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Speaker 1: After his first birthday. We were still in the High

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Speaker 1: Court via zoom with me being questioned I mean it

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Speaker 1: makes my blood boil, but by some sort of eighty

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Speaker 1: year old gray haired man and being slightly whatever but

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Speaker 1: pretty much who was saying, are you sure you try

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Speaker 1: it hard enough to have a baby?

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Seas the Ya Podcast.

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Speaker 3: Busy and happy, but tired and worn, just some of

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Speaker 3: the feelings when baby is born. There's magic, elation, there's

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Speaker 3: chaos and tears, but everyone goes through the same hopes

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Speaker 3: and fears. So this is a segment we hope helps

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Speaker 3: you feel supported and valid. The mum juggles real, the good, bad,

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Speaker 3: the ugly, the best.

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Speaker 2: And worst day.

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Speaker 3: It's part of the journey to seize the Babe. I'm

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Speaker 3: Sarah Davidson, a lawyer turned f entrepreneur who hung up

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Speaker 3: the suits and heels to co found Mata Maiden a

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Speaker 3: Macha milk bar, become a TV and radio presenter and

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Speaker 3: of course host the Sees the Ya Podcast.

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Speaker 2: This year I added.

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Speaker 3: Motherhood to that list, which is the best job I've

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Speaker 3: ever had with our beautiful baby Teddy. And this segment

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Speaker 3: was designed to house all the conversations we've been having

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Speaker 3: about parenthood. We'll still do our regular episodes, and just

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Speaker 3: like real life, it's a constant balance between our parent

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Speaker 3: identity and everything else. I hope you guys enjoy this

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Speaker 3: segment as much as I have enjoyed creating it. Guys,

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Speaker 3: I mentioned the crazy revelation in our last episode that

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Speaker 3: our first was back in twenty eighteen, making twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: five our seventh year of seizing the AA, and that

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Speaker 3: makes this one of many beautiful full circle moments as

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Speaker 3: we welcome back our first guest ever, the inimitable Lisa Messenger,

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Speaker 3: without whom this show would not actually exist. I so

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Speaker 3: often talk about sliding doors moments, and sometimes those come

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Speaker 3: in the form of a person taking a leap of

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Speaker 3: faith on you that changes your life forever. Lisa said

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Speaker 3: yes when we hardly knew each other. I had zero

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Speaker 3: proof of concept, literally had barely understood what a podcast

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Speaker 3: actually was, and was so green in business. So I

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Speaker 3: will always be incredibly grateful to her, and just reminding

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Speaker 3: all of you to always ask the question, because you

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Speaker 3: just never know who might say yes. What's even more

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Speaker 3: special about this one is that while Lisa has been

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Speaker 3: back on the show, a few times. We've now added

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Speaker 3: motherhood to the bonds of our friendship and pathways to

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Speaker 3: family that transcend DNA. Lisa was three years into trying

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Speaker 3: to conceive when we first spoke back in twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 3: but eighteen rounds of IVF would follow until twenty nine

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Speaker 3: hundred and twenty two days after starting trying, Lisa welcomed

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Speaker 3: her beautiful son, Hugo, into the world via surrogacy, being adopted.

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Speaker 3: As you all know, I've always been so invested in

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Speaker 3: making less traditional and sometimes stigmatized pathways to a family

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Speaker 3: more accessible and better understood. So I pored over the

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Speaker 3: incredible book that Lisa and her wonderful surrogate, Sarah Megison

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Speaker 3: co authored, called The Power of Two, which came out

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Speaker 3: late last year. They broke their hearts all the way

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Speaker 3: open to share every detail of their experience, logistics, finances, emotions,

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Speaker 3: and we are just so lucky to have them both

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Speaker 3: on the show today. I'll let them tell you more themselves.

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Speaker 3: They tell it so much better than I do. But

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Speaker 3: I personally was so curious about the mechanics and logistics

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Speaker 3: of surrogacy, with it still being rarely spoken about and

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Speaker 3: perhaps still a bit taboo or stigmatized, but definitely not

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Speaker 3: very accessible in terms of the finances and all the

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Speaker 3: logistics of making it work. On the off chance that

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Speaker 3: this episode might reach even one or two of you

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Speaker 3: who needed a scrap of new information or a glimmer

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Speaker 3: of hope, as we will talk about it felt like

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Speaker 3: the perfect topic for Caesar Bab and I hope you

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Speaker 3: all enjoy it as much as I did. Of course,

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Speaker 3: as this is about a fertility journey, just a content warning.

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Speaker 3: We do cover pregnancy loss and other similar struggles, so

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Speaker 3: please do take care while listening. Lisa and Sarah, Welcome

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Speaker 3: to CZA. Actually, Lise, welcome back to CZA. I feel

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Speaker 3: this is maybe your fifth appearance or something like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like I've been hanging around for a

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Speaker 1: while and we were just chatting before we jumped on

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Speaker 1: about how I was your first party guest and you

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Speaker 1: were my first plenty guest. So there's something beautiful about

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Speaker 1: all of this.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, But when I was your first podcast guest, you

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Speaker 3: were so established in your career. I was just helping

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Speaker 3: you out because I was also editing it.

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Speaker 2: But when you were my.

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Speaker 3: First podcast guest, I had just started in business. The

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Speaker 3: podcast Landscape was brand new. I had no idea what

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Speaker 3: I was doing, and you took such a big leap

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Speaker 3: of faith saying yes to me back then the show.

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Speaker 3: I think that was like twenty eighteen, and I definitely

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Speaker 3: wouldn't be here, my career wouldn't be where it was

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Speaker 3: if you hadn't said yes. So I will always remember

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Speaker 3: that and be eternally grateful. So what a full circle moment.

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Speaker 1: And look at you now with one of the best

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Speaker 1: podcasts on the planet. There's many full circle moments on

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Speaker 1: the podcast between the three of us today.

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Speaker 3: I'm sure whereas we said, this is the first time

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Speaker 3: we've properly met, and yet because of your beautiful book,

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Speaker 3: as we mentioned and off air, I know almost everything

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Speaker 3: about your lady bits and how.

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Speaker 4: Your urous works, just all the details I know.

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Speaker 5: I think far too many people know more than they

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Speaker 5: ever wanted to about how my inner parts work.

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Speaker 3: Now I'm such a sucker for detail. But that's also

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Speaker 3: the beauty of your incredible co authored book, The Power

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Speaker 3: of Two, where you both give such intimate details and

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Speaker 3: often quite stigmatize details of the surrogacy experience and other

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Speaker 3: parts of the fertility journey. And that stigma is often

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Speaker 3: the barrier to accessibility for other people who might be

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Speaker 3: on a similar journey. I feel like this is quite

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Speaker 3: a signature move for you, Lisa. You've always shared the financials,

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Speaker 3: the data, you share numbers, and that's so unheard of.

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Speaker 3: So I'm so grateful that you've put this out into

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Speaker 3: the world. Thank you so much for sharing the way

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Speaker 3: you do.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so Where to start?

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Speaker 3: There's so much I wish I could just read the

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Speaker 3: entire book out to everyone, but hopefully they go and

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Speaker 3: do that for themselves. Lise, maybe let's start with a

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Speaker 3: bit of your fertility journey, the chronology leading up to

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Speaker 3: when you met Sarah and when you embarked on this

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Speaker 3: journey together. So eighteen rounds of IVF, eight years of trying,

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Speaker 3: I mean in your data, twenty nine hundred and twenty

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Speaker 3: two days. Gosh, you tried adoption. You've done IVF in

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Speaker 3: many different formats, like tell us about the journey leading

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Speaker 3: up to this point.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, Sarah and I met in twenty eleven, so

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Speaker 1: Sarah came before all that came back. But we met

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Speaker 1: in a work capacity.

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Speaker 4: We were working on book babies, not real babies.

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Speaker 1: Baby sahed A number of my books in the first

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Speaker 1: book she edited for me, because I write about everything

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Speaker 1: that I know nothing about, and then I write as

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Speaker 1: I learn as future, which is where I've written so

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Speaker 1: many books. So that particular book in twenty eleven was

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Speaker 1: a property investing book that Sarah and I met over.

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Speaker 1: But yes, fast forward to my fertility journey and then

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Speaker 1: we can go back to how we connected about all

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Speaker 1: of this twenty fifteen. And it's funny because I'm so

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Speaker 1: data orientated in my business now because I've had to

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Speaker 1: learn to be. I am big on numbers. Stephen always

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Speaker 1: says to me, Oh my god, how do you just

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Speaker 1: pull these numbers out? Like I just know numbers about

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Speaker 1: when things happened. So twenty fifteen, I was with my

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Speaker 1: previous partner, I got pregnant to him. Sadly, I had

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Speaker 1: a miscarriage and then we broke up shortly thereafter. But

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Speaker 1: being a bit of a bost lady and being like

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Speaker 1: I'm ready to have a baby now, that was really

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Speaker 1: painful and it kind of opened the gates of I

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Speaker 1: really want to be a mum. And I think it

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Speaker 1: was back when I had Collective Hub Print mag and

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Speaker 1: you know, we were very much about world domination at

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Speaker 1: the time with the magazine in thirty seven countries, and

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Speaker 1: so I was like, of course I can throw this

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Speaker 1: into the mix, and of course I can achieve this,

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Speaker 1: and I don't need a man to do so. So

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Speaker 1: then I decided to get donus sperm, and I did

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Speaker 1: two rounds of IVF using my eggs, shopping for random

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Speaker 1: baby daddy's on the internet. So where I went next.

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Speaker 1: Actually before that, though, I had been to Bali the

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Speaker 1: Christmas of twenty sixteen, and I'd met this little baby

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Speaker 1: Gracie who was lying on a mattress and I spent

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Speaker 1: three days lying next to her and I tried to

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Speaker 1: adopt her. So yeah, so natural conception tried to adopt

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Speaker 1: two rounds with baby daddy sperm, and none of that,

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Speaker 1: sadly was successful. And then I met Stephen shortly thereafter,

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Speaker 1: and he was like, you know, once we knew that

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Speaker 1: we were going to be together, we were like, let's

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Speaker 1: try and have a baby. Yeah, And that was interesting

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Speaker 1: because he was like, well, let's just go naturally. But

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Speaker 1: I was already like three rounds into everything, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'd done all the pieces before, and he was like,

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Speaker 1: fresh off the you know, fresh out of the gates,

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Speaker 1: and like, let's try to have a baby naturally. So

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Speaker 1: I'd already done two rounds of and then we tried naturally,

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Speaker 1: which he was determined to do, which I think makes

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Speaker 1: complete sense because as we talk about in the book,

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Speaker 1: we all come to things at different phases. We tried naturally,

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Speaker 1: that wasn't working, so then proceeded to do a further

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Speaker 1: fourteen rounds of IBF. So by the time Sair came

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Speaker 1: into the picture, I had done two rounds on my

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Speaker 1: own my maths now twelve with still and then was

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Speaker 1: all right. Anyway, we got to fourteen sixteen and then

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Speaker 1: came in for the last two. I mean, it was

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Speaker 1: a long journey, and really we talked about it all

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Speaker 1: in the book, but it's not a sorry book, which

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Speaker 1: I think you pointed out before says it was much

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Speaker 1: more around that's the through line. But for us it's

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Speaker 1: about how do we tell a story and you know,

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Speaker 1: share the tenacity and the never giving up and anything's

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Speaker 1: possible and there's more than one way to do anything,

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Speaker 1: which you know I've always been all about clearly, and

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Speaker 1: I was just not going to give up until I

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Speaker 1: had my beautiful scromptious, little baby in my hands. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's the smash.

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Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.

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Speaker 3: I mean it's one of those things where you had

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Speaker 3: spoken so much in your life about tenacity and grit

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Speaker 3: and you know, never kind of taking over an answer

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Speaker 3: before that point. And yet I don't think any of

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Speaker 3: the times where you'd try something for had it taken

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Speaker 3: you eight years and eighteen rounds to not be able

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Speaker 3: to do it, And for someone so driven and so

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Speaker 3: sure that you could just do better next time and

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Speaker 3: understand all the data, I can't imagine how frustrating and

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Speaker 3: what a roller coaster, just how consuming that that must

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Speaker 3: have been for that time.

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Speaker 1: All consuming, And I think, you know, mostly what you

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Speaker 1: and I have talked about previously is entrepreneurship and business,

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Speaker 1: you know, which I'm very good at because I mean

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Speaker 1: that's what I do. I thrive on finding solutions to

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Speaker 1: problems and seeing opportunity where others see, you know, bluckages,

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Speaker 1: and so that's what I do all day, every day.

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Speaker 1: So it was extraordinarily frustrating that you can't just you know,

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Speaker 1: throw money at something or bringing a team to solve

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Speaker 1: so I mean you can. I did throw a lot

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Speaker 1: of money and did bring in a lot of teams.

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Speaker 6: I was going to say, you did try that.

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Speaker 1: You know, there are certain things that medically, you know,

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Speaker 1: within my body, it just seemed impossible to solve. And

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Speaker 1: you know, in a business meeting, we would always debrief

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Speaker 1: and work out what do we do best next time?

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Speaker 1: And every single time with the clinic that we had

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Speaker 1: a debriefing call. Even though the rounds of IBF had

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Speaker 1: cost between ten and twelve thousand dollars each, the debriefing

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Speaker 1: call then was like another one hundred and thirty dollars.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, you do not just throw that in as

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Speaker 1: a value had And it always took you know, two

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Speaker 1: to four minutes, and it was just like you're on

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Speaker 1: the right track, you know, just keep going. So that

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Speaker 1: I found extraordinarily frustrating because you know, as a business

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Speaker 1: person and someone who wants to reverse engineer and you know,

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Speaker 1: break everything apart and work out, well, why is it

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Speaker 1: not working? Like, just tell me what I'll do and

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Speaker 1: I'll do it. I don't care, like I'll which I did,

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Speaker 1: you know, poo in a thing to the US and

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Speaker 1: check it out and do this and do that, like

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Speaker 1: whatever it is, inject myself for one hundred and eighty times,

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Speaker 1: you know, swallow these tablets, climb on the roofs, down

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Speaker 1: on my head, whatever it is, just tell me. So

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Speaker 1: that was frustrating because in those briefing calls it was

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Speaker 1: very much like, no, you're doing really well. And I'm

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Speaker 1: someone who, as is said, we like to learn and

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Speaker 1: we like to have data and explanations so we can

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Speaker 1: do better and be better, and so it was like, well, okay,

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Speaker 1: thank you, and there was not much to go on.

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Speaker 1: So that was very frustrating.

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Speaker 3: I always found, even in like a much much more

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Speaker 3: condensed version of what you went through, that it was

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Speaker 3: the first time ever in my life I'd had to

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Speaker 3: accept that I could do all the right things, everything right.

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Speaker 3: Every single thing that is possible to control I had

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Speaker 3: controlled to the best of my ability, and still just

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Speaker 3: some months you didn't get a result. Like it was

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Speaker 3: just the most frustrating thing because we're so used to

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Speaker 3: our effort equally output, and there was just no output.

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Speaker 3: So before we do move on to the actual surrogacy

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Speaker 3: process and the mechanics of it, to anyone who I

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Speaker 3: think you often hear the story in reverse. You hear

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Speaker 3: like even the way I tell my story is now

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Speaker 3: I have Teddy, so you kind of hear with the

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Speaker 3: happy ending. And even with my mum's story, she also

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Speaker 3: went through an extraordinary amount of IVF before adopting us,

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Speaker 3: And so we all have a beautiful happy ending at

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Speaker 3: the end. But for those who haven't sort of got

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Speaker 3: their happy ending in that bit where you just don't

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Speaker 3: know how enduring it's going to be, what does keep

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Speaker 3: you going? Like, what would you say to someone who's

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Speaker 3: sort of still in those earlier days, Because I feel

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Speaker 3: like there will be a lot of listeners who are

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Speaker 3: listening because that's where they are.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and sorry, sayh Meg, we will come to you.

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Speaker 1: I feel like it's the Lisa Show out of my mind.

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Speaker 1: There's a whole lot of stuff. And also, interestingly, since

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Speaker 1: the book The Power Two has come out, it's also

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Speaker 1: brought out a whole lot of triggers and stuff because

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Speaker 1: you know, we've been rashing it and sharing it and everything.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of brought up the whole journey again, which

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Speaker 1: I think is probably good in terms of helping other

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Speaker 1: people and feeling back into the feelings. But for me, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I do have my happy ending, and so I'm like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, please let those eight years will be dolune.

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Speaker 1: I just want to focus on this beautiful baby in

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Speaker 1: front of me. But for anyone who's still in the trenches,

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Speaker 1: I'm very aware that I only talk about my own

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Speaker 1: experiences because there's nothing worse than people being like, oh,

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Speaker 1: why don't you just try and relax more? Or I

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Speaker 1: did this, And sometimes that's useful to kind of go, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: maybe they're little threads that I could follow, But also

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Speaker 1: sometimes you just want to scream because you're like, I know,

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Speaker 1: I've tried that fifteen mimes. So I think what I

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Speaker 1: would say is that what kept me going to be honest,

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Speaker 1: in a way, it was probably Stephen because he just

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Speaker 1: kept really wanting a baby and just kept saying, come on,

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Speaker 1: we can do this, and so I just kind of

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Speaker 1: kept leaning into whatever. I don't know if I would

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Speaker 1: have given up earlier. What I would say is this, though,

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Speaker 1: actually the most useful thing for other people is I

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Speaker 1: think it's like little semblances of hope and creating little

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Speaker 1: things to look forward to. So for me, what that

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Speaker 1: meant was just changing things up a little bit, and

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Speaker 1: that's probably actually the most useful thing I can say

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Speaker 1: to anyone, because when I was trying the same thing

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Speaker 1: over and over again and being told by the clinic, oh,

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Speaker 1: just keep going. But it was when someone else, actually,

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Speaker 1: when i'm thinking back to it, suggested a little something

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Speaker 1: like at some one point I started going to a

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Speaker 1: Chinese herbalist, and you know, people had said acupuncture is great,

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Speaker 1: so then I went on to Okay, I'll do it.

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Speaker 1: I was doing acupuncture two or three times a week,

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Speaker 1: every week and taking up to ninety tablets a day,

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Speaker 1: which sounds crazy. Fifty of them were these tiny, tiny

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Speaker 1: little bullets that you just check down at once. But

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Speaker 1: you know, I think, actually it's again about people's readiness

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Speaker 1: and what information they want to take in. But I

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Speaker 1: think it was those things sometimes gave me the hope

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Speaker 1: and so I was like, oh I try that, Yep,

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Speaker 1: this will be the answer. Or you know, when we

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Speaker 1: tried different protocols like you know, swapping over, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: various different things that we did. I think that gave

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Speaker 1: me some more hope because I was like, oh, that

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Speaker 1: can do it. So I think when you've got new

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Speaker 1: next steps, it opens up the ability. Like I think

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Speaker 1: if i'd just done eighteen rounds of IVF doing the

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Speaker 1: exact same protocol without introducing anything new or trying anything new.

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Speaker 1: I might have given up the way before, but as

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Speaker 1: we talk about in the book, there was just so

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Speaker 1: many different things, yeah, to the point where I actually,

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is irrelevant. And we didn't talk about

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Speaker 1: this in the book, but like Steven and I went

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Speaker 1: to one crazy naturopath that charged nine dollars a minute,

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Speaker 1: while and Stephen used to exist purely on like kale

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Speaker 1: and mung beans and you know, like the healthiest person

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Speaker 1: on the entire planet. And we both did all these tests,

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Speaker 1: which included like doing a protest and sending it off

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Speaker 1: to America, all these things. Right, Anyway, the funny thing is,

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Speaker 1: and this is the ridiculousness of it, my results came

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Speaker 1: back like absolutely squeaky clean, and I wasn't eating particularly

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Speaker 1: well and I was all over the shop and he

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Speaker 1: was like and I couldn't stop laughing because I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, you're like the healthiest person I know.

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Speaker 1: And he had like all these red lines on his

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Speaker 1: So you just got to keep trying different things, I think,

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Speaker 1: and work out what works for you, work out what

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Speaker 1: information you're open to I know a lot of times

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Speaker 1: when I was ready for help, I'd be like, yes,

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Speaker 1: can you share something with me? But other times I'd

347
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Speaker 1: be like, just today or this week or this month,

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Speaker 1: I'm just not open to anything. I've probably tried it

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Speaker 1: and I just need to hold my protect my energy.

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Speaker 3: I think I love that you said the readiness to

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Speaker 3: hear it, because I also think that with different pathways,

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Speaker 3: like you're the most beautiful example of and I think

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Speaker 3: I'm also an example of the fact that there are

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Speaker 3: many different pathways to a family and DNA and blood

355
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Speaker 3: and natural birth is but one of many. But unless

356
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Speaker 3: you've had exposure to it, like to me when we

357
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Speaker 3: were trying, I sort of thought, adoption is so not

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Speaker 3: foreign to me. It's been around me at my husband's

359
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Speaker 3: My mother in law was adopted as well, so both

360
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Speaker 3: sides it's quite common, which means the more you talk

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Speaker 3: about it, the less foreign these things are. And I

362
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Speaker 3: think this is why you guys are so amazing, is

363
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Speaker 3: because no one has really spoken about saragus before, even

364
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Speaker 3: as an option.

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Speaker 6: So what I would love to ask you.

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Speaker 3: Sarah, is the very very beginning idea, was you kind

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Speaker 3: of throwing away a comment of if you need a surrogate,

368
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Speaker 3: you know, let me know. Is that because you had

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Speaker 3: had exposure to sarrogasy before, did you know how it worked?

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Speaker 3: Or was it just literally a random idea.

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Speaker 5: No exposure to anything. All I had to had was

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Speaker 5: really easy pregnancies. Myself, this idea had always been fascinated

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Speaker 5: in sarrogacy, but my own exposure to it had been overseas,

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Speaker 5: like seeing people on Oprah talking about how they used

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Speaker 5: a sarrogate, or just seeing you know, reading articles in

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Speaker 5: magazines and stuff. I really didn't know much about it

377
00:19:00,920 --> 00:19:03,399
Speaker 5: at all. I had tried years ago just to like

378
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Speaker 5: google it and see, like is there an agency you

379
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Speaker 5: can register with in And it's really.

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Speaker 4: Really hard in Australia. It's so such a black hole.

381
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Speaker 4: There's like hardly and information about it.

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Speaker 5: And so I had just always thought, years ago, like

383
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Speaker 5: a decade ago, when the first thought popped into my mind,

384
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Speaker 5: I thought, if the right circumstance came up, you know,

385
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Speaker 5: I'd love to do that. It was something i'd talked

386
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Speaker 5: about with my husband, like I reckon I could be

387
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Speaker 5: a surrogate one day, and I'd love to do this

388
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Speaker 5: for someone one day. So It wasn't a surprise to

389
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Speaker 5: him when I came to him and said I wanted

390
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Speaker 5: to do this for Lisa. We talked about it, no way.

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Speaker 4: It wasn't like.

392
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Speaker 5: I had gone, oh, my sister needs a baby, so

393
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Speaker 5: I'm going to do this. It was just like this

394
00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:41,080
Speaker 5: idea of something I could do one day, and then

395
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Speaker 5: when I was talking to Lisa and she's like, oh,

396
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Speaker 5: we're starting IVF, it's not going so well.

397
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Speaker 4: And I just wasn't even thinking. I was like, oh, well, if.

398
00:19:47,920 --> 00:19:50,639
Speaker 5: You need a surrogate, you know, I'm usually But it

399
00:19:50,680 --> 00:19:53,000
Speaker 5: was actually at the beginning of her journey shows only

400
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Speaker 5: maybe like three rounds in. When I say only, my gosh,

401
00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:58,760
Speaker 5: three rounds is a lot of rounds for a lot

402
00:19:58,800 --> 00:20:02,040
Speaker 5: of people that you know, the end of the journey.

403
00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:04,240
Speaker 5: But for now we know that Lisa had such a

404
00:20:04,240 --> 00:20:07,240
Speaker 5: long road. She was only three rounds in at the time,

405
00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:10,640
Speaker 5: and so that wasn't really an option for her then.

406
00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:13,800
Speaker 4: And I must admit I just kind of threw it

407
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:16,160
Speaker 4: out there. I didn't know anything.

408
00:20:15,880 --> 00:20:19,080
Speaker 5: About what it would involve or what the I knew nothing.

409
00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:21,320
Speaker 5: I knew nothing, so I was just like, oh, yeah,

410
00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:23,119
Speaker 5: you know, sure, let's do it. The same way that

411
00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:24,879
Speaker 5: like you're chatting with friends and they go, we should

412
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Speaker 5: go to Bali one day.

413
00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:26,720
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's do it.

414
00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:29,639
Speaker 5: Let's go to girls trip. Like I was just like, yeah,

415
00:20:29,680 --> 00:20:32,840
Speaker 5: that sounds great, we could do it. So I kind

416
00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:34,280
Speaker 5: of I threw it out there, and then we just

417
00:20:34,320 --> 00:20:36,720
Speaker 5: didn't talk about it again. It was like she was like, oh,

418
00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:39,000
Speaker 5: that's so kind of you, but you know, we're still

419
00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:41,080
Speaker 5: early stages and whatever, and then.

420
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Speaker 4: We didn't talk about it again. And then I went

421
00:20:42,720 --> 00:20:43,600
Speaker 4: and had.

422
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Speaker 5: I had hernias with my pregnancies and I had diastysprecty,

423
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Speaker 5: so my abs were really separated and the hernia was

424
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Speaker 5: starting to become really painful, and my GP said, look,

425
00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:56,000
Speaker 5: you're either going to need to go get it operated

426
00:20:56,040 --> 00:20:58,480
Speaker 5: on or it will burst and then you'll be getting

427
00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:02,640
Speaker 5: the operation in an emergency setting. So like, either way

428
00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:05,080
Speaker 5: you're getting an operation, it's just a matter of when

429
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Speaker 5: you want to do it.

430
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Speaker 4: And he's like, if you.

431
00:21:06,840 --> 00:21:08,919
Speaker 5: If you wait and it explodes and you're in surgery

432
00:21:08,920 --> 00:21:11,960
Speaker 5: an emergency, you might get someone who's only done three

433
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Speaker 5: of these before in their life.

434
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Speaker 4: Or if you go and proactively get it taken care of,

435
00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:16,560
Speaker 4: you can.

436
00:21:16,440 --> 00:21:18,320
Speaker 5: Get a specialist and I was like, well, that sounds

437
00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:19,280
Speaker 5: like a better way to do it.

438
00:21:19,720 --> 00:21:22,040
Speaker 4: So I went and got all that repaired.

439
00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:25,720
Speaker 5: And my surgeon at the time, excuse me, He said, like,

440
00:21:25,760 --> 00:21:27,520
Speaker 5: you're finished having babies, because once we put you all

441
00:21:27,520 --> 00:21:29,919
Speaker 5: back together, we don't want to, you know, stress that

442
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:30,680
Speaker 5: area out again.

443
00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:32,399
Speaker 4: And I was like, no, no, we're done. And like

444
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:33,040
Speaker 4: in the back of.

445
00:21:32,960 --> 00:21:34,800
Speaker 5: My mind, I thought, oh, I threw that out to Lisa,

446
00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:36,919
Speaker 5: but she never like picked up on it, Like we

447
00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:38,919
Speaker 5: never talked about it again, so that's probably not going

448
00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:39,320
Speaker 5: to happen.

449
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:41,640
Speaker 4: So off I went got my surgery until we did.

450
00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:45,840
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, it is like, you know all those

451
00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:48,520
Speaker 3: memes about how the girls, you know, trip to Europe

452
00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:50,320
Speaker 3: has made it out of the group chat. For you guys,

453
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:53,240
Speaker 3: it's like a baby made it out of the group chat.

454
00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 3: I mean, I said to you guys before he started recording.

455
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:05,640
Speaker 3: It's the second time I've read the book, even having

456
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:08,000
Speaker 3: already known the story, just because I know Lisa and

457
00:22:08,840 --> 00:22:11,640
Speaker 3: it just I've always been such a big believer that

458
00:22:11,720 --> 00:22:16,040
Speaker 3: the universe works things out, the timing, the way ideas circulate,

459
00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:20,240
Speaker 3: like things conspire to make things happen, and I believe

460
00:22:20,280 --> 00:22:23,040
Speaker 3: that our first loss was because Teddy was waiting and

461
00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:25,440
Speaker 3: he just wasn't ready then. And now it all makes sense,

462
00:22:25,720 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 3: and I kind of feel like Hugo was just waiting.

463
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:30,760
Speaker 3: He was waiting for all of those things, yea, and

464
00:22:30,800 --> 00:22:33,040
Speaker 3: it took you know, he was like these eight years,

465
00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:35,200
Speaker 3: I'm not ready yet, Like You're gonna have to wait, mum,

466
00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:37,400
Speaker 3: because I'm in the stars and I.

467
00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:39,880
Speaker 2: Need Sarah to drop this email, and like these things.

468
00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:42,399
Speaker 3: Need to happen, and it all worked out, which is

469
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:44,480
Speaker 3: It gives me goosebumps to think of how many things

470
00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:47,399
Speaker 3: had to go right at the right time for this

471
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:50,520
Speaker 3: idea to circulate. And I hope that maybe someone listening

472
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:54,680
Speaker 3: to this finds some nugget of the process of something

473
00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:57,679
Speaker 3: that opens their mind to something that also is part of,

474
00:22:57,800 --> 00:22:59,720
Speaker 3: you know, the fabric that makes up their own journey.

475
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:00,280
Speaker 2: Why.

476
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:03,399
Speaker 3: I think it is truly remarkable how much you guys share.

477
00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:06,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, I also have goosebumps all of my entire body,

478
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 1: and you probably feel this with Teddy. But like I

479
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:13,479
Speaker 1: do think about it often, Sarah and Sarah because I

480
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:16,400
Speaker 1: look at you and I go, oh my gosh, imagine

481
00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:19,800
Speaker 1: if I hadn't been successful before I wouldn't have Hugo like,

482
00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:23,919
Speaker 1: and he's just so oh, I get so my show like,

483
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 1: he's so perfect. I am so in love with him.

484
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:29,880
Speaker 1: We are so connected, it's like we're the same person.

485
00:23:30,119 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 1: It's wild on so many levels. And so yeah, I

486
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:37,919
Speaker 1: do think that's hopefully another piece for anyone out there

487
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:41,240
Speaker 1: trying still in the trenches, just you know, hang on

488
00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 1: to that string of possibility and we can get into

489
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:48,240
Speaker 1: this as much in as much detail as you want.

490
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 1: But as you said, I do share the finances and things,

491
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:54,040
Speaker 1: and that's always been something I've done since I watched

492
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:57,119
Speaker 1: the magazine in twenty thirteen. I was always like, the

493
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 1: story behind the story. We're a real relatable, attainable and

494
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:02,919
Speaker 1: if I'm not talking about it, then is it? You know.

495
00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: I feel like it's my duty, that's what I've put

496
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 1: out into the world, to actually explain it all. And

497
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:10,679
Speaker 1: if you don't put all the pieces in, then a

498
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:13,040
Speaker 1: lot of people are left shaking their head or scratching

499
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 1: their head and going but why, but why? But how

500
00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:18,320
Speaker 1: about how? And I've always wanted to really help to

501
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:23,360
Speaker 1: take that away and make things much more easy to understand.

502
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:25,359
Speaker 1: And I think you can only do that with all

503
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:28,919
Speaker 1: of the detail, but the financial piece. We had a

504
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 1: review a couple of days ago, a beautiful review, but

505
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 1: it triggered me a little bit because she was like,

506
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:36,520
Speaker 1: of course, you know, Lisa and Sarah are beautiful in

507
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:38,800
Speaker 1: the book, and because they talk all about, you know,

508
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: the privilege that they have, it always makes me feel

509
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 1: a bit like, you know, because yes, I have privileged

510
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:49,359
Speaker 1: depending on how you look at it, in that I

511
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 1: had the resources, mostly being money, to be able to

512
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 1: do this, and I do understand that a lot of

513
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 1: people are not in that position. And I do hope,

514
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 1: you know, through what Sarah and I are putting out there,

515
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 1: that you know, there becomes some regulatory changes and things

516
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 1: so that it becomes more accessible, because you know, there

517
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:11,359
Speaker 1: is so many fertility issues and they seem to be

518
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 1: sadly becoming more prevalent. So I do hope. So, I mean,

519
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 1: I met a woman recently who had saved for ten

520
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: years to have one round of IBF, and luckily she

521
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:24,640
Speaker 1: was fortunate to have her child. But I do know that.

522
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 1: But the thing about privilege, it kind of well in

523
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 1: the book, I talk a lot about it, you know,

524
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 1: part of the reason I beat myself up and people

525
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:34,159
Speaker 1: were like, well, of course you can't get pregnant, because

526
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 1: the irony was I had to keep trembling the world

527
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 1: doing what I do, Like the biggest piece of my

528
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:43,160
Speaker 1: money is jumping on stages and speaking, and I needed

529
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: to do that in order to pay for the IVF.

530
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: So yeah, anyway, and that's the whole thing. But yes,

531
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:50,240
Speaker 1: I understand we were in a position to be able

532
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 1: to do it.

533
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think it's also yes, you're right that

534
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:57,159
Speaker 3: it does depend how you look on it, because at

535
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,359
Speaker 3: the same time, you know, one of the so you

536
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 3: talk about is the four hundred thousand US dollars that

537
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 3: goes into an agency, but that it wasn't without sacrifice.

538
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 3: I mean, you had to sell your house to fund that.

539
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:11,080
Speaker 3: So yes, your privileged in that you had a house

540
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 3: to sell to do that, but it didn't not cost

541
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 3: you things that you had worked for in order to

542
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 3: you know, it wasn't just sitting there sort of you

543
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:21,119
Speaker 3: were rolling in money, you know.

544
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:26,359
Speaker 1: And actually another point around that, which is a full circle,

545
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: which I've never talked about really, but probably part of

546
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 1: the reason, I mean, the whole irony of this whole thing,

547
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,199
Speaker 1: I have had my own businesses for twenty three and

548
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:38,119
Speaker 1: a half years, and my business was my identity and

549
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 1: my everything, right, so I almost forgot to have a baby.

550
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 1: So it's because I hustled my ass off for twenty

551
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 1: three years and probably almost sacrificed the ability to have

552
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 1: a baby, that I actually had the finances to be

553
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 1: able to pay for the baby. I would suggest people

554
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 1: maybe stop hustling their ass off a little earlier than me,

555
00:26:57,480 --> 00:26:59,680
Speaker 1: and maybe they wouldn't have to put all the money

556
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 1: that they for twenty three years into trying to have

557
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: a baby.

558
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh my gosh. I mean again, it's so funny

559
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 3: how it works out. And again maybe it all inspired

560
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:09,919
Speaker 3: because you were meant to have Hugo. And that's what

561
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:12,399
Speaker 3: my mom has also always drilled into me because she

562
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 3: went through I mean very primitive IVF, like Monash IVF

563
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:20,399
Speaker 3: when it first started. So she's got like immense hormonal issue,

564
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 3: like lifelong issues from how kind of early stage it was.

565
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 3: But she still says to this day it's because she

566
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 3: was like I was.

567
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:28,920
Speaker 2: Waiting for her.

568
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 3: And one thing that I also love about your book

569
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:33,880
Speaker 3: is it does remind I think we have this fascination.

570
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:35,399
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a whole chapter in the book on

571
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 3: how the first question for everybody is whose DNA is it? Like,

572
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 3: as if that's the most important thing. But what I

573
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 3: think is really beautiful is not only did things happen

574
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:48,160
Speaker 3: like your left breast started producing milk, Lisa, but also

575
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 3: that like when I go out with Mum, I'm fully Asian,

576
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:55,919
Speaker 3: she's fully Caucasian, and no one can't tell immediately that

577
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 3: where mother and daughter, like we have body language things

578
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 3: people say like, oh, you've the same smile or the

579
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 3: same face shape or whatever, and there's no sort of

580
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 3: question about it. And you say now that there's so

581
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:08,160
Speaker 3: many things about Hugo where people are like, oh, he's

582
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 3: got your whatever it is. And it's just funny that

583
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 3: we've beenly preoccupied with DNA being the only way that

584
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 3: you can be related, and yet all around us there

585
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:21,159
Speaker 3: are these bonds of family that aren't based on that,

586
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:23,919
Speaker 3: And I think it's just interesting how that is the

587
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,679
Speaker 3: first question. Probably most people listening will be waiting to hear, like,

588
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:29,880
Speaker 3: who's DUNO was it? As if that's the most important thing.

589
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, So just to cover off on that for anyone

590
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:38,239
Speaker 1: who hasn't read the book yet, spoiler Alette, Hugo is

591
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 1: not my Danna, And that was a big point that

592
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: Sarah and I, I mean, we did months of like

593
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 1: back and forwards on that, because it's funny whenever we said, oh,

594
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 1: I've got a sorry get carrying Hugo, but I would

595
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: always language it like I'm pregnant. So there's a lot

596
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: around that but kind of shockingly. But I don't think

597
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: anyone meant anything buy it. I think that's just a fascination.

598
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 1: But every single time people would say, oh, is it

599
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: your eg and every time I was like, it was

600
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 1: really jarring and triggering for me, and so like sometimes

601
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: I would lie and like I just was like and

602
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 1: it always it often took away from the after I'd

603
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 1: said I'm pregnant and then to be like straight on

604
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: my way met with that. But no know, it took

605
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: me quite a lot of therapy to get through that,

606
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: to be like do I feel less bad? Or like

607
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: why is that triggering me? But now that Hugo's here,

608
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 1: oh and sayah, you know really said to me, which

609
00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: I agree with, you know, to round it out properly

610
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: and for people to truly understand what is possible if

611
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:43,840
Speaker 1: I left that piece out yet talked about all the

612
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 1: other roads to Hugo. Then it would have been a

613
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 1: bit disingenuous, and it wouldn't have necessarily because speaking of hope,

614
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 1: that's when I had the piece of hope, right. It

615
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: was when I had done it. I've just got she

616
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 1: was again when I went for some reason outside of

617
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: my normal clinic for a day to do a scan

618
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:03,960
Speaker 1: and this woman was like, ah, I have women in

619
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 1: here all the time that used dinner eggs and they're

620
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: like getting pregnant all over the place. Kind to me,

621
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 1: and I just walked out of there and I was like,

622
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 1: oh my gosh. Right, But like the readiness, I wasn't

623
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 1: ready before. I always thought, A, oh, carry my own baby,

624
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 1: and then b no, of course it's going to be

625
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: my egg. And then you know, I got to your

626
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:27,479
Speaker 1: point where it was like, oh my god, of course, yes, yes, yes,

627
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 1: And then it was just catching Stephen up because his

628
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: readiness came understanding different phases. But you know what there

629
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 1: is and you, you said, Davidson, understand this completely with

630
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 1: your mama bear. I mean, there is not a question

631
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 1: on the planet that Hugo is not unnervely every single

632
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: bit my child and the crazy thing with us is

633
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 1: and this might trigger you, and I'm sorry if it does.

634
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 1: We look identical like when we were babies, which is wild.

635
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's so many things it's quite crazy. So yes,

636
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 1: that is the piece that we decided to talk about.

637
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 5: Well, And just to add on to that, Lisa and

638
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 5: I talked about it a lot because it was obviously

639
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 5: a really sensitive chapter for her. But I said, you

640
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 5: can't tell a story like this and give people hope

641
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 5: because a lot of the people reading this book are

642
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 5: trying to have the hope that they'll be able to

643
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 5: have their happy ending in their family. And I said,

644
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 5: you can't do that and not share that piece, because

645
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 5: then you're encouraging people to keep going down the path

646
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 5: you went down sixteen times with no result, And that

647
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 5: just was not not something we wanted to do. We

648
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 5: really want to help people see what the options are

649
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 5: when you do broaden it out a little bit and go,

650
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 5: what's the goal. The goal is to have a family,

651
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 5: so let's look at every opportunity we can to make

652
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 5: that happen.

653
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 1: I had lunch with them another woman who had a

654
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: sorry to carry her baby the other day, which was

655
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: just so beautiful. And the funny thing is she said oh,

656
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 1: but she was very adamant. She was like, oh, but

657
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: he's my DNA, you know, like and I was like, oh,

658
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: they didn't even whatever, you know. And as I was

659
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 1: leaving about three hours later, I'm going to cry, she

660
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 1: said to me, I have to tell you something. He's

661
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 1: not my DNA, because I'd said to her, you guys,

662
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 1: you know Ukrainian egg. And then because I'd done that, right,

663
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 1: I think she just came out and said and we

664
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: both had this like just moment, and I was like,

665
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: thank you for showing and she was like, I really

666
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 1: needed to tell you that because you've been so honest,

667
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: and you know, he's just such my child. And I

668
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: get very emotional, and I think it is because of

669
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: this talking about the hard things. Sometimes it does help

670
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: other people, and it gives them permission, and it gives

671
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: people hope, and it gives a sisterhood bond and all

672
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 1: of the things, you know.

673
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 5: And g It is also so crazy when people ask

674
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 5: those questions, like when people say, oh, is it your

675
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 5: egg or whatever, it's really for most people just to

676
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 5: throw away question out of fascination. It doesn't change anyone

677
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 5: else's view. Like the people that I've talked to about

678
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 5: it and things, they don't go ask oh, so they

679
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 5: usually ask me, is it any of it yours? You know?

680
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 5: That was the other thing, the other reason why I

681
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:07,240
Speaker 5: said to Lisa, we have to be really clear in

682
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 5: the book, like what the genetics are, because I want

683
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 5: it to be really clear that it's not a sibling

684
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:16,520
Speaker 5: genetically to my children, just so that you know, clarity

685
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 5: around the whole.

686
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:18,360
Speaker 4: Process of it.

687
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 5: And people would say to me, is it your egg?

688
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 5: And I'd say no, it's none of my genetic material.

689
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 5: Oh is it her egg then?

690
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 4: And I'd say no, it's a donor egg and they're like, oh, okay, cool.

691
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 2: So how does that work?

692
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 4: Like that's the end of it.

693
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 5: And so Lisa, when you talk about that other mother,

694
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 5: like she obviously has so many feelings around that. Other

695
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 5: people are not judging it, like we're all just excited

696
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 5: for you that you've got a baby. Noone else is

697
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 5: worrying about it to the level we worry about our

698
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 5: own stuff.

699
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's the conversation. There are so

700
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 1: many beautiful ways to you know, I would adopt another

701
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 1: twenty or you know, foster, which the cards I just want.

702
00:33:57,480 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 3: I think, so that's a really great point, that there

703
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 3: is just a lot of curiosity, Like there's either curiosity

704
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 3: from people who are never going to be considering surrogacy

705
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 3: or adoption for themselves. Like a lot of people ask

706
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 3: if I want to find my biological parents, and it's

707
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 3: not because they have biological parents, like it's just a question.

708
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 3: They're just really interested, And I think you can tell

709
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 3: when it's not loaded with any emotional criticism, they just

710
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 3: I think it's one of those areas where often the linguistics,

711
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 3: like the language that's used can trigger people who are

712
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 3: emotionally involved, but from people who aren't, they just accidentally

713
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 3: use the wrong words because they've because we don't talk

714
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:34,799
Speaker 3: about it enough, Which is why I really like that

715
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 3: you guys not only spoke at length about the emotional

716
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:41,359
Speaker 3: side to prepare anyone going through it that it is

717
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 3: a very very emotionally charged and complex area, but you

718
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,399
Speaker 3: also go through the non emotional logistics for curiosity's sake,

719
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 3: So you talk about like legally, what did you have

720
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 3: to do the wording? Like sayah, I think one of

721
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 3: your chapters was how we're going to word this is it?

722
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:00,160
Speaker 3: It's your pregnancy Lisa's baby, and suddenly that helps you,

723
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:02,239
Speaker 3: guys with your boundaries, Like you need to have a

724
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:06,399
Speaker 3: non emotional side of curiosity questions as well. So maybe Sarah,

725
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 3: can you lay out sort of the mechanics of once

726
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 3: you guys decided that you were going to do this,

727
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 3: how did you work out sort of who decides what

728
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 3: you eat during pregnancy and who goes to what appointments?

729
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 3: And how do the costs work and deciding your birth

730
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 3: plan and you know, all of those kind of like

731
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 3: how did you work out the phone logistic? You know,

732
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 3: like all of those things, Like suddenly you've got to

733
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:34,400
Speaker 3: decide because this is a beautiful family of four bringing

734
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:36,440
Speaker 3: like a fifth member in you know.

735
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean the logistics were crazy because you've got

736
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,240
Speaker 5: four parents who are you know, me and my husband

737
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 5: and Lisa and Stephen. All of us have our own

738
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 5: busy careers and lives, and for us, we had three

739
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 5: kids as well, and we're trying to fit in this pregnancy.

740
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 4: So it was crazy.

741
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:55,439
Speaker 5: And we go into heaps of detail in the book

742
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:58,279
Speaker 5: about all of those specific logistics and the money and

743
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 5: the decisions and the contracts and all that stuff, and

744
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 5: I think really we approached it like one of Lisa's

745
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 5: superpowers is to find that glimmer of hope and possibility

746
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 5: and hold onto that, And that's like the approach we

747
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:13,399
Speaker 5: took for everything. So even at the very beginning, when

748
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:15,920
Speaker 5: I spoke to my surgeon and said, hey, I want

749
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:16,800
Speaker 5: to get pregnant.

750
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 4: I want to have my friend's.

751
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 5: Baby, and he was like, I said I want to

752
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:22,759
Speaker 5: get pregnant, and he was like, what are you talking about.

753
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 5: I thought you had done with kids and I was like, no,

754
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 5: I'm done, but I'd really like to be a surrogate

755
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:26,480
Speaker 5: for a friend.

756
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 4: And he was like, oh okay. He's like, look, I'm

757
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 4: not used to this.

758
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:32,239
Speaker 5: Like in the thousands of these surgeries I've done, we

759
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 5: don't normally then have a baby afterwards. But he's like,

760
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 5: let me go check it out and I'll come back

761
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 5: to you. And when he came back, he didn't say like, yes,

762
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 5: go ahead, you're all clear. He kind of said, look,

763
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:43,839
Speaker 5: you can do it. You can't have twins because that's

764
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 5: way too risky, but you can do it. Just hope

765
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 5: he's not too big, or hope the baby's not too big,

766
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:49,840
Speaker 5: and we'll get to the other side and see what

767
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 5: damage there is, and we'll repair it and fix it then.

768
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 5: And for a lot of people that's a no, you know,

769
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 5: like for a lot of people that would be this

770
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:01,120
Speaker 5: is too risky. Like my surgeon basically said that there's

771
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:03,800
Speaker 5: a risk of damage, so we can't really move forward.

772
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 5: But I saw, Oh, so you're telling me there's a

773
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 5: chance there's a chance that I could get pregnant and

774
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,200
Speaker 5: it could be fine. So that's the chance we're holding

775
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 5: on too. And I think that's Lisa's approach to everything,

776
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 5: like look through all the weeds and the muck for

777
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:19,799
Speaker 5: the where's that little jew drop of sunshine that says

778
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 5: we can do this? So that's what we did through

779
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:24,040
Speaker 5: the whole pregnancy. And there were honestly a lot of

780
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:28,319
Speaker 5: hard conversations we didn't have. Like we knew at the

781
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 5: beginning that I couldn't have twins, but we didn't talk

782
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 5: about what that would mean. Like we knew both of

783
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,319
Speaker 5: us knew if we get pregnant with twins, we're gonna

784
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 5: have to reduce one. I'm getting like goosebumps now at

785
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:44,359
Speaker 5: how horrible that would have been. Yeah, but we just

786
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 5: really didn't like plot the what ifs of the negative

787
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 5: out until each one happened, until a situation happened. So

788
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 5: it was an enormous amount of trust, particularly for Lisa

789
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:57,800
Speaker 5: because I was the one carrying a baby, but also

790
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 5: they could have been curly sity tuations because it was

791
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 5: their child, right, So if we did get to a

792
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:05,840
Speaker 5: point and you know, the thing about anyone who's who's

793
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 5: been pregnant before knows there's no definitive diagnoses in pregnancy.

794
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 5: Usually it's usually all a numbers game.

795
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 2: So you get the.

796
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 5: All the testing and stuff, and they'll go there's a

797
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,399
Speaker 5: chance of this, So you know, they could have been

798
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:21,360
Speaker 5: a chance of you might have an abnormality. Those questions

799
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 5: where they say do you want to continue with the

800
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:24,879
Speaker 5: pregnancy or not, we would have had to make those

801
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 5: decisions as four and like their baby my uterus, there

802
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 5: just could have been so much complexity, but we really

803
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:35,279
Speaker 5: just chose to approach it all really optimistically. We had

804
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 5: the most incredible obstetrician who held her hand with so

805
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 5: much grace and compassion and just walked us through everything,

806
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:44,359
Speaker 5: and we were so supported with him. So I think

807
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 5: between the group of us, we just were able to

808
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 5: handle everything that came. And there was a lot of

809
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 5: complexity through it. Even just one of the small things

810
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:55,560
Speaker 5: was that I had a higher risk of high blood

811
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 5: pressure simply because it was not my genes. So when

812
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 5: they did the risk profiling, they said, because it's not

813
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 5: your genetic material, your body recognizes that and it kind

814
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:07,600
Speaker 5: of gets a little bit itchy and it raises your

815
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 5: blood pressure, which then increases your risk of preaclamps here

816
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:13,719
Speaker 5: and all sorts of really dangerous potential conditions. So then

817
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 5: I had to be on daily aspirin from like six

818
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:19,760
Speaker 5: weeks of pregnancy. So there were so many little things

819
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:22,359
Speaker 5: like that that came up, and we just chose at

820
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 5: every step to be as optimistic as possible, face the

821
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 5: facts head on when they're in front of us, but

822
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 5: just really stay.

823
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:29,800
Speaker 4: Present and grounded in the moment.

824
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 5: And I think we were all just so focused on

825
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 5: the excitement of the baby, like what we're doing this

826
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:38,520
Speaker 5: for that that helped really keep us motivated.

827
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 3: I think that's so beautiful for life generally, particularly fertility journeys,

828
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 3: but life generally that we do spend an enormous amount

829
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 3: of time worrying about situations that haven't actually happened yet,

830
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,760
Speaker 3: and like, sure, you need a bit of rainy day planning.

831
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 3: But I think we sort of dwell in the like

832
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:01,960
Speaker 3: let's worry fifty five steps ahea head when you're kind

833
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:05,719
Speaker 3: of just bringing about more negativity than is necessary. And

834
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 3: I love that you just like you had enough things

835
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 3: to think about. I mean, you guys are all working

836
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:11,919
Speaker 3: full time, You've got lives going on aside from trying

837
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 3: to do this miracle that I love that you just

838
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:17,240
Speaker 3: you make a choice to kind of bring a certain

839
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:20,919
Speaker 3: attitude and approach towards something, and I think that does

840
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,480
Speaker 3: carry it through. And it wasn't all rosy, like I

841
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:25,879
Speaker 3: think I didn't know. I'd forgotten between the first reading

842
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:27,360
Speaker 3: and the second reading of the book that you actually

843
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 3: had a chemical pregnancy first in this process, so you

844
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 3: got pregnant and then it didn't go ahead, and all

845
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,279
Speaker 3: of you had to choose We're still going to try

846
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:40,279
Speaker 3: again after everything that you've been through. I mean that

847
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 3: in itself is like the definition of optimism. And thank

848
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:46,920
Speaker 3: god you did, because every yes along the way resulted

849
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 3: in HUGO. But I mean, yeah, the logistics of that,

850
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 3: like least, for example, can you sort of talk through

851
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 3: the I don't want to make you go too far

852
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:57,880
Speaker 3: into the sort of US experience, but just how in

853
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:02,400
Speaker 3: Australia it's altruistic. And then the legalities of like what

854
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:05,760
Speaker 3: are your obligations to Sarah and what was legally obliged?

855
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 2: What did you choose to do.

856
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:11,400
Speaker 3: Like what is the framework that kind of guides you

857
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:14,320
Speaker 3: guys through that whole pregnancy and then birth, because I

858
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 3: know the birth certificate was Sarah first and you have

859
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:19,680
Speaker 3: to change that immediately, like all that kind of stuff.

860
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I won't going to the detail his but

861
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:26,720
Speaker 1: we did actually go down a path in the US

862
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 1: which was going to cost about four hundred and fifty

863
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:33,880
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, of which about forty thousand only goes to

864
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 1: the surrogate. So a lot of people make it a

865
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 1: lot of money over there, and we had a really

866
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 1: hideous experience. However, I have heard of people having, you know,

867
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: amazing experiences. It was just not meant to be for us.

868
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:54,200
Speaker 1: So I think everything is relative, right, I say, Now, oh,

869
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: Australia and having you know, this birth with Sarah was

870
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:00,839
Speaker 1: just like a breeze, I mean says absolutely right. There

871
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:04,720
Speaker 1: was a lot of hurdles and logistics and paperwork and things.

872
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 1: I think everything in life is perspective readiness. It's situational

873
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:14,520
Speaker 1: and you know, dependent on you know, where you've come from.

874
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 1: And because I've been through so much already, by the

875
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: time we landed here, I was like, oh, this is

876
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 1: a breeze. When I say it's a breeze to get

877
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:26,280
Speaker 1: to the point of you know, putting an embryor into

878
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 1: Sarah basically means that it needed to be you know,

879
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 1: someone's DNA. So whether it be my eggs as I

880
00:42:33,600 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 1: had had them, you know, extracted many times before, I

881
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:39,400
Speaker 1: would have had to do that because we didn't end

882
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 1: up using my eggs. Ultimately, we had to go through

883
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 1: two rounds of IBF with a beautiful Ukrainian woman. When

884
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:50,880
Speaker 1: we were actually trying to do the collection in the Ukraine,

885
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 1: it was actually COVID so we couldn't get the eggs out.

886
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: And then it was like the war, so you know,

887
00:42:58,239 --> 00:42:59,240
Speaker 1: you throw in a bit.

888
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 3: Of a global politics and a pandemic, you know you

889
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 3: can't plan for that.

890
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:09,320
Speaker 1: Yeah. So see that's why I'm saying it's relative because

891
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 1: for me, by the time we decided to you know,

892
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:15,800
Speaker 1: go down the rut of surrogacye, we actually had embryos

893
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:18,719
Speaker 1: in the freezer. But to get the embryos, yeah, you

894
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 1: need to extract eggs from somewhere. You know, Steven has

895
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:27,319
Speaker 1: to go and do his and then and then put

896
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 1: them together and then they need to be implanted. In

897
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 1: Australia it is autruistic, so you cannot pay anyone, and

898
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:38,040
Speaker 1: there's a lot of sort of Facebook groups and then

899
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:40,319
Speaker 1: I mean, this is another reason we want to shine

900
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 1: a light on it. There's a lot of really sort

901
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:45,560
Speaker 1: of underground things I think going on in Australia where

902
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 1: we've heard some terrible things about you know, mismatched people

903
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 1: through dodgy Facebook groups and things like that. So there

904
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 1: is something in a way to be said potentially for

905
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:57,760
Speaker 1: the agency. I just think maybe there's a slightly lesser

906
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:02,080
Speaker 1: model than the four hundred thousand dollars plus. Yeah, so

907
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: I think in Australia, you know, it is best and

908
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:09,600
Speaker 1: certainly Sarah and I would absolutely testify to this now

909
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: that you undergo with someone who is a friend who

910
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 1: you know you've both done quite a lot of therapy

911
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 1: and you're able to have the hard conversations and really

912
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 1: have extraordinary lines of communication, because I think that's really

913
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:26,879
Speaker 1: an absolute imperative and as Sarah and I have talked

914
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:28,799
Speaker 1: about as well, there probably needs to be a lot

915
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 1: more psychology and therapy throughout. All that happened was essentially

916
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:38,760
Speaker 1: we had to have therapy as a foursome, so Sarah

917
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 1: and David, Steven and I all together. We also had

918
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:44,759
Speaker 1: to have therapy separately each one of the four of

919
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:47,879
Speaker 1: us just to doubly check in on everything. And then

920
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:50,000
Speaker 1: we had to fill out some sort of psych tests

921
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:52,279
Speaker 1: and things. So that was at the beginning, just to

922
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 1: make sure there's no anomalies that were all kind of

923
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:58,320
Speaker 1: on the same page. The therapist as some great questions

924
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:01,439
Speaker 1: which there has alluded to some around you know what

925
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: happens if just to make sure that we'd actually thought about,

926
00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:07,399
Speaker 1: you know, if the baby has done syndrome or if

927
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: because all four of us could have had different kind

928
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:12,360
Speaker 1: of takes on it. So we sort of did some

929
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:14,719
Speaker 1: of the thinking up front. But I think both of

930
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:17,319
Speaker 1: us do think it would be useful to continue through

931
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:19,800
Speaker 1: with therapy and just really check in with all four

932
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: parties throughout. And then there's the legals, so Sah and

933
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 1: I both needed to have separate lawyers just to you know,

934
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:27,719
Speaker 1: go through I mean, I think it's just a lot

935
00:45:27,719 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: of people getting paid a lot of money for I mean,

936
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:36,480
Speaker 1: this is your background background from way before, you know

937
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 1: how the legal system works. So our lawyer was beautiful though,

938
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: a beautiful, beautiful man who had also gone through surrogacy himself.

939
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: And then we financially can cover anything that I would

940
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 1: be doing myself, So any sort of maternity where or

941
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:59,840
Speaker 1: compression stockings or medical bills or you know, anything to

942
00:45:59,880 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 1: do with that that I would be doing. Anyway, we

943
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:04,840
Speaker 1: can cover any and all of that for sair. But

944
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to really color too much outside of

945
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 1: the lines. So that was that the birth certificate. Yes,

946
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Australia has a lot lot of

947
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 1: catching up to do in terms of the bureaucracy and

948
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:21,399
Speaker 1: red tape. And says better talking about this because she's

949
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:25,239
Speaker 1: much more analytical white in this way. But essentially what

950
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:28,600
Speaker 1: I will say is we use Hugo's Medicare cards there

951
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:31,239
Speaker 1: for the first time today. He's eighteen months and two

952
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:32,840
Speaker 1: days old, and we had to take him for his

953
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 1: eighteen month backs and like to have his actual Medicare card,

954
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:40,839
Speaker 1: which we didn't have until about a month ago, and

955
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 1: we didn't have his birth until he was I think

956
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 1: was it fourteen months? Thirteen months? Yeah, And in fact,

957
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:52,879
Speaker 1: after his first birthday we were still in the High

958
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 1: Court second correction on any of this via zoom with

959
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: me being questioned, I mean, it makes my blood boil,

960
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:04,719
Speaker 1: but by some sort of eighty year old gray headed

961
00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 1: man and bank slightly whatever, but pretty much who was saying,

962
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:11,320
Speaker 1: are you sure you tried hard enough to have a baby,

963
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 1: And I'm like, hang on a minute, before they can

964
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:19,840
Speaker 1: hand over the proper parentage order or whatever to us,

965
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 1: And I was like, hang on a minute. My child is,

966
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 1: you know, thirteen months old. We've just had his first

967
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 1: birthday party, and you're questioning now if I tried hard enough,

968
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 1: and I was like, I don't know. So I do

969
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 1: think there's somewhere between what's going on in the US

970
00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 1: and what's going on in Australia that we need to

971
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 1: kind of bring the two slightly closer together in terms

972
00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:46,439
Speaker 1: of eradicating some of the you know, bureaucracy and red

973
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:50,239
Speaker 1: tape and ridiculous lines of questioning, but also removing a

974
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:53,359
Speaker 1: lot of the barriers which are prohibitive in the US

975
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 1: in terms of the monetary side of it. Is kind

976
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:58,840
Speaker 1: of so over the top and ridiculous and really reserve

977
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:01,800
Speaker 1: for you know this, who can't be bothered to carry

978
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:03,600
Speaker 1: their own baby or whatever it is, I think a

979
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 1: lot of the time. So I think we need to

980
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:08,240
Speaker 1: bring it together a lot more.

981
00:48:08,640 --> 00:48:11,320
Speaker 5: And I think for added context there the process that

982
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:14,160
Speaker 5: we all went through, Like with that court that Lisa's

983
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:16,840
Speaker 5: talking about. These are not judges who are used to surrogates.

984
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 5: There's only one hundred surrogate bursts in Australia a year.

985
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:23,360
Speaker 5: So that court, with that judge, that is a family

986
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 5: court that is designed to deal with like the most

987
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:31,320
Speaker 5: complex and difficult custody cases. So even though I can

988
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 5: I can understand why Lisa was so like triggered by

989
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 5: the line of questioning that's such an important part of

990
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:42,319
Speaker 5: like that process because he's normally sitting there going right,

991
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:44,720
Speaker 5: So the mom is doing, what the dad is doing?

992
00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 1: What?

993
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 4: Why am I here? Why am I in court? Why

994
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 4: are we looking at this? So even though to him

995
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 4: he was just stating the facts.

996
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 5: Okay, so the mum has done sixteen rounds, Okay, So

997
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 5: he's just like literally slicing Lisa's heart.

998
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:56,320
Speaker 4: Open in the court.

999
00:48:56,800 --> 00:48:59,319
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I actually am fully in support of that,

1000
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:03,040
Speaker 5: because this is the mechanism that supports and protects children

1001
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:08,279
Speaker 5: who are in these really difficult, difficult situations. So that's

1002
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 5: another part of where there's I guess the sensitivity is

1003
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:14,319
Speaker 5: missing because he just walked in that morning, Lisa was

1004
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:17,239
Speaker 5: one of you know, twenty cases. He's hearing and he's

1005
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:20,400
Speaker 5: just going through the facts, but she wasn't expecting, you know,

1006
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 5: I'm going to get my son is legally going to

1007
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:26,759
Speaker 5: be recognized as my son today, And instead it's like

1008
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 5: this whole nother tranch of like what was it?

1009
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:31,799
Speaker 4: What did you go through? Again? Oh, we're just going

1010
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:32,840
Speaker 4: to lay it all out again.

1011
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 5: Like there's so many parts of this journey that can

1012
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:39,799
Speaker 5: be reactivating, I guess, and takes a lot to get

1013
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:40,279
Speaker 5: through it all.

1014
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:43,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think the more or the less uncommon

1015
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:47,799
Speaker 3: it becomes, and particularly as there are like so so

1016
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:53,400
Speaker 3: many fertility challenging fertility journeys where people haven't ended up

1017
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 3: in adoption or sorry, I guess he purely because they

1018
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 3: don't actually know how you can do it, or they

1019
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:00,279
Speaker 3: do start as you did with adoption, Lise, and it

1020
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 3: was too difficult. Like the barriers are absolutely outrageous considering

1021
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 3: how many matches of desperate families who are desperate for

1022
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 3: children and children who desperately need homes, like the mismarriage

1023
00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:15,279
Speaker 3: is just so frustrating to see sometimes. But yeah, I

1024
00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 3: mean for anyone who does who is more interested in

1025
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:21,000
Speaker 3: the logistics, the Lisa and there in the book just

1026
00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:22,360
Speaker 3: give so much detail.

1027
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 2: But just now that.

1028
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 3: We've cut, like outside of the logistics, I would love

1029
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:28,680
Speaker 3: to ask, and only if you're comfortable talking about it,

1030
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:30,279
Speaker 3: because I know it does bring it all up again,

1031
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:34,000
Speaker 3: But just emotionally, I think my fascination personally is in

1032
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:39,480
Speaker 3: how things do transcend DNA. So Lise, I would love

1033
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 3: to talk to you about did you feel pregnant during

1034
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:44,680
Speaker 3: the pregnancy and what did the moment of birth kind

1035
00:50:44,719 --> 00:50:48,719
Speaker 3: of feel like? And sayah, also, how did having had

1036
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:53,600
Speaker 3: three pregnancies where you did have a genetic match physiologically

1037
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 3: and emotionally, what it felt like caring for someone else

1038
00:50:56,600 --> 00:50:59,759
Speaker 3: and how your interaction like with your body and your

1039
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:02,600
Speaker 3: brain through the pregnancy was going and same at the

1040
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:05,680
Speaker 3: moment of birth, Like what was it like for four

1041
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:06,880
Speaker 3: of you being involved?

1042
00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 6: Was it similar different?

1043
00:51:10,040 --> 00:51:10,120
Speaker 5: Like?

1044
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, what did what did you guys feel kind of.

1045
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:13,480
Speaker 3: I mean, that's such a big question.

1046
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:20,120
Speaker 5: But the sparknized version, Yeah, for anyone who loves the

1047
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:22,600
Speaker 5: birth story, we give like the full blow by blow

1048
00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:23,120
Speaker 5: in the book.

1049
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 6: I love Oh, I loved it.

1050
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:27,720
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I love it when people share their stories.

1051
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:31,760
Speaker 4: But we've got all the full details in there. But yeah,

1052
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:32,480
Speaker 4: a big question.

1053
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:35,879
Speaker 5: I think I hoped going into this that I would

1054
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:39,640
Speaker 5: have a really healthy level of disconnection to the pregnancy.

1055
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 5: And I know that's like quite a strong word, but

1056
00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 5: I was really hoping I wouldn't become super attached to

1057
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:47,880
Speaker 5: this baby, and I'm thankful that's exactly what happened. I

1058
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:51,480
Speaker 5: was always really protective of him and really like connected

1059
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 5: to what we were doing. But I never felt like

1060
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 5: his mum ever. It never felt like it was my baby.

1061
00:51:57,080 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 5: I was never I was never like thinking. And I

1062
00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:01,840
Speaker 5: think one of the big things is though, like when

1063
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 5: you're having a baby, you're thinking ahead to like the

1064
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:07,000
Speaker 5: first Christmas, and you're thinking of other milestones. When I

1065
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:09,799
Speaker 5: was pregnant with my son Jesse, I would be thinking of, like, oh,

1066
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:13,200
Speaker 5: he's due in January. That's the same month my eldest

1067
00:52:13,320 --> 00:52:16,520
Speaker 5: was starting preschool, and so I was like imagining, oh

1068
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:18,240
Speaker 5: my gosh, I'm going to be carrying like a tiny

1069
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:21,080
Speaker 5: little baby into her first day of school, and you're

1070
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:23,320
Speaker 5: imagining your future with this child.

1071
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 4: And I was never doing that.

1072
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:28,000
Speaker 5: I was imagining him being born and then just going

1073
00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:31,120
Speaker 5: back to my life. So that created an instant and

1074
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:35,080
Speaker 5: healthy boundary, so that it was just a beautiful pregnancy.

1075
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:37,360
Speaker 5: I think pregnancy is miraculous, like.

1076
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:38,840
Speaker 4: The process of it.

1077
00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:41,720
Speaker 5: I just don't understand how it starts as a microscopic

1078
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:43,120
Speaker 5: cell and becomes a human.

1079
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:45,000
Speaker 4: So I'm always I still.

1080
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 2: Think about that every day.

1081
00:52:46,040 --> 00:52:47,840
Speaker 6: Yeah, just wild.

1082
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 5: So I was always really just at the whole time,

1083
00:52:50,239 --> 00:52:52,360
Speaker 5: I just was like, what a miracle this is, Like

1084
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:54,719
Speaker 5: I'm carrying this baby for my friends, Like what.

1085
00:52:54,719 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 4: An extraordinary thing to be part of.

1086
00:52:56,640 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 5: I just always felt really like blessed about it the

1087
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:00,280
Speaker 5: whole time.

1088
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:01,120
Speaker 4: It was amazing.

1089
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 3: And I love that you did include like the hormonal

1090
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:07,799
Speaker 3: let down kind of immediately after birth, that you did

1091
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:10,520
Speaker 3: give yourself time and a few days to kind of

1092
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:13,239
Speaker 3: you know, your body has evacuated a human, so of

1093
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:14,399
Speaker 3: course it's going to be sort of.

1094
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:16,320
Speaker 6: Like whoa, whoa.

1095
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 3: But I love that you were also able to keep

1096
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:21,359
Speaker 3: this umbrella of like, I know what I'm doing here,

1097
00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:24,000
Speaker 3: and we're all doing this together, and this is my role.

1098
00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:26,439
Speaker 3: I'm not ye creating kind of the future memories. At least,

1099
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:28,480
Speaker 3: did you feel pregnant, because I know you. You would

1100
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:32,720
Speaker 3: say like, I'm pregnant, you know, and I'm having a baby,

1101
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 3: and like your body did things like what the hell?

1102
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:42,920
Speaker 1: So I did feel pregnant the whole time. I'm not

1103
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:46,239
Speaker 1: talking so much about the physicality of it, but I

1104
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:50,080
Speaker 1: am one thousand percent un question. I'm really talking about

1105
00:53:50,120 --> 00:53:54,400
Speaker 1: the emotion of it and the depth of connection around

1106
00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:58,280
Speaker 1: being pregnant. And you know, I think I've been writing

1107
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 1: books on this stuff forever and I'm you know, spiritual,

1108
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:03,840
Speaker 1: and I've really honed my mind set on a number

1109
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 1: of different things, and I'm very big on the languaging.

1110
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:09,200
Speaker 1: So yes, I would always say to people I'm pregnant,

1111
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:13,080
Speaker 1: and I would believe that one hundred percent that I

1112
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 1: am pregnant, like it was. So I think everything is

1113
00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:19,520
Speaker 1: in you know, language and belief has so much to

1114
00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:22,719
Speaker 1: do with feeling. And then also, you know, I was

1115
00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:26,279
Speaker 1: just like this crazy person who I just loved it.

1116
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:29,560
Speaker 1: I would go into baby shops and like try on

1117
00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 1: carriers and like put a little baby in there, like

1118
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:35,840
Speaker 1: I would all these things constantly. I you know, the

1119
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:40,040
Speaker 1: pram I used to we had this. I seriously ended

1120
00:54:40,120 --> 00:54:42,800
Speaker 1: up buying like a pretend baby and I would wheel

1121
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:50,600
Speaker 1: him around like I was so pregnant. But also the

1122
00:54:50,640 --> 00:54:54,560
Speaker 1: wildest thing happens, And I think this is the beauty

1123
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:58,120
Speaker 1: of that time with Sarah and I together. I have

1124
00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:02,680
Speaker 1: never felt as connected to a human in my life,

1125
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:05,319
Speaker 1: no one, not my mother, not anyone as I did

1126
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:09,319
Speaker 1: with Sarah, because we were just so in sync, you know.

1127
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:11,800
Speaker 1: And it's like having a best friend who you're calling

1128
00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 1: or texting or dming like you know, or facetiming or

1129
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: seeing in persons like multiple times a day, and so

1130
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:22,040
Speaker 1: having someone to share that journey in parallel was just

1131
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:26,239
Speaker 1: like the most exciting thing I could ever imagine. And

1132
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:29,799
Speaker 1: things would happen like I've not had. I think I've

1133
00:55:29,800 --> 00:55:33,000
Speaker 1: had antibiotics like once or twice in my life. I've

1134
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:36,000
Speaker 1: never had them. And then Sarah had a kidney infection

1135
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:37,759
Speaker 1: and had to go on to antibiotics. And then the

1136
00:55:37,800 --> 00:55:40,920
Speaker 1: next day, like I weirdly got some infection in my

1137
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:44,680
Speaker 1: finger from gardening, and I had to go to antibiotics, Like,

1138
00:55:45,160 --> 00:55:50,040
Speaker 1: there was just so many things, you know, And like Sarah,

1139
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:52,600
Speaker 1: often we'd be out at lunch or something and she'd

1140
00:55:52,640 --> 00:55:54,439
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I need to go and be sick,

1141
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:57,600
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, oh, do I go? Stick my fingers?

1142
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:06,600
Speaker 4: But clear I always encouraged her not to No, no,

1143
00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:07,880
Speaker 4: you're good.

1144
00:56:08,680 --> 00:56:11,319
Speaker 1: I was like, we're in this together, though, let's go.

1145
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:18,239
Speaker 1: So I did feel pregnant the whole time, and you know,

1146
00:56:18,440 --> 00:56:23,320
Speaker 1: that becomes slightly confusing for onlookers when I'm so, you know,

1147
00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:26,759
Speaker 1: the brosely saying I'm seven months pregnant, and they look

1148
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:32,320
Speaker 1: down and they're like, wow, oh yeah, but my baby's

1149
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:35,720
Speaker 1: and someone else's tummy, and but like it was almost

1150
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:37,239
Speaker 1: like I had to explain it because I'm like, what

1151
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:38,480
Speaker 1: do you mean you can't see them?

1152
00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:38,960
Speaker 4: Yeah?

1153
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:42,320
Speaker 6: Can you see my baby that I bought in my carrier?

1154
00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:48,560
Speaker 1: Yeah? And then sad the opposite because she looked obviously pregnant.

1155
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:52,200
Speaker 1: But then people would be like congratulations and she'd be like,

1156
00:56:52,680 --> 00:56:56,080
Speaker 1: oh no, it's not mine or David her hobby would

1157
00:56:56,080 --> 00:56:57,440
Speaker 1: be like, oh no, no, it's not.

1158
00:56:57,440 --> 00:56:58,879
Speaker 2: My baby, like it was.

1159
00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:02,360
Speaker 1: You know, different stuff.

1160
00:57:03,480 --> 00:57:05,640
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, well I love yeah.

1161
00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:10,160
Speaker 3: How well, you guys kind of tackle those unique eccentricities

1162
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:13,280
Speaker 3: of such a unique situation with such humor and grace

1163
00:57:13,800 --> 00:57:16,120
Speaker 3: in the book. And least also the fact that you

1164
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:20,240
Speaker 3: had skinner skin like straight away and that there was

1165
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:22,480
Speaker 3: never a moment. I think I cried when I read

1166
00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:24,920
Speaker 3: you just saying that He's there's never been a moment

1167
00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:28,080
Speaker 3: where you aren't Hugo's mom, like the whole way through,

1168
00:57:28,320 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 3: it's just so and said that there's been no moment

1169
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:32,040
Speaker 3: where you did feel that way.

1170
00:57:33,040 --> 00:57:36,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so like you said with your mom, the

1171
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 1: mannerisms already, like all the way through, it is the

1172
00:57:40,760 --> 00:57:43,840
Speaker 1: wildest thing. How often I'll look over and he's like

1173
00:57:44,320 --> 00:57:49,520
Speaker 1: doing something like it's just like just very very similar.

1174
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:51,680
Speaker 1: And he overheats. I overheat.

1175
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:56,000
Speaker 6: I mean, I mean you live up north, so that's

1176
00:57:56,080 --> 00:57:56,880
Speaker 6: kind of also.

1177
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:00,480
Speaker 2: Easiest thing.

1178
00:58:00,520 --> 00:58:02,680
Speaker 5: It was a hot day and we both got we

1179
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:03,520
Speaker 5: were sweating.

1180
00:58:03,880 --> 00:58:08,640
Speaker 1: Oh my god, job, I don't want to take away

1181
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 1: from anything. People are like, oh, yeah.

1182
00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:16,040
Speaker 7: The sides, there are sides, lots of them, but yeah,

1183
00:58:16,040 --> 00:58:18,480
Speaker 7: it's pretty well and yeah, the skin to skin the birth,

1184
00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:20,920
Speaker 7: which says that we do go into a lot of

1185
00:58:21,120 --> 00:58:22,120
Speaker 7: detailing the power.

1186
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:25,360
Speaker 1: Too, but it's beautiful things. I think this is where

1187
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:27,600
Speaker 1: sometimes you can watch a movie about a romance and

1188
00:58:27,640 --> 00:58:29,720
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, that's how my life is. This was

1189
00:58:29,760 --> 00:58:31,960
Speaker 1: the opposite. It was like, I feel like I've watched

1190
00:58:32,000 --> 00:58:35,240
Speaker 1: movies and berths and they whisked the baby away and

1191
00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:37,160
Speaker 1: they do whatever they do and they clean them up.

1192
00:58:37,200 --> 00:58:39,960
Speaker 1: So in my mind, I was like, they're going to

1193
00:58:40,040 --> 00:58:42,920
Speaker 1: take him, They're going to take him. And literally I

1194
00:58:43,080 --> 00:58:47,560
Speaker 1: caught him. I delivered my own baby, and then Stephen

1195
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:51,160
Speaker 1: cut the cord and then Hugo came straight onto my

1196
00:58:51,360 --> 00:58:55,640
Speaker 1: chest and no one took him away. They didn't clean him.

1197
00:58:55,720 --> 00:58:59,120
Speaker 1: They just like I did everything, and that's where he stayed.

1198
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:01,880
Speaker 1: It wasn't until we went to weigh him, like a

1199
00:59:01,880 --> 00:59:04,960
Speaker 1: few hours later. I think, like, no one took my baby.

1200
00:59:05,040 --> 00:59:09,200
Speaker 1: And the beautiful moment was once I had my time

1201
00:59:09,240 --> 00:59:12,560
Speaker 1: with him and Saa was kind of out of her

1202
00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:15,680
Speaker 1: parallel universe of being, you know, all the situations that

1203
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 1: were happening for her. I took hu go over and together,

1204
00:59:19,600 --> 00:59:22,400
Speaker 1: I you know, put him onto her chest and like

1205
00:59:22,640 --> 00:59:27,480
Speaker 1: just that moment of us together was just so amazing.

1206
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:29,280
Speaker 2: I have goosebumps again.

1207
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:30,000
Speaker 6: Oh my god.

1208
00:59:30,120 --> 00:59:33,360
Speaker 3: I mean what a remarkable, beautiful story, and the name

1209
00:59:33,440 --> 00:59:35,680
Speaker 3: is so perfect, the power of two. It is truly

1210
00:59:36,560 --> 00:59:39,600
Speaker 3: like what you were able to achieve together is a

1211
00:59:39,680 --> 00:59:44,720
Speaker 3: human being who's a happy little eighteen month old who's

1212
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 3: got the whole world ahead of him. Like that is

1213
00:59:47,360 --> 00:59:48,400
Speaker 3: just pure magic.

1214
00:59:49,040 --> 00:59:50,120
Speaker 4: Yeah it is.

1215
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:55,920
Speaker 1: It's definitely the most special, extraordinary thing in the world.

1216
00:59:56,040 --> 00:59:59,320
Speaker 1: And I'm just so glad. I mean that doesn't even

1217
00:59:59,640 --> 01:00:02,160
Speaker 1: touch the surface that you know, I never gave up.

1218
01:00:02,800 --> 01:00:07,080
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, and that's you know, was there for

1219
01:00:07,200 --> 01:00:11,720
Speaker 1: me and unquestionably all the way through, and you know,

1220
01:00:11,800 --> 01:00:15,080
Speaker 1: for that, I am forever and eternally grateful from the

1221
01:00:15,120 --> 01:00:18,440
Speaker 1: moment of me saying, oh hey, he's still interested in

1222
01:00:18,480 --> 01:00:23,320
Speaker 1: being a sorry girl. From that moment, so I was like, oh,

1223
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:26,240
Speaker 1: well I have had, you know, all this surgery, but

1224
01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:29,040
Speaker 1: let me just go check like the whole way through.

1225
01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:32,439
Speaker 1: And I think my whole life for some reason, which

1226
01:00:32,480 --> 01:00:35,400
Speaker 1: has made me who I am and tenacious and resilient

1227
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:38,240
Speaker 1: and have the ability to overcome things. I think I've

1228
01:00:38,800 --> 01:00:40,840
Speaker 1: you know, as many of us have been let down

1229
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 1: many times, and so I just learned but not once ever,

1230
01:00:44,080 --> 01:00:46,760
Speaker 1: every single time, Sale was just calm, cool and collected

1231
01:00:46,800 --> 01:00:49,320
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, I'll just find that out and yell,

1232
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:53,000
Speaker 1: let's go. And even you know when we did when

1233
01:00:53,000 --> 01:00:57,560
Speaker 1: the first baby on round seventeen didn't take, and then

1234
01:00:57,640 --> 01:00:59,600
Speaker 1: I was like, oh god, will she want to do

1235
01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:02,080
Speaker 1: it again? And you know, straight away it says it

1236
01:01:02,120 --> 01:01:04,080
Speaker 1: wasn't even like let's wait a month. I was like, yeah,

1237
01:01:04,080 --> 01:01:06,840
Speaker 1: how quickly can we do it? So she's been there

1238
01:01:06,960 --> 01:01:11,680
Speaker 1: like an absolute rock and waveringly the entire way through.

1239
01:01:11,720 --> 01:01:15,040
Speaker 1: And I think that's really what one of the really

1240
01:01:15,080 --> 01:01:17,560
Speaker 1: important messages in the book as well. It's not, yes,

1241
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:20,440
Speaker 1: Scus is the true story, but this is about the

1242
01:01:20,440 --> 01:01:23,360
Speaker 1: power of friendship and the power of community, and the

1243
01:01:23,400 --> 01:01:26,480
Speaker 1: power of being vulnerable enough to say I need something,

1244
01:01:26,920 --> 01:01:29,400
Speaker 1: and the power of if you have the ability to

1245
01:01:29,560 --> 01:01:33,400
Speaker 1: help someone, step up and help them, you know. And

1246
01:01:33,480 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 1: on that someone reached out to me on Instagram. Funnily

1247
01:01:35,880 --> 01:01:38,480
Speaker 1: enough a few days ago and said, oh, hey, I've

1248
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:40,560
Speaker 1: been wanting to reach out to you for like the

1249
01:01:40,640 --> 01:01:43,720
Speaker 1: last year and offer to be a surrogate for you,

1250
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:47,320
Speaker 1: but I thought that you'd just be inundated. Well no,

1251
01:01:47,360 --> 01:01:49,600
Speaker 1: I haven't been in undated, but so I think, just

1252
01:01:50,040 --> 01:01:52,080
Speaker 1: never be afraid to offer you know if you see

1253
01:01:52,160 --> 01:01:55,520
Speaker 1: someone struggling or you see someone needing something, offer because

1254
01:01:55,560 --> 01:01:58,080
Speaker 1: you never know, like what an impact and how much

1255
01:01:58,120 --> 01:01:59,240
Speaker 1: that can help someone else.

1256
01:01:59,760 --> 01:01:59,960
Speaker 6: Yeah.

1257
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:03,040
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I love as well, Sarah, how open you've

1258
01:02:03,080 --> 01:02:06,360
Speaker 3: been to like your whole family. It's Lisa, you said

1259
01:02:06,360 --> 01:02:09,440
Speaker 3: it takes a village. It's not just Sarah, it's Sarah's

1260
01:02:09,480 --> 01:02:12,240
Speaker 3: family and the three kids. Like, I love how much

1261
01:02:12,280 --> 01:02:14,480
Speaker 3: you still are all catching up all the time, and

1262
01:02:14,840 --> 01:02:17,920
Speaker 3: everyone's in each other's lives, and what a beautiful story

1263
01:02:17,960 --> 01:02:20,520
Speaker 3: for the ages, like for all of the family members,

1264
01:02:20,560 --> 01:02:23,320
Speaker 3: Like everyone is involved in this beautiful little child and

1265
01:02:23,360 --> 01:02:24,160
Speaker 3: part of his world.

1266
01:02:24,760 --> 01:02:26,919
Speaker 6: And my god, I could talk about this forever.

1267
01:02:26,960 --> 01:02:28,920
Speaker 3: I've realized that it's past twelve, and I know you

1268
01:02:28,960 --> 01:02:32,320
Speaker 3: need to go, Lisa, but just you are both remarkable,

1269
01:02:32,920 --> 01:02:36,640
Speaker 3: extraordinary women for doing it and sharing it with everyone.

1270
01:02:36,760 --> 01:02:40,080
Speaker 3: And Hugo is just magical. I cannot wait for Teddy

1271
01:02:40,120 --> 01:02:43,280
Speaker 3: and Hugo to meet, and just thank you both.

1272
01:02:43,720 --> 01:02:49,160
Speaker 1: Well, thank you Sarah and Sarah.

1273
01:02:49,280 --> 01:02:51,920
Speaker 3: Oh well, for anyone who is interested in more detail,

1274
01:02:52,040 --> 01:02:55,600
Speaker 3: there is so much I mean, like literally so much

1275
01:02:56,040 --> 01:02:59,960
Speaker 3: honesty and openness and detail in the power of two emotionally, logistically,

1276
01:03:00,040 --> 01:03:02,200
Speaker 3: everything you would ever want to know, and I'll also

1277
01:03:02,240 --> 01:03:05,360
Speaker 3: include links in the notes to Lisa's page, sales page,

1278
01:03:05,360 --> 01:03:08,160
Speaker 3: wherever you might want to go to get other resources.

1279
01:03:08,200 --> 01:03:08,760
Speaker 2: But thank you.

1280
01:03:08,720 --> 01:03:11,880
Speaker 3: Both so much, and congratulations on everything.

1281
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:15,560
Speaker 4: Amazing, Thank you so much, Thank you, Ah.

1282
01:03:16,440 --> 01:03:18,919
Speaker 3: I learned so much in this episode, and I still

1283
01:03:19,000 --> 01:03:20,440
Speaker 3: feel like we didn't scrape the surface.

1284
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:22,000
Speaker 2: I really do wish I could just read the entire

1285
01:03:22,040 --> 01:03:22,920
Speaker 2: book out to you guys.

1286
01:03:22,920 --> 01:03:25,040
Speaker 3: In fact, maybe for some episodes I should do an

1287
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:28,600
Speaker 3: audiobook in chapters of books that I've really enjoyed, I

1288
01:03:28,720 --> 01:03:31,440
Speaker 3: highly recommend you grab a copy of the Power of Two.

1289
01:03:31,480 --> 01:03:35,520
Speaker 3: It is not just about surrogacy, but also tenacity, resilience, friendship,

1290
01:03:35,880 --> 01:03:38,960
Speaker 3: thinking outside the box, and just the grit of sticking

1291
01:03:38,960 --> 01:03:41,800
Speaker 3: with a goal. For goodness me eight years. I will

1292
01:03:41,840 --> 01:03:44,000
Speaker 3: pop the link in the show notes and share links

1293
01:03:44,040 --> 01:03:47,800
Speaker 3: to Lisa and Sarah's socials and pages as well. To

1294
01:03:47,880 --> 01:03:50,440
Speaker 3: anyone on their own journey, I hope there may have

1295
01:03:50,480 --> 01:03:52,280
Speaker 3: been a glimmer of hope or a small piece of

1296
01:03:52,280 --> 01:03:54,960
Speaker 3: information that helped you on your way, or sparked something

1297
01:03:54,960 --> 01:03:56,200
Speaker 3: that you might not have felt.

1298
01:03:56,000 --> 01:03:56,880
Speaker 2: Or thought about before.

1299
01:03:57,400 --> 01:04:00,040
Speaker 3: I truly believe that our earlier struggles for Nick and

1300
01:04:00,040 --> 01:04:02,600
Speaker 3: I personally at least were all because our little Teddy

1301
01:04:02,680 --> 01:04:05,320
Speaker 3: was just waiting before his time. But in the moment,

1302
01:04:05,400 --> 01:04:09,160
Speaker 3: it can be one of the most emotionally grueling, complex, confusing,

1303
01:04:09,600 --> 01:04:12,000
Speaker 3: and exhausting times of your life. I've been there, so

1304
01:04:12,200 --> 01:04:16,200
Speaker 3: I absolutely understand Sending so much love to all of you.

1305
01:04:16,320 --> 01:04:18,760
Speaker 3: And if there is any other topic like surrogacy that

1306
01:04:18,800 --> 01:04:21,640
Speaker 3: you'd like to hear more about on Caesar Baby, or

1307
01:04:21,640 --> 01:04:24,600
Speaker 3: a particular guest or expert that you'd like to hear from,

1308
01:04:24,640 --> 01:04:27,400
Speaker 3: please do always send me a DM or an email.

1309
01:04:27,600 --> 01:04:30,320
Speaker 3: I also often run out of ideas and love to

1310
01:04:30,400 --> 01:04:33,320
Speaker 3: hear your requests or your perspectives, so love this to

1311
01:04:33,320 --> 01:04:35,920
Speaker 3: be a neighborhood production. In the meantime, we will be

1312
01:04:35,960 --> 01:04:38,280
Speaker 3: back soon with a regular guest episode.

1313
01:04:38,360 --> 01:04:39,040
Speaker 2: I hope you are.

1314
01:04:38,920 --> 01:04:40,840
Speaker 3: Having a wonderful start to the year.

1315
01:04:40,960 --> 01:04:42,920
Speaker 2: January just has flown by.

1316
01:04:43,040 --> 01:04:44,600
Speaker 3: I kind of feel like every year I just make

1317
01:04:44,640 --> 01:04:46,240
Speaker 3: February first the start of my new year.

1318
01:04:47,280 --> 01:04:58,760
Speaker 2: I hope you guys are all seizing your yay.

1319
01:05:00,440 --> 01:05:06,960
Speaker 1: Father am regent, a father, a humanly residing from