Episode 43 – Mira – straight mum

Welcome to Surrogacy Australia’s podcast series. I’m your host Anna McKie, and my aim is to raise the level of awareness of surrogacy through these conversations. This podcast is a recording from a webinar that I host, and you can find more details about those and upcoming dates on our website at surrogacyaustralia.org. The webinars are free, go for an hour, and we’ll take you through how surrogacy works in Australia. You can ask questions, typing them in anonymously if you prefer.

00:42
and you hear from a co-host who has navigated surrogacy in Australia, either a surrogate, a gay dad or a straight mum. This episode, recorded in February 2024, features Mira. Mira and husband Daniel are parents through surrogacy twice. Their first son Thomas was born in July 2021 in Canada with surrogate Nadine. Their second son Angus was born in September 2023 with their surrogate Lisa. Lisa is Daniel’s sister and the two families live in Sydney.

01:11
you can hear from her sister-in-law, Lisa, in episode 42. In this episode, we discuss matching with a surrogate in Canada and how Nadine was not their first match, maintaining contact during the pregnancy and in the years post-birth, the auntie type of connection her boys have with each of their surrogates, well, their second surrogate, Lisa, is actually their auntie biologically, of course, too, hospital logistics in Australia, Medicare cards, parentage order, maternity and the paid parental leave for the intended parents and surrogate.

01:39
frequency of contact post-birth, and some general advice which I really liked, the more time and effort you invest, the easier it gets. I hope you enjoy this episode.

01:48
Mira, thank you for joining us tonight. And you’ve done two surrogacy journeys, one in Canada, one in Australia. We’ve got some beautiful photos to share here, starting with Canada. Tell us a little bit about that journey. So you came to surrogacy for medical reasons. Yes, you were weighing up your options about Australia or Canada, and ultimately journey one ended up being in Canada. Tell us about how that all started. Oh, it all started really in 2000, I think, maybe 18. I think towards the end of that. I didn’t have any eggs of my own.

02:18
us is to find an egg donor. Obviously joining communities on Facebook and just trying to get some information about where do we people find eggs and things like that. And it kind of led us to Canada. A lot of people were going there and that’s kind of where we went.

02:35
So we found our egg donor, got the eggs. We were very blessed. We had a lot of eggs. She was quite young, which was great. I guess once we got the eggs there, Daniel had to do a deposit and send them over there and create some embryos. So we were very lucky to get some healthy embryos. And while we were there, I guess, well, we didn’t actually go there, but while our embryos were there, we just thought, let’s just find a surrogate who’s already over there. And yeah, that’s how we found Nadine. That’s her in the middle there. And yeah, that’s the first time I was holding eggs.

03:05
Thomas, sorry. And yeah, we did some skin to skin when he came out. That was a good.

03:10
two and a half hours, so that was awesome. So clearly there’s a lot in that journey to get to the point of birth. Yeah, there’s a whole lot that I can’t do. We’ll be here for days. We will. Obviously it was COVID time, so am I guessing that you just went over around the time of birth and met your surrogate then? The rest was all done through a clinic, an agency? Yeah, correct. So we had an agency who matched us with Nadine. We had egg clinic who gave us the eggs and then we had another clinic who did the embryos and the transfers and looked after Nadine.

03:40
she’s in there. Yeah. I’m trying to imagine the questions that some IPs might ask because this is a unique manor having a Canada journey and Australia. Do you roughly remember the timeline from when you signed up with the agency to when you matched with this surrogate and was she the first one? Yeah, no she was not the first surrogate we matched with. We’ve matched probably three times and in between that I felt like the wait got longer and longer.

04:02
but it wasn’t, but it did feel like forever. It’s like we went to the bottom of the list of IPs, but we didn’t. We eventually got through to them and they kind of, you know, sped up the process and we ended up meeting Nadine probably, she probably was the fourth surrogate we matched with and we just clicked. We just had a Zoom, like a FaceTime and we just clicked with her. Her birthday is like literally three days after me. We were literally identical. So we had the same mentality, same sort of like family values,

04:32
that sort of stuff and yeah, she already had a daughter who was at that time, probably 11 and she just wanted to, you know, help another family, you know, help another couple start their family. So that was really special. Lovely. Being on the other side of the world, have you maintained contact through photos or the on FaceTime, that sort of thing? Oh, absolutely. Every week, every week we send each other some photos or we update on, you know, work.

04:54
and life sort of stories and yeah, Thomas calls her Auntie Dini. So it’s really cute. Yeah. It’s just how we, yeah, it’s just how we, yeah, I just, I want, like she’s done so much for us and, you know, she basically helped me become a mum. So.

05:08
It’s I felt I feel like not like I’m obliged to be her friend, but like I want to be like she’s like my sister basically. Yeah, it’s really special. That’s beautiful to hear and I think that’s a great example of how you can have an altruistic journey maintaining the relationship at the core of the heart of what you’ve done here be it overseas or Australia and even if people do go to America in full commercial surrogacy you can still.

05:31
maintain the relationship. Absolutely, yeah absolutely and it’s just something special and it’s just another story you can tell your kids and you know they get to tell that story to their kids and their partners and it’s just a beautiful story. Yeah and so Thomas knows he grew in Auntie Nadine’s tummy and sort of like he’s a bit young two and a half I’m still trying to get into you know focus on his speech and making me

05:57
understand what he’s saying, I’m struggling, but no, he’s all right. He’s just slowly and slowly. We sort of bring it up in conversation. I’m a high school teacher as well, just like you, Matt. So we kind of have this logic in our head where it’s easier to tell them as they grow up. So it becomes like a normal situation then to bring it up on them when they’re like 16 or 18 and go, you know what? You’re actually, I didn’t carry you. Yeah. So we just talk about it just in general and all the whole family knows and the.

06:26
They’re very supportive and yeah, we just talk about it like as if it’s every day, it’s normal. Yeah. And I believe that’s what the research shows too. It’s okay to be surrogacy born or donor conceived as long as it’s not a surprise. Yeah. Have you been able to maintain contact with the donor at all or is that done differently? At the start, it was actually anonymous. And then when we had to bring the embryos back here for surrogacy journey number two, we actually had to contact, have some sort of contact, get to know her name and stuff.

06:54
We’ve just done emails and photos. She sounds really lovely. And she has sent me like recent photos of her and I’ve sent photos of Thomas and Angus actually. So it’s nice to just have that email correspondence until the boys are ready and if they wanna meet her in the future at least.

07:10
we have that sort of connection. Yeah. I think you’re doing that spot on then, keeping that contact and then talking about it and when they’re ready. That’s great. Yeah. So then we’ll just move through these beautiful things. That’s the day we left Nadine. Yes. How long were you in?

07:25
Canada after the birth? We were in her area probably for two months. And then we obviously we got stuck in Canada because of COVID. Our flights got canceled before Thomas was born. Probably were there for around three months. And then we came back and isolated here. So in quarantine for two weeks. So it was nuts, but you know what? I look back at it and I go, we had just, it was just Daniel and I and Thomas and we had, we didn’t have to mow the grass.

07:53
We didn’t have to go to buy groceries. We didn’t have, we didn’t have like all the family coming over. So we will kind of just relax in our own little bubble, which was kind of nice. Yes. Back when it’s one kid at the beginning. That’s right. Josh does ask him questions. Do you remember how long the sorority process was through an agency in Canada? You mean from the day we met Nadine? Is that what he means? Let’s say that. Yes. So do you remember from the day you met Nadine to then had an embryo transfer roughly?

08:23
I’m going to say maybe around maybe eight months, six to eight months. Yes, OK. It was more because we had to do, she had to do counselling and then she had work commitments as well. So it kind of just depends. You could you could find someone and do a transfer within three months over there. Obviously, when you wanted to time it as well. So we were there for summer.

08:43
which we were trying to avoid a Canadian winter. There was a lot of sort of planning, but I guess it depends on the surrogacy journey. Like if the surrogate’s ready to go, she’s ready to go. So once she’s medically cleared and you know, they track her period and get her her meds and.

09:01
I guess her lining is right and then they do a transfer. Yeah. Excellent. So quite similar. That’s from when you’ve matched, but as you say, it could take a couple of matches to get. And then life goes on and at some point in time, you get an offer from your husband’s sister that she’s going to surrogate for number two. So I’ve had her on on the webinar a fortnight ago, so people can listen to that podcast episode when they’re released back to back. Yeah. Please tell us a little bit about that. Did it turn out that she was, had been thinking about it for a while and then offered? Yeah. Well, she thought about it,

09:31
really after giving birth to her daughter, which who’s born six weeks before Thomas and she said to Vincent, she’s like, I want to carry for Mira and Daniel and her husband was like, oh, you can use to relax. You just had your baby, your hormones all over the shop. Just relax and just enjoy, you know, enjoy your daughter. When did she offer us? Probably the year after I think. Yeah. February. Yeah, that’s just put a photo of her up. I know this is to pregnancy. So

09:59
So she offered us in February and we didn’t do a transfer till, um, when was it? November? No, no, it was January. That’s right. Sorry. November was Thomas. I’m trying to, I’m getting confused now. Yes, January. And then, um, we had Angus born in September. And that worked first embryo transfer with both surrogates? Yeah, very lucky. Yeah. Both, both. Yeah. Daniel goes super sperm. Woohoo.

10:24
All good. Yeah, all good. Yeah, it was, no, it was, we were very lucky to have, have them both work the first time. Look at us, she’s beautiful. So what was it like, this second pregnancy, being closer to home, were you obviously more involved and could attend appointments and things? Yeah, absolutely. Like obviously with, with Canada, we just went for the birth and we were there, you know, four weeks before her due date. With Lisa, I was there for appointments.

10:51
the transfer, yeah, just basically whenever she had an appointment, I said, do you would you like me to come? She’s like, yeah. And then it got to like maybe halfway and her obstetrician was literally 10 minutes. So she was like, oh, you don’t have to come if you don’t want. I was like, you know what, it’s fine. Like it’s 10 minutes. Just go and let me know how you go sort of thing. So it was nice to have that sort of consistent.

11:13
you know, watching him grow basically, which is nice. Yeah. And how was her pregnancy for her? Was it similar to her own or harder? Did you finding you needed to help her out in some ways? I think she was always okay. I think her legs, she got a couple of like bruises on her legs from like her veins, I think she only struggled with, but she’s pretty fit kind of girl. So.

11:35
Um, she, she said she was fine. She got tied towards the end as, as you would, but everything else went pretty well. Yeah. I had to hear it. And then I think we arrive at birth. So it was planned caesarean. Is that right? Yeah. Cause she had caesareans for her two daughters. So she just wanted to have a caesarean. We were fine with that. We just went with the flow. So I think that’s the best thing you take out of this journey. Like you can’t control anything. You can’t control everything. Sorry. And you just have to kind of.

12:02
go with the flow. Doctor says this or she wants to do this and you just kind of go with it. Were there any times where you did feel the conflict that there were things that you would have liked to have done differently but had to compromise based on what surrogate Lisa wanted or doctors suggested? Not really, not really, no. Like I mean I didn’t care if she went private or public, she wanted to go private and we were fine with that. She didn’t want Daniel in the room obviously because that’s her brother and she’s basically naked.

12:28
We were like, yep, no worries. So Daniel kind of waited outside. I went in with arm. Yeah. It was kind of smooth sailing. I guess I didn’t really have, I was kind of, I was very grateful. We had the chance to do it here. So I wasn’t complaining about anything. Australian medical system and all of that sort of stuff. Yeah. And then you get to be mom again. Have a boy in your arms. That was emotional. Yeah. All right. Lisa was like, yep, you have this first hold and.

12:54
Yeah, and that was really nice. I got to cut the umbilical cords. So Daniel did the first one and I did the second one, which was nice. Yeah, that was us in the theatre room. It was really special. And then I gave Angus to Lisa to hold and she’s like, okay, I’m done. You can take him. I rolled Angus out there to meet Daniel and Daniel had a…

13:16
couple of tears in his eyes and then Nonna and Nonno brought Thomas over and then he met Angus. Yeah, that was, I love that photo. That was really nice. Yeah. He was, he’s so, he’s very cute with him. He’s, yeah, I don’t think he’s jealous. He’s very…

13:31
He’s all over, he’s very protective actually, like yeah, which is really nice. And it’s always lovely seeing, you know, your older child being a big brother or a big sister. Did you know you were having boys each time around? Almost no, that was a surprise. And Angus, I just wanted to find out because I was like…

13:47
If it’s a girl, I need pink everywhere. We found out it was a boy. So I was like, yes, hand me down. And then life goes on. So photos of the four of you as a family. Yeah, that was, I think, the next day, maybe. Yeah. And so there’s also a question people ask. So the next day, still in hospital, did you stay in the same hospital together for a couple of days in rooms nearby or something? Yeah. So technically we can’t be discharged with Angus. We have to be discharged with Lisa.

14:14
because Angus is technically still Lisa’s kid legally. I didn’t even realize this. She could change her mind within 30 days and keep Angus. And I said, I was like, you don’t want him to do. She’s like, no, he’s yours. Yeah, and then after that, we started legal stuff. So yeah, we’re still going through that. That took a little bit of time because there’s a whole lot of documentations you need to collect. And yeah, if anyone needs help with that, just send me a message and I’m happy to help. Yeah.

14:43
And that’s just a sign that the legal stuff can be ongoing for a few months post-birth. So you’ve got the first birth certificate with Lisa’s name on it soon. Yep. Doing the transferring parentage order. We did put Daniel on there as the father because we could add Angus to his Medicare.

14:59
So it was kind of strange seeing the birth certificate for the first time, cause it was like Lisa and then Daniel and they’re both siblings, which is funny. But then, um, yeah, we added Angus to Daniel’s Medicare. And then once we have the new birth certificate, we’ll just put them all together on one. Um, it did help because when I go to medic, like when I go and get his immunization, it was just easier that way. Yeah. Which was kind of nice. And then just some photos to finish up and family photos. And then I’ve added in some of Lisa there with her kids and, and so they’re cousins. Yeah, they’re cousins.

15:29
two boys, two girls there. Yeah. And those girls were okay watching their mum be pregnant knowing that he was going to be living in your house? Yeah, absolutely. They were like Lisa, basically prepped them to say, oh, this is, you know, going to be Thomas’s sibling, brother or sister. So we’re going to give it to Thomas. So the girls, like the older one knew, like understood a little bit more than the younger one. Yeah. And they’ll just grow up. That’s part of the story, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve got Lisa and Vincent are going to be there,

15:59
Paris. So that’s going to be very exciting. Yeah. Very special. Indeed. So you’ve had one in Canada, one in Australia. Where’s number three happening somewhere? I’m not sure. I’m not sure if we can handle that yet. So we’ll just have to wait and see. Plus everything costs a lot more now. So yeah. And then I think just to finish off some photos there of…

16:20
Lisa holding him as a special auntie and you guys as a family for. Yeah that’s nice that was New Year’s Eve. It’s so cute he’s growing so much already. They do. Mira having watched seeing those photos is there anything you’d like to add at this point in time that springs to mind? I mean it just depends on which route you want to go down and how much effort you want to put in. So the more effort you put in the more time you invest in it the easier you’ll get and the more people you connect with the more information you have I guess

16:49
you might feel a little bit more comfortable going through it. That’s my advice to any IPs or surrogates. Yeah. I like that. The more time you put in, the easier it gets. That’s really an interesting way to look at it. Can you expand on that a bit more in terms of certain research or connecting that you did with people or places or things that did make it easier then? Yeah, well, obviously, like my biggest stress was more about Canada, our journey with Thomas, because it was COVID and it was very stressful. And I feel like…

17:17
Because of the time difference, you had to be really patient. There was a lot of like 2 a.m. calls, 5 a.m. calls, you know, waiting for a reply could take a week because it’d be like…

17:28
sorry, our office are really busy, we will respond to you within three days. And it will just be like replying to their email. And yeah, that kind of was a little bit frustrating. But other than that, the Australian’s journey was heaps easier. The only difference between the two, I guess, in Canada, I was on the birth certificate straight away. So that kind of helped. Obviously here, Lisa was on the birth certificate. I hope they changed that rule about that, but who knows? I guess there’s some people on it.

17:58
I’ve seen them on TV. So hopefully that kind of puts the pressure on these politicians to change that sort of rule. And that way, the minute the baby is born, Daniel and I are on the birth certificate from the start. So.

18:10
It saves a lot of headache, but. Yeah, I mean, that’s probably a good moment to say that’s something that the group Surrogacy Australia that we’re a part of is that’s one of our many campaigns, you know, many people. And so, yeah, if people are looking to be a part of that specific subcommittee, if you like, to perform, come, you know, and join us on the board or come and be an advocate for things. My understanding of how it could work is that if the surrogate signed off at birth, she’d still need to give permission and officially.

18:34
wish the baby at birth, but surrogates do not want the baby. We don’t want it. We don’t want it legally ours anyway. We want it to go to you. So yeah, I think I’m sure in our lifetime, I’d like to think that that- Hopefully, yeah, hopefully.

18:48
Somebody has asked in questions, anonymous, thanks for sharing your story and says, did Lisa need to do a full medicated IVF process for the transfer or did they follow a natural cycle? Just on that, I had a natural cycle for mine. Do you remember what it was for your team? Yeah, it was a natural cycle. We waited for her period and then I don’t think she took any medications to get her lining. I can’t remember. The doctor was happy when her lining was about seven or eight and then yeah, we did a transfer. Great. Yes, for people listening,

19:18
where they monitor what’s happening in her body. There’s actually a webinar with Dr. Shadi from IVF Australia, and he talks about the different cycles of natural, natural, the bit of assistance and fully medicated. So it’s really, it’s fine to have a conversation with your IVF clinic about what everyone feels comfortable with there. Lauren asks in questions, do you happen to remember how old Lisa was when she had your second child? 32 maybe? Yep. I don’t want to say the wrong number. I think it was about 31, 31 maybe, 31, 32. You got-

19:47
brain it’s okay. Sorry I’ll just, I could sleep, I’m usually in bed by now. I’ve collected some data on this from a few hundred surrogates and the average age I’ve found is about 36.

20:01
And I suppose because maybe more women in Australia are having their families a bit later. So then the surrogates need to be finished having their family before they are surrogates. Yeah, that’s also true. Nadine was about 33 in Canada. So yeah, it’s about that. It’s about the same. Anonymous question says, if you have your own embryos in Australia, can you send them to Canada? Do you know that? Yes. Yes. And there’s like a company that just ships them frozen. So that’s handy to know. Another anonymous question is saying

20:31
in a Catholic school, I’m assuming they’re a surrogate, and she’s asking about maternity leave. So just a bit of background, me in the education department, I was entitled to the full maternity leave. Mira, when you had your first set, were you entitled to it? Yeah, absolutely. So with Thomas, I got the full maternity leave from my department of education, and then also the government 18 weeks back then. When we had Angus, it was the same thing.

20:56
Lisa also gets the 20 weeks as a surrogate as well. So we both get the 20 weeks from the government. I’m not sure if she had any entitlements from her work but whatever she did she basically took. Whatever she was entitled to she took. But yeah we were both entitled to the 20 weeks from the government. Yes I think I remember Lisa saying that yeah she was entitled to the maternity leave being in education herself. So that’s for those listening that’s probably the only thing in surrogacy that’s double dipping. Nothing else. And both the intended parent for the primary carer

21:26
entitled to their maternity leave or paternity leave and the government pay parental leave. When you go to apply for that, a lot of Centrelink workers have no idea how to process this. Like literally, Lisa would be on the phone almost every day for an hour and they’d be like, yes, yes, it’s being processed. And then the next day they’ll be like, no, nothing’s being processed. So just stick with it. Hopefully you get the two, three people that are actually trained in it to process your application. So yeah, just stick with it if you’re a surrogate.

21:55
And I think that’s due to it being a growing industry in Australia, Centrelink and Medicare might not have had much experience, whereas mine was fine and super smooth. I think I did some of the application beforehand. I think, you know, notify that you’ve got a due date coming. And so some of the paperwork was done. But yes, I hear a variety of experiences, unfortunately. Yeah, she did that too. We both did that before the before the birth. And mine went through and Daniel’s didn’t go through and then Lisa’s didn’t go through. So it was just it depends who you get, basically. Yeah. Over time, that’ll change.

22:25
you’re the birthing person, you are the primary caregiver according to the law. And so you are entitled to the full leave, but I would advise people to talk to their HR departments or unions. 100% check with that. I know with the government schools, it’s actually on their website. So I’m not sure about Catholic schools. No, I wouldn’t. But just to help that anonymous person, you don’t think you’re considered a primary carer. You are considered the primary carer legally. You are that.

22:49
legal guardian because your name goes on the first birth certificate so actually legally you are the primary care even if you’re actually doing the primary caring and that’s why legally you are entitled to it so it’s a tricky minefield in Australia to navigate care isn’t it? Absolutely. And then Kylie asks are there any entitlements for a male IP who works in state government? So I believe that the the partners of the primary caregivers are entitled to the government they’re two-week leave if they want to.

23:17
And then for example, partners of surrogates, they’re entitled to the two weeks carers leave. Yeah. Did your team, do you know, access that? I don’t think Vincent did. I don’t think so. I think Lisa just went for the parental leave. Yeah, I’m not sure. I don’t think so, no. Cause I think I covered his wages for the two weeks, his loss of wages, I’m pretty sure. Yes. That’s really handy for people listening to hear that there will be loss of wages to cover too. Yes. Another anonymous question, does the baby go on the IPs Medicare or do they go on the surrogates?

23:47
filled out the yellow form in the hospital. We filled it out with Lisa’s information, but when she goes add Angus to Medicare, she wrote no. And then after that, we added, we sent Angus’s birth certificate to Daniel’s application and we added Angus to Daniel’s Medicare. That’s how we did it. A lot of it, I’m not sure.

24:07
Cause some lawyers say, no, you know, Lisa and her husband have to go on the birth certificate. But our lawyer said, put Lisa and Daniel on the birth certificate, that way you can add Angus to your Medicare basically, yeah. I will say that’s unusual just for most people. If you’re the vast majority of us, the surrogate and her partner go on the birth certificate. I would say most surrogacy teams don’t get a Medicare card straight away, but that’s okay. If you ever rock up to a hospital or a vaccination appointment with the baby,

24:37
their book, so in South Australia it’s a blue book, in other states it might be an orange book or something with all your baby’s notes. If you’re rocking up with the baby and that book, they trust that you’re the parent and a lot of people love hearing about the surrogacy story so nobody’s going to deny you medical care for your child but this is a great example of trust in Australia and hopefully a system that we would like to streamline in the future.

24:57
as well there. Yeah. Cody does ask, Cody and Jamie are some regulars that often come back to webinars to hear the different co-hosts. What did the first few weeks after birth look like for you and Lisa? So in terms of navigating how often she had cuddles or amounts of contact I’m assuming, any post-birth blues, that sort of thing. Well for me it was lack of sleep of course because you’re up every two hours. For me the first four weeks was basically a blur. I did go out like

25:27
left. The first, she lives probably an hour away from me. So the distance kind of, you know, takes a toll on you. But yeah, we had a cuddle a week after and then I think we had family lunch or family dinner at her mum’s. So we all just went there. Yeah, at least it seemed fine. I sent her photos of Angus. She’s like, you don’t have to send me every day. I was like, yeah, no worries. So we were kind of like just normal, I guess, because, you know, we see her all the time and

25:57
other all the time. To clarify when you say all the time what does that look like in your family? All the time is like at least twice a week or once a week. Right. Yeah. Because we’re family so yeah and we come from this big Italian you know Arab family so everyone’s in everyone’s business.

26:13
So we see each other like twice a week or once a week. Yeah. So because you already had that before the pregnancy, she knew what you were going back to the pattern that was going on there. Yeah, absolutely. Anonymous asks, how much correspondence did you have with your Canadian surrogate? Were you able to contact her directly or did you have to go through the agency you used? I’m assuming they mean during the pregnancy. Did you have direct contact? Yeah, absolutely. You have direct contact with her from the day you meet her. Once you’ve matched, basically, you’ve got her Facebook page or her email.

26:43
and her number so you can just contact her whenever you want really and most surrogates just reply but obviously with the time difference you just got to keep an eye on that but no we just basically the minute we have contacts with each other we just contact each other directly and just like appointments should be like yep my flights have been booked I’m flying to Toronto or

27:02
I’m flying back now and yeah, everything was good to go. So yeah, it’s just more like it’s easier when it’s direct, I guess. Yeah. The clinics are quite busy. So yeah, having direct and speaking English, you know, you’ve gone to a country where you’re sorry, it speaks English. That makes sense as well. Yeah. They have similar medical processes as well in Canada, very similar to Australia. Like they’ve got like a Medicare system out there. I think that’s why we really like like going to Canada. We weren’t really happy with America or Greece or the European countries

27:32
offered it. Yeah, and we just obviously wanted easy communication with the surrogate, someone who spoke English, I guess.

27:39
That was another reason we went with Canada. Yeah. Anonymous asks, did Lisa suppress her milk out and was that successful for her doing that? What was the plan with milk or formula? Oh, we always plan to formula feed. So Lisa, I think, took the pill. I think that stops the lactation. So yeah, she didn’t want to breastfeed and didn’t want to pump any colostrum or anything like that. And we were fine with that. Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah. Through answering those questions, has that brought up anything else that you’d like to, wisdom to impart, some learning lessons

28:09
then to mention to new IPs? Just patience, patience and just have your family and friends around you. That’s the main thing. You just need support. Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes you need to cry. So as long as you have your family around you and your friends or a support person, I think that will help you get through the journey. Yeah. Is there anything you would do differently of either journey then if you could go back in time and change one little

28:34
Both journeys were quite smooth, to be honest. We’re very lucky, so I feel blessed. I’d like to thank Nadine and Lisa for making me a mum, and Daniel and dad, so that was really, yeah, they’re amazing women. And you, thanks for bringing everyone together. I wasn’t expecting that, but thank you. I like to collect the stories of the people that have done these things and to share that with people and to bring hope to people who are at the beginning. To think this can happen twice. Maybe three, who knows?

29:05
Thank you for sharing your time with me for this episode. If you’re finding these episodes helpful, please share them with friends. If you’d like to see the images mentioned, head to our YouTube channel for all of the recordings. If you’re looking for more individualized support, consider joining SASS, Surrogacy Australia’s support service, so you can be connected with a mentor and also with me to help guide you on a journey. You might think of me as your Siri for surrogacy. Until next time, welcome to the village.