International egg donation and surrogacy: Rohit and Allison's story
Our family building journey has been about 10 years in the making, so it's been a very long time. We had a lot of difficulty getting pregnant, so we went through IVF between 8 to 10 times. I was successful once and unfortunately miscarried.
The decision to pursue parenthood via egg donation, and later with surrogacy, was gradual. We were healthy young adults so we thought it just had to be possible to conceive the “traditional way.” It was disappointing that we couldn't get pregnant naturally or even with IVF. We kept trying because of what I thought I was giving up, which was my genetics and possibly carrying.
But then I started to realize that I wanted a child more than I wanted my own genetics. That's what I cared about more. I really wanted motherhood. So that’s when we started considering other options and learned about third-party fertility at a conference here in Australia. We met an amazing doctor there and worked with him to have our first child via egg donation.
Then, COVID hit. That changed everything. We hadn't been able to see our family for a couple of years. We had always wanted to have a second child. COVID was creating such an obstacle, but we decided we were going to do it now. When we came to Donor Concierge to discuss surrogacy, we were in a pretty bad state of anxiety. We were losing hope, struggling to believe that it was possible for us. And we were just desperate to find some solution and try one more time.
The support from Donor Concierge... The empathy, the love, the understanding was just incredible. It gave us the strength to go to that next stage. When you’ve almost given up, it was that love around us that just made us think: Yeah, we can do this. We can do this.
Having Donor Concierge’s help was so phenomenal. Looking for a surrogate was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and I think we must have saved 12 months of time with Donor Concierge. Within a couple of weeks we met our surrogate, who we’re now friends with. She’s amazing. Fast forward and our son came early, and he was in the NICU, and we were flying to meet them. That brought challenges, but we learned we had to let all of that go, wait and see what happens, and then deal with it all. We’re so lucky that it all turned out well.
On a positive note, the support from Donor Concierge and all of the practitioners that we came across, who were there on the other side after we'd tried and it'd been unsuccessful, was amazing. The empathy, the love, the understanding was just incredible. It gave us the strength to go to that next stage. When you’ve almost given up, it was that love around us that just made us think: Yeah, we can do this. We can do this.
We’ve already started talking to our daughter about everything and included her in conversations about egg donation and now surrogacy from the start. We were open with everyone, including our daughter, about surrogacy, and we’re going to continue that with our son. We think honesty is important, and we will continue having those conversations. We’ve owned it: we've got this journey, this is our journey to parenthood, and it's OK if it's different.
It’s been really amazing talking to other people in our shoes. We know people struggling with infertility, and we were able to sort of have a conversation with them around, “Hey, you can do this, you can do that.” I've emailed some friends all the information from our IVF and our surrogacy journey. Our advice to other parents is to do the research and know your options. Don’t give up hope. You’ve just gotta try other possibilities. For the women that may not be able to carry, or they may have to choose a donor egg – You're still a mother, and you'll still always be a mother.
Coming out of this process, we honestly feel like we've got some miracle children. We could not have done this without Donor Concierge and you guys being part of our journey. Thank you.
Thank you so much to our clients Rohit and Allison for sharing their experience with Donor Concierge and their journey to parenthood via egg donation and international surrogacy. We are so overjoyed to have played a part in building your family! Interested in building your family with Donor Concierge? Schedule your free consultation today.
