Conception, Consent and Death
Conception, Consent and Death I've been thinking a lot about death lately. A few things have led to this - watching Old People's Home for 4 Year Olds on the ABC, and donating my eggs again. Life, death, and taxes [...]
The Australian Surrogacy Podcast Episode 61: Cass & Claire
Claire and Cassandra welcome their daughter Aria earlier this year, with the help of a friend being their sperm donor, and Claire providing the egg and Cass carrying the pregnancy. Some people might call this 'egg sharing,' and it's very [...]
Sperm Donor Agreements
Sperm Donor Agreements Are you considering growing your family with the help of a sperm donor? There are a number of options, and it is important to obtain legal advice about the implications, your rights and responsibilities and the consequences [...]
Single Parent Surrogacy
Single Parent Surrogacy Are you a single intended parent considering surrogacy to grow your family? The good news is that mostly, there are no barriers to single intended parents entering into a surrogacy arrangement in Australia or overseas. What's the [...]
Egg Donor Agreements
Egg Donor Agreement Are you considering growing your family with the help of an egg donor and thinking of having an agreement between you? Many families grow with the help of an egg donor, whether it's a clinic-recruited or overseas [...]
Best Practice Surrogacy
Surrogacy has been a headline again this week, with Foreign Correspondent covering surrogacy in the Ukraine. Unfortunately, rarely when it is a headline is it a positive story, and my heart broke for the women, babies and intended parents who [...]
Egg Donation
Egg donation is one of those topics that garners interest on social media occasionally, and warrants a warm fuzzy headline now and again, but good quality information and resources are lacking. There are restrictions on advertising for an egg donor, [...]
Sperm Donor or Dad – the case of Masson and Parsons
Sperm Donor or Dad? If you are a single woman or in a same sex couple considering growing your family through sperm donation, you may have followed the case of Masson & Parsons and Anors with interest. The family law [...]
Joe Donor and the Consequences of Online Conception
Sperm donation options in Australia vary from friends and family, to online connections or clinic-recruited donors. If you watched 60 Minutes recently you'd know all about Joe Donor - the American man who claims to have donated sperm to over 800 [...]
Donor Agreements
Donor Agreements involve an agreement between a donor and recipient parent/s that clarifies the relationships and expectations between the parties. They are often used between sperm donors and their donor recipients, and not so often with egg donors. The reasons [...]
Egg Donation: Seeing Yourself In Someone Else’s Child
I became an egg donor after having my own children. My partner and I are parents-through-IVF; survivors of infertility who inevitably became overbearing parents to our precious offspring. Archie was born after 7 embryo transfers, and he was our lucky [...]
Donor Conception and the End of Anonymity
I recently attended the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA)’s twilight seminar The Genie is out of the bottle: DNA testing and the end of donor anonymity to hear about the experiences of donor-conceived people, and donors, from times gone [...]
Who Owns an Embryo?
Who owns an embryo? Is an embryo treated like a child in a parenting dispute? Or is it like property in a divorce? The truth is, it’s not treated like either a child or property, but in a category by [...]
Episode 7: Carla (Part 1)
This is a 2-part episode with Carla, an egg donor and a traditional surrogate. Carla has donated her eggs to 8 couples! In this episode we explore her egg donations and her reasons for donating, and hear all about her [...]
Episode 7: Carla (Part 2)
Traditional surrogacy is not as common as gestational surrogacy. This is Part 2 of my interview with Carla. Carla talked about her journey as an egg donor in Part 1; in Part 2 she tells us how she leaped from [...]
The Australian Surrogacy Podcast Episode 36: Amber
The Australian Surrogacy Podcast: Episode 36: Amber. Amber first heard about egg donation before she had her own children, and has now donated to nine families, resulting in 7 children so far. Many of the recipients also needed a surrogate [...]
The Australian Surrogacy Podcast Episode 37: Kate from VARTA
The Australian Surrogacy Podcast Episode 37: Kate from VARTA. Kate Bourne is the Donor Services Manager at the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA), which provides independent information and support for individuals, couples, and health professionals on fertility, infertility, assisted reproductive [...]
The Australian Surrogacy Podcast Episode 41: Gail
Episode 41 of The Australian Surrogacy Podcast: Gail Pascoe. Gail is a mother of a donor-conceived child and has been writing about her experiences of donor parenting on her blog, Donor Conception and Beyond. She started writing about donor conception [...]