Speaker 1: High Heart podcasts, hear more Kiss podcast playlist and listen
Speaker 1: live on the Free iHeart app a good Pickup with
Speaker 1: Britt Hockley and Laura Ben Brady.
Speaker 2: Your work, our windows done. That's my world rison the dust.
Speaker 2: Only good labs.
Speaker 1: Are all down.
Speaker 3: I've don't much, but yeah.
Speaker 2: I know I'll beg get and what I want. It
Speaker 2: don't matter where goes. This is the pickup.
Speaker 1: Hi, guys, you're listening to the Pickup with brid Hockley.
Speaker 2: And Laura Ben. Oh we're seeing now. Sorry, I don't
Speaker 2: know where that came from. I'm just in a good
Speaker 2: mood today, more different person out. You're pregnant. I don't
Speaker 2: know what's happening. There's lots of hormone changes, brain synapses
Speaker 2: to change.
Speaker 1: There probably is, though to be fair to really sleep
Speaker 1: deprived already sleep.
Speaker 2: In somnia, pregnancy insomnia.
Speaker 1: I suppose the other kind of insomnia you can get
Speaker 1: that's not sleep related. Bread Yes, okay, so I have
Speaker 1: just hit twenty six weeks, which is weird to me
Speaker 1: because you're just not even pregnant to me. I know
Speaker 1: you do treat me like I'm not pregnant, like that,
Speaker 1: I'm in need denial I need everyone to be like
Speaker 1: you are gay.
Speaker 4: I am sympathetic, but I'm denial. Yeah, I'm dealing with
Speaker 4: it too. It's our pregnancy.
Speaker 1: This is I understand have a guess what size fruits?
Speaker 2: Because you know how so.
Speaker 1: When you're pregnant and you go into a new week,
Speaker 1: if you've got any of those pregnancy apps, it always
Speaker 1: tells you, like what fruit your baby is. Third, I
Speaker 1: don't pay a lot of attention to it. I don't
Speaker 1: think i've looked since it was the size of a blueberry.
Speaker 1: So what is it?
Speaker 2: Twenty six weeks? Twenty six weeks? That's just over half way?
Speaker 5: Is it?
Speaker 2: Well more than that?
Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, so you're a little bit over halfway.
Speaker 4: Six weeks over halfway? Yeah, okay, So let me think
Speaker 4: of my fruit. Would it be remiss of me to
Speaker 4: say it would resemble a premature rock melon?
Speaker 2: Premature rock melon like hasn't quite made it to full melon.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good, because I'm pretty sure rock melon is
Speaker 1: like twenty nine weeks. So yeah, I think you're pretty
Speaker 1: close the paya, Yeah, close to. But no, it's a
Speaker 1: lettuce this week letters, which also, why.
Speaker 2: Would you want to be a lettuce? Sorry? If you
Speaker 2: want to be a fruit pick a like something solid.
Speaker 1: Also, the thing is is, if you've ever seen fruits,
Speaker 1: they vary a lot in size. So I just don't
Speaker 1: know how they've whoever scaled this based on a fruit,
Speaker 1: I don't know how accurate it is.
Speaker 4: Is it a big letters melon a stage?
Speaker 2: Yeah, twenty nine weeks melon. So I'll let you know
Speaker 2: when we in that. That's pretty good for someone that's
Speaker 2: never been pregnant. I'm press.
Speaker 1: Now we've asked the question. Guys, give us a call.
Speaker 1: What did you find in your food? Because on the
Speaker 1: weekend it was my daughter's sixth birthday party? Right, lots
Speaker 1: of preparation. We did it at our house, which is
Speaker 1: a terrible idea. Don't whole birthday parties at your house.
Speaker 1: Lots of cleaner, lots.
Speaker 2: Of prep little question yep, is fairy bread? Does it
Speaker 2: still make an appearance at kids' birthday parties?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did, half made.
Speaker 1: I made half a loaf, wonder white butter and sprinkles.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you, that was the only food
Speaker 1: that was on the table that got complete devoured.
Speaker 2: Of course, it was pure sugar. It was shit.
Speaker 4: That can't be shocking, have you No, one eate the
Speaker 4: carrot sticks and hummus.
Speaker 1: It was a big fruit platter. No, but have you
Speaker 1: actually tried it as an adult? It's terrible. It's really crunchy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't like butter either, so I've had to forego
Speaker 4: the fairy bread as an adult.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more so that sprinkles are overrated.
Speaker 1: They taste awful, slightly sugary, not sugary enough, and they're
Speaker 1: really hard. So all these little kids are just walking
Speaker 1: around just getting turned on fairy bread. Anyway, it was
Speaker 1: the whole thing. I should have stuck to the fairy bread,
Speaker 1: because I did get a couple of packets of chips.
Speaker 1: I'm a bit of a lazy mum when it comes
Speaker 1: to a birthday party. We didn't do a cake. We
Speaker 1: just had cupcakes that I was still bought. You know,
Speaker 1: I put some candles in them. I've got a few
Speaker 1: bags of chippies. I was like, put them on the
Speaker 1: table in bowls. Kids will have a great time. You're
Speaker 1: not trad wifing. No, yeah, that's not my that's not
Speaker 1: my thing. Anyway. I opened up one of the bags
Speaker 1: of chips and it looked okay on top, but then
Speaker 1: I looked a.
Speaker 2: Bit close to I was like, what is that?
Speaker 1: And I shook the bag a bit and there was
Speaker 1: this you don't know entirely what it was it was about.
Speaker 1: It was about fifteen centimeters.
Speaker 2: Long, half a ruler that doesn't even fit in a
Speaker 2: chip bag.
Speaker 1: Yeah, about that beer just fitted in like sideways. It
Speaker 1: took up the entire side length of the bag. It
Speaker 1: looked like a full hash brown, like a McDonald's hash
Speaker 1: brown that had been severely overcooked. But then on closer inspection,
Speaker 1: I took a moment I was like, is that a
Speaker 1: chicken snitzl? Like is there a legit chicken snitsel in
Speaker 1: my chip bag? Anyway, pulled it out. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: it was just layers upon layers of compacted chips that
Speaker 1: had been deep fried and deep fried and deep fried.
Speaker 2: And how does it get to that point? God knows.
Speaker 1: We thought it was the golden hash brown that we found,
Speaker 1: like we'd run a prize.
Speaker 4: But that's what I was actually gonna ask that did
Speaker 4: you look up to see if there is a competition
Speaker 4: running for like whoever whatever bag finds it, because that's
Speaker 4: a thing.
Speaker 2: No, we have a listen to this.
Speaker 1: I can't tell if this is an entire potato, a.
Speaker 2: Hash brown.
Speaker 1: Or a lot of chips that have gotten stuff on
Speaker 1: the conveyor belt together.
Speaker 2: Would you you're disgusting.
Speaker 1: It's probably like the best bit of all the chips,
Speaker 1: you know, like when they're kindch It's really that's pretty good.
Speaker 2: That's so right.
Speaker 1: Delicacy. We got the special golden hash brown and the
Speaker 1: back of the gym.
Speaker 3: It's a delicacy.
Speaker 2: Matt, Yeah, it's a delicacy. Matt took one for the team.
Speaker 1: My husband, he ate he took a big bite out
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: I think he just did it.
Speaker 1: No, he told me off camera that it was actually revolting.
Speaker 2: He was like, I'm worried that I ate that maybe
Speaker 2: to make me.
Speaker 4: See at least it was something edible that was in there,
Speaker 4: because there could be some weird and wonderful things that
Speaker 4: get stuck.
Speaker 2: Well there have been.
Speaker 1: There have been some weird, wonderful things. Did we put
Speaker 1: the call out to you guys, what did you find
Speaker 1: in your food? And let me tell you everything from
Speaker 1: band aids to nails to it's been disgusting. We've got
Speaker 1: Jess on the line. Jess, what did you find in
Speaker 1: your food?
Speaker 6: I was at a cafe and my omelet came out
Speaker 6: and there was a humongous giant dragonfly just cooked smack
Speaker 6: bang in the middle of my almard.
Speaker 3: Always so they might not God, they folded it in.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, you know when you're on what comes out
Speaker 6: and it's like half folded over, presented nicely.
Speaker 2: That it just goes beyond negligence.
Speaker 1: Imagine being that person that's in their cooking and they're like, nah,
Speaker 1: either they see it or they and they can't be.
Speaker 2: Bothered to pick it out, or they're like, didn't even look.
Speaker 2: They just flipped.
Speaker 3: Now, I reckon.
Speaker 2: They the chef knows how to do the flip, right,
Speaker 2: I reckon.
Speaker 4: He just turned his head as he flipped it as
Speaker 4: it flew in like bad timing.
Speaker 2: What did you do, Jess? You sent it back?
Speaker 1: Well I did.
Speaker 6: They weren't really concerned. They offered to make me a
Speaker 6: new one, and I declined that wow.
Speaker 2: All right, great service. Don't let's not name the cafe.
Speaker 2: All right, Karin, We've got Kren on the line. What
Speaker 2: did you find your food?
Speaker 7: A family member came across a mouse frozen to the
Speaker 7: bottom of like frozen pizza.
Speaker 1: But it was like.
Speaker 7: Between the plastic. Yeah, a mouse, a little little mouth
Speaker 7: already sealed in a plastic part, so like between the
Speaker 7: box of plastic.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I would never be able to eat a
Speaker 4: pizza again.
Speaker 2: I reckon.
Speaker 1: What's happened is when it was being transferred the mouse
Speaker 1: as they'd been through like a hole in the box,
Speaker 1: and then it's just kind of like cozy in there.
Speaker 3: Because you wouldn't dine in there.
Speaker 2: He'd live forever.
Speaker 1: But then but then it ended up back in the
Speaker 1: freezer and so the poor mouse got snap frozen.
Speaker 4: Wow, the nutrients are still in there there, just frozen
Speaker 4: like a carrot.
Speaker 7: Al right, the production line, like the mouse happened to
Speaker 7: be on the production line, squish bang in the freezer.
Speaker 2: It was oh oh, Krien, thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Look, there's been some real doozies. Okay, guys, just just
Speaker 1: look at what you eat before.
Speaker 6: Take.
Speaker 1: A lot of fingernails came in. That was a real problem.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of fakey's in the food.
Speaker 2: I nearly put a fake nail once.
Speaker 4: Into the nut arena, you know the nutbox at like
Speaker 4: the supermarkets.
Speaker 2: The nut woolwors nut arena.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an arena that is like a great arena.
Speaker 2: We're going to end up in the nut arena if
Speaker 2: you're not careful.
Speaker 4: We have a bit of a different guest on the
Speaker 4: show today, one I'm quite excited to speak about. I
Speaker 4: saw her story online and just couldn't imagine what it
Speaker 4: would be like. We're speaking to Lyndall Bubke, who is
Speaker 4: a donor conceived woman from Brisbane and she recently found
Speaker 4: out that she has seventy seven half siblings that were
Speaker 4: also conceived by the same donor sperm.
Speaker 3: So we have Lyndall on the phone. Lindall, welcome to
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 5: Hi both, thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: What how did you discover that you had seventy seven
Speaker 4: half siblings?
Speaker 5: Oh, it's been a bit of a process. I did
Speaker 5: an ancestry Dnatis my husband's family really into genealogy and
Speaker 5: I'm like, well, that'll be fun.
Speaker 3: What's the worst that I imagine that'd be fun?
Speaker 1: Did you know at that point that you had been
Speaker 1: conceived through donor sperm? Like, did you know that that
Speaker 1: was the case or was it all a bit of
Speaker 1: a Pandora's box.
Speaker 5: It was a bit of a Pandora's box. I'm of
Speaker 5: an age. I'm thirty three in most I was conceived
Speaker 5: in the early nineties, and at the time, the going
Speaker 5: rhetoric that the clinics were really impressing upon parents was
Speaker 5: go home and pretend it didn't happen. It's unkind to
Speaker 5: tell them. You shouldn't tell them they'll never be able
Speaker 5: to find their donor, you know. And yes that's all true,
Speaker 5: not only because they destroyed the records in a bit
Speaker 5: of a journey, but these days people are told.
Speaker 1: At the time as well, there was nothing like ancestry
Speaker 1: dot com, so they probably weren't thinking no future the
Speaker 1: people would be able to do their own genealogy tests
Speaker 1: like that seems so sci fi for back then.
Speaker 5: I know who would have ever guessed?
Speaker 4: And then so okay, let's just set the scene tapping away.
Speaker 2: You find out you've got seventy seven half siblings. How
Speaker 2: do you then connect with them? Because I know quite
Speaker 2: a lot of you have reached out and been in contact.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's like a group chat we have at the
Speaker 5: moment because I've fifteen of us in it. We get
Speaker 5: in touch mostly VIADEA they're testing. The clinic has put
Speaker 5: a couple of us in touch with each other, but
Speaker 5: the clinic doesn't have records for all or most of us.
Speaker 5: The seventy seven, as you said, is a minimum. It
Speaker 5: doesn't include all of the treating doctors that cleans on
Speaker 5: fertility groups that destroyed their records might include. So if
Speaker 5: it hadn't been the fact that I did a DNA test,
Speaker 5: I wouldn't have ever been able to connect with my siblings.
Speaker 4: I imagine when you find out that there's you know, potentially
Speaker 4: upwards of one hundred siblings, you would think, okay.
Speaker 5: I have to make two hundred and fifty to three
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty conservatively based on how many times my
Speaker 5: donor donated.
Speaker 4: Which is wild, and your brain must go to the
Speaker 4: fact of saying, okay, well, there's a high likelihood of
Speaker 4: all these people growing up in the same area. Did
Speaker 4: you just think that maybe you'd come across them in
Speaker 4: the past, or what if you were dating them as
Speaker 4: a teenager, or what if your husband.
Speaker 2: Was related to in some way? Like did those thoughts
Speaker 2: cross your mind?
Speaker 5: Bang on the money With my biggest fears, they're Thankfully
Speaker 5: my husband had already done a DNA test, So when
Speaker 5: I got my results back, it was the first thing
Speaker 5: I was checking in and before I looked at the
Speaker 5: eleven DNA matches, my parents had got in between the
Speaker 5: test results hitting. They told me what to expect. So
Speaker 5: the first thing I'm checking is is my husband a relative?
Speaker 5: Thank God it wasn't that.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 5: I know that two of my siblings have found out
Speaker 5: they were at a party together as teenagers. It's all
Speaker 5: really cool to home. The chances of me knowing someone
Speaker 5: who's a sibling before I find their sibling is pretty high.
Speaker 5: You know, one of my one of my brothers is
Speaker 5: my cousin's friend. We're born ten days apart. We're probably
Speaker 5: conceived on the same day. And that's that's quite close.
Speaker 2: You be from the same pot of sperm, same clinic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think we are.
Speaker 2: Actually wow, wow, that is crazy.
Speaker 1: How look I mean, and this might be a little
Speaker 1: bit personal, but when your parents did tell you, because
Speaker 1: obviously you know, them intervening, trying to probably get a
Speaker 1: front foot on that situation, how did you respond to that?
Speaker 5: Oh? Look, it's hard, you know. I think they did
Speaker 5: the best they could with the information they had. We
Speaker 5: all agree. Now, my parents have been really supportive throughout
Speaker 5: this process because this isn't what they signed up for
Speaker 5: But now that they know this, they would have told
Speaker 5: me earlier. I always tell people who are going through
Speaker 5: to own a conception. It's so important to tell your kids.
Speaker 5: Have it just be part of the narrative, so it's
Speaker 5: not a big shock when they signed out.
Speaker 4: Well, you are also campaigning for improved regulations in the
Speaker 4: fertility clinics and creations of databases. Tell us exactly what
Speaker 4: you're hoping to achieve, Like, what regulations do you think
Speaker 4: we need to have to better control this?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well so at the moment we have state based
Speaker 5: approaching and not every state has regulation. Until October and
Speaker 5: Queensland last year there was literally nothing governing it and
Speaker 5: that's why something terrible things happened. So if one state
Speaker 5: is letting the team down, then the clinics can get
Speaker 5: away with and they do get away with sending the
Speaker 5: sperm into state to their related clinics or just selling
Speaker 5: it to other clinics and using it in the different jurisdiction,
Speaker 5: and that gets around the family limits, and that's how
Speaker 5: you create these pods of hundreds, sometimes thousands of siblings
Speaker 5: in Australia.
Speaker 2: It's just insane.
Speaker 1: And also, I mean there's been a few documentaries and
Speaker 1: stuff that have come out where it's really highlighted this
Speaker 1: issue overseas, but I don't think anyone's aware that it's
Speaker 1: something that's happened here in Australia on home soil as well's.
Speaker 5: And if we're using sperm that's imported from the state,
Speaker 5: there's no checks and balances and how many times they've
Speaker 5: used it.
Speaker 4: Well, you're gonna have a fun Christmas windle with three
Speaker 4: hundred people.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you hope.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you hope to find them all
Speaker 4: or if you're happy to just like sort of live
Speaker 4: with seventy seven the Yeah, you would, you.
Speaker 5: Know, it just feels funny thinking there are these people
Speaker 5: out there and share half of my DNA, but I
Speaker 5: never know. That's just a sadness we all have to wear.
Speaker 2: Oh well, we hope you find them. It's a remarkable story.
Speaker 2: But we are reading for you. Thanks both, Thanks Linda,
Speaker 2: so Laura.
Speaker 4: On the weekend, I tried to do what I think
Speaker 4: was a really good deed, well for myself and for
Speaker 4: my sister. But what I did was I went through
Speaker 4: all my cupboards and cleaned everything out. You know where
Speaker 4: you have this like I just had too much stuff
Speaker 4: that I have accumulated for years. I could open my
Speaker 4: wardrobe and stuff from fifteen years ago would tumble out
Speaker 4: and almost suffocate me. I have seen your wardrobe, brit
Speaker 4: and one thing like, yes, you have a lot of clothes,
Speaker 4: but the thing is you also don't throw anything away,
Speaker 4: so you keep all of your clothes, like you have
Speaker 4: multiple wardrobes. But I think because most of it's stuff
Speaker 4: that you'll keep on rotation, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, I do.
Speaker 4: I'm a real sucker for I'm like a hoarder for clothes.
Speaker 4: Like some of my favorite pieces of clothing are from
Speaker 4: fifteen years ago.
Speaker 3: So I don't necessarily just keep them. I just love it.
Speaker 1: I don't fit anything from fifteen years ago when we
Speaker 1: are yellow. And I kind of have a rule now
Speaker 1: because my wardrobes one a time was very similar.
Speaker 2: But I have a rule that if I haven't worn
Speaker 2: it in a year, it goes.
Speaker 1: I give it away to someone, or I give it
Speaker 1: to the Salvos.
Speaker 2: But I can't. I can't keep that. When he closes
Speaker 2: my house.
Speaker 4: Every like I don't know, six to eight months, I
Speaker 4: do a clean out and I send everything to the
Speaker 4: Salvos or I give it to my sister or a
Speaker 4: friend to go through.
Speaker 2: If it's like good quality stuff. So I went through.
Speaker 4: I'd been going through it for probably the last four
Speaker 4: months and slowly putting things into bags because I knew
Speaker 4: my sister was going to.
Speaker 2: Move back from overseas.
Speaker 4: I always let her go through and pick stuff and
Speaker 4: then I take it to a charity store. And so
Speaker 4: I've been accumulating these bags and one was just bin
Speaker 4: like stuff that was just so far gone, moss of
Speaker 4: eating it or whatever.
Speaker 2: Like I'm talking the dregs of my wardrobe. You're like,
Speaker 2: I would be embarrassed to give this to someone.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Then I had the stuff that my sister could go
Speaker 4: through that was like call you know, no would fit out.
Speaker 2: Then I had the bag that was just going straight
Speaker 2: to the charity win anyway.
Speaker 4: So I handed off to my sister and she went
Speaker 4: back to the Gold Coast because she doesn't live near
Speaker 4: me and I don't hear from about it. And I
Speaker 4: was like really excited because I was giving her really
Speaker 4: quality stuff. Anyway, So I bring it up and I
Speaker 4: said to her, day, did you go through the bag?
Speaker 3: And She's like, yeah, I did. I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: did you keep anything?
Speaker 2: Like did you like it?
Speaker 3: Or like you're welcome?
Speaker 2: She's like no, I think he would be nice. She's
Speaker 2: like no, Brittany, it was disgusting. When I threw it out.
Speaker 3: I was like, well, I was like, you didn't keep
Speaker 3: one thing?
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 3: She's like, no, nothing, Why would I? And I was
Speaker 3: so confused. I was like, there's some of my best pieces.
Speaker 8: She was like what it turns out I gave her
Speaker 8: a bag of like the oldest undies that you've ever seen,
Speaker 8: like undies that I've worn, that have holes in them,
Speaker 8: that have like these are undies that have been through it.
Speaker 3: I gave her stuff with moth holes in it.
Speaker 4: I gave her the bag that was supposed to go
Speaker 4: straight to the bin, not even a bag that could
Speaker 4: go to a charity, not nothing.
Speaker 3: This is like you'd burn this bag, and that's what
Speaker 3: she thought I gifted her.
Speaker 1: It's the bag of clothes where you know, they've lived alive,
Speaker 1: they have lived a century of life.
Speaker 3: They've seen some stuff. And like, I was mortified.
Speaker 1: So what happened to the bag that she was meant
Speaker 1: to get? Did you actually take that one to the salvage?
Speaker 2: So annoying? Yeah, but that's great. There's really great subber videos.
Speaker 4: But I was mortified to think that I gave my
Speaker 4: sister a bag of like dirty undies. I don't want
Speaker 4: to say it on radio, but I was like, old
Speaker 4: use undies because I keep bundies for like I know
Speaker 4: you do too, Laura, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Twenty years.
Speaker 1: I keep underwear until it no longer has an elastic,
Speaker 1: which is coming really handy because I now my butt's
Speaker 1: about twice the size it used to be and all those.
Speaker 2: Houndies hit me again.
Speaker 4: Do you like how I'm trying to whisper it like
Speaker 4: Australia can't hear it. If I whispered it, I was like,
Speaker 4: I gave her a bag of dirty undies, like.
Speaker 2: You're still seeing it.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is a lesson for everyone, though.
Speaker 1: If you're going to do a clean out, you've got
Speaker 1: to label stuff.
Speaker 2: It's seemed like if you're moving house.
Speaker 1: Because I once maybe about eight months ago, he actually
Speaker 1: maybe longer.
Speaker 2: No one cares I had.
Speaker 3: Too bad time is irrelevant.
Speaker 1: I had one bag to go to the dry cleaners
Speaker 1: and one bag to go to the salvos.
Speaker 2: Both bags have been kicking around the back of my car.
Speaker 1: The boot the garage like they've just been moved from
Speaker 1: different areas because I kept on thinking I'll take it eventually. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I mentioned to Matt, I was like, oh, there's a
Speaker 1: bag in the back of my car that.
Speaker 2: Needs to go the Salvos.
Speaker 1: Didn't tell him that there was one that was supposed
Speaker 1: to go to the dry cleaners, and everything ended up
Speaker 1: at the Savos, so that was really disappointing for me.
Speaker 2: Let's alert everyone. Yeah, there's also.
Speaker 1: Some things that the owner didn't want to part with
Speaker 1: as well, So off you go, guys, check it out. Anyway, Look,
Speaker 1: that is it from us.