Meeting Mike, Glenn and little Annabelle

As we mentioned a while ago, back in January we signed up for a new support service that Surrogacy Australia is providing called SASS, whereby intended parents (IPs) and surrogates submit profiles independently, with SASS facilitating introductions between the two parties. This is a really significant step for all involved in surrogacy and will hopefully allow for IPs and surrogates to meet each other in a more structured way.

Part of the process of joining includes being paired up with a mentor/s who has been through the surrogacy process locally themselves. Our mentors are Mike and Glenn – well known within surrogacy circles – who welcomed their super cute daughter Annabelle via surrogacy just under a year ago.

We had the three of them over for Sunday lunch and got chatting about all things surrogacy and how little Annabelle came to be. Interestingly, Mike and Glenn first went down the international road to grow their family – initially Thailand, then Cambodia, then Mexico – but to no avail. They then met their egg donor and surrogate via the online forums that operate domestically and all went smoothly from there. We know that finding a surrogate is going to be a challenge, but their advice was to keep active within the online communities – posting regular updates regarding our progress.

Mike and Glenn were featured on Sarah Jefford’s Australian Surrogacy Podcast. If you’ve got the time and would like to hear more about their journey, please listen to the episode below.

 
This is certainly something we’re conscious of and will be looking to do more of as we continue to take strides. They also mentioned something that really resonated: that taking a break from all of this is/will be necessary. We’re thrilled with the progress we’ve made since starting to become more active in this space since mid-January, but it’s been full on. A lot of our time and head space has been occupied with this new world and we think it will be important to take mini breaks and have days where we don’t mention the S word.

Fortunately, we’re about to wrap up Term 1 of school for 2019 and have a trip to Japan in store, which has us very excited and looking forward to many a shopping-and-food-and-adventure related distraction!