...AND BABIES MAKE FOUR

When wives Suzie and Laura Francis-Mathers started the journey to parenthood, they were aware they would be met with challenges. Two years and much heartbreak later, they tell the story of their double "miracle" to Angela Mollard

- Angela Mollard

Suzie and Laura FrancisMathers' baby announcement on Instagram not only marked the delightful next step in the couple's infectious love affair, it also represented an emotional triumph after a harrowing two-year IVF battle.

Standing side by side with wide smiles and cute noticeboards, they revealed that Suzie was due with "Baby One" in July and Laura would give birth to "Baby Two" three-and-a-half weeks later, in August. And as if it couldn't be more perfect, there was also a sweet postscript: they were expecting a girl and a boy.

Το anyone who knows talented musical-theatre star Suzie and her equally engaging TV-producer wife, it was the extraordinary culmination of a romance that began in London, led to a glamorous chateau wedding in France, and then return home to start their family in Sydney. To those who don't know them, these women with their open affection were a vision of hope for same-sex couples and an emblem of the evolution of the modern Australian family.

Yet, as they reveal for the first time the struggle behind their quest to become parents, it becomes clear that this isn't simply the latest good fortune in their remarkably serendipitous lives, but the hard-won result of years of heartbreak and trauma.

"This isn't just a story about two girls who went, 'Oh my God, it would be so much fun if we had babies together," says Suzie, as the pair sit, hands entwined, at their home in Sydney's inner west.

Rather, what transpires is a tale of appalling medical errors, the complexities and vagaries of the IVF process, tough decisions, huge costs, shock, anger, exhaustion, and, ultimately, a mutual and deeply tested resilience and love that will underpin their parenting.