Episode 153 – Aaron – gay dad

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you

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But 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 McKie. 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. episode

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Featuring dad through surrogacy Aaron is one from the archives and was recorded in June 2022. Aaron and Jake from Adelaide became parents to baby boy Xavier in December 2019 when their surrogate, and now lifelong friend Amber, birthed as a traditional surrogate, meaning it was her egg. Aaron is passionate about sharing their journey as two dads

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supporting others who are at the beginning of their surrogacy journey and was also a parent mentor for SAS, Surrogacy Australia Support Service, back in the beginning. Their family has since relocated to Brisbane. I hope you enjoy this episode.

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We’re going to be joined by Aaron now and hear about his surrogacy story and what he’s happily ever after looks like. So Aaron, as we were talking before saying there’s a lot involved to get to a photo like this. So tell me who’s in this photo and that orange book is specific to South Australia. So tell us what’s going on in this photo. All right. So I’ve got myself there. My name is husband Jake and I’m holding the bounty bag and our surrogate Amber. This was at one of our first

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checkups where we were admitted into our local group practice of midwives at the hospital. So it was really good to meet the midwife there and know that they were going to be on the journey with us. I’m very fortunate to be a part of that program. And yeah, I’ve seen that book plenty of times, got nieces and nephews everywhere. So there’s books that like that floating around. So was really good to get that book and still put it in the cupboard behind me. Yes, to get your own copy and be part of that tribe.

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Right. Definitely. Yeah. It took a while to get there. We connected over sushi of all things. That’s where we first met Amber. That was our first catch up in real life was at a sushi train. And it just become one of those things where we would, you know, catch up throughout the pregnancy or post-birth. We’d always hit up a sushi train with all of us.

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I love that. And I love that every team’s got some of those unique sorts of things that they like to do. And then a little bit further along in pregnancy here. Yeah, yes. Both these photos were at Amber’s house. We, and Jake live in the southern suburbs of Adelaide and conveniently Amber lived on the northern suburbs. So was uh an hour drive or so, any time that we wanted to meet up. And we made a point of wanting to be present for anything related to the surrogacy to support her, but also to be involved as much as we can to any appointment we had.

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any check-ups she had to the doctor or anything she needs was either myself or Jay could do the trek out north. and as we said my team did the same thing to sort of experience the inconvenience of pregnancy. yes. Well that’s very admirable and I think that’s the joy in some ways of being local surrogacy.

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You get to be involved and to hear the midwives of what they have to say. And also, as you say, to support your surrogate there can be a lot of travel and logistics involved. There was a lot of conversations with my boss at the time. It was very, very accommodating. And I know it would be the case for everyone, but yeah, appointments were never at convenient times for a nine to five worker that was doing at the time. So, you know, leaving at 11 o’clock and heading out there for an hour, driving back and getting back by two or three.

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And yeah, very, very thankful for that as well. That’s good. Yes. And for the people may have seen that me mentioned before leading up to this webinar that Aaron’s team was the first two dad team to do this in South Australia. There are other gay dads in South Australia, but they’ve had children born overseas to surrogacy. So these guys were paving the way and having all of those first conversations. um think we were second then.

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my team. don’t know. don’t think there’s anything in between, not that we know of. Yeah, so that’s an exciting thing. And I like this, photo on the right hand side. I think it shows a bit of your sense of humour between you all.

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Yeah, there was a few, yeah, some really good angles throughout pregnancy. Big belly bumps and things. And then, tell me about this photo era. A long time coming and it nearly didn’t happen. Through all the hurdles here, we had to pave the way through. Yeah, was very, the word I want to use is unorganized. It wasn’t unorganized, it was very spare of the moment.

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pregnancy and we had lots of plans in place and unfortunately nothing went right for us uh leading up to the pregnancy so it wasn’t until probably 10 minutes before Amber was being taken up to have the cesarean that we would wander back in the room because we were just getting a coffee and they said come on we’re going up we’re going up

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So yeah, was very rushed and they weren’t sure if we’d both be able to get in there. But as you can see, was really special that we got to be in the room throughout that moment. Wow. And seeing your little boy come into this world. Yeah, very. You can still vividly remember it. Some of that stuff is very vivid, very special. And knowing Amber, wanting to have that moment of handing Xavier to us didn’t quite go to plan, but she still liked the fact she could see us.

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with Xavier at that moment. Yeah, I think that’s part of it for surrogates, isn’t it? Part of seeing a joy on her IP’s face when they hold their child for the first time. That’s part of her gift to you. Beautiful. And then you were in hospital for a couple of days together. Is this an in-hospital photo, this one? No, this is out, but we were in hospital for a couple of days afterwards. I was able to stay. Again, that was another hurdle to overcome, but I was on the pull-out bed and 6’5″, so it was a very comfortable

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sleep. I snore as well. So Amber very much enjoyed that being in the same room as me. But yeah, some sleepless nights for her and me as well, obviously, with Xavier to attend to.

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But this photo was taken, I think was about a week after we came out of hospital. actually had a news, Channel 7 news came and did a uh segment on our surrogacy and this was taken at the same time as that. I reckon, and this, the one on the left there too? Yes, that was a different day, very close to each other. But yeah, that was a shot they put in that, know, advertised the paper as well. And I want say, because we know each other, Aaron, that there’s some very happy family photos going on here. It’s almost a little bit polygamous. oh

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There’s so much love there that if you didn’t know that photo you’d be like what’s going on here? Exactly right. Did feel the same at all? Did it feel a little bit staged or it was still lots of fun? A little bit staged I think because at that point we were the emotions were so high we’re all so happy. I think at each point maybe one of us was feeling like a bit of a third wheel in these in these photos.

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just sharing it all around, it was really good. And the photo on the right there was the day we had our parentage order granted, which was a really nice day. We went out for…

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breakfast afterwards. Same court that we went to. And roughly how old was Xavier here in this photo when your parentage order went through, you remember? So he was born December. I’m going to say that was late, mid to late February. Yeah, for those listening to give them a guide as to how long it might take. And then I reckon I was at that catch up on the left there and the right actually. uh Surrogacy community catch ups there. that what was happening here? is, The left one was the first catch up we went to with Xavier.

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And so there was definitely a few people hanging around wanting to have a look and get to see him. He fell asleep pretty early on in that day. He was having a bit of a nap on the rug. And then the second photo there was the most recent catch up just a few months ago. Yes. Is it a lovely feeling to show him off to people? Yeah, yeah. Show it when he’s behaving. Yeah. I’m slowly learning that he’s a kid. You can’t always be on his best behavior.

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I when they were babies, it was much easier then in that sense. So, but he’s not such a baby anymore here. Look at this. No, he is a cheeky, a cheeky little monkey. That’s for sure. And so these photo, the bottom photo. that was our most recent trip away. So a lot of my family live in Queensland. And so we headed up to Queensland for a month at the end of last year for Christmas, New Year. Davey had an absolute ball. We had a great time out with him as well. Australia Zoo and all the theme parks that he loved and the rides and the beach.

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probably got one more here. So they’re probably not quite in order there, but this little man growing up two and a half now. Two and a half. He’s finding his independence along with his vocabulary. So it’s really, really fun for him to articulate.

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stuff that he wants or how he’s feeling or what he wants to do now that he can speak a bit more. But along with that comes his independence and wanting to do things that he probably shouldn’t or can’t at this stage and finding a way to let him know that maybe that’s not the right idea. Like the jumping off the couch I was mentioning earlier, that’s just started and a bit hesitant to let that happen. Hopefully these are parenting milestones that everybody here will get.

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think that’s my last photo, but for people listening, have a look at Xavier’s hair here. You know, it’s a striking red. And so that, possibly is a nice segue into kind of going back to the beginning. Now your team was a traditional surrogate team, surrogacy team, meaning it was Amber’s egg. So it’s kind of take us back to the beginning then Aaron, like how did you find Amber? And then how did you come to this conversation about being a traditional surrogate as opposed to gestational? Yeah, definitely. So.

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I’m going to say we, but my husband Jake was the one that was taking the lead on the research. And he’s come across the Surrogacy Australia page and found a lot of that information really useful at the start. And from there, we joined up on the Facebook group, the Australian Surrogacy community, Australia Wide One, and then also the local South Australian page. And Jake introduced us, a very straightforward introduction here we were and what we were looking for and where we wanted to go.

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we wanted to be and that was parents to a child and I guess something about our post or the photo or how we looked or what we said grabbed Amber’s attention and it was only a few weeks after Jake had posted that that she reached out and messaged Jake and he got to talking for quite some time and I haven’t told anyone this but he was doing it in secret it was a big surprise to me.

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couple of weeks later, he goes, I found a surrogate. I’ve been talking for a few weeks. And, um, yeah, so we, got into a group, a group chat then at that point, and that’s when we organized to meet up and she brought a sister along with me. That’s where our first sushi date happened. So, so those IPs listening, obviously it’s about doing your introduction post. Um, was it a little bit of right place, right time, as in Amber was a surrogate that was looking to find people to carry for, and you came along and she was looking and you happened to be the right fit was as opposed.

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that as well as being the right fit for her. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that is what happened. And the side of the story, she always spoken about being surrogate at a young age from what she tells us. So think at that point she was finished with her family and just looking to help and start someone else’s family. yeah, impeccable timing I’m gonna say. Yeah, and of course being awesome individuals as well clearly helped, So often for the two guys, you might need an egg donor as well. Because again, for those listening,

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think by my data, would maybe one in 10 surrogates might be a traditional surrogate. And sometimes it’s probably more common for them to be a traditional surrogate. Perhaps for people they know, for example, if the surrogate has a gay brother and the brother has a husband, then if it’s the husband’s sperm and the surrogate’s egg, then the kid is genetically connected to both that. But that’s not the case in your team. So were you specifically looking for a traditional surrogate or you’re open or how did that conversation come up? At the beginning, we were very much open and I…

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don’t know where, how the path came down to surrogacy, but the conversation was had and Amber was open to it. And we pretty much at that point decided where we, uh myself and Jake, were going to go in terms of donation. So yeah, when she said she was comfortable, we thought we’d…

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Yes. So you didn’t already have an egg donor lined up in that sense? No. When you said Jake and I in terms of donation, do you mean in terms of you guys have been sperm donors or having the chat together about who would be the donor out of you two? Yeah, the chat. So um yeah, pretty early on we decided that Jake was going to be the one to donate for a variety of reasons. And then if and when it’s still open, whether we have a second child, then I would be the one to

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donate. Not donate but use my stammer. I think it’s birth certificate so it is classed the state. So yeah we came to that decision just for family reasons. I’ve got already a very large family, nieces, nephews, sisters, brothers.

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Jake doesn’t really have that big of a family and of his sibling, he’s probably the most likely to pass on the name and start a family. We’ll keep going through this story because people haven’t typed in any questions yet. So feel free to peoples. We can keep hearing from Aaron. then, so then you did the dating and getting to know each other and then the paperwork and all of that. But I know there was some challenges along the way. What sorts of, know, give us a snapshot of that time and what happened in all of that. Yeah. the first challenges were looking at

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Yeah, we’re going, I know it’s only two and a half years, two and a three years ago now, but it’s taken me back a little while. We’re fertility clinics. So this is probably where we came to the decision to do traditional at home insemination because of the difficulties we’re having with the clinics, fertility clinics not willing to take us on as traditional surrogacy. And I believe that just due to their policies at the time weren’t updated with recent legislation change that happened. Obviously we were the first to

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Same-sex-vowel couple, I believe, may be the first traditional surrogacy. I think you’d, well, certainly for male, like there might’ve been some hetero teams that have done traditional, but you certainly were for that. Yeah, so I think we were perhaps the first male team through a clinic and you were the first not in a clinic, because they wouldn’t at I think it made them nervous. It’s not illegal to do it, but the clinics hadn’t done it before. And so I think they just went, oh, no, no, it’s too hard. Goodbye. Pretty much. And we had similar issues with,

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lawyers as well, not knowing, yeah, so we went through a couple of lawyers that said they weren’t comfortable supporting us through traditional surrogacy, they thought it was too great, but then we obviously came to.

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find lawyers that were more than happy to advocate for us and read the legislation as it is and go ahead with the traditional surrogacy. So is that any advice for people listening? Sometimes you have to fight a bit? Yeah, we had numerous conversations and once we’d end up finding our lawyers that were happy to proceed, they ended up doing a bit of fighting for us too with the clinics to no avail. But I think that has helped now that we’ve gone through that process has potentially helped them change their policies or look at it a bit differently as well. And maybe the fact that you’ve gone through and you got parentage order,

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the end which is the piece of paper say no no no no nurse yes so well done guys so then you did your counseling in your legal’s and got all of that signed off and so then do you get to the point then of tracking amber’s cycle to try for a home insemination is that how it works all these things about women’s periods

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Again, impeccable timing. we ended up having our legal signs and it either the day before or the day of a surrogacy catcher. I I say it was at Cathedral Hotel. That’s the same night I think you had presented Matt and Brendan with your blog. Yes, the surrogate hours. Yes, good memory. And yeah, we were just having a conversation there and she said, well, I think I’m at that stage right now. And so the next day we drove out to her house and attempted our first dissemination. Yes.

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it worked first go? It was the first go, yes. Wonderful, I thought it was, yes. Yes, so I mean, look, people, if you’ve got questions about how home insemination works, feel free to ask us. Sorry, let’s chat among themselves and work out how it’s done. It’s not a turkey based, in case you’re wondering. It’s done with other kits and caboodles that we can go into that if you want to. But anyway, and then how did the pregnancy go? Was it hard for Amber or was it a fairly smooth one? Fairly smooth.

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from memory there was uh a couple of hiccups towards the later part of pregnancy with some bleeding and some concerns but all was fine in the end. Going right up to the end of pregnancy, Xavier was not playing by the date we had set for a plan cesarean so uh yeah Amber ended up going into hospital about a week before the due date just with contractions and some pains and

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Yeah, he came a bit early. So yeah, she was in hospital. She then came out. I’m getting that mixed up now. No, because there’s an interesting story I know of what you did in those days, post birth. Oh, yes, yes, yes. That’s right. She was going to hospital. So she was going to hospital and we actually beat her from the southern suburbs of Adelaide to the hospital before she 10 minutes down the road got there. Wow. Yeah, we were we were definitely packed and organized even that was a week earlier. And then we ended up staying at Amber’s mum’s.

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house just down the road so we could stay down there and not have to drive up each day until the point where Xavier was delivered in the Noah’s Day in the hospital. Yes. I’m just going to circle back to something you’ve mentioned with Amber’s mum. Now for those listening, if they piece that together, you were strangers beforehand and you’ve clearly got to this point of not only knowing your surrogate’s extended family, but staying with them. How did you get to that point? Was that important for your team to make those bonds? Yeah, well Amber’s very close with her family. It was a natural thing that happened.

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We had catch-ups at her house, birthday parties, just general gatherings and games nights we attended as well. So it was really good to get to know her family. Most, as I said, most of my family’s up in Queensland, so it wasn’t the case, but they ended up coming down for Xavier’s birth. So it was a chance for Amber to meet my dad and step-dad and brother. It was a good connection we had with everyone and to get to that stage where we could stay at her house.

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Rock up there and feel like it’s family. Yeah, that’s right. And was people on your side and the side supportive of surrogacy or were there some curious caution questions? There was definitely some curious caution questions, I think, from both sides, just because of the unknown. I’m going to say it was the unknown. And because I guess from from initially introducing ourselves to having Xavier, it was quite a short time frame, I guess, in comparison to other teams. There was questions there as well. Is this right? Have you got to know each

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other but we just felt that really quick connection. It still took time to build that. That’s it. Yeah, it was quite a short process compared to some. So I will ask Aaron then what time frame are we talking here? So from when Amber started those messages with Jake and then know first meet so he was born in the December so that must have meant it was like the April that you got pregnant or something Ben?

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He’d introduced us in mid February. The same year, was it? Early to mid February, the same year. I’d forgotten it was that. Right. So you did from meat to do all the counseling and legals. You did that pretty quick. A couple of months. Yeah. Well, that doesn’t know. Yeah, but I’m thinking that now too. um But anyway, it was, I knew it was very quick.

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Relatively quick from your knowledge. that common? Like from other teams? No, no, from, from the teams that I’ve been across and followed their journeys, Instagram’s a wealth of information now for, so I guess the teams, everyone’s got their own, their own journey, which is great. Probably a longer timeframe than that.

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So, but it worked and here you still are, you know, as the photos prove, still friends, still having catch-ups. There was clearly a chemistry between you that you just clicked as a team and sure, it might have gone badly, but it didn’t. And so you did well and you continued to build those friendships during the pregnancy and those bonds. I guess in hindsight then, is there anything that you would do differently regarding that part of the journey or it worked? It worked. I don’t see there being any harm to taking more time. The reason I feel it worked so well is me and

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quite similar age. Not that that has anything to do with how much of a connection you build, but we just have very similar interests using TV shows. It’s just stuff to bond on and talk about and keep that connection. Stuff we wanted to go out and do, things we wanted to uh eat. It all sounds like silly things, but it definitely helps with that connection and that bond. Definitely. And I think that’s probably good advice to people listening, that you need to have some connections on things that are not surrogacy.

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that you can connect on and build those friendship bonds on. Otherwise it would seem much hard work, I’d imagine. Well, we have a question here from a familiar name that I know of that.

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So Matt has asked, do you think that there are any additional challenges faced by traditional teams compared to gestational teams? don’t know if they’re a challenge, but I think a benefit you might face with being a gestational team is the additional support you may have from the clinic side of things. Whereas traditional surrogacy, obviously we did adenoma insemination. So once that had happened, it was really down to us and the support and equipment we had made for ourselves and the midwives at the hospital. But other than that, that was it.

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So although a clinic could be a blessing and a curse, it could be extra support, but there could also be challenges. You therefore didn’t have an egg donor to navigate that extra relationship. Amber was the egg donor and the surrogate. Was that one less person to have to build a connection and a relationship with perhaps? Yeah, well in our situation, yes, but I don’t think it would have been a deal breaker for us. I think I’m quite a personable person, so it wouldn’t have been hard.

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given the right person to build a relationship there. Yeah, that’s true. And I suppose the techniques in building a surrogacy relationship and a neg donor relationship would be very similar. Another question, Matt asked, so we know that the average cost for gestational surrogacy is around 60,000. It was for our team and again, I’ve gathered data on that and it is about right.

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What about how much did your team cost in the end? Cause you didn’t have a major IVF costs. Do you know how much your journey roughly? Roughly it was about 12,000. Wow. Aaron in my time. That is the lowest. And the reason it being so low was at the time that Andrew offered to be a surrogate. wasn’t working. She was studying. So there was no reimbursement of wages at any point during the pregnancy. Yeah.

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husband at the time and that you didn’t have to cover loss of wages for him or anything? We did for the two weeks prior to birth where he did support but outside of that there was no wages so that is why it

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would seem significantly less. And so for those listening tonight, for those listening that don’t know, Matt is my IP, one of my two IPs. So he’s coming along to support his fellow villagers and to hear Aaron’s stories. Another South Aussie there. Again, for people listening, an average range is about 35,000 up to 90,000 with the average about 58 to 60. Those at the bottom end tonight, we’ve just lowered the bottom end. not sure if I’m going to totally adjust my range. I think you might be an outlier. Are the teams that

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do go through an IVF clinic, but they perhaps only have one egg collection. It works on the first embryo transfer. They didn’t have many or any loss of wages, a fairly smooth pregnancy, particularly if the surrogate still may have had her own maternity clothes and from the last kid and that sort of thing. And they probably live locally, so they didn’t have interstate travel and accommodation. Whereas the teams that are up at the 90,000 end probably live interstate from each other. So there was travel, it didn’t work first embryo transfer, and they might’ve had an extra egg collection cycle.

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maybe loss of wages. that’s.

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why you can get such a range there and even then Aaron’s team. My advice to IPs listening is because the women that step forward to be traditional surrogates are rare, I would advise, please don’t go into surrogacy thinking I’m going to look for a traditional surrogate because it’s going to be cheaper. You might not be Aaron’s team, you know, and it might not work out that way. Would you agree with that Aaron? Like, yeah, definitely. And we didn’t go into pursuing surrogacy with that in mind either. So we were, we were set up to, to, um, for gestational surrogacy. Yeah. And so, and because they know this well,

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as you heard Aaron say before, if there’s a sibling journey, it might be a gestational next time around and who knows what will happen. So I kind of know the answer to this, but the others don’t. Would Amber go again then? No, no. So unfortunately for Amber, there were some complications during birth, but she also elected to have a tubal ligation during the caesarean. Yes, so that’s it. So Amber’s done. therefore that’s why.

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I’m saying to others, would be a sibling joining somebody else. They’ve warmed up a bit with their questions here. So let me ask you a few more. So anonymous has asked just to start, do we need any approval to go ahead from department from that state? Well, maybe I’ll answer that one then anonymous. It depends if you’re a gay couple or a hetero couple. If you’re hetero, as I mentioned earlier, you do need approval from a fertility specialist, but there’s no lawyers or anything that approve of anybody for surrogacy before you start. It’s some IVF clinics that pretty much give you the tick or

25:05
If you’re doing it traditional without them, you source your own counseling and legals. We could guide you on that sort of thing. I think that’s about the right answer. Aaron, do you think so? Yeah. Lucas asks, have you got any disagreement with Amber during the process? And if yes, how to solve it? Yeah. Any conflict that came up? did. We had a couple of small niggles, but communication is the biggest thing. Having that open conversation and able to feel comfortable and have that conversation is how we came up to a resolution with those.

25:35
Bit more of an example, maybe not specifically, but in terms of…

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somebody put on the table, I’m feeling annoyed about something or was it in person or messenger or having conflict is tricky, right? Yeah, I think it was post-birth was probably the main, not conflict, but the main hurdle we faced. Even though we discussed it prior, I think during the pregnancy and post-birth, our idea of what we wanted the relationship amongst all the children afterwards to be may have changed. Just having that conversation about what we felt comfortable with in terms of photos and social media. uh

26:08
Sure, and so that’s a great example that you can go through this whole thing together and then some of the challenges come up post birth and and discussing what what feels right for everyone at the time. That’s right. And yeah communication and putting everything on the table and then yeah, just looking through it was how we came to solve the problem. Cool and that’s the credit to your team that you were everybody was comfortable and able to do that. So good work guys. Some more questions. Do you think you receive any additional criticism by having done traditional as in the types of dumb questions you get by randoms? I like will you watch

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more worried that she was going to keep the baby because it looked like her kids? Yeah, we were worried she was going to keep the baby and she was worried we weren’t going to take it as I’m sure every surrogacy team at one point probably thought. That was early on. That was definitely early on in the pregnancy. Other criticism, yeah, because of traditional there was questions around are you sure it was at home in the centre of my insemination? You didn’t just jump in there and get it done sort of thing.

27:07
Yeah, getting asked of Jake. Like what does traditional actually mean? it like, did you really use the Tokyo base or did you just have an experiment? Or he gave permission or he was there too. whatever. dumb questions. Right. And that has, right. So people ask you that to your face after. Yeah, right. So let me just unpack it. You did say every IP probably worries that at some point that she says she doesn’t want the baby, but will she?

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before, how did you get to that point of knowing and feeling comfortable that Amber was definitely going to hand this baby over? She made it very clear that she’s got enough on her hands with three kids at home and she definitely does not need a fourth.

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And because we were so involved in the process and with her family and extended family, was very clear that for three kids was where Amber wanted to be and that’s where she was settled for her family. So it sounds like it’s the type of thing, it’s not just her telling you once, it’s spending that time together, seeing what her life’s like and going, no, she’s happy with three, she doesn’t want more. There’s no itching for another baby and meeting her mom and that that confirmed it for you? Yeah, it’s just, yeah, I guess reaffirming that throughout the pregnancy as well.

28:20
it was asked of anyone but you just had those little moments where you’re like okay yeah we’re good. Good yeah and I suppose and then on the flip side for IPs listening for surrogates our fear is that you’re not going to take it and you’re just going to go this is too hard or something you know I don’t want it and you’ll leave us with it. Must be getting to that point with each other you can feel comfortable. I didn’t go through hours of putting furniture together to not take that maybe. That’s right adjusting your life and making all these plans. Another

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Question here then, now that you’ve gone through a surrogacy journey, what’s the biggest piece of advice for IPs who are starting? Communication, as I said, is probably one of the things you want to make sure you’ve got in your team and patience. Not everything will happen when you want it to happen or how you want it to happen. Having patience to work through that. I probably didn’t have as much patience as I needed throughout, but I’ve definitely grown patience now that I’ve got a two and a half year old running around the house. Well on that then, in terms of more

29:17
patients, is there something that you would do differently? Is it in terms of the patients or anything then in your own journey? It feels like you’ve sprung this on me. I’m still struggling to give an answer.

29:35
What I wouldn’t do differently is being as involved as we were through the whole process. I think that was a very important part for us on the surrogacy journey. It was beneficial for Amber as well and the support she received. What I would do differently? Probably, well, maybe nothing, but…

29:51
Probably the extended family on our side, and Jake’s side, having them somewhat more involved in the process. And then they developed their connections too for it. Yeah. Well, just in terms of then those post-birth miscommunications in that sense, is there anything then that was it the goalposts were changed and that somebody had an idea about contact or frequency or where it was going to happen, who was driving to who, and they changed their mind? Or was it that it perhaps hadn’t been talked about in the detail that it needed? The second one.

30:21
Yeah, don’t think the specifics of those sorts of things were, broadly it was discussed, but not the specifics. Gotcha. Yeah. So it’s hard to know what you’re going over, isn’t it? That’s right.

30:31
You don’t want to list a checklist for every minute specific detail either. don’t think that would be enjoyable, but just to have a clear understanding is probably what I would say for next time. And I think that speaks volumes about therefore anybody here, you know, if they had a someone like an Aaron who that they could go to and say, what did you learn from this? And you go, make sure you have a chat about this at some point in time. Whereas you were paving the way in some way. So on everything, nearly come into the end, but we do have another question here. We have an embryo in Perth, seven failed pregnancy IVF, T-shaped uterus.

31:01
So obviously a female writing to us here, how likely will they be given the tick? When they ask the clinic, they say, just get approval. costs a $25,000 application fee. Wow. My knowledge of Western Australia is that yeah, they’re trickier to get ticks of approval that basically, yeah. And unfortunately I hear other women do have to have been through many failed things to get that tick of approval. It sounds fairly likely to me, but I mean, I’m not the doctor in terms of there might be other things to try first, even though they may not work. And that feels unfair. So this

31:31
the value of now being in the community and being able to ask other mentors or people who have done it what clinics did you use what doctors did you use who have more experience in signing office surrogacy have you had much to do with this arron in terms of other people either in south australia had approval no unfortunately not

31:48
No, it’s a funny thing for the guys, isn’t it? Because for the two guys, you’re instantly eligible. So you haven’t been on quite as long a road there. You have different challenges in terms of the questions that you get asked. Another question that’s come through to us in chat is that any idea on how likely approval might be for psychological reasons in the ACT? Maybe I’ll field this one too, that it’s very rare. And I must say in my time, I’ve not seen it happen yet in terms of not being able to carry a pregnancy due to, I guess, psychological issues. There’s something, I’m not sure if it’s called, it’s not tachycardia.

32:18
that’s heart issues, but it’s a I think it’s a T type of word. It’s a phobia of pregnancy. I know someone that’s pursued that. I’m not sure if they’ve been successful having multiple mental health professionals sign them off on that. Again, Aaron, in your experience with people in the community, have you heard of anybody that’s had challenging issues with pregnancy as a

32:37
And that’s counted. And so welcome to these webinars. Some of the questions, it’s different each week. I hope that the people that have asked that, I hope I’ve possibly pointed you in the right direction or maybe not. But anyway, so here we are. So Aaron, is there any last summing up that you’d like to comment on your own journey, some learnings or just takeaway home advice for anybody? No, it was good.

33:02
You had a good journey, right? It was a good journey. It was a good journey. Just don’t give up on your journey. Cause I have a few friends on the start of their journey and they’ve reached out and said, it feels like it’s not going anywhere. But we felt the same for a long time before we took the plunge and introduced ourselves. fortunately we were, we were, I guess at the right time we for Amber, but that’s not to say that opportunities won’t present themselves.

33:26
And so that’s as in advice for people at the beginning who are looking for a surrogate. Any advice on how to find one then? Be yourself. Because you’ll want to build a connection being yourself. You don’t want to be someone you’re not. So yeah, be yourself and then you’ll find a surrogate or they’ll find you if you’re going to make a great match. Yeah. And is that what you’re faced with? Is it either the combination again of being active in the community and spreading the word among friends and family that we do want a sibling? that you’re now in that boat again? Yeah, definitely.

33:55
I’ve had an offer for a surrogate from family after I’ve had that conversation. but anyone, if you don’t make it known that you’re, this is where you’re at with wanting to start a family and you might have someone in your family or your friend network and they’re not going to know unless you have that conversation. That’s good advice. So it’s that combination of sort of being active, but also letting your friends and family know. So yeah, it’s good advice. Thank you, Aaron. No worries. Thank you so much for joining me.

34:22
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