Every time I sit down with a parent who’s built their family through surrogacy, I’m reminded that no two journeys are the same. Some are planned with precision; others unfold through sheer coincidence, timing, and the generosity of strangers. I recently spoke with Caroline, a UK-born mum now living just outside Brisbane, about her surrogacy journey and the experiences that shaped it.
Rethinking What’s Possible
When I asked Caroline about how surrogacy entered her life, she laughed gently and said, “I remember I went to a different specialist to get a second opinion. And he mentioned the word surrogacy. And I was just like, ‘No, no, what the heck?’ It hadn’t been anything that had ever kind of crossed my mind.”
Caroline had already faced a series of medical challenges. What started as a straightforward plan to conceive with donor sperm quickly changed when she was diagnosed with pre-cancerous cells in her uterus. Despite several treatments, her oncologist told her he could no longer risk continuing. “He wanted to do a hysterectomy at that point,” she recalled.
It’s a moment that changes everything. For many intended parents, there’s the painful realisation that biology won’t work the way you hoped, and then, slowly, a curiosity about other paths forward. Caroline described that moment of acceptance with remarkable clarity: “I just couldn’t do anything about it. So I started to do a bit of research on what people were talking about surrogacy and just hopped online, really.”
When Plans Don’t Go as Planned
Caroline’s first journey took her and her husband all the way to Canada. They worked with CReATe in Toronto to complete their egg collection, using donor sperm. “We got four or five embryos, I think, at the end of that,” she said. They were soon matched with a surrogate from Edmonton “She was lovely,” Caroline added but none of the embryos took.
It’s the part of surrogacy few people talk about: the heartbreak that comes when the first attempt doesn’t work. “She understandably couldn’t put her life on hold anymore,” Caroline said about her surrogate. “So yeah, we were back to square one.”
For many intended parents, that’s a devastating setback. You’ve invested so much emotionally, financially, and logistically. But Caroline and her husband didn’t stop there. They stayed connected to their lawyer in Canada, unaware that another twist was waiting.
The People Who Step In
“One day, Mark got an email from our lawyer in Toronto,” Caroline said. “She said, look guys, I’ve been approached by a couple who’ve finished their surrogacy journey and they want to donate their embryos. And they asked me if I had any ideas, and I thought of you.”
That email would change everything. “It was purely pretty amazing luck,” she said. The embryos had come from a gay couple who had two daughters through surrogacy. Caroline and her husband completed the required counselling over Skype, received the embryos legally in Toronto, and stayed in touch with the donors ever since. “They’re a gay male couple… they used an egg donor in the USA. We’ve also kind of virtually met her as well. They were living in Spain but they’re now back in Perth. We haven’t met them yet, but we keep in contact.”
It’s one of those stories that highlights what I’ve always admired about this community: how people who have achieved their dream often reach back to help others take their first steps. These unexpected acts of generosity shape many of the journeys I hear about.
A Second Chance at Home
Not long after, Caroline began exploring options closer to home. Their Canadian agency had slowed down, and with COVID restrictions tightening, the wait was uncertain. “I said to Mark, I’ll just put a post on ASC,” she said, referring to the Australian Surrogacy Community group. “He said, you’ve got no chance… but amazingly, a lady contacted us literally the next day and said, do you want to meet up?”
This time, the story had a different ending. Their embryos were shipped from Canada to Australia, and the transfer worked. Caroline became a mum.
When I asked if the uncertainty had been hard to manage, she surprised me by saying it hadn’t. “It was harder for my husband,” she said. “He always had this kind of mental, if it hasn’t happened by the time I’m 45, it’s never gonna happen. And we had to have a few conversations about that.”
That kind of emotional endurance is something I see often in intended parents, a quiet belief that somewhere, somehow, this will work.
Surrogacy: A Lesson in Letting Go
When I asked what she wished she’d known before starting, Caroline didn’t hesitate. “How complex it could be. How much money. Mind you, if I’d known how much money it was going to be, I probably wouldn’t have ever done it,” she laughs.
Then, more seriously: “People talk about IVF being hard. And sometimes I’m like, guys, you have no idea if you think IVF is hard. Surrogacy is like IVF on steroids. It’s the ultimate loss of control. You’ve got to be in control of the bits that you can be in control of.”
That honesty captures the heart of what many intended parents feel: the surrender to uncertainty, the trust placed in others, and the hope that carries you through.
The Next Chapter
Caroline is now undertaking a second surrogacy journey, this time in Georgia. She reflected on the differences between her experiences overseas and in Australia. “To be honest, international surrogacy is a heck of a lot easier,” she said. “You don’t have to second guess what your surrogate is thinking. Here, because it’s altruistic, you have to be very cautious about not upsetting them. That emotional load is much easier being overseas.”
Her current journey has been, in her words, “a dream so far.” She knows her surrogate is doing it to improve her own life, and she respects that motivation. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that” .
What Family Really Means
Toward the end of our chat, I asked Caroline whether surrogacy had changed the way she thinks about family. Her answer came without hesitation. “I think it makes me think that family is what you make it,” she said. “If you’d said to me you’ll have a child who’s not biologically yours, I wouldn’t have thought about that beforehand. But I look at him and he’s ours. He has some of my traits, some of Mark’s traits. I’m much more accepting of people in general now.”
That, to me, sums up the quiet power of surrogacy: the way it can broaden your heart and redefine connection. Caroline’s journey was shaped by the people who step forward, the courage to start again, and the luck that finds you when you’re open to it.
Because sometimes, as Caroline’s journey reminds us, hope doesn’t arrive in the way you planned. It finds you when you’re willing to let go, and when you believe that family can be made in many different ways.
Caroline will be sharing more of her journey in person at our Surrogacy & Donor Conception Conference in Brisbane. Don’t miss this chance to hear first-hand about the courage, connections, and hope that surrogacy can bring.
