A gift of love

• Defying all odds mum Maree Arnold (right) will give her daughter Meagan White the greatest gift of all come January 2022, a baby boy via gestational surrogacy. 

By Taylor Clyne,
October 20, 2021

When Lilydale’s Maree Arnold gave birth to her daughter Meagan, she never imagined she would be giving her the greatest gift of all 28 years later, a baby boy.

The 54-year-old’s decision to be the gestational carrier of her grandchild came after watching her daughter suffer through what some can only imagine.

Meagan was born with Congenital Heart Disease and to date has had eight lifesaving open heart surgeries, but it wasn’t until she was 17 years old that she found out she was also born without a uterus.

“Having five children myself it’s hard to put into words what I felt when I knew Meagan wouldn’t be able to carry her own children,” Maree said.

“I always thought she would have difficulties because of her heart condition, more a question of if her heart would be strong enough to carry a pregnancy but to not even have that option was devastating.”

A bright eyed then teenager didn’t really grasp the concept of what that might mean at the time but five years down the track when she met her now husband Clayde White the emotions of what their journey to parenthood would look like began to sink in.

“I told Clayde very early on, it’s a pretty big thing to have happen to a relationship and we were both on the same page with wanting to have children but knowing it wouldn’t be easy,” Meagan said.

Soon after they tied the knot in 2017 the couple began IVF with a plan to create as many quality embryos as possible while they were young.

After three rounds of IVF the couple were pleased to have eleven embryos. 

“We then starting looking at our options, obviously we knew it would have to be surrogacy so we did a lot of research,” Meagan said.

“The laws are different in every state of Australia and Tas IVF didn’t really have anyone who could advise or point us in the right direction of where to start looking for a surrogate.”

The pair turned to online surrogacy groups and soon found a community of people in the same boat.

“We found a lot of people in the Australian Surrogacy Group go overseas for a surrogate because there is a lot more structure around the process.

“There are clinics for surrogacy and specialist pathways to connect couples with the right person.”

After two years of education, egg collections, fertilizations and lots of money spent the pair decided to go to Canada to find a surrogate, connecting with their surrogate Allison in January 2019.

“We chose to go to Canada because it’s not paid like it is in America where the surrogate receives a wage for the pregnancy as well as all of the costs.

“In Canada, it’s the same as Australia in a sense that it’s only legal to reimburse for all of the costs associated with the pregnancy including food, petrol, massages, appointments, clothing, health insurance etc,” Meagan explained.

The couple flew over to meet their surrogate Allison after getting to know her virtually for close to a year.

“We had to do a lot of counselling sessions and legal documentation before we flew over to meet her in September 2019.

“In a way we felt like we already knew her as we’d been facetiming every week since January, so shortly after we got home from the trip we proceeded with the transfers of our embryos.”

Putting all their hopes and trust of creating their family with someone on the other side of the world the couple felt their fair share of excitement but also immense worry. 

On the second attempt Allison fell pregnant with the couples baby girl in December 2019.

“It was just surreal,” Meagan remembers.

“Our due date was to be July 21, 2020 and we had planned to fly over with our family at the end of June, essentially booking accommodation for about three months as it can take anywhere from six to twelve weeks to get a birth certificate and passport to be able to fly home with our baby.”

The excitement was building only to be ripped from their clutches at the 21-week scan when the obstetrician discovered that their baby girl was missing her kidneys.

“Immediately they did a CT scan which confirmed there was only one extremely underdeveloped kidney, and she wasn’t going to be viable with life.

“We were told she would endure the pregnancy, but survival wasn’t an option when she was born and Allison was extremely sick carrying her so at the end of March we had to make the heartbreaking decision to terminate.”

Beautiful Matilda Alice was born on March 31, 2020, cremated, and sent home.

“When we lost her, we really thought this was the end of our journey, there was no way we could afford to do that again and the grief was just unimaginable.”

The COVID-19 pandemic had also set in worldwide so going overseas was just too difficult.

Meagan and Maree don’t quite remember how the conversation came up about mum potentially carrying a baby for Meagan and sometimes something as lifechanging as that just happens organically ‘around the kitchen table.’

“I think I said I would 100% do it but I’d be too old,” Maree remembers.

But after a quick conversation with their specialist, they were told they could!

“The cut off age is usually 45 but because I was her mother I was able to.”

After a string of medical screenings, blood tests, scans, ultrasounds, counselling, legal documents, love and a lot of science the most selfless gift was becoming a reality.

“I’d done the whole menopause thing too so they had to reverse all of that and give me hormones to help thicken up my lining and uterus – it’s pretty amazing what they can do,” Maree said.

But after three failed transfers the family began to feel quite deflated.

“Our specialist suggested sending a sample of mum’s uterus lining to Spain to be tested and tell us which exact day to do the transfer,” Meagan said.

They were putting the embryo in a day too early and with that knowledge on the fourth attempt it worked!

“Getting the positive result was nothing short of amazing – it all became real there were a lot of emotions.”

Meagan and Maree laughed remembering they had cheated and completed a bathroom pregnancy test together a few days before the blood test.

“It was positive but sometimes those things can give a false positive, so the confirmation phone call was simply amazing.”

“Leigh [Meagan’s dad] is wrapped, he thinks it’s a great idea and has been having a lot of fun with people now that I’m pregnant,” Maree laughs.

“It’s a whole new experience carrying our grandbaby, I’m just being so careful, so very careful.

“The idea of giving Meagan and Clayde their baby is just lovely.”

“Most people that I’ve spoken to have said they would do it for their daughter, they wouldn’t think twice about it.”

The couple are both allowed in the delivery room come January 2022 with a planned caesarean booked in for the birth of their little boy.

Mum and I are so close, we see each other all the time so this whole journey is just incredible.

“Our little boy is in the safest place he could be, baking away with mum,” Meagan said.