Episode 154 – Alannah – mum

00:14
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.

00:41
This episode, featuring mum through surrogacy Alana, was recorded in May 2026. Alana and husband Jaden from regional Victoria became parents to their daughter Phoenix in December 2022. Phoenix was carried by surrogate Tara, Alana’s best friend, and was also created using donor eggs from Alana’s sister Angela. It was a very long journey to parenthood due to a rare form of non-HVP cervical cancer.

01:10
Tara had both hyperemesis gravidarum, HG, and pelvic instability in the pregnancy, which left her very immobile, in pain, and unable to work for 18 months. On a more positive note, Alana was able to induce lactation and comfort feed Phoenix, allowing her to feel very much like a mum at long last. During the episode, we mentioned how I’ve hosted another webinar with three mums who induced lactation.

01:39
You can find this as a YouTube recording and episode 50 of this podcast series. Bookmark that episode for yourself for the future if you are hoping to bring on a milk supply to feed your baby born through surrogacy. And remember you can always message or email me with any questions or if you’re after specific episodes. I’ve also done episodes with mothers of surrogates, partners of surrogates, children of surrogates, three midwives, doctors, lawyers, psychologists.

02:08
and episodes about my journey and my postnatal depression after surrogacy. My inbox is always open. I’m here to support you on your journey. I hope you enjoy this episode.

02:19
So Alana, it was a long journey medically to bring you to the point of needing a surrogate. And ultimately, as I read out in the introduction, your friend offered, is there anything you’d like to tell us about the beginning of the journey there in terms of the offering or kicking off on that journey together? Well, I mean, now that you’re sort of saying like, you know, offering to be a surrogate, I had a gay friend and like when I was younger and I was like, oh, I’d do that for you. And then so when I, but when I was 26, so I’m 33 now. So when I was 26, I was diagnosed with

02:49
a really rare form of cervical cancer. Within the diagnosis process, so the one at point, they were like, okay, so you’ve got cervical cancer and any of your treatment options mean that you won’t be able to have yourself. So that was a huge, huge moment. uh Life changing. Yeah. Unfortunately for the women’s in Melbourne, they have mirrors in their diagnosis rooms. So I was able to watch myself through that entire, entire thing. I’ve actually decided that I’m going to talk to them about it ask them if they’re necessary.

03:18
Anyway, yeah, so that was that was a huge huge day. I it was 11 days later. So I was diagnosed on the 19th and on the 30th my best friend and her family, so husband and three children drove three hours over to our house and she basically offered to be our surrogate. Wow. I had a quite a long pre-existing relationship with her. Not not super long, but like we met when I was about 20. She was sort of four years older. She already had her twins when her youngest came in 2016. My husband and I, who

03:48
obviously didn’t have Abela at the time, were asked to be her daughter, her kid’s godparents. So it was very, very close. then so what that meant was I was kind of like, were sort of at that point considering adoption and that kind of thing, because I was like, oh, well, it’s going to be this huge, massive toll on my body. And I don’t also want to have to go through IVF and that kind of thing. But then when Tara offered

04:10
So when Tara offered to be the surrogate, I was like, okay, all right, well, I will then do some IVF myself, free treatment. I then did two rounds of IVF. I think I got seven eggs and one embryo. And then the second round didn’t actually work. There was follicles there, there were little holes in the ultrasound, but nothing was in them. I think my body was under like an insane amount of stress at that point. So you did make that one embryo genetically, but then ultimately that hasn’t worked and your sister became your egg donor. Yeah, this was April.

04:40
of 2019. I then did um my cancer treatment and then at the end of, I went to a surrogacy conference, I think it might have been run by SASS. Or maybe a growing families, families with surrogacy. yeah. I went to a conference and met a bunch of people there and got a lot of information. And then I think it was December, we start, because we had an existing relationship with Melbourne IVF, because that had, I’d been transferred from my hospital to Melbourne IVF to have my IVF. That’s sort of where we went through the counselling and all that kind of

05:10
stuff. Yeah, so February 2020, hmm, that got very crazy internationally then. So that kicked into COVID times. I mean, that’s when I was pregnant as a surrogate, but I know in our messages we had in the lead up, it’s like that obviously delayed your whole journey and things just really slowed down while then. oh

05:26
Absolutely, absolutely. When you said that you went through your counseling in six months, like for us, it took the better part of a year. I really, really had to stay on top of the paperwork in order to make sure that there was nothing on my end that was delaying anything because it was like, okay, well, everything, all of the counseling was on Zoom. All of the, know, psych was on Zoom. Tara’s lawyer was one of the big guys, Sarah Jefford. We had like a local friend who was our lawyer. We was doing it for the first time. Sarah basically mentored him.

05:56
which was really cool. All of that apart from our legal was done online. When our transfer didn’t work, like our first transfer didn’t work, we then spent pretty much another year. our first transfer with our embryo happened in March of 2021 and then we spent the rest of the year bringing my sister on board. So she did one round of IVF and you know it was extremely fertile and we had an embryos and my daughter was the result. Wow that’s really pleasing to know that she was the first embryo transfer after the

06:27
so much that you’d been through emotionally, financially, time. It’s nice when that part of it works out right. was honestly like as soon as we brought her on board it was like this massive green light and it just everything just went super super smoothly. Yeah. Well the up until that point it went smoothly right with the embryo transfer and then the pregnancy kicks in. I’m not sure if there’s other things that you want to say prior to this but then

06:50
pregnancy then off sometimes for surrogates part of the reason we offer is some of us have fairly smooth pregnancies and births and so we go that’s what will happen again but it’s not always the case in surrogacy is that and is so had your surrogate Tara had fairly smooth pregnancies? had and look I mean she’s a bit of a powerhouse of a woman and she’s a helper and she’s just absolutely an amazing person and I love it she had a twin birth and she birthed them both vaginally even though her son was breech which is like you know just speaks to

07:20
her who she is and yeah and then she had her other daughter. Her youngest was six when we started. I had been a couple of years since she had been. Yeah yeah. And so she was obviously six years older and that

07:32
that brings some extra things. My pregnancy was a bit harder being a bit older. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Her profession is she’s a myotherapist. So, you know, like she knew all about the consequences for people’s bodies about, you know, what pregnancy would be. And yes, we very much expected it to be a very sort of Mother Earth kind of experience, you know, where it was, you know, it was going to be very breezy and very chill. And, you know, we’re just going to come and hang out. And like I think potentially went into it a

08:02
bit naive. There were things that we went through in the surrogacy agreement and that kind of thing that we were sort of like oh you know like we’ll play out the worst case scenario what are we going to what’s going to happen and then unfortunately yeah you can go into as much as little detail as you want in terms of therefore she was very unwell she wasn’t able to work and so therefore there’s an enormous financial burden but there’s also the time of supporting her

08:25
family with like meals or cleaning or helping out with the kids so you guys really stepped up there and it was an extra job for you really wasn’t it? We did, we did so…

08:34
Basically, she got hyperemesis gravidarum, HG, probably about two weeks in. it was really, really early. When she first offered, she made me this card that said, uterus is your uterus, and basically said she would do this for us as many times as we probably about six weeks in when she was sort of like, okay, you know, this is only going to be once. She was sort of like that sick. We kind of like were making lists about, you know, what she could eat. One week it was mandarins, the other week it was dried biscuits.

09:04
it’s you know and then it was probably about a couple of weeks in where I was having come over not having to where I came over like probably I worked two days a week and so it was probably from like Thursday to Tuesday I was there every week and my husband was working full-time so he was there most weekends and so they yeah we spent a lot of time in the car listen to audio you mentioned at the beginning how they drove three hours to offer were they still three hours away from you during the pregnancy yeah yeah we’re northeast they’re central fix so

09:34
Mansfield, their Castle main three hours. I think the thing is, is that if it was interstate, then maybe we wouldn’t have been able to help as much, but because it was three hours, it’s like, okay, you can do that and you can stay a night and then you can come back in that sense. I think we probably, we were there physically a lot more than maybe some other teams could probably manage. Absolutely. And then when you say more than other.

09:56
teams could manage but then manage is interesting because how you did it right but it takes its toll on you physically mentally did you find that oh absolutely absolutely because she had the the hyperemesis like we were very much like up in their lives we were just pretty pretty much like extra family members tara was having like the worst time of her life i guess really wasn’t great for her and i guess that i guess the thing is probably a bit traumatic saying it’s the worst time of life but i’m wondering if some people listening want specifics because

10:26
particularly if they’re people who have not been pregnant themselves. So are we talking basically bedridden, not able to work, throwing up a lot, can’t eat, basically can’t look after herself let alone her children? Is basically, is she incapacitated? Pretty much, yep. Wow.

10:39
Not only can she not work, but she had a wage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we paid her wage for after she kind of moved past the hyperemesis, she then had a bout of COVID. Then my daughter tried to come a couple of weeks early, like 20 at 25 weeks. So that was a thing. And then she was pretty much on crutches from 25 weeks because of pelvic instability, like incredibly, incredibly painful. That was when everything kind of really amped up in those last in that sort of last.

11:09
trimester and a half. Yeah, we were pretty much over there every week and everyone was getting more and more sort of like mentally drained. And I know the friendship has found its balance now but were you finding the strain happening in the friendship during that time? Absolutely, yeah. I didn’t want to come on here and be sort of doom and gloom or anything but it was incredibly incredibly difficult. There were things that I definitely had to remind myself of daily that things that helped, particularly knowing that my unborn child was in Tara,

11:39
and being looked after by her and when I would drive away the umbilical cord would you know it would stretch and you’d just be like okay I don’t want to leave but also like we kind of we need some time away from this situation so that we can gather ourselves and then we can come back and also reminding myself that looking after Tara and her family was looking after my daughter.

12:02
That’s really powerful that looking after your surrogate Tara is looking after your child. So in some ways it’s the beginning of your mothering or parent.

12:10
Yeah, and I think very much like talking about that umbilical cord it did very much feel like that and there were times when I felt incredibly helpless particularly when I was you know at home and things would you know things would happen there was a lot put on her partner and kids it’s very much like you know there is uh so so many things in this situation that you can’t control and so so much trust that you have to have in these people and yeah I think that when when it all kind of came down to it we did after Phoenix 4

12:40
that’s our daughter’s name, we did have some time apart. It was actually really, really valuable, the longevity of the friendship, because I think it got to the point where, you know, we were just so mentally, physically burnt. And for us, we kind of needed that time to sort of become a family. And they needed that time to rediscover who they were as a family, us constantly being there. A thousand questions pop into my mind. Roughly, when you say some time apart, was there any contact in that?

13:08
time in terms of messages in person. And at what point post birth was that and roughly for how long was it a bit distant? So I think probably, cause I said she, like she didn’t work for 18 months. So her rehab from the pelvic instability and the hyperemesis and all what, you know, what that did to her body was another nine months on top of that. For the first nine months of Phoenix’s life, we were in it. I don’t think we saw them for the first three months. And then it was probably another couple of months. you know, she would have been maybe nine,

13:38
months so there was it was sort of like you know every couple of months and I’d probably message her twice a month or something like that so it wasn’t like cut off all contact and that was the decision it was much more of a like we’re gonna kind of do our thing you’re gonna do your thing and then did Tara feel any of that sense of abandonment or she was a bit sick of this project and she needed a break too honestly I think it was more it was more

14:01
than us. Ah, interesting. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I think from my perspective throughout the pregnancy and something that I definitely wanted to mention was a lot of people would, you know, have the, guess people who weren’t particularly educated about surrogacy, whatever, would have questions and, you know, they’d say, Oh, aren’t you worried that they’d asked Tara, aren’t you going to want to keep the baby or, you know, they’d refer to her as the mother or whatever. And she have these, she just was so, so great at just kind of saying, this isn’t my

14:31
baby. I’m just cooking it, I’m just helping. You know, she’d have all these like little phrases. She’d say the way that she was so just, yes, almost blasé about the whole thing, even though she was so sick and it was so difficult on her physically, she just made that just so, so, so easy for me. Just to just feel like I was, feel like I was a mother. And particularly during COVID, when I wasn’t allowed in a lot of the rooms, I was only really allowed to go into places in order to

15:01
for things you just feel like shunted to the side a lot of time particularly during COVID. I can imagine that now I mean it would be that it would be better for IPs. We might share the couple of photos that we’ve got here.

15:14
And just speak about those and then we’ll keep coming back to this fascinating story here. This photo, for those that listening on the podcast, this is a photo of a baby shower with your whole team with your sister’s egg donor, is that right? Yeah, yeah. That was one of the things that I wanted to do. I wanted to have a baby shower. I wanted all of our people to come and celebrate us and the fact that we were going to be parents. And that was sort of really important to me. So we actually had it close to where Cara lives, but we hosted it. So we got like an Airbnb and

15:44
Yeah, we had a bunch of people over and it was really, really lovely. Tara was there and she’s about 37 weeks pregnant in here. So Phoenix came two weeks later. Right near due date. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She’s born 29th of December. We were very, very glad to get past Christmas. And the joke is, that, you know, with a baby plan this well, we could have planned her birthday a little bit. Yes, but it’s just rewind nine months. know that it’s going to work.

16:14
and that transfer and stuff yeah yeah and then that brings us to the day of birth right and so that was a pretty

16:22
magical time. Did the birth go smoothly like her other births that Tara had had? So we’d planned to birth in the sort of like the local hospital. We had an obstetrician there. That was sort of the plan, but we had Bendigo based hospital, which was a big like a big hospital Bendigo as our backup. And that’s what ended up happening. She had a little bit of a bleed on the morning, you know, because of all the problems that she’d had previously. And because it was a surrogate birth, they were kind of like, okay, this is too high risk for us. So we were sent up to Bendigo. And so like props to Bendigo for

16:52
just sort of going, all right, we’ve got this unusual situation coming in and um we weren’t there for the duration of the labor. We were kind of pulled in at a couple of key moments. They needed to monitor Phoenix, I think, a little bit because there was an uncertainty about whether the placenta attached, There was a few complications. Yeah, so there were decisions that needed to be made about her that we kind of had to make, which was really sort of terrifying, even though my husband’s like a GP, has attended births and that kind of

17:22
It was still very, like, guess, confronting to have to make those decisions. For somebody else. Of course. But she was adamant that we made them. In situations where it concerned Phoenix, it was always our decision. Okay. Yeah. That’s surrogacy complex, isn’t it? We then were assigned a room next door. Basically, the plan, I guess, was to, once Phoenix was born, for us to move into the next room. But that didn’t happen. We kind of all, once Phoenix was born, we all just sort of sat there and it was like, it was one of the

17:52
of that summer and it was pretty much like the room just glowed. It was so amazing and the fact that, you know, like we were there and Tara’s three kids were there as well. These are the very rare photos that don’t have them in. They were just like sitting almost on top of us, really sort of keen to meet Phoenix. There’s a couple of photos where her children are cuddling her belly and they would honestly like there were times where I was like, oh, can you just say hello to Phoenix? You know, I’d ask one of the kids to, you know, sort of like chat to her and look up.

18:22
her and yeah kind of thing and it was it was really really nice how they just sort of yeah took that on. As we can see in these photos you induced lactation so you were able to

18:32
to nurse her, that would have been a really beautiful thing to help that bond. Absolutely, absolutely. So I started six months in advance. So I started with a breast pump and then I started on a drug called motilium, which was, you know, basically to in-try and get the milk supply. And then, because I’m on hormone replacement therapy, because I’m in premature menopause, my GP lactation consultant basically said, all right, so in the November, we’re going to go off all of that. And that’ll basically simulate the estrogen drop that happens when

19:02
you give birth. Yes. And then hopefully the milk will production will increase. Yes. That’s sort of that’s sort of what happened. I didn’t get a lot and Phoenix only fed for four months. Honestly, like being able to being able to do that. It was absolutely insane how good it made me feel and how instantly I felt like her mom. And we did all of these like she was born into my arms. And Tara actually she didn’t have a cuddle until she was like three days, which is really interesting. And like we I planned, you know, like a whole pan.

19:32
over thing and that kind of thing it was very much like I’m done I’m yeah I’ve so much of my body

19:39
Yeah, I think that for her the idea of us recovering in her room and being able to see us as very new parents was really really important for her. Her children are all like very blonde and Phoenix Woods had very dark hair when she was born so I think being able to see that dark head like there I think it was helped her go this is not my baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m just gonna do an extra plug when you mentioned about inducing lactation we have had three other mums on

20:07
to this webinar series podcast, which you said you attended on an episode inducing lactation. So people listening, you can find that episode 50 on the podcast series. so then eventually, as you say, you know, navigating post-birth and then life goes on just so that we finish off this last photo, but we can come back to the post-birth. But I guess these are just some photos of people go, do you still keep in touch? Do you see each other? And I think these photos show, yes, we keep in touch and there’s sort of like a, like an auntie almost connection that you would say Phoenix has with Tara now.

20:37
Shaw has Aunty Tara and Aunty Ange. My sister works up in the ski fields and every year we Tara and her family come up.

20:45
uh Beautiful!

21:15
things that I really wanted to talk about was how we talked to Phoenix about how she came into the world. And I think she probably would have been like 18 months when we first sort of started telling her the story. Like I don’t think there will ever be a time where she will remember not knowing it. So what we can’t, what the level that it is at the moment, we talk a little bit of Aunty Ange and a little bit of daddy and we wrapped it all up in mummy and daddy love. Then we put it in Aunty Tara and it grew and grew and grew and then out came me. Oh, that’s beautiful.

21:45
oh Yeah, yeah, it makes me it makes me kind of teary thinking about it Yeah, the relationship that she has with Tara and with and she just makes me so so so happy That she that she has that relationship and she knows why that that why that relationship is special Maybe at the start I was kind of like oh this is gonna be this is gonna be hard You know are they gonna be instances where she’ll go, you know, like you’re not my real mom or whatever like those those fears those fears are real and I think that the thing is

22:14
is that like now people just assume that I’m her mom and it happened very, very early. Like I think I was at a yoga class when she was nine weeks old and they’re like, oh my God, you gave birth nine weeks ago. Like, I don’t know, didn’t necessarily correct them because like you don’t want to get into a whole thing about surrogacy in yoga class. But the thing is, is that there’s no question that I’m her mom. That relationship is there and has continued is just like, I love it. I love it so much.

22:44
That’s wonderful. Yes, families can be made in all sorts of ways. Yes, you’ve certainly had quite an enormous journey as a team.

22:51
to get here and I’m pleased that your friendship has found its balance now and that your beautiful daughter Phoenix knows her story and all the love that’s come together. Cody has written in the chat to say thank you for sharing it’s really valuable to hear about the potential challenges that nobody can plan for and the way you’ve spoken about your journey, its challenges and the beautiful moments is very honest and real and I’m sure lots of people will have find value in hearing this. I hope that’s lovely to hear that. so much. Having done these webinars for five years now and Cody that’s writing that

23:21
was on recently this year and he was the one that I mentioned that they found each other in the Zooms. We probably haven’t had too many stories like this where people openly share about some really

23:31
tough times and what that means, particularly with HG. And I do wonder, if you had been an interstate team and you couldn’t have been there, what the support might’ve looked like differently. I suppose it would have just cost even more in some ways, but so much of that would have fallen to her partner as well, wouldn’t it? Yeah. Advice I would give is, and maybe what we sort of could have done better was defining those roles early, I guess, as to, you know, all right, we’re going to be able to be here this

24:01
of I’m and the you know the other times this is something that your family’s chosen to do it’s kind of it’s kind of up to you we can only sort of do so much. Real reality like part of me like oh that’s harsh but then on the other hand it’s like yes that and this is how it does currently work in Australia being altruistic isn’t it because whereas if there was more payment therefore

24:24
that’s what the payment includes but this is part of how it is. So yes you do share some of your time but but setting some boundaries in place is okay to talk about particularly for your own mental health for you and your partner too because that takes a strain. Boundaries in relationships are healthy so it is a tough gig this surrogacy in Australia right? Yeah and look I think the thing is is that like I said there were so many green light moments where things just came very very easy to us like the you know two people I get diagnosed

24:54
two people offer immediately. They both qualify and that was very much a wonderful green light moment where we didn’t have to find anyone or that kind of thing. ah And also, my sister having a very, two very firsts. Yeah, yes, there were some incredibly tricky times, but honestly, I will say this, I lie in bed with Phoenix every night. I would do it all again if it would bring me you. And she’s absolutely amazing.

25:24
I didn’t expect to cry here but like you know I’m pleased that you feel safe and vulnerable enough to share this with us because it’s really valuable for people to hear and see that these are very wanted little children aren’t they and that your journey has been particularly hard and it’s harder than most people could expect just having hyperemesis is one thing but then the pelvic instability and everything else it’s that you had it all thrown at you and your own

25:49
journey medically to get there. So, wow, she is a love little girl, right? She is, she is. The fact that she will always know that.

25:56
is really important to me. coming here and sharing this, it took me three years to feel like I could re-enter this space. I was actually thinking about it today. We’re almost coming to the point where we’ve been parents longer than we were trying to be parents. I think it was like three and a half years. So Phoenix is three and a half. And so definitely a healing journey. And so people wouldn’t know this, but you found me through these things and having attended one in the past.

26:26
you reached out and offered to a co-host. And so for me as the host of this, when somebody does that, it’s like, yes, please. It’s an absolute instant yes. And from what you had said in the email about I’m ready, the healing that has happened for you to get to that point going, I’m ready. And so I hope that you feel that having shared this story here has been, you know, therapeutic, cathartic, and also joyful to relive what you’ve done together as a team. I hope you’re feeling that.

26:51
beautiful balance of emotions, I’d imagine. I think very much, yeah, a lot of healing and processing and stuff needed to happen in order to get to this place. I’m really, really glad that I’m here. From the start, I’ve always said that I wanted to do this kind of thing, wanted to be a part of the wider surrogacy community and tell this kind of story. And everyone’s like, oh, you should write a book. And I’m just like, no, it’s not. I mean, you necessarily want to relive every single day in minute detail. And I think that.

27:17
giving an overview and hopefully some information pointers and I don’t know, whatever I was able to share tonight is I hope that it was valuable. Absolutely. And I think it will be really valuable episode for people to listen to going, what if that happened for our team? Most of them it won’t happen for, but for some we’ll get a version of it and to help them.

27:37
plan for it will just empower them all a little bit more. thank you. Yeah, definitely prioritizing your own mental health, remembering that by looking after your surrogate, you are looking after your baby and yeah, finding ways to connect with that baby. Yeah, they were the kind of the things that really got me through that really. Well said there. I reckon that’s a perfect spot to end. Is there anything else that springs to mind or you think that pretty much sums it up? I think that. Thank you so much, Anna. Oh, thank you. Thank you. And Cody, I know you’re still on. See, listen right at me.

28:07
there she’s given me three potential titles for the episode right because Cody’s one of the people over the years that because I listened back to the episode and to deciding the title comes from something that they said and sometimes I go back to some of the people that I know and go here’s like three to pick from which one should I pick and it’s like bang you’ve you’ve just given me heaps there so thank you 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

28:37
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, and in the case of surrogacy, it takes a village to make a child. So welcome to the village.