The hard questions...

Finding a surrogate is a highly emotional task.  The searching and waiting can be frustrating and then you have to tackle some difficult topics.

We are very uneducated in respect to the types of difficulties an unborn baby might go through.  Hopefully we are not confronted by any hard decisions during our journey, but we thought it would be good to know about as many different conditions as possible. Ryan and I have discussed what we think our approach might be if we ever have a baby that is impacted by any of the following medical conditions.

Chromosomal

Trisomy 21 – Down Syndrome – intellectual and physical difficulties

Trisomy 18 – Edward Syndrome – intellectual and physical difficulties

Trisomy 13 – Intellectual and physical difficulties

Neural Tube

Spina Bifida – Unclosed neural tube

Anencephaly – Underdevelopment of brain and skull

Encephalocele – Underdevelopment of brain and skull

Heart

Tetralogy of Fallot – Structural heart malformations

Transposition of the great vessels – Structural heart malformations

Other

Cystic fibrosis – Lung and digestive abnormalities

Sickle Cell Anaemia – haemoglobin abnormalities

Tay-Sashs – Neurological abnormality

Canavan – Neurological abnormality

A little bit of dreaming...

I am not sure if I have mentioned it previously but Ryan and I are practitioners of the weekly date night.

The idea of date night is to have an evening where we both commit to:

• ·      Getting home from work at a reasonable time
• ·      Being nice to each other
• ·      Practicing some active listening
• ·      Doing something special that is about us

Our definition of special can be dinner at a restaurant, walk around the park together, open air cinemas or on some really special days baked beans on toast in front of the TV.

Even our next door neighbours know about date night and sometimes we all head out for what we call double date night.  Our beautiful neighbours are elderly and we are quite a funny foursome. What can I say they are perfectly placed to give us some great tips, they celebrated their 50 wedding anniversary last year.

So this week, even though our heads were both caught up in work matters and I was late home and normally it would have resulted in a cancelling of date night…we pushed on.

We managed to coordinate collecting me from the bus, so no chance to slump on the couch and never move again.

We had a homely Italian meal that was big enough to feed us for the whole week. Inevitably, we talked work but something fun happened. It is a bit premature and we are usually very careful not to get too excited like this but we allowed ourselves to play around this children’s names.

Ryan is Big R, I am little R and if we ever end up with a beautiful baby it will be Really Little r.

I often joke that we should be the three Rs.  Needless to say, we spent a large amount of the evening reading through boys and girls names starting with R.

There were some we liked, some that were more of a joke and some I liked and some Ryan liked.

I can hear the groan of our little baby…sorry Really Little r, you cannot choose your parents.  

Adopt Change

From the little I understand it sounds like there are some good arguments to review the current processes around fostering and adopting in Australia. 

15,000 kids waiting for parents to read them a bedtime story

http://www.adoptchange.org.au/home

Our Vision

Every child deserves a family, and we embrace adoption as a positive way of forming a permanent loving family.

Our Mission

To raise community awareness, encourage reform and empower all Australians to ensure all children have a permanent loving family.

End Game

1. Create a community movement supporting adoption.

2. In the next 3 years, double the number of children adopted in Australia and halve the wait time.

3. In the next 10 years, ensure adoption is available to every child who cannot be cared for by their biological parents.

Surrogacy – SBS Insight

Tonight, we watched the SBS Insight series that explored the topic of surrogacy. They interviewed a number of beautiful surrogacy and intending parents and they talked about their special stories.

There were a number of different opinions.

Surrogate No. 1:

• Surrogate wanted to be alone at the birth, it did not happen that way
• She was a surrogate for her sister
• She was supportive of altruistic surrogacy
• Unfortunately, they live a long way away – USA and Australia
• Intending parent felt that the pregnancy was very hard, hard to be so far away, and not experiencing birth
• Surrogate arrived at 36 weeks mark from USA, to be in Australia for the birth
• The sisters are closer for undertaking surrogacy
• They have experienced something beyond words

Surrogate No. 2:

• Wanted to be friends with the intending parents first
• Everything changed once the hypothetical became a reality
• 12 weeks scan was not normal, blood test detected T18 disorder, does not sustain life. Assumed termination would occur.
• The surrogate indicated that you really don’t know what you will do.
• Legally it is the surrogate’s decision to terminate or not.
• Needed to have very open discussions
• It seems that the biggest problem arise when there is an established relationship between the surrogate and intending parents before the surrogacy journey

Intending Parents No. 1:

• Gay couple that tried commercial surrogacy in USA, it was not successful
• Met with a surrogate from rural NSW, which was again unsuccessful due to health concerns with the surrogate
• Third time lucky
• You form a lifetime bond with the surrogate
• Inviting them into your family, creating a family
• It is special that the surrogate’s DNA is firmly embodied in the new family
• Not a tradition family but important to keep the family bond
• It is our family
• It took sleepless nights searching the web site, lots of chats with people on the web to find the surrogate
• Twins born at 27 weeks, bit scary as it is so early, the scare made it very real for intended parents and surrogate
• Surrogate must have an amazing husband that gives support
• Can never put a dollar amount on surrogacy, the surrogate will never be the same after surrogacy, it changes their life completely
• Intended parents would like to compensate the surrogate financially

Intending Parents No. 2:

• Surrogate from India, cost about $30,000
• They asked people but could not find anyone to help them
• In India, they met surrogate, doctor and lawyer
• Legal Agreements were signed with:
• Intending parent and clinic
• Intending parents and surrogate
• Intending parents and surrogate’s husband
• The surrogate gets about 3 or 4 years of wages (Approx. AUD$7,000) in addition they gave them extra money after the birth for the surrogates family

Researcher:

• Against all forms of surrogacy
• Altruistic surrogacy is exceptional, but extremely rare
• Concerns over the surrogacy’s right to life
• Wants to stop this industry before it becomes are big as prostitution
• Average expense for surrogacy in India AUD$70,000, local altruistic surrogacy in Australia AUD$30,000

Counsellor:

•      Undertaken 150 altruistic surrogacies
•      The established process is:
•      send intending parents and surrogate a list of questions
•      interview separately, as couples and all together
•      prepare report
•      all parties read the final report
•      Over the last 25 years (and 150 surrogacies) the counsellor has recommended 1 arrangement to not go ahead and questioned 10

Doctor:

• A bunch of cells is not a baby
• Surrogate is contributing an enormous amount to the cells to create a baby
• Believes that there are two biological mothers in a surrogacy process

Lawyer:

• Legal agreement is not binding, except for the financial payments
• If surrogate does not hand over baby then the surrogacy must pay back expenses
• In Australia, it is extremely difficult to get through the surrogacy process, lots of provisions in place it avoid exploitation
• Identified the issue with finances, such as in SA would cannot pay for life insurance for the surrogate
• A number of children are born overseas to surrogates, the children are bought back to Australia and become citizens
• 997 children that have come into Australia from overseas may not have parents as defined under Australian Law
• Not one person has been prosecuted for bringing a child(ren) into Australia born from surrogacy arrangement
• Illegal to undertake certain acts such as paying for expenses for the surrogate which would be considered normal
• there is an opportunity for regulation reform, and consistent approach to surrogacy across Australia

Top tip:

Life insurance is very important and highly recommended


A link to the SBS Insight page and a very complex and delightful story of sisters and surrogacy.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/thefeed/story/having-amys-baby-sister-surrogate