Episode 92 – Julie – surrogate

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Thanks for watching!

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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.

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This episode recorded in February 2025 features Julie. Julie is heading for retirement as a surrogate again. She has been in the community for 10 years, had 11 embryo transfers for three different IPs, intended parents, hundreds of blood tests and ultrasounds, thousands of hours invested, resulting in two beautiful girls and lifelong friends with surrogates and parents. Julie birthed Ottilie in May 2019.

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creating a sibling for that family, Leah, James and Eliza, and then retired as a surrogate age 42. She had built a friendship with Trudy from the community, came out of retirement and offered to carry a sibling for Trudy, Tom and Bonnie. She birthed Lily in August, 2024, aged 48 and she’s also a midwife. The title of this episode I chose from a story which Julie relayed, which was about first surrogate, Ottilie, who is now five, and how she’s aware of her own creation and birth story.

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Ottilie knows her mum’s tummy was sick or not working and she proudly tells Julie, I grew in your tummy Julie, do you know that? That’s a credit to the IPs and a powerful ongoing gift to the surrogate when the IPs have photos of the surrogate in their house and they have explained the story to their child many times since birth. Another interesting discussion was from an anonymous question which was typed in which was what if the baby is born disabled and the IPs don’t want to take the baby?

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I’m glad the webinars create a forum to feel safe to ask these questions. I hope you enjoy this episode.

02:13
Julie, I’m so pleased to have you here as it’s after 10 years in the community and to hear about your two surrogacy journeys. So we’ve got some lovely photos to go through here. So let’s do the photos first as a bit of a snapshot from the two journeys. And then we’ll go back to the beginning about how it all started. So tell us who’s in this photo. So this is my first surrogacy journey. So they are my first intended parents, Leah and James and Eliza, who was the big sister after baby Ottilie was born in May, 2019.

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Yes, and Eliza was also carried by a different surrogate, is that correct? Yes, she was, she was. So Eliza was carried by Leah’s cousin. So she was born through surrogacy. Mmm. We’ll come back to that later because each of your two journeys you’ve done a sibling for the families. Yes.

03:00
Some people might not feel called to do that, but we’ll come back to that. I did. You did. This is both my sorrow baby. So this is Ottilie graduating from preschool in November or December of last year. And this is Lily who was about to have a first Christmas. So I have my first sorrow baby graduating from preschool and then I have Lily who’s celebrating her first Christmas. Wonderful. So I just put them together because I thought they were both very cute photos. That’s lovely.

03:28
You had a chance yet for the two families to come together and to have this surrogate baby? No, no we haven’t actually. No we have talked about it yeah and funnily enough Ottilie said that she would like to meet baby Lily so yes hopefully will happen this year. Yes and maybe we’re all in Sydney so it could happen. That helps and even perhaps having your own children there so all the babies that you’ve birthed in one photo perhaps. Yes, yes well the one I’ve birthed is now an adult so yes that could be quite nice having having all three of them.

03:58
Right, and then we moved on to Journey 2. And this is Journey 2. So this is my second set of intended parents, Trudy and Tom, and this is transfer day. Trudy had come up with the name of Team Bingo. They were Team Bluey for when they have a daughter.

04:12
Bonnie who was also born through surrogacy. So Tom’s sister was actually their surrogate and their team name was Team Bluey. So Bluey’s sibling is Bingo. So hence we were Team Bingo. So Trudy actually had those glasses made for transfer day. So it was a bit funny. And sometimes in normal, well, traditional hetero couples who are going through IVF, those embryo transfer days can be stressful and there’s high tensions.

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But I’m sensing sometimes in surrogacy when people go into those days, there’s so much joy and excitement because you’re a team of people coming for that. Yeah, yeah. There’s still a lot of nerves. I think we had one embryo, not we, Trudie and Tom had one embryo. So there was a fair few nerves that we were desperate for this lucky embryo to work and I hadn’t had a first transfer work before. So I was, yeah, had everything crossed. Yes, yes. So it worked first transfer for Trudy and Tom and the one before with Leah and James, how many did it take?

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And then I’ve had four transfers with another couple before Leah and James, which didn’t result in a positive pregnancy.

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that relationship broke down. The intended parents decided that they didn’t want to continue this legacy after those four failed transfers. What a, so many journeys, man. You’ve been in that. Yeah, had a few, had a few. So this is pregnant with Lily. So these were taken last year. So I, as you said, I’m a midwife. So I birthed at both times at the hospital that I work at. So Trudy and Tom attended ultrasounds and appointments. So they would come up to the hospital and meet me for appointments.

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every time they came we’d snap a couple of photos. Good. Pretty special thing for your colleagues too to be with you. Yeah yeah yeah it was actually and it’s funny because five years ago no one had seen a surrogate you know pregnancy birth at the hospital so it was not just you know a point of conversation for the midwife that was looking after me but in fact the 50 midwives that I work with it yeah because everyone was interested and invested. And that’s great because we’re

06:17
Yeah, yeah, so true. So this was taken at Centennial Park. So we wanted to have some professional photos done. Trudy found a photographer and we trekked out to Centennial Park at about quarter to eight in the morning or eight o’clock in the morning, just because the lighting was good. And we had these professional photos taken. So that’s my daughter there in the gray jumper. And then, yeah, Tom and Trudy and Bonnie. So I just, I really liked that photo because I’m single. So…

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In fact, Brandon was my biggest support, so it was nice to have her included in that photo, even though she was, I don’t want to come, I don’t need to have a photo taken. I was like, oh, I think it would be nice. So I’m really glad she joined in. And that’s a good example, yes, if you’re single, who your support networks are. So you had your older child, and how old is your daughter when during the service? She’s 28 now, so she was 27 when I birthed.

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Lily and then she was 22 when I birthed Ottilie. Yeah yeah I had her and also yeah a couple of really good friends that were a huge support for me in both pregnancy journeys. You definitely need that don’t you that extended support. You do yeah you do yeah not just for pregnancy but also in in that fourth trimester because you know your intended parents aren’t there the entire time so you sort of need that you know extra support of friends and family around. People who just understand that journey and there’s no judgment and they if you’re teary or whatever it’s not

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want the baby back, it’s just your body’s going through. Yeah, yeah, that’s so true. And so having people that are there for you, they’re not there because they wanna see the baby, but they’re there to support you.

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Yeah, very, very important. And then that business is first. So Lily is probably, well, I think the cord’s still attached. So maybe 20 seconds old there. That look on my face would suggest that I didn’t even think I was pregnant. It’s like, what has just happened? I love this photo because of just that emotion. You know, poor Tom in the background didn’t know what to do with himself. That look on my face, it just says, what in the world just happened? It was…

08:12
fairly well much quicker labor than my first two so it was yeah it was it came as a bit of a surprise in the end as to how quick it was. We’ll unpack all the births as well and you were telling me before we started too that you’ve actually got a series of these photos in quick succession of you looking at different places. Yeah yeah so me looking at Trudy and Tom and then me looking down at the baby and then me looking across like towards at the camera at my support crew that I had on the day going.

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what has just happened. We did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

08:43
So it’s very special. Good, yes, definitely having that birth photographer and then part of the handover. So this is the handover, yeah. So Lily was born at about quarter past three. I actually had a bleed at postpartum hemorrhage and so the things changed in the room very quickly after she was born. There was a lot more people arrived and just that the tension in the room changed as I was having this big bleed. So I actually felt like I wasn’t ready to hand Lily over, I think with my first pregnancy

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with Lottie, I sort of handed her over within five minutes, but I just felt like I had to hold on to Lily and Trudy and Tom were great. They were like, no, keep her, hand her over whenever you’re ready. And so she stayed with me for about 45 minutes, which was really lovely. And then I mean, you can see it was about four o’clock.

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that I then felt that I was ready to hand her over. So that’s lovely. Yeah I did. I think I was unique too in that because we’ve got the clock in the the photos that I showed before the the bedside table clock. So I think I had Baker for an hour and a half. Yeah yeah wow yeah. So I had um done a direct feed and the but the dads were sitting on the bed with me and yeah but as I think your IPs and mine are of that you know notion that we have baby for the rest of time.

09:53
Yes, yes. So they, and Trudy was like, I actually am enjoying sitting back watching you and the baby. So I’m enjoying that process. So, hot keeper. Yes, and that’s a lovely point. Lovely, yeah. And to get to that point with your IPs where they all feel comfortable and there’s not this fear like I must have the baby straight away. That’s a sign of a great team there that you built that up together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it wasn’t even, it was certainly discussed

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to me but we hadn’t really ever put a timeline on when that would happen. We just sort of had said well we’ll you know it was quite fluid and we’ll just it when it feels right it will feel right and that’s when it will happen so yeah I held on to it for a while. Born photos that they had post-birth? Yeah so she was about two weeks oh no maybe 10 days old. The photographer that did the pregnancy photos did it sort of she did a package so pregnancy and post so this is at Trudy and Tom’s

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Yeah, photos done with Lily. And it’s just a keepsake, not just for us, but also for Lily as she’s older, which is lovely. Yeah. Can I just say in all of my years of running these webinars and all the photos I see, I think it’s extra special when the IPs invite the surrogate to these newborn photos, because it doesn’t always seem to happen, but I think it’s- No, you’re right. Yeah, it’s really special when they include you that help make their family. Yeah, well, that we hadn’t even talked about a photographer, particularly a birth photographer. And then I said to Trudy and Tom,

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time around and actually showed them some of the photos from that and they were you know overcome with the emotions you know in the photos and they said oh please can we have a photographer this time around because you just don’t capture that emotion. You can’t do that yourself. You need you need someone looking on to be able to sort of take over that role which was um. And would you agree that is part of the payment for the surrogate looking back at those photos? Oh I yeah I actually really enjoy looking back at those photos you know just to because I don’t remember what

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Tom was doing or Trudy was doing at that time. I don’t remember the expressions on people’s faces. And so it’s really lovely to be able to look back and see what was happening. Yes, spot on. That’s a lovely selection of photos that we’ve got there. Thank you for sharing those. No problem. So many questions I could continue to ask you here, Julie, I suppose. I don’t know which order, but I suppose maybe take us back to the beginning then. Why did you want to be a surrogate in the first place? And then how did you go about finding IPs? Yeah, so my 15, eight,

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15 years ago, I was in a position where I had one daughter and I wasn’t gonna have any more children for myself. But being a midwife, I really wanted another pregnancy and birth experience. And so that’s really what drove me towards surrogacy. It was actually a friend of mine that said, well, why don’t you be a surrogate? And my first initial reaction was, oh, you can’t do that in Australia, it’s all too hard. So I did the research, asked some questions and actually this friend of mine had knew of someone that had been a surrogate. So he put me in touch with her, got chatting to her,

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gave me the good old online forums that were available back then. Fertility Connections. Connections, that’s the one!

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I ended up running it for a while at the end when I took it over from Marion and Rachel and then we faced it out now. Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s how I first got involved. I started reading people’s stories and of course, once I started doing that, I was wanting to give my uterus to everybody. So, you know, emailing and connecting with different people and then yeah, that’s sort of all what drove me to want to do surrogacy the first time. And that first time, were you specifically looking for a straight or a gay couple or people who had a child or not had a child?

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I didn’t necessarily had requirements, it was more about who I felt connected to. I think initially I was thinking that I wanted to do it for a couple that didn’t have children. The first set of intended parents that I met didn’t have any children. So that’s where I was first.

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drawn to but then I think after I went through I was probably with them for maybe two or two two and a half years and I think when that relationship surroship broke down I then sort of readdressed went back to the drawing board and thought you know I actually do want to do a sibling journey I do yeah want to really look at having a baby for someone to to create a sibling I thought that motivated me. Right so that in terms of why then it was to create the sibling for the

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child she would love to have a brother or a sister. You know growing up she always felt a bit ripped off that she didn’t have a brother or a sister you know because everyone at school had it.

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had a brother or a sister and she just thought, why can’t I have one, it should be easy. And so it was probably her and her sort of comments and growing up about wanting to have a sibling that made me think, well, maybe I could do that. Maybe I couldn’t create a sibling for her, so maybe I could create a sibling for another family. So that’s what motivated me to do a sibling journey. And that’s when I then met a couple of other, met with a couple of other couples

14:56
Leah and James and they just yeah felt like a connection there and you did off you went one of the classic questions is do you still keep in touch so the the Ottilie is five going on six um and you still see them from time to time yeah we do yeah so they live about probably an hour two and a half away only an hour and a half away so they’re not you know

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next door. Leah is fantastic. She is a great communicator. I get text messages, you know, it’s every couple of months. It’s not all the time and it might just be a random photo. You know, she had a first dancing lesson. She went for a swimming lesson. Like she graduated preschool, her first day at big school. So all of those occasions I will get, you know, photos. I don’t think there’s been a birthday, a Christmas, a mother’s day, a father’s day that’s gone by where I haven’t received, you know, a text message that just says, thank you. Thank you for

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doing this for our family. You know, it takes five minutes, not even five minutes for Leah to compose a text message like that, but it means the world to me. So we are still in touch. And in fact, it’s funny because Ottilie knows her story. She has a big sister born through surrogacy. So now at the age of, you know, five and a half, she’s quite proud of the fact that, you know, I grew up in Aunty Julie’s tummy because mummy’s tummy was sick. And then I, you know, came to live with mummy and daddy. Her friends at preschool don’t quite understand that concept, but

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She definitely does. And it’s part of her everyday conversation. So even now, when she sees me, she’ll say things like, you know, I grew up in your tummy. Do you know that? As if she’s telling me something, educating me, it’s really cute. And I just love it. And then, you know, last time we caught up, she was telling, elephants are my all-time favorite animal. And she was telling me how they’re now her favorite animal and all these different facts about elephants. And so there’s just a really special connection there. And Leah and James have been great, right from day dot of making sure

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knows her story and you know there’s photos of me up in the house. We probably catch up two or three times a year and it’s like we saw each other last month. It’s really lovely. Lily, I do see Lily, I mean she’s six months old now but certainly over the last six months Leah and I have caught up a lot. I mean I have had some extended leave from work because I had too much leave in it to take it and Leah’s obviously been off work. She’s a bit closer, she’s probably about, sorry Trudy.

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I’m getting myself confused, Trudy. So she’s about 40 minutes away from me and certainly with the Metro and trains, it makes it easy for catch up. So yeah, so we’ve had lots of lunch dates and coffee dates and we also have a WhatsApp group with Tom and Trudy and myself. And so they’re often posting photos and videos of Bonnie with Lily or with, you know.

17:32
Lily rolling over and talking and giggling and it’s just, it’s so lovely. So yeah, so I feel very fortunate that I’m in touch and have, I feel like I have lifelong friends with these guys. We had mentioned before as well off air that you have to put in the work to.

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build these friendships in the hope that that will continue as a friendship. There’s no guarantee though, is there? No, there isn’t. Tell us a little bit more about then what does it mean to put in the work at the beginning? Yeah. Look, I think it’s all about communication. And I think about, I think it’s also about making it clear from the beginning what you think that the long-term game is, you know, like you might be someone that doesn’t want as much contact or, you know, doesn’t want to be as involved. Your intended parents might not want to tell the child the story, but it’s all

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about making it clear right from the beginning. I certainly know that if I had intended parents say to me, look, you know, we wanna keep this secret, we don’t want the child to know, they probably wouldn’t have been the right people for me. So you sort of have to nut all this out even before you get into the counseling, certainly before you get to IVF clinics and talk about transfers, you need to nut all that out right from the beginning and then you can explore a bit further in your counseling sessions. So I think putting the work in is communicating and discussing all those things together.

18:46
the same page or relatively all on the same page going forward. Definitely. So you had retired, you’d done surrogacy. I did yes. So I’d done surrogacy. I had baby Ottilie. Leah and James had finished their family. They didn’t have any more embryo or they actually had one day two embryo which they were not going to use.

19:05
People had said to me, would you do it again? I said, absolutely, I would do it again, but I would do it again for Leah and James because it was such a seamless process. However, that’s not gonna happen. And I don’t think I wanna go through the process of meeting a new couple and discussing all this. And then COVID hit and then my dad got sick. And so a couple of years passed it. And in that time I had met Trudy in the Facebook groups and we chatted and messaged between us. And we’ve had a bit of a connection there. So that was probably three months

19:35
Ottilie was born and then they went on Tom’s sister offered to be their surrogate. So I was sort of hovering in the background watching, you know, where they were at. And then we connected again at a another face to face catch up in Sydney. People said to me, why did you go to the face to face catch up? If you weren’t intending on being a surrogate. Well,

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The reason why I went is because my friend Madeline was going and I thought well it’s a good excuse to catch up with her. And then I found out my friend Leanne was going so I thought double whammy I get to catch up with two of my sorrow sisters. And then Madeline mentioned that Trudy was going and I thought well I haven’t met Trudy before so that would be fantastic. So I met Trudy and it was then that she said that they were thinking about doing a sibling journey, looking at going local and that then…

20:15
set the wheels in motion in my mind, or could I do it again? Came home, thought about it, discussed it with a couple of my closest people, and then Lily was born. Ha ha ha.

20:25
I came out of retirement. You came out of retirement and truly with gobsmacked and then you- She was. Yes. Yeah, absolutely gobsmacked. She nearly fell off a chair when I said, well, you know, how about instead of you looking for a local surrogate, how about we discuss the prospect of me being a surrogate? And she was like, what are you joking? She actually went pale. She actually went really pale. And I said, do you want me to get you a drink? Because we were in a coffee shop and she was looking a little pale like she was going to pass out.

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because she was literally in shock. So I said, look, let’s just start discussing and seeing where we’re at.

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We’d sort of been talking on and off for about four years at that point anyway, so it felt quite organic. That’s wonderful. Yes. So you just never know in this community where connections are going to come from. You have to just build up those friendships with each other and just who knows, right? Yes, that’s right. That’s right. And as Trudy said, when she least expected it, I said, hey, maybe I could be a surrogate. Yeah. Trudy and I have become friends over the years too. And for those listening, Trudy has done this webinar with me that’s in a podcast episode.

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episodes with me doing inducing lactation and how to find a surrogate so check out some of her episodes. I know that Trudy is oh my god she’s just like no what’s the saying there? She doesn’t give up does our Trudy in terms of making the embryos and so I think at the time either when you were first chatting she didn’t actually have any or the correct and so do you know would they have moved to donor eggs or it was only gonna do this whole journey for this one embryo?

21:52
I think there was discussion that they would have gone down the path of looking at donor eggs. We had sort of said, look, she was looking at creating her own embryos and she had promised Tom that she would give it three more goes. Yeah. So she would have three more cycles. So she did that. And then unfortunately two cycles weren’t successful and then she got one successful embryo. So I think we’re at the point where let’s just see where those three cycles take us and then go from there. Yeah. Because there’s a lot riding on that as a surrogate, isn’t it, to do all the counting?

22:21
That’s that was the other thing too because I because when I commit I commit so I had said look if this embryo doesn’t work But you want to then continue looking down other avenues. I’ll stay with you, you know, I’d sort of said well, you know I’m in it for the long haul. I’m old so not five years, but yeah

22:39
whatever it takes. Yeah, lucky one embryo, right? Yeah, yeah, it was, which was amazing because I’ve had so many failed embryo transfers in the past. I’ve had 10 prior, yeah, nine fails and one successful. So 10 embryo transfers. So I actually was thinking with as much hope that it would work, that I was being quite realistic thinking it probably wouldn’t. Mm.

23:01
Yeah. Yeah. So what a surprise. Yeah, that’s great. You’re also a midwife. Yes. Have you yourself been a midwife for any surrogacy teams? I have. Yes. My lovely friend who I has birthed her own babies at our hospital. She has six of her own babies had then decided to be a surrogate and I actually saw her name come up.

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in the surrogacy community on Facebook and I thought I know that name. Why do I know that name? And so that’s when I then realized who it was and she’d had babies before. And then literally she would have been six weeks pregnant and she came to a face-to-face catch up. I think actually it was the one that you came to.

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in Sydney in we went to Spice Alley and yeah she was very early and she said well I’m coming back to your hospital um maybe would you like to be my midwife and I was like oh my god that would be amazing so yeah so that was in between she’s actually been a surrogate twice and I’ve been her midwife twice and that was in between Ottilie and Lily so yeah I’ve had the the privilege of being a midwife to a surrogate team and she had different intended parents as well both times so

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understanding both sides. Yeah well that was what yeah I think that’s Mikaela was really keen to have me as a midwife because she says you’ve been there before you know you know not only are you a midwife but you’ve been as arrogant so you get it. Yes. Is there anything from each of those two journeys from the pregnancies or births that we haven’t covered that you’d like to mention that spring to mind?

24:30
They’ll go through different journeys. I think in life you learn things as you go along. And so there was a few things that I did the first time that I wanted to do differently the second time, the fourth trimester, for example, when I said bye to Leah and James at the hospital, it was like, I’ll see you in a week when we catch up for lunch. And at the time that felt completely right for us. And it wasn’t really until much later that I thought I missed out a lot in that first week, not getting that connection, like my body needed that connection with that baby.

25:00
But at the time I sort of, you know, braced along and was okay. It wasn’t until later that I thought, no, I would do that differently. So I did learn things as I went along that I wanted to do.

25:10
differently and yeah, put them into play with my second surrogacy journey. So that was one example that in those first three months post-birth or in particular what you’re referencing there is that first week post-birth seeing each other more often. Yeah, yeah, yes. So when we left the hospital with Lily, it was like, well, I will see you tomorrow. We’ll come and visit you at home tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah, because your body needs cuddles. Were there anything else about the fourth trimester that you’d like to mention from either of them? No, it’s funny because I expressed for Otter.

25:40
I went back to work at she was 10 weeks old when I went back to work and I was still expressing Once twice a day when I went back to work It was insane and it took a lot of time and I felt like that very limited amount of time I had off was spent on a breast pump and I kind of resented the breast pump in the end I didn’t necessarily Resent them the milk I was giving to Ottilie but I certainly resented the pump in so I thought I’m not doing that this Time and it was funny because after Lily was born and my milk came in on day four

26:10
urge to get a pump and I needed to make milk. It’s almost like it just extends what you’ve done. You know, you’ve had this baby, you’ve nurtured and grown this baby for nine months and then you give birth, the cord gets cut and it’s over and that baby goes to her parents and that’s it. So I sort of reflected back on it and thought, no, I felt like I needed to express so that I could continue with that, you know, nurturing. And I actually enjoyed expressing a lot more the second time. Probably didn’t, I didn’t do it for as long so I was going overseas

26:40
because we were leaving when I think she was seven weeks old and brown and said, you are not getting on a plane with a breast pump, so you better wean off it. So I did. And so yeah, I probably expressed her about seven weeks, but I was, yeah, expressed regularly and yeah, I got lots of milk. But all pregnancy, I’m not expressing, I’m not expressing, I hated the pump, I’m not doing it, I’m not doing it. And then literally on day three, I rang a friend at work and said, can you please bring me a breast pump over? So yeah, the hormones took over.

27:08
Yeah, I ended up pumping. So it was funny because I went in adamant that I wasn’t gonna pump and then that changed. So yeah, but otherwise we, I felt like both of my fourth trimesters were really smooth journeys. I didn’t have any, you know, you have your baby blues, you have your tears, you know, the normal stuff. The second time I was more exhausted because I’ve had the big bleed and I’ve now been told I’ve got gallstone. So I need to have a little operation to sort that out. But from a mental health point of view, I…

27:35
coped really well with both of the full trimesters. So yeah. And I think also another thing that you have created in these 10 years is you have a group of girls, you have a group of sort of original surrogates that have been around and you’ve got a sisterhood. And so you’ve got a group of women who have your back as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just through the Facebook groups and Sydney catch-ups, we have four, there’s five of us that have a really solid friendship. So I call them.

28:01
what we call each other the sorrow sisters. Their friendship is immeasurable. It’s these girls are friends for life because that one.

28:09
common denominator of surrogacy has brought us together and connected us in a way that other people just don’t get. And those girls have been amazing. So I think between the five of us, we’ve had one, two, three, four, five, six, we’ve had eight babies, eight sorrow babies. So there’s been lots of support along the way. And sometimes it’s just events, sometimes it’s all the happy times and the sharing of the photos, or sometimes it’s to vent and complain

28:39
tired and windy and whiny and they get it because they’ve been there. It’s a friendship that I treasure. Beautiful. I think I would encourage all IPs and surrogates to find support in some way beyond just your team.

28:52
Yes, yes, definitely. Like for surrogates, when you connect with another surrogate, they get it because there are women out there, plenty of women out there that have had babies, but I think it’s being a surrogate is different. So there’s a different dimension to that. And so yeah, having that support network with other surrogates is really good. Yeah. Goal. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we might start to come towards the end of the webinar. We might answer this question that Anonymous has typed in that says,

29:22
don’t want to take their baby. Did you wanna try and answer on that one? That’s a good question. And you would hope that those things would be addressed prior to even having a transfer. So certainly in the counseling, that’s something that is discussed. Same with along the lines of termination, if you have an ultrasound and the baby has a congenital disability or a chromosome abnormality, how’s that gonna look for your team? And I guess the same, you would also discuss the same things for after that baby’s born. I would say that IPs,

29:52
and they have often been wanting a baby for many, many years. If it’s an intended mother, they’ve had their own fertility struggles and it’s not a decision that’s made overnight. So I don’t think that there would be any IPs that would say, we don’t want this baby. I think that would be a very rare event. Very rare, as you say, it would get discussed in counseling before there’s a pregnancy, I reckon. Yeah, and all of those things, cause there were things that came up in counseling that even as a midwife, I thought, oh yeah, I didn’t think of that. Like what happens if the intended parents

30:22
have an accident and die while you’re pregnant. I was like, Oh, I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that. And so that was, you know, a topic of discussion that came up. And obviously that’s, you know, put into this, I already got agreement and all those sorts of things, but things that are well covered. Yes. For our team, that conversation about if the IP is dying an accident prompted us to pass on the mobile numbers of the mothers of the two dads so that I could have contact with them. And therefore we would all as the team that’s left arrange for what’s going to happen for the rest of the pregnancy and, and

30:49
baby to grandparents and those sorts of things. So yeah, it’s all, you’ve got to think about that. Yeah, very rare, rare, rare events. But if you’ve discussed it and these discussions are hard to have, they’re not easy. You’ve got to have them and you’ve got to be raw and honest about how you’re feeling. What ifs, yes. Are there any changes that you’d like to see for surrogacy in Australia as a whole? Look, I think the big thing is about educating others. I think, even now, the question I get asked is,

31:19
that legal in Australia is it? No, I’m breaking the law. So I think that’s a pretty common question that I often get asked. And it’s not necessarily about, you know, educating people that want to be surrogates or educating people that want to be IPs or RIPs. Others as well, you know, friends, family, support networks, I don’t know, at work, you know, the questions that I get asked from…

31:41
you know, midwifery students and other midwives is fantastic. And I love it and I always embrace it and always want to, I could talk about surrogacy until, you know, forever, because I think it’s important to, you know, get it out there and educate others and just make it a more familiar topic of conversation. So that would probably be the one thing that, you know, it would be good if it was, you know, there was more discussions about it. I think I read something the other day that there’s, you know, only about 120 surrogate babies born in Australia a year, and you think that’s not many.

32:11
when you look at how many babies are born. Yeah, and across Australia. So there’s- Yes, yeah, huge. Yeah. Yeah. Just having those discussions and then the right things to say about surrogacy and the amount of times that I get asked, I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe you gave your baby away. Well, actually I didn’t. It’s funny. So yeah, just having those discussions and also having forums so that people can ask the difficult questions. And for example, that question that was just asked there,

32:41
Those questions are great questions. So to have a place where you feel comfortable asking them to say, hey, what about this? Or what about that? And this webinar is one of them because you can be anonymous and there’s no shame.

32:52
in all those questions because we’re all being beginners. Oh, that’s right, absolutely. And you know, no questions are silly questions, so ask away. Yeah. Is there anything else then you’d like to? No, I mean, I know that there’s some changes that the parenting order was a real punish the second time around. I kind of didn’t even know it happened the first time around. But with the second time, we had some issues and had to run up to the Supreme Court. The judge called us in, which created a lot of tension and a lot of angst, not within the team, but for the team.

33:22
not between us. I just wish that process was a bit more streamlined or that parenting process was a bit more streamlined because it can be a bit plunky and it can be a lot of work for intended parents generally but certainly this time around it felt like a lot more work because of you know the extra work that was needed. But yeah. Maybe in the future we’ve been more streamlined. Yeah hopefully, hopefully yes watch this space. Yes. And then just to summarize anything else from your journey that we haven’t covered or in

33:51
Bits of wisdom you’d like to impart to those at the beginning. It’s a saying I use in my job as a midwife, but also to a lot of other surrogates, is just trust in the process. It’s a long process. It’s not something that happens overnight, nor should it happen overnight.

34:05
but you really have to trust in the process. And not all transfers work. Some of them take three, four, 11 transfers to get the desired result. And I think that can be really tough for surrogates. I think surrogates really beat themselves up. There’s a lot of guilt surrounding those failed transfers, but it’s actually got nothing to do with the surrogate. It’s all about the embryo. But trust in the process, talk, talk, talk, talk. Communicate with your team. That’s your greatest tool.

34:35
everything, you know, how you’re feeling or you know if you’re feeling upset or some angst over certain things put it out there because you never know your intended parents might be feeling exactly the same and you know having not wanted to bring it up and you know sometimes it can just be the smallest things that cause the greatest amount of angst and then once you get it out in the open you go oh really that was not a big deal at all.

34:57
Yes, the stories we tell in our minds sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s right. But just trust in the process, because you’ll get there. Well said, I think. Surrogates are determined women, so they will be. They sure are. Yeah, they sure are. And I think so, too. Yeah, that’s right. And you know, as they say, it takes a village, it takes a lot of time, a lot of patience, but.

35:17
if you trust in the process, you’ll get there eventually. Again, well said. Well, thank you. Thank you for letting us celebrate 10 years in the community, three sets of IPs, two beautiful babies and friendships and with surrogates alike. So you’ve done it, Julie. What a significant chapter of your life, hey? Yeah, it has been. It’s been huge. I sit back now at the ripe old age of 48 and say I can officially retire, A, because no one around me would ever let me do surrogacy again.

35:44
or with my body. But you know it’s forever going to be something in my life and you know something I’ll talk about forever. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for joining me. If you’d like to see the photos shared in this webinar presentation head over to our YouTube channel to watch the webinar. You can head to surrogacyaustralia.org for more information about surrogacy. Also check out our Zoom monthly catch up sessions which are a great way to connect with others in the surrogacy community.

36:10
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.