. It’s complex because it involves relationships, not only the relationship with your surrogate and her partner, but also your own partnership with the person, unless you’re single, but the person that you’re going on this journey with and how important that is to maintain that relationship. What could you speak to about that for us? Yeah, I’m…

20:19
It is the hardest thing you’ll ever do in your life, but also by far the most rewarding thing you’ll ever do. Yep. Yep. So I think it’s, look, sometimes taking a step back and it’s easy to say this, not always easy to action, but taking a step back from the emotional piece at the start and kind of setting yourself some expectations, some frameworks, some guidelines. I think it’s something that Jamie and I did very, very well. We’ve been together for 16 years now. So

20:48
We kind of understand how each other work quite well. back then we talked about what do we want this to look like for us? So what are our timeframes? What do we need to stick to? What are we flexible on? And kind of set some parameters around that. So we had a pretty mature discussion to start with and kind of set a goal in place that for us, it was two years from when we started with the community. If we didn’t have anything meaningful happening within this space.

21:18
then we would explore other options. So making sure that we weren’t going in with all our eggs in one basket. And so, and setting that guideline and also certain points where we would just check in with each other, because it’s so important that you still nurture that relationship. It can be all consuming and especially in that kind of lead up time where you are constantly doing research and trying to meet people and networking and you are throwing everything you have into it. Every spare moment you have, it becomes a part time job.

21:46
So it’s nice to kind of set some boundaries and some kind of check-in points to make sure that, yes, you’re giving everything that you can, but you’re also saving a little bit in the tank for each other. So I think that’s something that we did very early on. And I think it’s something that we advise everybody to do. It’s just kind of set out and that can change and it will shift. It didn’t mean that in two years that we were going to go overseas or look at other options, but we set some parameters in place. So I think that’s a really healthy way to do it, just to make sure that.

22:15
you’re setting realistic expectations for yourself, but also setting yourself up to succeed. Yeah. I remember in my time in the community, sometimes I’d say to people, know, it can feel like another part-time job because you’re this amount of time and energy that you’re investing into that. Yeah. And I think your advice is right there. It’s okay to set a limit because if you go, okay, this is time consuming, but if we go two years, let’s give it our best shot. So what does our best shot look like? We’re not just going to be

22:42
dipping our toe in the water and saying we’re in the community, but we’re not really doing it. What does it really mean to make connections? And as you say, it might not directly be with a surrogate. It might be making other friendships like ours that has evolved in that time. those friendships, without those friendships that you form along the way, you won’t potentially make it through at the other end in a really great way with a great relationship. It’s those friends that you make along the way that are friends.

23:08
for life, like the people that you have common interests with, you share the story with that will get you through the hard moments, the dark moments, the moments of joy, the moments you want to celebrate and no one else really gets it unless you’re in this space. Yes, your friends understand and your family want to know and they play the part and they listen, but they don’t really understand the intricacies of how it works. Agreed. It is intricate, as you say.

23:34
And you two have continued to be regular attendees in the Zoom monthlies to even hosting a few times a year and helping out there and continuing to give back. And, I’ve really enjoyed listening to you guys and the advice that you give to others, remembering what it’s like to be at the beginning and, and all of these bits of advice along the way. Cause you do learn a lot, don’t you? And you kind of want to impart that. So much that it’s there. So why not share? It’s hard to find. It’s hard to compile. hard to get it all together. So why not share it? We were very lucky that we had.

24:03
people reach out to us in the community when we first started that shared their knowledge and their advice and empowered us to make decisions. So it feels right for us to give a little bit more than we took. Yeah. And it’s that paying it forward. People helped you in the beginning and although you couldn’t help them, you can help others. Correct. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a beautiful thing and we really appreciate having you around. Um, it’s been wonderful. Speaking of those Zooms, and I suppose that’s where we connected. uh

24:33
I do remember back in the early days of you attending, um you know, sometimes those Zooms go into the late night and some of the conversations get a little bit, two in the morning, two, three, four in the morning, yes. And the conversations get a little bit loose and get non-surrogacy related and just other silly things we all connect on. there’s sharing of hundred things of certain events and some people that will know what I’m talking about. Others who have no idea and that’s okay.

24:57
But anyway, I remember certain nights and certain things you two boys might have said sometimes that were a little bit controversial sometimes and a few that might have got a few people offside. And I remember thinking, oh, these guys like, you know, some people might say, oh, don’t rock the boat type of thing. But it’s felt like you two have always been yourselves, that you you might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but you will be somebody’s cup of tea. um Yeah. And I’m assuming that’s the type of people you are in life generally. I think it’s the people that we have

25:27
grown and learn to become. don’t like, I think we were always those people. But I think we came into this not wanting to attract as many surrogates as possible. We wanted to attract the right surrogate for us. And for us pretending to be somebody else or a better version of ourselves, which isn’t hard to be a better version of yourself when your baseline is where we are. um Wouldn’t attract the right person. We didn’t want a line of surrogates interested in us for the persona that we were portraying.

25:55
We want to somebody that connected to us on a deeper level that someone that would be our friend in the real world. want us something that was going to be meaningful and ongoing. So yeah, our, we would never, we would never shy away from sharing our perspective and our opinions. I think it’s a space that more people should do that. makes, honestly, it makes the whole counseling, dating, forming a meaningful relationship part so much easier.

26:25
because you’re not remembering, trying to remember constantly who you are pretending to be. are just you, like you will be with your friends or will you be with your family? You’re just that version. And that’s easier said than done. It’s not easy to be always just blunt and honest. But I think that’s why we are where we are now in our team. We were always honest and upfront with each other and never shied away from opinions.

26:51
And it sounds like that’s the type of advice you would give people at the beginning of their journey is that they need to be who they are. They can’t put on a persona and somebody will find you and like you for being you. Yeah. And just it’s not, and it’s not always a persona. Sometimes it’s just a filtered version of yourself. Yeah. And I think there is a time and a place, like I’m not saying go and be offensive and be awful to people, but just live your life, be you be authentically just who you are because the right people will be attracted to the right people. Agreed.

27:21
And there’s the right match for everyone, so to speak, because as surrogates, we, we sometimes think, we’re a bit weird or, in our own type of way. And I wouldn’t be the right fit for everybody either. And that’s okay. That’s the beauty of this is I think sometimes people get a little bit caught up in. This is a lack of a better term. It’s not the reality, but the competition of trying to be the better IPs or appear to be the better IPs, but you’re.

27:51
future surrogate is the right surrogate for you. Not for the couple next door, not for the other people on the zoom. They’re the right people for you. Yes. And that’s how you make teams that last and work. Yes. Yes. Spot on teams at last because yeah, you might click and you could do it together, but if it might not last and this doesn’t mean you always should. Oh, these one line is this good? Just because you could doesn’t mean you should. Yep. And I think

28:21
I’m hoping this is empowering for people to hear you almost give them permission to go be yourself. Don’t try and be a shiny version or, see somebody else who’s clicked with a surrogate thing. I should therefore match what they’re doing. No, you speak to a lot of surrogates and we’ve obviously spoken to many, surrogates over our time as well. People connect on the weirdest things. Yes. It’s not because you’ve got the prettiest photos or because you

28:48
have got the most money in your bank account or because you necessarily live next door. It’s because you like a weird food or you watched a weird movie or you have shared opinions on something abstract. It’s often the silliest things that people connect on. Yes. But if you’re being a filtered version of yourself, you don’t kind of unpack all those weird intricacies about yourself. Yes. And that’s what attracts people is those weird things. and I always, a hundred percent always said that like you guys connecting over crocs. em

29:17
And that’s what I, my advice I give to people is like, yeah, it might be the weird eighties music that you like, or the football team that you support, um, or whatever music that you can remember, just all what sport you play or hobby or into, and you’ll make some connection by that. So yeah, you’ve got to just be you and bring forward all your quirks and you just never know where that’s going to click. So I just saw Alexandra’s chat pop up. Yes. And she says, I’m trying to be a surrogate at the moment. And I was.

29:47
more worried about them not liking me. It goes both ways doesn’t it then? But then then not the right IPs for you. Yes. Your IPs that are out there in the world right now will like you, they will appreciate your personality, they’ll appreciate your quirks. That’s it. If you don’t have worry about not being liked because people that don’t like you aren’t the right people. Yeah. And this advice is relationship advice. This could be non-surrogacy everything that we’re talking about here.

30:15
Really? It’s, friendship and relationship advice for me. career calling. Maybe, maybe we should, yes. Maybe I should. Well-being podcast. That’s right. Well-being podcast. I think it is. It’s about attracting the right people just in life in general. And this is no different as much as this space is so different to so many other things in life. What you’re trying to attract is the same thing you attract in life. Yeah. Yep. I like it.

30:41
Jacob has typed in a question that says, again, thank you for sharing everything. He’s curious as to what did the dating process look like for your team? I guess, especially being interstate and yeah, was there anything particular you tried to do in that dating phase? um Lots of FaceTimes, lots of messages. Lots of, I think, 100 questions. So kind of going back to like the process a little bit, there’s the hundred questions that are floating around in the community, which are a hundred questions.

31:11
based on choices, decisions that you’re making your pregnancy. That is the fundamental key to any team success is getting those done. And it can feel like a task. They are long, they are often repetitive. They are often the same question worded three different ways, but they are vital to success. So that’s kind I’m in the process of updating them. there won’t be repetition. We tried and I think, think Marlena mostly tried and I think we just gave up.

31:41
and get you to help draft and read over the drafts. But those questions, they cover everything. They talk about social media posts, they talk about termination, they talk about vaccination, they talk about all those things that some of them are little, some of them are fundamentally huge. So we kind of, I guess, that initial stage of like just getting to know each other and chatting socially, that hundred questions we started to work through. ah that we didn’t

32:09
rushed through it, we took our time, we turned it into a Google Doc, we updated them separately. And then once we had all answered our questions, we can go and read them. But then we sat together and talk through anything we had. But also knowing that that is not concrete. Just because you feel something in that moment at quite early dating doesn’t mean your opinions and your thoughts can’t change over the term. And that’s just something you discuss. So we often would go back, we’d have a chat about something and compromise or one of us would be like, Oh, we didn’t understand or we didn’t look at it in that light.

32:39
And then we just update our responses because we’re like, okay, we’re aligned. Yes. But that was, I guess, the fundamental part of what our dating started was building it around that. But that involved obviously lots of phone calls, lots of messages to and fro. Jamie and I went up and met Marlena and her family and spent some time with her up there. Yeah, it’s just about spending quality time together. It’s no different than what you would do with a friend who lives around the corner or a friend in COVID who lived in another state. Yeah.

33:07
So it’s just about spending quality time, understanding each other, making sure your values are aligned, making sure the goal that you want at the end of this looks the same. So it’s not just about the destination, but it’s also about the journey. Yes. And I think as you basically said, is it making sure that the people that you’re doing this journey with are people that you would be friends with outside of surrogacy. Yeah. And I think that that process looks different for everybody. might be dinners at the local pub. It might be board game nights. That’s where…

33:37
when you find that right person, you already have those common interests. So the things you like to might be board games together. That might be your weird quirk that attracted someone to you. So obviously that’s what you do. Like you share those things together and you spend time doing things that you would do with a friend in that space. Yeah. And I think Jacob, Jacob, just to summarize your question there. And I think coming along to like the zoom monthly catch-ups and stuff is another way to hear about what other people do.

34:03
in their dating world and then you can take ideas going, I like that. And others where you go, actually, I don’t like that. I don’t want to do that. And that’s good too, to help you decide how you’re going to want to do it. um Just looking at Jacob’s response. ah Yeah, it’s like dating for a new friend, but it’s, I think also sometimes in a platonic way, it kind of crosses the boundary because it’s more than just the friend is the foundation of it. But I think some of the questions and things you go through,

34:32
probably not things you generally chat with your friends. So it’s an interesting fine line that you dance on. um The key is that dating part is supposed to be easy and enjoyable. It shouldn’t be stressful. You should look forward to this time that you’re dating and the things you’re doing together. shouldn’t feel like it’s a task you’re trying to get through. Agreed. And yeah, Jacob was saying there that it feels like dating again after he and his partner have been together for so many years. um And that’s why this word, sorrow ship.

35:00
really rings true is that you have a friendship with people and we understand in society what a friendship looks like and you have your relationship with your life partner people understand what that looks like but a surroship is more than a friendship and sort of intimate like a relationship so it’s this hybrid of the two so it’s a unique thing that most people in society don’t ever get to do because usually the person that you have a make a baby with in this world is your lifelong intimate partner you’re then creating a baby which is very intimate um

35:29
Yes, you’re not doing it in the, know, you’re not having sex, but every other part of this is intimate. And so it’s a unique dynamic. so getting ideas from other people about what to talk about. uh The mention of a hundred questions. If anybody wants to contact me, I can get you a copy of those. can email me, Anna at surrogacy Australia.org, but also by keeping in touch with me through email. When I do the updated version, uh I can send that through and I’m going to categorize it into the different sections of the, of a journey. then.

35:59
might be easy structure and it’s already so valuable some structure will make it manageable and let’s think it’s i think it’ll be more than 100 but it’s in it’s in categories so then that’s but i’d be also like that doesn’t need to be done in one week i think we know a month maybe more to do it we work through it like section by section yes and it’s the type of thing you can revisit just because you’ve talked about what birth’s going to look like doesn’t mean you never come back and talk about it you

36:24
you come back to each of your thoughts and opinions. That’s kind of like a it’s a line in the sand of kind of where you start. So you can go back and reflect on it and talk about it together. And things change along the journey, you kind of have like, there’s this line with that can go back and like, okay, this was the plan. This is not what we thought it was going to be. So how do we pivot from there and make sure that we still follow what ethically we want to do and what we want to do and what we spoke about, but make it suitable for the situation we’re currently in.

36:53
Absolutely. Yes. Cause things can change. Sorry. It can get ill and all these sorts of million things can change. Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s good to have that as kind of just a staple of it’s written down because you do talk a lot and you sometimes will forget conversations you had. It’s not a nice have something in writing that you can kind of best reflect on. It’s not there to catch anybody out. It’s kind of just there to go back and reflect on and look at. I’d make sure you maybe go back and have a look at it now.

37:20
Yes. And to think about how far your thinking has come. Um, and that’s, yeah, it’s a valuable thing too. Mr. Kody , I’m so proud of you and of your team. I think you guys are a shining light of how surrogacy can be done well here in Australia, building on that, that friendship relationship model there. Uh, yeah, I’m so proud of you. Any last bits of parting advice that you would like to give to people who are at the beginning of their journey or anything we haven’t covered? Um, I think hearing you say that.

37:51
makes me all emotional and tingly, but we are where we are because of you and the community. We wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t have Ezra. We wouldn’t have a lifelong friendship with you, other people that have gone and been parents, Marlena, her family, her friends. It’s all because of what is here. So we need to nurture this space. We need to engage ourselves in this space and we need to give back to this space because this

38:20
is the catalyst that makes change. This group here, these webinars, the monthly Zooms, the Facebook groups, that is the pathway to a successful journey. And the only way you’ll get through it is by giving a little bit of yourself.

38:38
and then giving back a lot more of yourself. I think that’s the beauty. It’s engage film form friendships because the friendships you form in this space can be friendships for life. should be friendships for life. It’s not just, sorry. See, I might bring you here, but I guarantee there is somebody else in this space that has got more in common with just. Absolutely. I just think give, give some back.

39:08
engage, be meaningful. Don’t just be present for the sake of being present. Be present because you want to be present. Because you want to make genuine connections, not just find a surrogate. Or if you’re a surrogate, not just find IPs, you start to go, this journey is bigger than just my journey. And that we’re a part of something in Australia of normalizing surrogacy. And so thank you for what you say about

39:37
for what I do and we’re creating this space through the Zoom monthly catch-ups and things that we run. And you know, you guys are my poster children. You know, you are the first Zoom self-matched baby. Ezra is the poster boy for that. And it shows that it can happen. And I talk about it every fortnight in these webinars. And we’ve had quite a few people join us tonight from the community in the chat. I’m keeping my eye on that and that people saying thank you and for sharing. it’s just, it’s just this warm, Kody and I having these warm fuzzy moments seeing this and going.

40:06
We are part of this and we have helped to create it. um, and it’s also the people that helped get us through. Yeah. Yeah. These are people we lean on. These are the people that we make time for still, and we will make time for the rest of our lives. Yep. And it also means that Ezra gets to grow up seeing families like his. Yes. And that’s a, it’s a sacred space. You don’t go to school. Like most children might go to school. could go through 12 years of school and never ever seen others. Child one by sorority. Yes.

40:34
So you have to actively plan that and make spaces for that. So that’s what we’re creating. It’s, we say that every time we are building a community.

40:45
mic drop, out we go, we’re done. We’re building a community, that’s it. So the other families look like your family. And so you can’t just go and build your own family. You’ve got to help other people build theirs so that your child is normalized because they can’t be what they can’t see. And by seeing two other families with um two dads, or just to be a normal question for a kid to ask, whose tummy did you grow in? So even if you’re a mum dad family, you don’t have to have grown in mum’s tummy. It’s fine to grow in somebody else’s tummy.

41:15
sprinkling the seeds of surrogacy. What’s this sprinkling? Sprinkling the seeds of surrogacy. That’s all we all want to do is just sprinkle a few seeds. And so see if you’re a regular Zoom, you’d know that’s Nikita saying and it’s that everybody needs to sprinkle the seeds around, talk about it, normalise it. Even if you haven’t got a team yet, just sprinkle the seeds, baby. All right, my friend, we’re done. What a joy that was to do.

41:46
That was great. There’s a line me up for the next one. Line me up, line you up for the next one. Another baby. Is that what you say?

41:57
Did he just freeze? One and done. We were given very, very, very good advice. Do not make any life changing decisions in the first 12 months. In the first 12 months. Yes. Very wise. We are very much honoring that we are not doing anything in our lives that is outside of the norm. Yeah. you have moments where you’re like, Oh my God, they’re so gorgeous. Yes. I want another one. But then you sort of like, hang on, but parenting so hard and I’m in the trenches. I just want moments of nice parenting. Not at all.

42:28
Yeah, think yeah, well, I don’t think so. That was her advice. Don’t make things will change. Things will be different. Don’t make any life changing decisions in the first 12 months. Yeah. But yeah, things are beautiful. Things are great. We have the child that we always dreamed of. We have friends for life. We have a community to grow with, to lean on, to inspire. Life’s good.

42:54
It was worth coming people. I’m glad you’re all here and I’m glad whoever’s catching this recording enjoys it too. So I think we will end it there.