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EP8: Exploring Surrogacy with Sean Marcs
101 Plays1 year ago
Throughout the month of October, we have some incredible episodes with team members who have opened up and shared some personal experiences.
To kick things off, Learning and Development Manager, Sean Marcs takes us on a personal journey, talking about his path to parenthood through surrogacy, in a same sex relationship. Sean’s story shines a light on the importance of inclusive parental care, overcoming gender stereotypes and unconscious biases, as well as challenging policies and benefits in the workplace.
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Transcript
Introduction to Inclusion Series
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to FYI the Baxter Story Podcast. I'm Sam Wacom and I will be your host for our Inclusion Series, a platform dedicated to fueling individuality.
00:00:12
Speaker
Throughout the month of October, we are casting a spotlight on some individuals within our business, allowing them to share their unique stories as we explore how to create a culture of inclusivity at work. To kick things off, I am introducing Sean Marks, our learning and development manager.
Sean's Journey to Parenthood
00:00:28
Speaker
In today's episode, Sean will take us on a personal journey as he discusses his path to parenthood through surrogacy in a same-sex relationship. Sean's story shines a light on the importance of thinking more inclusively about parental care.
00:00:41
Speaker
from overcoming gender stereotypes and unconscious biases as well as challenging policies and benefits. Hi Sean, we're delighted to have you join our Shine series. For our listeners who might not be well versed in surrogacy, can you provide what surrogacy means and how does surrogacy work for same-sex couples? Yeah sure, so first I'm really excited to have the conversation around surrogacy and the opportunity to share my husband and I's story really.
Understanding Surrogacy
00:01:07
Speaker
So surrogacy
00:01:09
Speaker
because there's two different versions of surrogacy. The surrogacy, as some people know it, to be a person who carries a child who also is genetically related to the child that they're carrying. And then there is a couple that they are helping create a family for. My husband and I case, we did gestational surrogacy. So gestational surrogacy is where you have a separate egg donor. So we have one egg donor who's actually from Florida. She is amazing. And then we have our gestational surrogate carrier
00:01:36
Speaker
who is in Wenatchee, gosh, that's near Seattle, on the other side of the US, and she helped carry some of our little girl for nine months and helped us become a family.
Legal Aspects of Surrogacy
00:01:46
Speaker
So that was the route that we went through via surrogacy, and we did all that in the US.
00:01:51
Speaker
Wow. Is there a reason why you did it in the US or not? So it's just a little bit more complicated in the UK. There's no legal, you can't legally kind of provide someone with a fee to carry a child. Equally, it's just not as well regulated in the UK. And so for that reason, we really want to keep everything as above board as possible. You know, have everybody protected that bee, the egg donor, the surrogate, ourselves from a legal standpoint, from a wellbeing standpoint.
00:02:19
Speaker
and we just found an agency called Circle Soagasy who are absolutely incredible and could hold our hands with the whole process because it is such a complicated process both from the organization of all of those kind of parties that help create summer but equally the legal layers that go on top of that and so we decided to do that in the US it just meant that everything was kind of easy we got to both be on the birth certificate
00:02:43
Speaker
And so both Grey and myself, my husband and I are on summer's birth certificate, which wouldn't have been possible here in the UK. And then of course in the UK, we still had legal things that we needed to go through, which I can talk about at some point as well.
Surrogacy vs. Adoption
00:02:54
Speaker
No, thank you so much. I want to dive into your story from the beginning. When and how did your partner decide that you wanted to have a child and go through surrogacy? I think that happened on date three.
00:03:08
Speaker
Grey and I, we met by Tinder, then I cancelled our date last minute, and the day after we went to go on our date, we bumped into each other in front of a theatre. I was walking out the front door, he recognised me for my Tinder photo, I was like, hello! And we just kind of fell in love at that point, but then equally, we shared everything that we hoped and dreamed for, and a part of that was becoming parents. And so I think it was day three, it was like,
00:03:31
Speaker
Do you want to be a dad? Do you want a family? Yes, we want a family. And so we always knew from the very beginning that we wanted to have a family of our own. And so immediately after we got married, we got a very baby, so our dog Chutney. As most couples do, we signed off there to see how it would go.
00:03:47
Speaker
And then we started to look at options for how we wanted to grow our family. Was that through adoption? Was that through surrogacy?
Pregnancy Challenges
00:03:55
Speaker
And we decided after looking at both those options that surrogacy suited us best as a couple and have that incredible experience that we are experiencing now. And the whole process is very much not just us choosing a person, but them choosing us as a couple as well and making sure that we're a perfect match. And so our surrogate and our donor very much chose us as much as we chose them.
00:04:16
Speaker
and we've got a really special relationship that's been formed as a result of that so we're in contact with both our egg donor and both us and our surrogate and her family today and that's really important for us because it's really lovely for someone to be able to have access to those people in her life going forwards and they get to see her grow up through pictures and videos and hopefully some face-to-face meetings coming up in the next year. So your egg donor and your surrogate are separate people?
00:04:42
Speaker
There are several people. So we have our egg donor and she donated her eggs to us. She helped us.
00:04:49
Speaker
create embryos and those embryos were frozen in a clinic in LA. And then our gestational carrier, our surrogate, her and her husband, committed to helping us grow our family. They've got a daughter of their own as well. This is really lovely watching her grow up. And they flew to LA to start the process of preparing to do an egg transfer. And then we had an embryo transfer. And then we were very, very lucky that
00:05:15
Speaker
it took the first time and so we felt pregnant. We had a couple of bumps during the pregnancy which is always a bit nerve-wracking.
Becoming Parents Abroad
00:05:22
Speaker
I think any pregnancy whether they're or not is bit nerve-wracking. The other complicated bit to that was it was during Covid so we could never meet our station or carrier or our egg donor in person over that first year because we couldn't get over to the US and everything was closed. But with Judy
00:05:39
Speaker
She made sure that we were on video for every single appointment. So we were there. We met all of our doctors. We got to see every single scan. We got to see someone's first heartbeat and have that recorded. And Judy was great. She kept us in contact every single step of the way, which was just incredible. And then the agency was great as well and making sure that they're checking in with us and making sure we're
00:05:59
Speaker
we're okay in preparing ourselves to become a family. There's lots of things that you go through to kind of prepare to become a family, which is a really interesting journey in itself. And then we met everybody for the first time when we got over there. We were due to go over on the 1st of January last year. We got COVID just before Christmas.
00:06:19
Speaker
We were locked in for an extra few days. We had to change our flights and we had to think through what might happen if we couldn't get over there for the birth. Luckily, summer wasn't going anywhere. So we got to go over there, I think, on the 3rd of January last year. We first went to Florida because we really wanted to meet our egg donor before someone was born and get to know her face to face. And again, it's just instant connection. And she's one of these people that we know that we would have connected with regardless of this journey if we'd met her just by chance.
00:06:47
Speaker
So we got to spend some time with her and to Disney World together, we took her to Disney World and we had a great day and then we flew to Wenatchee. And we were actually in Wenatchee for about six weeks. So four weeks before someone was born. We had to kick Summer out. She was induced in the end. And then we were really lucky that Judy and her husband allowed us to be in the room. And so we got to witness the whole birth, which was a really
00:07:10
Speaker
magical, incredible moment. Judy at one point was like, you can film it if you want to. And I'm like, nope, I think my memory will suffice. Things that you just don't ever forget. It kind of happening. And then the hospital was amazing because Judy and her husband both work in the hospital. They're both nurses. They had us in side by side rooms. And so we got to visit and someone got to go over to their room with us and they got to come visit us in our room. And then we spent three weeks in Wenatchee continuously in contact before we flew back to
00:07:39
Speaker
The doctor will be back to the UK with our three week old little girl. Those three weeks being in a foreign country with a newborn, how was that experience? Oh, it was bizarre because you don't have all the creature comforts at home. And luckily we had a lovely Airbnb and Judy and Michael provide us with things that they used for their daughter. So we had some things on hand. Grace's parents flew over to be able to be with us for a few days, but it was surreal. And I think it's, I think for any parent,
00:08:07
Speaker
when you take home a child, you're like, oh my gosh, people are entrusting me with this baby.
Navigating Assumptions and Stereotypes
00:08:13
Speaker
But it was weird, you know, our little, she's an American citizen, so she has an American passport. We had to swear an oath for her on her behalf when we did rep to the passport office. No, it was magical. Are there any experiences that stand out to you that you didn't think would happen? Obviously having COVID probably was one of them. COVID was definitely one of them. I think,
00:08:35
Speaker
When we started the journey, it was really interesting. I think initially we made the decision that only one of us was going to donate Asperm to create the embryos. And it was really interesting because for a couple of families and people outside of us, it was an automatic, oh, so you're going to be the father. And so I didn't sit well with either of us. We were like, oh, that's not right. We're both the dads. It shouldn't really matter who genetically our child is tied to. She's our child.
00:09:02
Speaker
and so we made a decision quite quickly to both donate and then equally not find out who was genetically related because it didn't matter because ultimately we were both her dads and what was really interesting when we made that decision is people stopped that oh you're the dad or the assumption of or the question of who's the dad because we just said we both are and it doesn't matter
00:09:26
Speaker
It is quite funny though, both our families, they still don't know, nobody knows except for Grey and myself. Everybody looks at Summer and does the regular thing that you do with the child. Oh, she's a lot like this or she's a lot like that. So it's quite entertaining to listen and watch, but ultimately it doesn't matter because she's just this incredible human who is just Summer. And there's just so many qualities that we love about her. But yeah, but we do it too. I mean, we look at her and we see some of our egg donor's qualities. We go, oh, that's a little bit of your fairy egg mother, as we call her.
00:09:55
Speaker
That's Fairy Egg Mother. Did you make that up? We made that up. That was ours so we want to think about a nice term for it because you know your egg donor sounds a little bit kind of separate so the Fairy Egg Mother is I suppose testament to that incredible gift that Taylor has given us and and I think it is always going to be that special someone that's going to be in someone's life.
00:10:17
Speaker
being a parent of a same-sex relationship, there's probably lots of assumptions and unconscious biases that are, or conscious biases that are attached to that. Have you had any experiences since, well, throughout the journey? It probably started before she arrived. There was always that question of who was going to take leave.
00:10:37
Speaker
It started to make me really aware of some of the policies that are in place around that. I was really lucky with my work. The company that I worked for at the time had a parental aid policy, so a six month paid. And so it was made that a really easy decision. And I really wanted to spend time with her as well.
00:10:52
Speaker
Grey's work at that time and he had kind of two weeks, potentially, but they've since updated their benefits based off the feedback that he gave on his experience. And that's been amazing for them. But it's interesting. I wasn't quite prepared as a parent when we had summer. I took six, seven months off with summer. And the number one question I got asked was, where's mum? Was mum having a day off?
00:11:18
Speaker
oh you know you're giving mum kind of five minutes off to look after the baby and that was it was funny to begin with and I kind of answered the question and said well no hi mum I'm dad she has two dads then it kind of got really frustrating because it's quite a hard thing because it makes you really conscious because you feel
00:11:37
Speaker
Is it not right for me as a dad to just be with my child? It's like people who say the dad's babysitting, the dad's not babysitting, the dad's looking after their child. And so a lot of those things came up and that was really frustrating. It was part of a prenatal group.
00:11:53
Speaker
And the mums that were there, because it was all mums, they were really supportive. And a lot of these things, interactions happened in front of them. And so they were really great at helping me find a language to educate that person without getting kind of having an emotional response. And it also opened up their eyes to go, is that a question you always get? I'm like, absolutely it is. And what's been nice is that the people that I have interacted with and who have asked these questions have changed or altered the language they use around
00:12:22
Speaker
asking people, or just assuming that someone has a mum and a dad.
Legal Navigation in the UK
00:12:26
Speaker
Because families come in all different shapes and sizes. Some people have two mums, some people have two dads, some people have grandparents looking after them, or adopted parents, or other forms of parents that look after them. I think it just changed the language around that. But it was really, it was really tough. And I think as a gay dad, I was really always aware of trying to make sure that
00:12:52
Speaker
that question was asked that I was doing everything as a parent so that question wouldn't get asked and so I was like gosh I need to be the most perfect parent in the world to make up for the fact that everybody thinks that someone should have a mum or a traditional kind of family and that took its toll a little bit on me from a mental health capacity. I mentioned that the legal layers in the UK are really interesting and
00:13:19
Speaker
old-fashioned and not evolved. And part of that is that under UK law, the person who gives birth to a child, regardless of whether they're genetically related, is considered their parent, their mother, and whoever they're married to is considered their legal father. And so we had to go through a process in the UK called parental order, whereby you get visits by CAFCAS, who kind of child services, who come into your home, assess your
00:13:48
Speaker
I don't know whether you're great parents, whether Summer's going to be legally your child, and then a judge decides that you are parents of Summer from a legal, from a UK legal standpoint. Now from a US standpoint, we were legally Summer's parents, always, from even before she was born. And so that's quite, that feels quite invasive.
00:14:08
Speaker
and it's quite hard and it's quite emotional to again be asked that question constantly by people around the mother but then under UK law not being seen as her legal parents for the first nine months of her life and so it was a really emotional day the day that we got told you are her dad's that was really amazing and really special but equally it's I don't think it's a process that really we should have to go through because it does cause a lot of burden and weight on your mind and on your shoulders and
00:14:38
Speaker
this feeling that you're always doing it wrong because you haven't been told that you're allowed to be parents. Even though you've got this child that you've taken home and that you love and you care for and you've wanted and you've created, she's still not legally awesome until we tell you she is. That was really, really difficult. But the love and support we have from our family was incredible.
00:14:56
Speaker
Do you feel closer as a family, in particular, your relationship with Graham? Definitely. Whenever you become a parent, you shift things in a relationship, you kind of re-find each other again. You have a new little human to think about, but we grow close together as a family every day. So I think it's definitely bonded us as a
Raising Awareness and Changing Perceptions
00:15:14
Speaker
family. It's made us really excited to continue that family journey. We want to
00:15:19
Speaker
grow our family. We'd love to be able to give some of our siblings. We are actually on the path to another journey with a different story at this time, the news that Baxter's story had transformed their benefits. I welled up in the moment because I was like, oh gosh, I feel seen. This is amazing because I think it
00:15:37
Speaker
For us, I wanted the option to be able to take the same time off if I wanted to with our next child. And we haven't decided if that's going to be the case or we're the grave all this time. You have all those same concerns. Do I take another break for my career? What will that do? I remember when I first went off work, I was so, I didn't realize how nervous I'd be about leaving work for that long. So I mentioned the last company had a parental leave policy, but hours fell under an adoption leave policy. So it's really nice to see it separate to adoption because it is a separate journey.
00:16:06
Speaker
It's interesting because people make assumptions around surrogacy being the person who's carrying it is also genetically related, which is not the case. Often people go, how was the mum when she gave birth? And I'm like, wasn't the mum? Gestational career.
00:16:21
Speaker
Or, how's the mum now? I'm like, not the mum. And so you have to kind of correct the terminology then, but also some people assume when they see us as a family unit that someone's adopted. And we have to kind of educate that she hasn't been adopted. It's a very different journey. She goes to an amazing nursery who's been really supportive of...
00:16:38
Speaker
helping us ensure that Summer had the language and the people around her had the language for Summer's journey and experience but it was interesting they had a kind of a family week and we noticed that they were reading lots of books around LGBT girls families but it was all around adoption and we were like which is not adopted.
00:16:54
Speaker
So we had to recommend some books around surrogacy specific journeys so that they could start to give her that language and help other people in that room understand someone's journey. And I suppose help them prepare for any other future families who might be going through surrogacy. I say it's not just about us. It's about us normalizing surrogacy and the language that's wrapped around that so that it's easier for future families to be able to be a surrogate, you know, have a child through surrogacy.
00:17:24
Speaker
You're obviously comfortable sharing your story, but how do you feel having to almost repeat yourself?
00:17:29
Speaker
to different people about your journey? I think it depends. And what I mean by that is it depends on the context. So if somebody is asking with genuine curiosity, I'm really happy to. I think that you can tell when somebody is genuinely curious, when they're really open to hearing and understanding and wanting to explore and empathize. And there's a real purpose for that question. But you can equally tell when somebody's asking the question from a place of judgment, where
00:17:56
Speaker
They don't want to know, they're just looking to reinforce that they disagree with that. Because she's not going to be surrounded by people who are always going to be really happy and positive and have a fantastic outlook on that. She's going to be met by some people who are going to challenge her or judge that journey that she's come from. And I want to be able to give her the language to be able to be
00:18:15
Speaker
assertive and strong enough to be able to hold those conversations and still be really proud about who she is and where she come from and the family that we are because we are so proud to be us. I think that for us it's always really important for us to to be visible as a family so that others can see because I think for some people
00:18:38
Speaker
they feel that they can't be as visible. And partly that's because they're worried about that. For me, I want to be visible so that that starts change.
Facing Judgments and Finding Support
00:18:48
Speaker
That starts changing people's minds and their hearts and the discussion that happens around it.
00:18:55
Speaker
I love that, I love that. You said that people ask questions with judgment. Does that happen often and what does that do at life? You know someone will go, because I'll say that I have a daughter, they'll automatically assume I have a wife. They'll go, so what does your wife do? My husband. So I have to say husband a lot. I find I like leave with it. I go, my husband and I, we, so I just make sure I answer all questions before anybody. Sometimes I think I'm obvious, but
00:19:20
Speaker
I feel like people know, but not everybody does, which I quite like. It's like they don't assume my sexuality, but I like to kind of lead with it just so there's no questions on it. But I do sometimes have to crack wife and husband when they hear they have a child because they assume traditional family. And then I suppose where you see the judgment is those facial reactions.
00:19:40
Speaker
And I think that that's hard. I think I find it harder when it's from women than it is men, funnily enough. I suppose because not used to. Used to is why I'm used to, and this is bad. I'm quite used to some of those microaggressions from straight men who don't approve of even who we are, who I am authentically. And so I find it easier to
00:20:08
Speaker
respond or control my reaction when it's another another man because i'm so used to it whereas i've always had really great relationships with so many women in my life i think because of that that kind of mother question and the awareness of that and trying to make sure i'm the best parent in the world and that i am all things i think when i do get that facial expression of judgment from another woman and potentially another mother i think that hurts me the most i find that the hardest i think it does change
00:20:36
Speaker
So for Grey Nights change where we go on holidays and where we choose to spend our time. Grey's family, they're quite often going to Dubai. I said, we're not going to Dubai. With summer, I don't want to go anywhere where we have to pretend not to be a family in order to make other people feel comfortable. I refuse to do that. For me, I want to support places that support families like ours. I want to be ourselves everywhere and anywhere we go.
00:21:03
Speaker
I don't want to go anywhere where I have to feel that I have to suppress who I am or who we are. I don't want someone to see that we have to suppress who we are either. We go to Pride every year as a family, we get our breasts, glad rags, and it's absolutely amazing, kind of the things that we get, the reactions we get at Pride. I actually go to church every Sunday, someone goes to church with me, she is baptized, and we're actually part of a really lovely church community. So for me, religion as a whole, people are against
00:21:29
Speaker
who we are, but that's not the case. And I've been really lucky again to find a lovely church community that absolutely embraces who we are and supports who we are and have completely embraced and fallen love this summer. But yeah, I think it's not the case for everyone in the workplace. I don't think it's been the case for everywhere I've been in the workplace.
00:21:47
Speaker
I think I've been on a journey to be able to be comfortable being my authentic self in the workplace. I think I restart that every time I rejoin a company because I feel that I need to get the sense that I can be myself before I can be myself.
00:22:03
Speaker
and sometimes it's fast and sometimes it's slow, and that's not right. I should really be able to go to any business straight away and just be myself, but there is always that worry about what you're going to be receiving when you start with somewhere. And again, I've been really lucky with that story, with Journey with Backstory, I've
00:22:19
Speaker
absolutely kind of leapt into who I am. I find that I'm more successful in who I am. And I think in having Summer, both Grey and I embrace our authentic souls more because we know it's important to demonstrate to Summer that being ourselves is okay and is the right thing. And so she's really encouraged and motivated us to make sure that we're stepping into ourselves every day. I think you do become really aware of the messages and the language and what you're
00:22:49
Speaker
instilling around children. We're raising Summer very differently to how our parents raised us. My mum was looking after her one day a few months ago. She was like, oh, Summer's got a boyfriend. She's got a boyfriend. She found a playgroup thing. I'm like, boyfriend? Really?
00:23:05
Speaker
You might have girlfriends, day friends, she might not want friends. I'm sorry, my mum's changed her language around that. We're saying good girl all the time. So if you're a good girl, be a good girl. We're like, no, no, you're a strong girl. You're a confident girl. You are an independent girl. We couldn't try to use different language.
00:23:23
Speaker
we want to instill good qualities in summer and again we're on a journey so we're continuously having to educate ourselves connecting with other gay parents and surrogate families to understand how they're approaching certain topics and
00:23:39
Speaker
and there are some topics we haven't approached yet that i'm sure we will as we as we move on and i suppose in terms of parenting is really interesting we've got some really great advice because we kind of look at everybody for parental advice and a friend of ours like just pick one couple you really admire the way they do things and just ask them so you don't get an onslaught of
00:23:58
Speaker
advice and then you do get you know instagram is a great learning platform so one of the other couples that went through circle surrogacy the traveling gaze love them and i think i point other people into looking at instagram at people like the traveling gaze at circle surrogacy who you show videos of how these families
00:24:17
Speaker
come to be.
Open Communication with Children
00:24:18
Speaker
And the journeys that surrogates go on, the journeys that egg donors go on, so that we normalise that, and we can't forget that it is expensive, it doesn't have financial burden, but it is a beautiful journey. I'm just so grateful we were connected with the people as part of that journey. They are so special to us, and we want Summer to know them when she grows older.
00:24:38
Speaker
We want her to know all the amazing things her fairy egg mother does. She has this incredible career and she's just an incredible human. We want her to be able to connect with Judy and her family as they grow and we want them to be able to meet up and all that fun stuff. We're actually meeting up with her fairy egg mother
00:24:56
Speaker
Next year, we're going to go to Florida. We're going to go to Disney, but we're also going to catch up with their very mother, and then get to meet in person for the first time, which is going to be really special. We're not quite sure when we get to see her again, but we definitely want to plan, kind of visit, because we also want to, I suppose, when summer's old enough, show her where she was born.
00:25:15
Speaker
I think that'd be really magical for her to see that. You know, I think children are always going to be curious. One day she may ask us, who is she genetically connected to? And we will absolutely give her the information. We'll never withhold anything from her, because I think it's the worst thing you can do for a child, because we're all curious. And when we can't have access to something, we want it more than anything. And so we want to just be able to provide her the answers when she asks them. So they'll always be available, and we'll always be continuing that conversation with her. Never kind of hold back.
00:25:44
Speaker
Is there anything you've learnt from your first journey that you would do differently in journey number two? With the first journey, there was a little bit of fear around that. I think fear of having those conversations, fear of not knowing because we're learning about the journey as we're going on. So I think for me, it's about sharing that story as much as possible.
00:26:04
Speaker
so I can prepare everybody around us for that journey number two. I think that I won't put as much pressure on myself to be the most perfect parent because there is no such thing as a perfect
Challenging Traditional Roles
00:26:14
Speaker
parent. I think it's been really hard for me as a perfectionist to be more open to being available for people to help. And I probably will need that with two little ones. I needed it with one. I could already imagine I'm gonna need it with two, but I think being more confident and comfortable with asking for that and not feeling that asking for help
00:26:34
Speaker
invalidates or takes away from what I do really well as a parent and that's what we're doing as a business is having everything there and available so people don't have to ask or tell us what they need to feel included because we already have a space that's created for them to be their authentic and full selves and so yeah so I suppose those are key things I've learned I hope I answered that question. The next journey you said that maybe you go and leave do you feel like you get put into different
00:27:01
Speaker
stereotypes. Do you get that kind of? Yeah, there are. Does that still happen? It does. And there's still, there's lots of gender specific, traditional gender specific roles that's kind of put on you. And I see what's
00:27:16
Speaker
been probably challenging for Grey and I is to figure out what does that look like on us because it does look different. I think with just being with her for the first six or seven months I have this instinct for things that she needs and Grey has instincts for different things that she needs and so we're kind of balancing those out. I learnt this great thing from
00:27:39
Speaker
Brené Brown. She's this fantastic book called The Gift of Imperfect Parenting, which was amazing. But then she's had a recent podcast where she talked around her and her husband and what they do on a daily basis. And this is what Grey and I have had to do whereby we go, how much do you have in the tank today? And he'll go, I have 20% in the tank. And I'm like, great, I'll cover the other 80%, which basically tells me or tells us
00:27:59
Speaker
what each other are capable of doing in that day and so we break the workloads according to that. We're very good at sharing, we're very good at helping each other out but there are people who come in with expectations. When I started back at work throughout the whole leave I had the monitor throughout the night time. When I started back at work we felt it was fair for us to share monitor duty so he had one night, I had one night, at least one of us was getting some sleep every other night but there are other people who kind of said well Sean should just be taking that.
00:28:26
Speaker
That isn't sure I'm going to take the monitor all the time. There was some kind of inferences that Grey had the more important job, but then I felt, gosh, am I not enough as a provider for this household because my job is deemed less important? Not that it is less important. And my husband is great. He doesn't see my job as less important. He sees my job and his job as equal importance. And I think that's the thing for us to navigate is we want to be
00:28:49
Speaker
a dual-income, dual-working, dual-ambition kind of family, but other people do have their own opinions on that. And there are some times where work does demand that, but I've had to be really clear about the boundaries that I set around being able to be available to pick up someone from nursery when I need to, to make sure that I'm not working late or away from home all the time, because that affects grey.
00:29:11
Speaker
and Greg is very conscious on the other end. So both of us need to have those conversations with our places of work to make sure that they don't forget that we're parents and that we have responsibilities. And again, that's not right for any family. If I was a woman
00:29:30
Speaker
And that feeling was reversed. I suddenly couldn't work as much because I've got a child. That's not right either. Because equally, I don't want that. I don't want people to assume that I'm not available because I have a child. That I can't do this because I have a child. That makes me angry. I want to be able to have the choice. I want people to go, are you available to do this? Could you do this?
00:29:48
Speaker
And if not, can we work out something that is inclusive of my work family situation so that I'm able to bring everything I can to work?
Workplace Support for Surrogacy
00:29:58
Speaker
That's where we look at the way work is designed. How can we design work so that it helps people deliver and be the best they possibly can be to the full of their capacity, but equally supports them to be that parent or that family member in the way that they want to be at home.
00:30:14
Speaker
because I don't think workplaces have been designed traditionally to do that. I think there's been this
00:30:20
Speaker
of hustle culture, of hustle, hustle, hustle, that's how you're successful. Work all the hours God gives, that's how you're successful. And I just don't think that has to be the case. I don't think that is the case. And I think that if we are really smart about the way we design, then people can actually perform better in the time that they're at work, rather than just being a body at work, showing that they're there and present all other hours of the day. That's a journey that all workplaces are on for all families, regardless.
00:30:50
Speaker
What advice would you give to a couple wanting to go through surrogacy and that doesn't have support from that workplace? Yeah, so I think it's about styling the conversation where possible. I think if you don't feel comfortable with having that conversation with your employer it's really about maybe thinking about how do you connect with other people who have had those conversations before, who have been on that similar journey, who can help instill some of that confidence or give you some the language around that. I think
00:31:18
Speaker
She's fantastic. She's been really instrumental, as well as the RISE women's group that we have a backstory in having that conversation. So I think finding resource groups in other companies who've been able to make positive change through those conversations are a really good place to start. Sorry This UK has some fantastic kind of resources on their website.
00:31:41
Speaker
to help people I suppose in that journey or looking for that journey or again how to navigate that path where you don't have that leave. When I joined Back to the Story we knew we were going to go on a second journey and so we were already starting the conversation or how do we navigate that only having that kind of statutory time off and so for us it was hoping the conversation was happening which it did but then it was thinking we need to be able to
00:32:09
Speaker
save a certain minimum money or do we need to kind of rethink what our expectations are around that time. Again, every parent goes through that thinking about what does it look like because it's going to look different for everybody. And some people don't want to have six months off. Some people are very happy having three months off or less. Some people want a whole year off. When I joined backstory, we didn't have those benefits in place. However, I saw it was a really strong people culture.
00:32:35
Speaker
that was about people and I could see the change that was happening. And so that's what excited me about working with Backstory, a very human-led business. And so when I joined businesses, it was always about what is their LGBTQI plus community like? Where is that going? What is the ethos of that business? And does that align with my values as a person?
Experiences of Single Parenthood
00:32:56
Speaker
And I hope that that's the story within our industry, creates that ripple effect of change that inspires other people in our industry to go, we can do that too. That is the benchmark. We need to meet that. And yeah, when someone was born for the first kind of three, four months, Greg traveled a lot for work.
00:33:13
Speaker
And so we made the commitment at that time that I was going to follow him wherever he went for work. So that did mean a lot of solo flights for someone and myself. Now actually flying with a newborn is not so bad. Not so bad when they're really tired and it all kind of works out well. But unfortunately there was just one horrific experience. I was flying back from Lisbon with her and it was so hot in this airport. And that question, whereas the mum, was rife.
00:33:38
Speaker
And so someone was really upset and grumpy. She was upset and just screaming on my chest. I feel a lot of stress from that when she's stressed. And it's hard when you're in a really stressful environment, like a humongously busy airport. I went to get my ticket and check my bags in, and he looked at the child, he looked at me, he's like, where's the mum? And it was really aggressive. It was like, it was as if in that moment I felt like I was not allowed to fly unless there was a mother present. And I go, well,
00:34:05
Speaker
I'm the mum, I'm the dad, I'm everything. And he just kind of looked at me, he went back, asked for paperwork for summer to prove those things. And so I had to kind of rip out all the paperwork. At that stage, she wasn't a British citizen and we had to kind of rip out her birth certificate and all the other stuff because she was travelling in an American passport. That was really hard and then got that over with and then went to go through gates.
00:34:30
Speaker
and got stopped and said oh you can go to the family section and then he just randomly pulled this woman next to me and said so you're the mum and so you're a family yes and i'm like no no no dad daughter that's it this family at the moment and this woman looked totally confused as well and just like no that's my family there that's right next to me and so then he goes oh well you you can both go through to the family thing so you don't need to worry about going through passport but this ticket gate you go through the family gate
00:34:58
Speaker
and then we went through the baggage control and then they were obviously doing random kind of drug tests. This is my perception of the reality and that was only because of my experience of what was happening, what happened prior. All the parents went through, all the families went through and then I was the only one as a single dad at that point in that moment with all this luggage being pulled aside for a drug test.
00:35:20
Speaker
And so they kind of swapped me down. I'm like, are you serious? I was, someone was going off and then I was called over. I had that kind of that moment of getting the ticket when I was checking my baggage in. We finally got in and this airport was so busy and someone was so upset. The flight was delayed. I was just having a really, really hard time and nobody was helping.
00:35:46
Speaker
And again, that's not isolated to my experience because I'm sure this happens a lot to lots of parents where you just feel like nobody's helping or it's not the help you want. It's that kind of the judgment looks again, I felt as a dad, I wasn't doing a good job and people were judging me because she was upset. And if it was a mom, then there wouldn't be a problem. Like that was what my head was doing in that moment because I was in that mental headspace of really being ultra aware for no of other people.
00:36:12
Speaker
Um, and I remember I lined up, people wouldn't let me in front, even though I had a child in Hexpress. It was an easy yet flat, I think. People rushing for a seat are like, you're assigned a seat, not going anywhere, not getting off the plate before you do, get on it. I finally got on, she was not having it, and again I had
00:36:33
Speaker
I started to have people kind of just throw me suggestions, oh she's hungry, oh she's this. Again, not helpful, not what do you need, how are you, okay. It was literally telling me she's hungry, she needs this, she needs that. As if I did not know.
00:36:48
Speaker
and you know she was three and a bit months by this point. I very much knew what she wanted. I knew she was just really tired and just needing to sleep but it was so ridiculously hot and it got so much for me. I could just feel the walls of the plane coming in down around me and I just had to get up and unfortunately the food trolley had gone past our seat so I had to go to the front of the plane.
00:37:12
Speaker
I went to the front of the plane. I had my back to the front of the plane. Of course, I'm ultra aware of people, so all I feel is the weight of people staring at me. And I have this lovely, lovely old lady who comes out of the bathroom, and it was the first time in that whole day somebody said, are you okay? How are you? And I just burst into tears. I could feel my back behaving, and someone's there crying, and she was so lovely. She was like,
00:37:36
Speaker
I know how you're feeling, I've been there as a parent, there are parents on this plane who've been there as well, we are all believing you, we know that you've got this, we are all rooting for you to be able to help her feel comfortable and controlled, you know, we're there for you, we've got your back. I know you think this whole brain is judging you right now but we are giving you nothing but support and it's exactly what I needed and I think it helped me calm down and then
00:38:02
Speaker
it really helped I think summer calmed down because then I was calmer and then summer finally went to sleep you know went back to my seat and then that lady kind of waited till the plane landed until everybody got off to come to me and said do you need help with your luggage because I had so much of it so this person that felt like I needed all this luggage and and again that was one of those people that
00:38:22
Speaker
supported that in a moment that was really horrible for me and it was literally the worst flying experience I've ever had in my life. It really did what making me want to go on a flight with her ever again but she was just so lovely and so you do have moments where there are some great people in the world and I think it's really encouraged me as a parent to make sure that
00:38:45
Speaker
When I see another parent growing through something, I don't for a judgment. I throw understanding, love and empathy and support for that person. I think a lot of people, when you have a baby, they go, oh, how's the baby? And I remember. Yeah. How am I? Yeah, exactly. I remember my mum, my mother-in-law, I'd say to them, I had a really bad night and they'd be like, oh, poor Summer. I'm like.
00:39:09
Speaker
No, she's absolutely fine. Look out, she's happy she's sleeping. I am like, dying. There's nothing left of me. And it just made me really aware of how little you get asked how you are. And I think that's so important for people to remember that around that child is a parent who is a person who is going through stuff.
00:39:36
Speaker
And it is an all-centron and rainbows. It is challenging and sometimes asking them how they are and giving...
00:39:43
Speaker
ask me the space to be able to talk about that openly, honestly, without judgment, with just care. And even if you don't, if you haven't been through it, just go, I don't understand how, I can't imagine how that feels, but I'm hearing, I hear you.
Prioritizing Mental Health
00:39:59
Speaker
Just to hear, feel that you're heard would have made such a difference. And I think one other thing that I've learned is that in future, I will absolutely,
00:40:09
Speaker
me be highlighting that I need to be asked that question but going oh I am very well thank you my sister was really good at that I remember my sister gave birth to my knees and people would greet Ruby all the time my niece and Helen goes yeah hello I'm here too I'm very well thank you and I didn't understand that until I'd gone through it and now I have a real understanding of that sometimes you feel invisible because it becomes about this beautiful child in front of you but actually
00:40:36
Speaker
you may be struggling or you need to feel that you are as visible. You haven't lost yourself because you're going through a bit of an identity shift. You're going through a relationship shift. You're going through a priority changing shift. You're feeling worried about all these things that you didn't worry about before. And I had to start and I also didn't have the confidence to tell people what I needed.
00:41:03
Speaker
in order to be able to feel like I was being successful, like I was enough, like I wasn't invisible suddenly. Again, my husband's been fantastic about that. He's always been really, really good at asking who I am and been really supportive of that. And there are some days where...
00:41:18
Speaker
I remember one time Summer had a horrible day and she's a very vomiting baby when she was little and there was one day where she just had to cling to me the entire day she couldn't let go of me and and I was doing a skin to skin with her and then I needed to go to the bathroom and someone would not let go of me and so I had to just
00:41:36
Speaker
the bathroom with her on me and then she started going to the bathroom on me while I was going to the bathroom. It was a low point in my parental journey. I just remember sitting there going, this is not what I signed up for. No one tells you these stories. No one tells you these stories. No one tells you the graphic day-to-day story. Because it was a real moment of loaders and nobody there to help me. I wasn't alone in this house. Grey was at work and when Grey came home he was
00:42:02
Speaker
And he was really happy to kind of support me in that way. But I think I also wanted people outside of Down Media Family to be able to see that and understand that and to have those conversations with me. Because he equally is going through a lot of those similar kind of challenges and different challenges to what I'm going through. How do I have those conversations about what I need? And that came through therapy.
00:42:23
Speaker
and through the experience of everything to be able to say this is what I need and I just need you to hear. Did you know before going into this how you would feel on the other side? Could anyone have prepared you for that? No.
00:42:36
Speaker
I don't think so. I feel like you go in thinking that you're going to be certain things. Like I went into this thinking I would be a really relaxed and chill parent. I wouldn't care about X, Y, Z. And I'd be really comfortable kind of her going over to her grandparents for a couple of nights. And all those things that you think you're going to be as a parent or what you're going to feel as a parent.
00:42:57
Speaker
And your heart, it's like you just grow another heart. Your heart gets humongous. Finally, I drop her into a conversation all the time. People probably get really sick of me. But yeah, but I talk about her all the time. And I never imagined the amount of love that you would have. It is really magical. And yeah, I'm a very different parent, I imagined.
00:43:18
Speaker
And I had to wrestle with that. I was like, no, I wanted to be this type of parent. Why am I, this planning kind of concerned a little bit, just need to be able to be informed as a parent and really have control over a situation. And I've had to learn how to become really comfortable with that, that parent that I am, because it has, it has huge benefits. And, and I think it helps me to be more relaxed in owning the type of parent that I am. And yeah, we just love completely.
00:43:47
Speaker
You said earlier that you had some therapy to help you kind of manage the way you were feeling during that time. Can you talk about that? Yeah, sure. So I suppose it got to a point where she was probably about four or five months and I just realised I needed to talk to somebody. I realised I didn't really know how to set a boundaries with people. So some people were, I felt being really kind of
00:44:13
Speaker
Invasive is the wrong word, but too hands-on or willing to take someone away from me when they were there. And I didn't know how to set boundaries around, but that's not okay. And part of that was people wanting to feed her because I wasn't breastfeeding.
00:44:30
Speaker
anybody can feed her." And I'm like, no. For me, allowing you to feed our daughter is a gift. And I don't know if I want to give that gift to you because that's something that's special for our bond at the moment. And so, again, an assumption that because we're not breastfeeding, anybody can feed her, because she's not the case. That's just an example of boundaries I wasn't comfortable with setting. I didn't know how to set boundaries. And I just felt my mental health really struggling and struggling in terms of
00:44:58
Speaker
how I see myself and who I was and my identity and lots of those things. So I reached out to professional help and that kind of helped me start to communicate to other people around the way I was thinking and feeling, helped me try to explain my thoughts
00:45:17
Speaker
to set boundaries, I'm still not perfect at them. And so that helped me initially. And then Grey and I have gone through our own couple's therapy journey so that we as a couple can really speak the dialogue and understand how our family works and how do we help set those boundaries to other people together as a united front. Because both Grey and I are people pleasers, we don't like to say no, we are yes people. I have a really personal disappointment if I have to say no to somebody, but I need to learn that that's
00:45:44
Speaker
exactly what I need sometimes to be able to do to protect the time I want to be able to have in my family, to be able to protect the time I need for myself. And because again, I was not putting any of my needs into the equation. So I wasn't putting the needs around my own mental health, my own exercise. I love yoga. I stopped yoga. Like there's lots of things I didn't do because I felt I had to be there all the time, present for everything. Didn't want to miss a thing. And that it was expected of me that that was my role.
00:46:14
Speaker
that I had to and so therapy helped me.
00:46:17
Speaker
identify what I needed to do to look after myself, which is really important as a parent because we can get lost into these little tiny humans that they're ultimately buckets. They need filling of water and looking after and taking care of. And sometimes we forget to kind of fill our own bucket. Thank you, Sean. That's okay. This has been such an amazing conversation. I've really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you for listening as well, listeners. You've been listening to FYI, the Back to the Street podcast. Bye. Bye.