As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child – and that could not be truer for new dads Jayson and Andrew Cameron.
The Melbourne couple spent around 8 years exploring various options to start a family, including looking into surrogate meet-up events and researching the adoption process. Nothing felt right, and after countless hours of research, they put their dream on hold.
Then a simple Facebook notification changed everything.
Jayson’s friend of 15 years, Shae de Bomford, had joined one of the surrogacy discussion groups of which he was a member. He invited Shae to chat over coffee, and after speaking to her family, she happily agreed to be their surrogate.
The next step was finding an egg donor.
Jayson had already planted the idea with his sister Stephie Barber years prior, and when everything was in place with Shae, she was ‘absolutely’ happy to help her brother.
“My vision was that my sister would be the egg donor and we would use Andrew’s sperm for the embryo. That way our baby would have a mix of our genes,” Jayson said.
But the village of support did not end there.
Shae reached out to Epworth Freemasons midwife, Prue Hartley, who she has known for 12 years and was involved in all three of her pregnancies. Prue recommended specialist obstetrician A/Prof Fiona Brownfoot.
“Dr Brownfoot and everyone at Epworth were amazing. Everyone knew what was going on. We didn’t need to try and explain the surrogacy arrangement and who’s doing what, it just felt so comfortable,” Jayson said.
Epworth Freemasons Maternity provides comprehensive surrogacy support which Jayson described as “an amazing experience from start to finish”.
The dads had their own newly refurbished private room next to Shae’s and they were all in the birthing suite together, alongside a support person for Shae, to welcome baby Griffin into the world in July.
Around four months on and Stephie has changed jobs so she can spend more time with her nephew, Shae will always be part of Griffin’s life as ‘auntie Shae’, and Jayson and Andrew have finally fulfilled their dream of becoming parents.
“We thought becoming parents might never happen for us. After so many years, we finally got our little Griffin.”
