Our Story

Altruistic Surrogacy - The Road Least Taken

The need to find a surrogate is never an easy story to hear. It is filled with emotion and fear, but it can also be a story of hope, family and love. Ryan and I have never been closer.  

Desire for a family

Our story started about three years ago, because a surrogacy story starts with the desire to create a family. To be honest, we were scared. Bringing a child into this world would be the biggest thing either of us would ever do. My partner Ryan and I would talk about all the things we needed to work out before we could even start.

• Do we agree with our parenting styles?

• Do we agree with the school we would send our kids to?

• How many kids is the right number?

• Do we have a strong enough support network around us to be the kind of parents we want to be?

• Are we financially secure enough to start a family?

• How do we ensure both grandparents get to spend time with the kids?

• Will we be bringing a child into a world that is environmentally able to support our child?

• Etc

Needless to say, the list of questions was long.

If it is not plainly obvious, Ryan and I never take decisions lightly or quickly. We talk through all our challenges and have a desire to find an agreed resolution before we proceed. We have tried doing it other ways, it never works. This characteristic is based on our desire to make the right decision. I was once known to take over 4 years to buy an IKEA Expedit book shelf, because I wanted to be really sure that I needed it before spending the money. Ok perhaps overly cautious. Ryan, is in IT and will always spend time researching before making a rash purchase, he is likely to be an expert in the topic before expressing an opinion. The events of the last year have really challenged this “snail like” approach to decision making.

I am a little older than Ryan. (Yes, he is my toy boy…I am so lucky.) So, my desire to “get cracking” on the child front was a little more intense for me.

I have always thought I would have children but it was becoming very clear that it would not "just happen". 

Life never runs to plan

Ryan’s dear sister is struggling with a terminal illness. While she lives in a different state, we were very involved with her family’s future planning. We had been talking with her and her husband on how to best provide for their three children. We were having to ask the hardest questions. What would happen to the children if her husband was to pass away? We were helping organise the financial support and signing legal documents nearly on a monthly basis. Importantly, we agreed to take on the children if their father was not able to look after them.

I felt very grateful to be able to help my new family in this really special way.

At the same time, I was working flat out to get a promotion. My company is an international firm and I felt that I needed to be more visible in the company if I was going to be asking for a transfer to a different state. A new city, new friends and three new children.

I would be an instant mum.

I kept saying that I would be keen to start a family if we were moving. That would not only been an instant family of three boys but learning how to be a new mum. Yes, on reflection that sounds crazy but I am a firm believer that you have to be there for family, no matter how hard it might be.

This process was putting our own desires on hold but it was keeping the idea of children alive.

I was increasingly worried that we would be trying to have a child just as Ryan’s sister was approaching the end of her life. I would think about how hard this would be for him and the impact on us as a family with a small child.

From watching and learning from my friends, raising a child when everything is good is hard enough. Dealing with possible depression, endless feeding cycles and sleepless nights was not something I was looking forward to.

Time to start

I am not sure what the trigger was but I started to change the dialogue. Instead of talking to each other about our fears we started to talk about the positives. We started to look at our own characteristics, the things we liked about each other. Then we realised a child of ours could potentially have these qualities.

What is so special about us? Well nothing really, but we do look at the world a little differently. We value family and connection instead of consumerism. We like to grow our own vegetables from heirloom seeds. Ryan likes to brew craft beer, I like to sew my dresses. We value spending time with people over buying them gifts. We value creating things.

So, by looking at the possibility of child rearing as a gift to the world and not something to be scared of, we started to put things in place.

By this time, Ryan’s parents had moved interstate to look after his sister. Her husband had left her and she was unable to walk let alone raise three young boys.

We thought that we needed to establish a close strong network of friends, as family was no longer close by. We started to reach out to people we knew. We started to attend our local church with friends.

Trying to keep things normal

Life was working out. I was passionate about my work. I was very excited, I had been invited to speak at an international urban design conference about our “healthy active by design tool” we developed with the Heart Foundation. I felt like all my hard work was about to pay off.

Ryan, was managing a head office relocation for 200 staff with new IT infrastructure. It was challenging but he was enjoying learning new skills.  

While we considered ourselves successful, we did not have a problem free life. My farming family live 4 hours drive away and have been struggling through drought and disappointing bank decisions. Ryan’s sister was going through very hard times with the relationship with her husband breaking down and putting strain on her family life. It has been a really heart breaking story.

All that aside, we thought we were dealing with things well.

We knew that we would need support. With both sets of parents unable to help us out with a new baby I was hoping to establish a little community around us, like the one I would have at home on the farm. We were progressing our grand plan.

One day, a week before my birthday my partner threw my teddy bear to me. It knocked my breast and a sharp pain flashed through my body. Definitely not normal.  

Trip to the doctor

I asked Ryan and his mum to organise a trip to the GP when I arrived later in the week to see them. Ryan had headed over earlier to spend time with his sister who was declining fast.

The doctor did not delay, after feeling my breast she did not waste any time. I was referred to my breast clinic back in Perth. I was surprisingly calm, I had these scares before and they had ended up being nothing.

Unfortunately, this time was different, within days things started to unravel.

I remember being very busy at work, we had some a great projects in the office. Clients were flying in from Asia and I was trying to juggle doctor appointments, exploratory procedures, project team meetings and a massive report. Life was hectic, a trip to the doctor was a bit of an inconvenience.

Even though I am very committed to my work, health always takes a priority.

The thing you never want to hear

I don’t remember telling my partner I was diagnosed with breast cancer. We have talked about it. We  think we probably nervously laughed about it, and decided just to do all we could to fix it. Just get on with it!

My baby brother was the first one to make me feel scared. He is a bloke’s bloke, and this tough farmer was struggling to know what to say.  Distance really is a tyranny at times. I was trying to track down my other brother and Dad on the farm. There are only a few places on the farm where you can get an uninterrupted mobile phone coverage, so tracking them down was difficult. I told Dad I wanted him to drive to Mum as I had some news to tell them. It was a long 30 min wait for him to drive back to the homestead. I wanted my Mum to have someone with her when I told her.

I was still surprisingly calm, my Mum has struggled through breast cancer and was amazing. She found her tumour early and only required radiation treatment. Though she was incredibly tired she was very level headed and positive around us kids. I have not doubt that Mum and Dad had some really dark hours together, but they did not show it.

My family is from a very isolated rural community and life is very much about getting on with things. So, I threw myself into getting the best treatment, while still progressing my work projects. I was determined to keep working, it gives me real sense of purpose in life.

I had been told by my counsellor that there was great benefits from staying engaged with work, if possible.

Treatment begins

It was after surgery that I discovered I needed chemotherapy. My life really started to change. I felt like I was strapped to a roller coaster. Tears became the norm in our household.  

Ryan had been researching his ancestry, we had found this beautiful little village in Italy with plans to visit. He talked with pride of his family tree and his family’s role in this rural community.

I had a terrible feeling of failure. Chemotherapy meant that I was no longer going to be able to have children naturally. I would regularly break down and profusely apologies that I had failed to provide Ryan with a child. I was not mentally very well.

As my girlfriends had children, I had to come to terms with not being a mother. I really struggled to connect with my friends. I wanted to but I was full of sadness.

To Ryan’s credit he would simply say we will life our life as fully and as authentically as we can. He said we are strong and will in time make sure that we have a rewarding life, be that with children or not.

On good days we would walk in nature. It was very relaxing and provide a chance to be positive.

The balancing act

Life settled into a process of trying to balance the complicated “give and take” decisions associated with cancer treatment.

All I remember is tears running down my face as the oncologist said I would no longer be able to have children naturally. My partner took my hand and I lost the struggle to hold back an avalanche of tears. My greatest fears were becoming a reality.

Fear and sadness was replaced by confusion when my oncologist thought I would still have the strength to go to work during my chemotherapy treatment. How was that going to be possible?

I was shocked but clung to the surprising silver lining, anything that would keep me going. The thought of staying home dwelling on my lack of motherhood was too much. Struggling to stay at work would at least keep my mind off the negatives.

I was determined to be strong. I was going to continue to work. I thought some counselling once a week would be helpful but that would be at the end of the day and fit in around my meetings. (Breast Cancer Care WA is an amazing service for anyone struggling with a breast cancer diagnosis.) We had great projects on the go and I really did not want to give up on working.

What you don’t know…

Being completely unaware of all the ramifications of my breast cancer diagnosis was a benefit at the beginning, but as I progressed down this journey, I knew more and became more frightened.

I started to ask about pregnancy and if I could delay treatment.

In what felt like a whirl-wind, we had a referral to an IVF specialist. There was lots of information, lots of costs and lots of stress. The chances of IVF working are so slim, it was beginning to dawn on me that for my dream of a baby to come true I would need a miracle, and not just one, I needed many. The planets were really going to have to align. I started to punish myself, all I could think of was that I had destroyed my partner’s life and he would have no one to look after him when he was old.

It became an obsession of mine to find a way to have Ryan looked after in his old age. I was unsure if I would be around and I was obviously not going to easily provide him with a child. I did not sleep at night and would stay up watching TV to try block out my churning mind.

I was having so many appointments, it felt like a couple a day. It must have been very frustrating for my work colleagues. I was becoming less and less reliable, but refusing to “give up”.

A quick decision is a good one

There is one moment I will always remember. I can say it has been the defining moment of my life.

We were driving back to work as I read the IVF pamphlet given to us by the clinic. I started to count the days I had before chemotherapy started. In a rush of panic I realised I had to start the IVF that very day and I could not go back to the office. I was ovulating and the precious little eggs needed to be captured before released from my ovaries. In a flash, things became very real.

There are a number of legal requirements before you can undertake an IVF cycle. We had a mater of hours to secure counselling, scans, start medication and find a way to pay for the treatment. As many women know, an IVF cycle is not cheap or physically easy. It was a very tense day of begging for preferential treatment, maxing out multiple credit cards and most importantly thinking about how we might be able to create a family.

Our compulsorily counseling was the most confronting hour in my life. Ryan and I held hands while the counselor gave us a very bleak and honest run down of the IVF process. We were told of the incredibly low change of harvesting my eggs, fertilizing them, and achieving a 5 day blastocyst.

At one moment, through tears I said that it was OK because Ryan and I could adopt. When the counselor tells you that IVF is considerably more likely to result in a family my spirits really hit rock bottom. Basically, she explained that the problem was there are no children to adopt, with a 5-6 year delay.

It was all too much to comprehend.

At some point in the day, as we ran between appointments, we stopped and looked at each other. It was all too confusing and we needed a moment with each other. We settled on the fact we needed to keep our parenting options open. Then later, in a considered and calm way we could discuss the many different ways we might form a family around us, whatever family means, for us.

Give and Take

Life took on this strange give and take momentum. Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and a mastectomy were going to give me a chance at life, but it was also taking away our chance of a family and my femininity.

I was grieving the highly likely loss of children, loss of hair, loss of breasts and the overwhelming belief that I would begin to look like an alien. I was worried my partner would find me too ugly and scary to have around.

One crazy month

Strangely, the hardest month of my life is also one of our best. We were rocketing through a once only fertility cycle. If we did not have a successful cycle, we had no idea what our choices were.

We knew if we got two embryos we would be well above the Western Australian average. Most women struggle with successful IVF cycles.

My partner injected me daily, while my needle phobia grew exponentially.

Month 1

13  ^th - Breast cancer diagnosis

24 ^th - Met surgeon  - operation booked

30 ^th - Lumpetcopy and axillary lymph removal

Month 2

3^rd - Informed of poor clearances

5^th - Meeting with IVF specialist

Daily injections and blood tests to determine if my body was ready.

18 ^th - Egg harvesting - 23 eggs

19 ^th - Egg fertilisation - 17 eggs fertilised

21^st - Cell division - 13 embryos get to the cells division stage

23^rd - 5 day Blastocyst - 9 embryos make it to day 5.

24 ^th - Blastocyst +1 - 10 beautiful frozen potential babies

30 ^th - First chemotherapy round

We were possibly the most blessed couple in the world. We achieved such a large number of embryos that IVF became the best part of my breast cancer journey.

Having such a successful IVF cycle made the journey through chemotherapy that much easier. It gave us hope for a life after treatment.

As expected 14 days after the start of chemotherapy the hair had to go – it was hard to hide the illness now!

Chemotherapy started, it was scary but I was feeling well enough to go into work a few days a week. I was struggling to get out of bed but once moving I could get on the bus to get to work. I was nominating my project for a prize and attending project team meetings, trying to keep things as normal as possible. I had to admit I was slowing down but still making it into the office.

I could not really talk to anyone about our future family fears because everyone wanted to talk to me about cancer.

Holiday time

I discovered that all my mental strength or denial (depending on your perspective), was not going to keep me going. It was when my immune system decided to take a holiday and leave my shell of a body in Perth, everything got tense. I was in hospital for 5 days with an extremely high temperature and I was not well. My family wanted to come and see me, but it was better for them to stay away to ensure less chance of infection. When you realise a piece of food in between my teeth could kill me, I was a little on edge.

Chemotherapy had taken a naturally occurring family, my hair, my chance at continuing my work and it appeared my ability to regulate my body. My temperature was in the range that could impact my long term mental capacity.

To be honest, I fell into a bit of a hole. While I was terrified, I had previously been able to get myself out of bed and go to work but now it seemed like everything was too much.

I made the decision that I was not going to go back to work. I needed to focus on my health.

Magical moments

It is when life seems a bit too hard that magical things can happen. Friends and family helped in any way they could. It was such a comfort to my partner and I to have a constant flow of friends sending us messages, food or sitting with us.

To help, I also enrolled in a meditation course, I just wanted to find a way to slow down my mind. I remember one day deciding to meditate on visualising my future. Every time I became emotional I visualised us walking along the beach with a little child. This would bring tears to my eyes but it also gave me great hope. 

One day I was very down. To cheer myself up I selected 10 names for our 10 embryos. It sounds crazy but I thought this is the closest I might get to being a Mum, I really have to try and enjoy it. 

Visualising our future.

Friends came from near and far to be with me

When diagnosed and going through treatment, it can be difficult to see family, friends and colleagues. Often, unintentionally they would say something to make me cry. Interaction with people became an emotional minefield. I started attending Solaris Care.  There, each appointment is one hour of rest and relaxation with no chance of emotional confusion.

I decided that I needed to give myself a chance to recover in the best possible way. Recovery for me included stilling my mind, massage and reflexology were an important part of that. Each week I managed to get myself off the couch to go see the positive and happy team at Solaris Care.

Volunteers would tell me how they managed to recover a passion for life after their experience with cancer. One wonderful volunteer at Solaris Care brought in her needle-work she had created during her treatment. It was so beautiful and inspired me to be creative. My partner, family, friends and my counsellor from BreastCare WA had kept recommending I do things I loved. Being creative has been a constant companion in life but previously I was just not able to get motivated.

Driving to radiation therapy and a Solaris Care treatment

I decided to enter into a costume competition. This was a wonderful way of focusing on something other than myself. WOW, the World of Wearable art is a competition in New Zealand that has the most exquisite forms of wearable artwork, a very unique event.

For me, the process of design was more important than the competition. It was a really effective way to take my mind off the illness and the treatment. I named my costume “Alarum (latin: wings)”. The costume is very colourful and has big, bold wings. The dress imitates the chrysalis in which the caterpillar metamorphose to become a beautiful butterfly. A positive metamorphoses rather than the one I felt I was going through.

Ryan really got into helping me. He was sourcing materials on the internet and talking construction techniques with my father. It became such a great distraction, people could talk to me and not have to discuss my treatment or fears of childlessness.





Alarum WOW costume




It is amazing how creativity can inspire people, many friends helped me and it was a lovely way to connect with people. Strangely, as I approached the time for my mastectomy, something I was not looking forward to, I was excited about the competition. Life really is a complicated web of give and take, ups and downs. The great thing was it gave me something to talk about other than my illness.

Unfortunately, the costume was not selected but I always have next year. It was a really fun experience.

Christmas

By Christmas, I had completed my chemotherapy and started my radiation treatment. I had taught myself to only think of one stage at a time. Family started to ask about the possibility of children. It was all too much. We decided that we would focus on each stage without the additional pressure of what the future may or may not bring.

We had the most beautiful family lunch, with an overwhelming focus on relaxing. Spending time together was lovely.

Family Christmas 2014

Life lessons

If I learnt anything, never make a decision when under going treatment. My mind was only just capable of looking after my body, it could not stretch to making life changing decisions.

I learnt to not take myself too seriously. We have learnt to laugh and find delight in the smallest of things.

We were surprised by who helped us and who stayed away. We learnt to accept the love we were offered, not matter if it came in prayers, frozen food or hugs.

Always, keep faith in the things that are most important. Ryan and I believe we can create a family, it is what keeps us moving forward.

Faith

Beginning of 2015 - Feeling better and thrilled to have some hair

I never thought I would go back to work. I really was not interested, but as I recovered, my strength grew and my interest in urban design returned.

Time to get back to work

Family is now our focus

After 12 months, I have finally received the medical news I was hoping for. My treatment has been very successful, and while there are no guarantees in life my prognosis is defined as very good.

While we are very grateful that there is a medication I can take to support a positive long-term outcome, it has detrimental impacts on my chances of carrying a child.

Based on the hormonal positive cancer I have it is best for me not to stop my medication. Unfortunately, the medication is toxic to babies. My specialist has recommended that I am on the medication for a minimum of 10 years.  I have to admit, that is going to make me old to have a baby.

Also, as we understand it, in WA embryos are not kept for more than 10 years. Our beautiful ten embryos have been on ice for a year now. Either way you slice it the numbers are not on our side.

Now, my partner and I are beginning to explore our hope for a family. I never thought I would be in this situation and it seems very surreal. I always thought that my barrier to motherhood would be my commitment to work. How quickly life can change. There are many barriers associated with finding a gestational altruistic surrogate.

We have really spent time thinking about what our future will hold. We have talked about how we would like to raise a child and the values and morals we hold important. 

We are hopeful that we will be lucky enough to find a wonderful woman with a supportive family, but if not...

For us, family is about a group of people that love and care for each other. We have had to accept it can come in many different forms. We don’t know where this desire for a family will lead us.

But what we do know, together we will make the most of it, what ever comes our way.

Family

Robina and Ryan