Born And Raised

An often misunderstood procedure, people are now taking a look at surrogacy and the laws around it. Here, two sisters share their surrogacy story

- Sarah Catherall

In December 2017, Hannah Leslie became pregnant with her sister’s child, one of an increasing number of babies being born by surrogate. Today, Harry George is a bouncing nine-month-old. Courtney George says, “It’s amazing that my sister gave up her body for nine months so I could have a baby.”

Each year, about 20 to 25 surrogacy pregnancies are approved by the Ethics Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ECART). In New Zealand, surrogacies are an altruistic arrangement, which means the surrogate is unable to take any money from the intending parents. In what is a much-criticised law, the surrogate mother and her partner are the legal parents until the intending parents adopt the child.

A CLOSE BOND

Courtney and Hannah were born 16 months apart and have always been close. Now 31 and 32 respectively, they were each other’s bridesmaids and live around the corner from one another in Ashburton, Canterbury.

At 25, Courtney was diagnosed with cervical cancer. After having her cervix removed, doctors told her she could still have children, though she might need help conceiving and it would be a highrisk pregnancy, with a chance of early delivery. Learning this, Hannah told her sister, “If you ever struggle to have a baby, I’ll be your surrogate.”

A year later, Courtney got married to husband Hamish, and they started trying to have a family. When she failed to get pregnant, the couple resorted to IVF, undergoing multiple cycles of government-funded egg harvesting. Courtney had three unsuccessful embryo transfers. Left with four frozen embryos, Fertility Associates suggested she might consider surrogacy. “They told me those embryos were like gold,” she says.

By this time, Hannah had two sons, Hudson, now seven, and Declan, now five, and she and husband Dave had decided their family was complete.

STARTING THE JOURNEY