General News
17 July, 2024
Step sister steps up to create Mount Isa Hospital history
The surrogacy birth was the first of its kind in the North West.
The parents of the first child delivered through surrogacy in Mount Isa have praised the hospital’s staff as distance proved no barrier to navigating the complex birthing option.
Despite being residents of NSW, hopeful parents Mitchell and Matthew Croese were able to utilise the Midwifery Group Practice (MGP) at Mount Isa Hospital after Mitchell’s step sister and Isa local, Rebecca Greaves, agreed to serve as the surrogate.
Mr Croese said Miley, who was delivered via caesarean in January, was in the best of care in the capable hands of the Mount Isa midwives.
“The MGP were fantastic, caring, thoughtful, and simply unfaultable. We were so grateful to midwives Jenna and Jasmine, and if we could do it all over again with the same midwives we would,” Mitchell said.
There about 100 births recorded each year via altruistic surrogacy, with an increase in the number of same-sex male couples desiring to raise a family and improved awareness and uptake of assisted reproductive technology treatment said to be driving a demand for services.
The insemination process took place in Brisbane, with Mrs Greaves’ sister Melissa serving as egg donor.
Mrs Greaves then returned to Mount Isa with the fathers to complete the pregnancy from the 20-week appointment onwards –bringing with it the usual hectic schedule of medical check-ups and appointments.
However, the altruistic surrogacy process also requires an obstetric report, which means that the surrogate, egg donor, and the recipient parents have to go through an independent psychological assessment.
It is also a financially onerous process as intending parents must reimburse their surrogate for “reasonable surrogacy costs” which can include medical costs, IVF rounds and counselling.
Local midwife Jenna Evans said she was impressed with the level of preparation the family had undertaken prior to arriving in Mount Isa.
“They had already begun the counselling sessions and written up the contracts for a surrogacy agreement, before finally completing the insemination which, unfortunately, all needs to be completed in Brisbane,” she said.
Knowing the surrogacy birthing would be far from standard operating procedure for the Mount Isa medical community, special preparations needed to be undertaken.
“We needed two separate rooms in maternity and two midwives, one for the fathers and bub – because the baby is still a patient – and one for the surrogate,” Ms Evans explained.
“I would like to acknowledge our doctors and obstetric team in particular Dr Elena Kreimer who also arranged telehealth sessions with the family and fathers to allow them to discuss any obstetric questions before they arrived in Mount Isa.”
Multiple discussions were also held with the hospital legal team to ensure Miley could be discharged with the fathers.
While many may struggle with the prospect of birthing a baby that isn’t their own, Mrs Greaves said she was proud of her role in delivering a child for her step brother and his husband.
“I knew what I was getting into and because there’s no direct genetic link to myself, knowing through the whole process that I’m doing it for the two people I love, this baby was never my child,” she said.
“It was surprisingly easy to explain to my kids what was going to happen over the next few months, that I was essentially growing their future cousin inside my belly. Thankfully I had my husband’s full support for the whole process.”
“It’s great that in this day and age the technology exists ... the process was long but totally worth it in the end.”