Part 1 - Trials and Triumphs in my Same-Sex Surrogacy journey

Embarking on the road to parenthood, my partner Damien and I faced a labyrinth of emotions and decisions, a journey that's as unique as it is universal. For anyone who has dared to dream of a family that's a little different, a little brighter, step into our story of love, legacy, and the lengths we'd go to bring our daughter into the world. Our intimate exploration unravels the tapestry of our ten-year quest, weaving through the trials of surrogacy laws across borders, the ethical quandaries we grappled with, and the financial hurricanes we weathered on salaries that were anything but grand.

Join us as we recount the heart-wrenching moments of selecting an egg donor and the groundbreaking 'glue' procedure that offered a beacon of hope during our IVF trials. Feel the tension in the silence before the pregnancy test, the euphoria of a positive result, and the tempered joy in sharing our news. As we stand at the threshold of a new chapter, our narrative invites you to celebrate the remarkable and often invisible triumphs of LGBTIQA+ parenting, offering a candid lens into the transformative power of love and perseverance.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

you're listening to and explore your ability in production. I'd like to begin by knowiging the traditional owners and the custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded on today, the eight clangs of the Yorda Yorda Nation. I also pay my respects to the Elders, past and present. Hi, my name is Chris Stevens Todd and you're listening to Out Loud exploring LGBTIQA plus topics and stories. Welcome to another episode of Out Loud.

Speaker 1: 0:49

This week we're going to be talking about surrogacy and my journey through the process of becoming a parent, a father, a rainbow family. What I've emailed to call it was a very long journey, I would say Over a while. It kind of took a good over 10 years. Really, from the first moment of us really looking into being parents to much of being born, you know, going way back, I always knew I wanted to be a parent. I think that was something I really struggled with, with my sexuality and thinking and knowing that I was gay, because I thought, well, that's going to make becoming a parent really hard, because obviously me and my husband or me and you know whoever I was going to end up with in life at this point, because I wasn't with anyone then we had the same bits, so that wasn't really compatible to making a baby. That was something I really had to deal with and that it was a potential reality that I may never be a parent. And then I met Damien and I was very open. I reckon from the beginning that I wanted to be a parent because I thought, you know, we're going to be together and hopefully long term spoiler we're still together 15 years later and so end up being long term. So having that open communication around wanting to be a parent was, you know, we need to be on the same wavelength for that. I don't think they mean they ever really considered having a child or really thought of it much until I came along and brought it up. Then we looked into it, we went to a few conferences and and we met up with some families.

Speaker 1: 2:22

I had children back in 2009 and kind of we just slowly, you know, when things popped up, you know, went along and listened and and did things. Part of me, I think that really thought, you know, and it's kind of a silly, kind of you know, part for this. But I at this point kind of thought, god, if I don't have a child at this point in my family you know my last name kind of die out and there's not going to be any future generations of Tods, because I was just a Todd back then. You know my sister, she married and had children but they took their father's last name and she took that his name when she got married. My brother at this point only had a daughter, you know she, even though potentially, you know, she may keep the Todd but she might get married at a later stage and change her name too. So, and my cousins, they were all females, like my dad's side of the family. So I was like, well, you know, and for me too a part of it was, if I don't have kids, my branch on the family tree ends with me too. And you know, part of me just felt that was really depressing that you know, the rest of my family's branches will continue on the family tree, they'll have kids, and well, they already had kids, and then they'll have kids and mine will just be me. I kind of. I'm a really big history person and I love looking back at and looking at my ancestors. You know it was something I did during COVID times and, you know, went way back into the like the early 1700s, and there's such rich history and once again, I just thought, well, that's gonna end with me. So you know, there was another reason why I went to have a child because I wanted my history and my life to go on and I guess, for me to, you know, at least not be forgotten straight away. Take a few generations before, you know, you've forgotten and not talked about so, but yeah, it wasn't really until 2015.

Speaker 1: 4:18

I would say that we became really serious around the whole process of having a child and looking into that and surrogacy. You know we didn't want to adopt. We had looked at that, but in Australia, you know, adoption is generally children who are coming from a fossil care system and generally as well, kids with a trauma background, and I worked in the industry. So I was like, well, I don't think I could work in the industry and have it in my home as well, 24, seven. You know my husband worked loosely in the industry as well. You know there was a lot of crossover and it was just something that we felt wasn't for us. We wanted to do surrogacy and, once again, you know we'd spoken about numerous times around who would donate and donate the sperm as well and be. You know both of us couldn't in our situation.

Speaker 1: 5:12

So we'd spoken about that and it's expensive and we thought, well, you know, how are we going to afford this as well? Because we both work in community services and these jobs are not high paying jobs. They love jobs, we do the job we do because we love it and we're helping people. It's not a job that pays highly. It's not accounting lawyers, that type of thing that I tend to find. Most gay dads, especially Melbourne based gay dads, all come from very high paying jobs. So that was almost another thing. That barrier for me was like well, I don't see myself in all these people that I'm catching up with and seeing and listening to, because their life is very different to our life.

Speaker 1: 5:55

A, we live in regional Victoria and we work in community services. So how are we going to afford this? And we looked at it. We thought, well, why don't we ever be a half a house out? We were in a perfect situation where we could, you know, have a house down the middle, you know, and us live in one part and have people come and stay with us, and that money can, you know, be our surrogacy fund. So, for you know, many years over six years I reckon we have been being half a house out and, you know, had that sacrifice that we would interrupt our privacy and our time and have strangers every other day, weekend coming into our home and helping fund our surrogacy.

Speaker 1: 6:38

That's then led to us looking into Nepal. We knew some people that were going down that path and had been there and we, you know, got in touch with some agencies over there and connected and we picked out her egg donor and we didn't get to pick our surrogate. Through that process, someone, you know you just get matched with someone and that person carries your child. And the surrogate that we picked, you know she was part French and you know we had a photo and a bio and everything on them. We were like right, and it aligned in a time where friends of ours in Sheppan and were going over to Nepal for a sort of part documentary around some of the recovery work on the earthquakes, because Nepal was still very much being in repair from the earthquakes and we, you know, went along with them. So there was a group of six of us. We kind of made it into a two-part trip.

Speaker 1: 7:33

We went to some orphanages and we did some a lot of community work in Nepal and meetings, and which led to a very funny story of us ended up in the newspaper in Nepal named as ambassadors from Australia, which somehow our mind, who took us around, kind of. I don't know if there was a translation error or something like that, but we had to make speeches at this meeting. The people thought we were a lot more important than who we were, which was funny, because I was just in shorts and the singlet and thongs and here I'm making this speech about tourism that I knew nothing about, that just had to, you know, say on the whim, and then was given, like the orange flowers as a special honour and then, yeah, we end up in the newspaper the next day and so, you know, we had a really great trip. And then part of that was we would branch off and away from the others and we went to the hospital and started the process of surrogacy and we'd be given the contracts and paperwork and met some doctors and I went into a it was a very odd dinner. There wasn't a room available, so I had to go into a cupboard and I, you know, left a sample of sperm which would then be frozen and help create our embryos and our egg donor was meant to be around there at the same time and we didn't meet them.

Speaker 1: 8:58

But it was a really interesting moment in the Nepal law and courts because the court I don't know exactly if it was one part of the government, but it was challenging the laws around surrogacy in Nepal because it had become quite big and but why? We were also there. We were experiencing and seeing you know things and coming to a part that we didn't agree with the surrogacy process in Nepal either. You know we met up with some other parents that were there because there was many people stuck in Nepal at that point in time because the law was changing, that the government wasn't allowing babies to leave the country, even though they were, you know, from another egg donor. Whoever the you know intended parents was. Some of them were, you know, from eggs and sperm from both, like you know, hereditary sexual couple, but because they were still born in Nepal, they weren't allowed to leave. So there was a lot of people stuck there. We're talking to them about their process and their journey and it just came.

Speaker 1: 10:02

You know that we it wasn't really for us and we didn't really agree with the way the surrogates were probably looked after. Either the fact that we didn't get to meet them, it just felt very kind of you know other women in Nepal doing this by choice or their families forcing them into it, and they don't even see the money that we pay for them to do it. So then, apart with the law changing, we were like, okay, this isn't for us, we're not signing any contracts, we're not paying any money, and we flew home and it was a little bit disheartening because we're kind of like, oh, now we're back to square one and what are we? What are we going to do? So I think, from memory, we took a bit of time off. I was just like, look, I need to recoup, I need to just, you know, enjoy life for a little bit, then come back to it. And I forgot even before that actually we, we looked at doing surrogacy in Australia with some friends, some friends that offered to carry for us and doing it the old school kind of like Turkey I can't think of the words now. I was going to say Turkey Blast, but I definitely do not think that is the terminology used.

Speaker 1: 11:08

But yeah, we, we went through that process with two, two friends and and even then you know, it just came down to it that it wasn't going to work, and you know, and all that. So we had gone and looked at other avenues locally. It just got to a point, I feel, where it yeah a need of the break leave life and just not focus on it. And unfortunately I always had that motto like and some would say, friends, you know, when they were looking for a relationship and it just wasn't working like we'll stop looking and it will just happen. Unfortunately, you know, we can just stop trying the process of having a child and it will just happen for us. And that's the same with, like, straight couples, you know, when they're trying to have a baby and they're really on a schedule, it just doesn't happen. And when you relax and you stop trying, it generally happens.

Speaker 1: 11:54

But I just needed to recoup and reenergize, I think. And that's when someone I knew mentioned Canada and I say, oh, I haven't heard of this. So I got on the internet, looked up Canada surrogacy and I discovered that Canada had the same laws as Australia, because you couldn't pay someone to be your surrogate but you could cover their expenses. So I got, I looked at different agencies and discovered that there was one main one that a lot of people had used, so reached out to them, connected and then they helped connect me to an egg donor organization and the fertility clinic as well and they worked closely all together so it made the process a lot easier.

Speaker 1: 12:41

The first part was looking at egg donor and that process was like getting a login and you logged into this website and you had a. You know there was just lots of different profiles. It was almost like a dating website in a way. You know, you click on someone, you look at their photos, you read their medical history, their education, but it broke it down to like their siblings, their parents, their grandparents. That gave you a really thorough kind of look of this person's history and anything possible. You know, anything that there was really to look at and know to try and pick who you wanted the other side of your genetic to mix with. You know you had it all. You know, from eye color, from, like grandparents eye color, the grandparents, hair color, to body size, weight, all that type of thing.

Speaker 1: 13:32

So I, you know, for me I have very fair complexion. Growing up I had blonde hair, green eyes and very pale skin and, you know, you know part ginger. So I was like I don't want my genes to be canceled out by someone with very, you know, black hair, brown eye features. You know people in my family my genes are generally quite strong. My sisters kids and my brothers kids, like we all. You can tell where Todd's and you know I look like my father. You know we all my brother look alike. So I thought my best chance of having a child that my genes will be strong. I was like looking at anyone that had really fair complexion and features that I just thought my features would be, my genetics will go really good with that.

Speaker 1: 14:23

And so we looked through a lot and we settled on one. We came up with this one profile and it kind of just ticked all the boxes of what we were looking for as well. You know, put in for you know that profile. And then it's about looking at whether someone else is also. You know, put any interest in that person as well. And then there's a process to where you could do a shared egg donor process or not and what the shared process was that if there was someone else that was interested you could have the costs, and when there's the egg retrieval that you would have half the eggs. They would have half the eggs, the other person.

Speaker 1: 14:59

But we didn't want to do that. We kind of thought, well, no, you know, sometimes you can't estimate and know how many eggs you've got to get through the retrieval process. So we were like we'll just pay, you know, full price to have this, you know, egg donor by ourselves. Because then if you know we only get like six eggs, you know, and then not all of them eggs are going to work out either, then you know it just gives us a full chance of having them all. So we did that, which, you know, we were lucky. In the end we actually got around over 30 eggs in the egg retrieval process. So we were very, very lucky and I think in the end 15 of them, you know, survived the process.

Speaker 1: 15:36

So once we had an egg donor, then you know it's about being matched with the surrogate. So once again we feel at a bio and they just try and match us with someone. And someone came up and it was like I still remember it was January 2000 and that's been 2017. No, 2016. It was January 2016. We're like, okay, cool, this is exciting. And we got put in contact with the person via email and we're talking to them and I don't know.

Speaker 1: 16:06

There was just something that didn't seem 100%, that there was a few red flags that we had, but at the same time I kind of wanted to ignore them because you know, we waited for this process and this time for so long, where it was like, you know, you've got kind of got goggles on, you don't, you're not really seeing clearly, and as time went there was just a few things happening and then they had to pull out because their child ended up becoming a little unwell and it was like, yep, no, that's fine. You know, you've got to do what you've got to do. But then we're kind of relieved by that, even though it meant once again we're back to square one in terms of surrogate, like, yeah, having a surrogate, and we at this point have booked our flights and our accommodation in Canada to go over in June to then, you know, leave a spam sample. And then the idea was that, you know, the egg donor would meet us there as well not necessarily meat, but that would all be done at the same time and they'll create the embryos and then freeze them. You know, well, that's what I end up having freeze in them. Or if we had an aesoricate, all three of us would be there at the same time. They'll do the egg retrieve, we'll create the embryos and then implant some of them and then freeze the rest. Then it came to. We flew to Canada and so it became June 2016 and we didn't have a a aesoricate and we were on our way to Canada and that was okay, it was fine and we just thought it will. You know it'll happen, it'll happen when it's happened and at least then the embryos will be created and they'll be ready to go.

Speaker 1: 17:39

Even that was a bit of a drawback process of you know, with the you get your egg donor, you go through a lot of medical tests. We do, they do and you know once again, you know it's. You know they've got their own life and things and work that they've got to do and it's not necessarily always on top of their list to get some of the tests done. So then that drags things out trying to get the egg donor to do some genetic tests and I was like, well, what tests are they? Can I get them? Because then if I don't have this, then that cancels out the issue, because there's certain things that I guess if you both have a certain gene that you carry, it means there's higher chances that the baby will have a certain condition and things like that. I am a carrier of a blood condition, so if the other person's a carrier then our child would have that. So it's kind of them, kind of things, and I was like, well, why don't I just get the test done and I send you the results? And that was they're like, oh, yeah, you could do that. And I'm like, well, great, because I don't actually have to pay for it. Because we had to pay for all the other tests as well and you know they were done in Canada. You know I can get the test done here and in Australia I don't pay for it. So I did that, got the test. So it does pay to ask a lot of questions around what things you can get done. You know that eliminate and rule out the egg don't have anything to get things done.

Speaker 1: 18:56

Yeah, so we went and flew over to Canada and we had a meeting with our surrogacy agency and a lawyer. So we engaged also with a lawyer in Canada that would help us with all the legal formalities over there. So we had a lunch with them and we're talking away and, just, you know, halfway through the lunch, the surrogacy coordinator person that we had was like, oh my god, I think I found someone for you, you know, was showing us their profile and I was like, oh yeah, you know, you know, see if they're interested and we'll go from there. And, you know, in a day or two, you know, we had a match with this person.

Speaker 1: 19:32

As time went on, once again there was a few red flags. There wasn't, you know, that husband, but he wasn't ever really a part of the conversation that we had. And then, you know, there was just certain things that once again it was being delayed. It's like, well, the emberies are there, you know, like, what's the hold up? What are we doing? They injured themselves at work and then just need time to recover and in the end, I think, because of their injury, they became depressed and once they just weren't in the right mind frame and we're like, look, you know, if this isn't something that you can do at the moment, that's completely fine, we understand. You know, we just need a kind of decision whether we can, you know, we move on or or what it's going to be. And and they made the decision that they'll have to pull out and can't be a surrogate. Well, like, yep, that's fine, and once again, you know, we'll back at square zero.

Speaker 1: 20:20

So I thought, well, let's do something a bit different and I created a video where I took photos of many things that we do and enjoy and then I, you know, spoke over top of it and explaining who we were and then gave that to the surrogacy company and said you know, share this with you. Know, your surrogates facebook group. And I put it on my facebook and it was shared from there and we had so many people from that wanting to work with us and be a surrogate. You know that we. And then there was one person that felt they resonated with it and and our corner was like, look, I think we found someone. She wants to speak to her husband. She really thinks that she connects really well with your story. They've spent time in Australia. They've named one of their children after a place in Australia. They've named one of their dogs after a place in Australia. They feel that the activities and things that used to were very similar to the things that they do and she just wants to speak to her husband and just see what he thinks and I think in a couple hours to get back that, yep, you know, they want to be a surrogate.

Speaker 1: 21:30

And from that moment on, we were then, you know, connected by email first, and then we said oh, you know, do you want to add each other to facebook? And we started facebook group chat with the four of us and it was really nice because it was the four of us, because it's really important that she has support and her husband's behind her on that and we got to know each other, all of us, and so we had this group chat and whenever we chatted, we always chatted in that group chat. Everything just felt right. And then, all of a sudden, it was like, oh, my god, this is what it feels like to then have everything aligned and not have any red flags and then really showed that the red flags we had with the other two surrogates we really should have listened to and said you know what this isn't going to work. You know these are, you know things that are popping up. So if you do have, if you're listening to this and you're in the process, and you have red flags that pop up that you aren't sure about, you really need to listen to them and isn't as hard as it is, because the weight can be so long sometimes and and more so now I feel. You know this was back in 2016, when it was not as popular as it is now, you know, but you got to listen to them because it is a really hard, long journey and it needs to feel right.

Speaker 1: 22:41

And then, all of a sudden, you know, it just breathed through and it was us, you know, obviously then working out all right, well, when can we do the transfer? The embryos were there, they're created, frozen, and at this point we had 11. So, out of the 15 that then went throughout, of the 30 eggs, 11 embryos survived all together. You know, uh, sorry, I wanted to wait. She had a young, she had two young children. She went to one of them. The youngest was at least one and we're like, yeah, we hope we understand that. So we picked a date in I think it was April, to do our first transfer in 2017.

Speaker 1: 23:18

We went through, you know, and that's the long process of lots of working with the fertility clinic and you know, either, we had a bit of, I think I don't know if there's communication areas, without we're wanting to a very natural cycle and things like that. And um, it turned out that a lot of the medication other things wasn't you know, it wasn't communicated very well. Um, and you know I'm sorry, I wanted to do a natural cycle and and we were very supportive with everything that they wanted to do because, a it's their body and they've been pregnant before and knew, you know, we just trusted everything that they were doing, happy to, you know, do all that and um, you know this was the one that when they were pregnant with their second child, had run like, I think, half a marathon, you know, while they were like, I think, six months pregnant, so they were very fit and we're like, you know, we're here to help and support you as well. So you know it was then, you know, having to inject a lot of things hormones I'm not really sure what it's all called so went through that and the first transfer and I remember we then flew to Thailand for a holiday. We just arrived in Thailand and I checked my emails and information and learned that the first transfer didn't work and I was just like shattered and like, okay, well, we're not pregnant, I now need to like, enjoy my holiday and um, that was hard, needing to also wait a little bit of time in between that transfer and the next transfer to allow the body to heal a little bit and go through before the next round of hormones and injections and things like that. So it was then working out that time frame.

Speaker 1: 25:01

And then the second time in looking at it, all was looking at, you know, the transfer, but then gluing a process that where we glue the embryo to the side of the uterus and we're like, yeah, let's do that, it gives a higher chance it's sticking because it's already stuck to the uterus and taking. And then I remember I don't know if it was like how many weeks afterwards it was, but I remember a sorry kids and he is a pregnancy test where it had two lines on it and I'm like, oh my god, we're pregnant. And I send it to my best friend and I'm like, and she's like, oh my god. And I'm like, I know, and even it you know it's very early stages, we had to wait for the blood test and all that. But our second transfer worked and we were pregnant. You know, it was just like all right, well, we're just going to get through the next few weeks and that was really hard. You know, obviously, the 12 week mark. You know people knew our journey. We had a very public journey as well and it was very hard to you know. We told people, yep, you know we're pregnant, but obviously it's in the early stages and you know very nice and bittersweet telling our families that we were expecting a child and then, especially once we were past the 12 week mark, then, you know, we attended appointments, you know, via Canada, and you know FaceTime, so we would have to get up at all sorts of the hours and FaceTime in to doctor's appointments and ultrasounds and things like that.

Speaker 1: 26:23

I still remember being in Bali and, you know, tuning into our ultrasound to find out the sex as well, and there was a sound issue. So we couldn't see, we could see everything but we couldn't hear. So we're like, but they couldn't quite understand that we couldn't hear and we messaged like, well, we, we didn't hear what, what it was in the end, and as I was like, well, the scarf I was wearing was just very fitting color and we're like, I think what scarf was she wearing? I'm like I don't remember. And then she sent a photo through with what scarf she had on and it was pink and we're like, oh, we're having a girl.

Speaker 1: 26:59

I was a bit unsure because I'm like, wow, I know what to do with boys, you know I'm a boy, a male, and you know girls are going to be a whole different ballpark. But we, we were just thrilled. You know, that was just that waiting period and I had all the apps and you know where. It talked about what size the baby was each week and monitoring all that and slowly putting the nursery together and just you know that constant open communication with our so-called husband and family and and then planning for when we were going to be in Canada and and because this story and this process is such a long story, we're going to have to pause it and we're going to have to then move the next part into the next week's episode. So thank you for listening to this part so far of our journey through Zoriasy and you're going to tune in to next week to listen and hear about the birth and the shenanigans and adventure that we had in Canada and getting home with a young daughter. So thank you.