The Mum Who Found Her Surrogate On Facebook

It was so I had just entered the community, I was learning, and she had just given birth to her first surrogate baby, and she was, I guess, riding the highs of the post birth of surrogacy. And we chatted a fair bit and I asked her lots of questions because I was trying to learn a lot about surrogacy in Australia. And my sister in law then offered to

be our surrogate. So we went through that journey, and then fast forward to twenty twenty three and we just had our failed journey with our other surrogate for a sibling, and so I went to one of the in person catch ups through the Facebook community and Julie was there, and I'd never actually met her in person before. So we sat and we chatted and drank Margarita's all night,

and I guess the rest is history. We saw each other a lot after that and caught up, and then she took me out for coffee one day and I really fell off my chair when she said I want to be your surrogate, and I told her she was mad. Yeah, it was a crazy idea, and I thought she was a retired surrogate, but she was adamant that she was ready to do another journey for Tom and I.

So I guess first off, we wanted to make sure we ticked off everything on that list to make sure we were on the same page and that there was nothing that was going to come up later that would be detrimental to our team. So that was kind of

the first step. And once we knew we're all on the same page, we go and do the mandatory counseling that you do, so you do intended parents do counseling Julie does counseling, and then we all do counseling together to try to, I guess, go through everything to make sure there's no red flags, to make sure that we're all on the same page, and it really is one of those exercise you've got to do as part of

the legal process. Then we go through the legal side, which is to write a surrogacy agreement, We get independent legal advice, we signed that agreement. We then have to go through our ethics committee at the IBS clinics. Julie has to go through and get approved as a surrogate from a specialist obstetrician. We have to get approved as requiring surrogacy. We need to have a legitimate reason for requiring surrogacy. So all of that needs to happen, and

the IVF clinics have to approve your case. And once you've been approved, then you can move forward to the next step, which is the transfer stage to trying to transfer those embryos.

go with. You know, we've hicked that first hule, that is the biggest one. And yeah. It was complete disbelief because you know, at that stage, we only had one embryo, so we had one shot at it as well. So when Jules offered to be our surrogate, we didn't have any embryos. We were doing round after round after round trying to make embryos and transferring them to me just

to try for a miracle. And when she asked us if she could be our surrogate, then I said to Tom, just one more round, Just one more I'd said that many times, but I really meant it this time. And it was the magic round. And I was forty four and a half, so it was such a small chance of it being a normal embryo, and sure enough I got one embryo. She was normal, and that was the one embryo we had to transfer to Jules. So there was a lot writing on that transfer as well. Coming up.

She kept saying to me, I think it's strong to go to hospital, Mum. I think I think we need to get out of here.

maybe get Tom home from work. But I, in my head, I felt wearing for a long hul there is another eighteen hours before you know, we meet this baby, So no need to rush and no need to panic. But I could hear in Trudy's voice that she was probably feeling quite nervous and anxious. Anyway, I hung up from her and got my daughter home from work. She arrived home and I was in the shower being quite vocal, so she was a bit sort of scared. Anyway, I

continued to labor at home, tried the bath. I didn't realize at the time that my poor daughter was feeling extremely overwhelmed. It was just the two of us here. She kept saying to me, I think it's time to go to hospital. Mum, I think, stime, I think we need to get out of here. I'll just give truth to a call and let it. No, don't call Trudy, don't tell Trudy. Trudy doesn't need to be here.

had actually left home. Despite me saying, no, it's going to be hours yet, But thankfully they'd left home to head over in this direction, and my daughter had actually then messaged Trudy and said, look, meet us at the hospital. Don't come here because things are progressing quickly, so just come straight to the hospital. The drive to the hospital

is quite harrowing. It wasn't an enjoyable ride. I'm only five minutes from the hospital, but it was really I think I've scarred my daughter for life with that drive.

in helping her. And there was lots of moments when Tom and I were over there holding her hand and telling her how wonderful she was, and a lot of moments where poor Tom was hiding in the back because he was quite traumatized as well. You get a good sense of what it feels like to be the partner of the person giving birth when you feel so helpless and there's nothing you can do to take that pain away from them. They've just got to kind of get through it. So it's really hard to watch, especially in

a surrogacy birth. Feels like such a privilege to be in the room for a surrogacy birth because they are so rare and they're so emotional. And I remember I was right but Tom and I were right beside Julie on that last push, and I remember the midwife saying, you know, pop your head down and have a look. You'll see her come out. And I saw this dark hair and then I saw her face and she was still in the sack. It was the most incredible thing

I've ever seen. So she was still in the sack, and the midwife, Heidi, had to kind of tear the sack open around her face, and it was the most incredible thing I've ever seen, sort of seeing her kind of come out of this sack. Water went everywhere, and then you know, it was just one contraction and she was completely out, like it wasn't just her head it was her whole body was just kind of came over and flipped onto Julie. So it felt like it happened

really quickly. At the end, there we were at the hospital less than two hours and even looking at Julie and we've got photos from the berth, we had a birth photographer, and just the look of shock, like we all knew a baby was going to be born, but just the look on Julie's face was like, Wow, she's looked gobsmack that she'd done it. And I couldn't believe this baby was there either, after everything that we've been through.

So it really is the most surreal experience seeing that baby for the first time and then hearing her cry. She cried straight away, so that was, you know, the hugest thing of relief for me is to hear a cry and see everybody okay. So it was incredible.

kept looking at Tom and Trudy. I just kept making them my focus and tried to sort of distance myself to what was happening because I've been in the emergencies before and they're not much fun. So I thought, I just and I remember looking at Trudy and Tom saying, I'm just not ready to hand her over yet. I just needed her to stay on me. And they had no objections at all that were like no, no keeper, please keep her so and I think she was probably

looking back at photos. I think she's probably about forty forty five minutes before I handed her over. I just didn't feel ready until that point. I just felt like I needed her with me, and I felt no pressure or no sense of urgency from Trudy or Tom to hand her over. Yeah, it was probably around four o'clock when I handed her over, and by that stage the bleeding had settled and stopped and the doctors had finished doing what they needed to do.

in that scenario. Thankfully we weren't faced with that. But to me, that handover was really important because that's that real altruistic part where what you've done and that that official handover to the parents was pretty special and yeah, very very emotionally fueled.

to hand her over, Like that is the moment. You know, all the planning or the counseling, all the legs, all the whole pregnancy, you're leading up to this moment when the baby's born, she's healthy, and then you have that handover moment. And so that to us, we needed to preserve that. And it was a beautiful moment because Jewles literally just picked her up and handed her to me. And it's the most emotional moment because I could not give birth to her, but you know, she is genetically mine.

She is Throughout the whole pregnancy, I felt close enough to Jules that she still felt like she was mine. And it's yeah, it's just that moment that we become parents again, thanks to the selflessness of our beautiful surrogate, Julie. So it's an incredible moment and thank goodness, we've got, you know, the photos to remember it by, and we've all got a great memory of that process because it was something that we had wanted for so long. Yeah,

and she was healthy and Jules was healthy. Like, you know, she had the big bleed, but at that point of handover, we knew the bleeding had stopped, she'd been sewed up, and everything was hopefully okay. It was definitely a scary moment because I knew something was going on, and you can, I saw that moment kind of let dynamic in the room change as well, and I'm automatically like, how's Julie.

Is Julie okay? Is Julie okay? And I just wanted to know that she was okay and yeah, and goodness was okay.

grew her, you know, for the first few months. You know, I'm eternally grateful that Jewels gave up years really of her life, control of her poor body. And yeah, and we've got this beautiful little girl now to celebrate.

nipple or a breast pump providing that stimulation. You need the lactating woman to have good hydration, so you need to drink lots of water, and you also need to sleep, so sleep water stimulation equals breast milk. Now, you don't actually need that cascade of pregnancy and delivery in order to create breast milk. You can actually stimulate someone to

make milk just simply by stimulating the nipple. So technically, and it's not something I recommend for anyone to do, but technically, if you sucked on someone's nipple enough, they would eventually lactate.

because I know how challenging pregnancy can be. I know how challenging childbirth is, and for someone to voluntarily put themselves through that, they're family through that, their partner, their own children, if that's the case, in order to give the gift of life and the gift of family to another person, sometimes a stranger, it completely blows my mind, and for me, it doesn't matter if there's any money exchanged.

It's just absolutely phenomenal. I can't find the words to describe how much I'm speechless when I talk about it. So the moment that a child is born and the surrogate or obstetrician, pediatrician, whomever it may be, hands that baby to the expectant parents, it really is very, very very difficult to describe. It's a kind of magic that you feel really privileged to be able to witness that. And then I hear a lot from the carrying mothers that that comment like you've heard like you do it

for that moment. You do it for the moment where you hand the child over and you can see this couple or this individual that has usually come to this point with so many years of trauma, heartache, pregnancy loss, fertility struggles, and to get to that point where they are holding their own child. It's special. To say the very very least.