‘I carried my friends’ baby’: Surrogate’s labour of selfless love
When Danni Andrews looks at the little girl she helped bring into the world, she knows she’s part of a very special story.
SA News
Don't miss out on the headlines from SA News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Danni Andrews says handing over the baby girl she had lovingly carried for nine months to her dear friends – and giving them the miracle of becoming parents – was the “easiest thing I’ve ever done in the world”.
The 37-year-old surrogate mum, who already had three children of her own, gave birth to little Evie in a dramatic, 35-minute rush at Flinders Medical Centre three years ago.
“I got to give Evie to her parents for their first hold of their child … there were tears coming left, right and centre, even from the medical staff,” says Danni, who enjoyed “cruisy” pregnancies with “no complications or morning sickness”.
The “beautiful and emotional” arrival was the end of a long, loving and nurturing process that began four years earlier, when Danni met her “intended parents”, Ben and Sarah Wright, who were unable to have their own baby after Sarah was diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of 21.
“When you go into surrogacy, you’re going in with the idea ‘this is not my baby, this is going to be their baby’ so that’s generally the wall you put up,” says the Huntfield Heights mum of three teens, who – together with Ben and Sarah – went through a rigorous process of health and fertility appointments, counselling sessions, legal meetings and logistic ups and downs before finally falling pregnant in 2020.
“Even though it was traditional surrogacy and genetically it’s half my DNA, it still didn’t feel like my baby. It didn’t feel like my pregnancy, I was pregnant for my friends and this was for them to be parents.
“By then, we’d built up such a beautiful relationship, I really just wanted nothing more. I knew that this little person was just going to be so loved and looked after by all their family and friends that we’d met over time. I never for one moment ever thought to myself ‘this is my baby and I want to keep this baby’.
“I wanted nothing more in the world to birth a happy baby for her parents.”
Today, Evie is a “very cute little” three-year-old. Her middle name – Daniela – is a special homage to her surrogate mum. Danni and her three children have a close connection to the preschooler, who was a flower girl at her wedding to long-term partner Troy two years ago.
The two families spend Mother’s Days, birthdays and Christmases together.
“I was lucky enough that Ben and Sarah are more than friends to me and I’m more than friends to them, they are like my family,” says Danni, who works as a phlebotomist taking blood at Clinpath.
“We are very present in Evie’s life, she knows who we are – she doesn’t know her story yet because she’s a little bit too young but she will when Sarah feels that’s right to discuss with her.”
Sarah had already been through the emotional rollercoaster of being diagnosed with cancer at 21, deciding to create embryos with Ben, who at the time was a new boyfriend, and then shipping those embryos to Thailand for a failed attempt at implantation before she met Danni in 2017. By then, SA law changed to allow local altruistic surrogacy.
“We met Danni through a surrogacy forum. She and I decided to go out to dinner. We went to the restaurant at 7pm … and I got home at 1am. It was non-stop chatting,” says Sarah, who married Ben when she was 26 in 2013.
“I walked in the door and I said ‘Ben, I think I’ve found the one’.”
Danni, Troy, Ben and Sarah spent many long months that turned into years deepening their relationship, exploring their shared values and finalising the myriad contracts, medical tests and other logistics needed to carry their child.
The couple tried to use their frozen embryos but the first two failed to thrive and the last one did not survive the thawing process.
“It was devastating for both of us when that last one didn’t even transfer, didn’t thaw,” says Sarah.
“The child genetically was not going to be mine. There was a lot of sadness.”
After much contemplation, they decided to use Danni’s egg – known as traditional surrogacy – and the insemination was performed by syringe in the home.
Despite the limitations of Covid, Sarah and Ben were able to be at nearly all of Danni’s appointments and received a special, last-minute exemption from chief medical office Nicola Spurrier to be present at her birth in February 2021.
“We got the exemption three days before she was born,” says Sarah, who lives in Warradale and works in finance.
“I feel like it’s such an honour to be in that room, it’s such an amazing bonding experience that can’t be replaced. Danni made sure we had the first skin-on-skin with our baby, that was important to her.
“The fact that Danni was willing to carry a baby for us still blows my mind. From the beginning, we were strangers, for her to do that was incredible.”
Evie is Danni’s biological child and has inherited her natural height.
“I see (a resemblance) sometimes in a photo but generally when I’m looking at her, I don’t see it. She’s got my height but I see her now as a three-year-old and I think ‘there’s my friends’ baby’,” Danni says. “Except my kids will always refer to her as being an extra special baby, an extra special person, my kids just love her so much.”
Now, Danni is in the throes of planning another surrogacy with a new excited couple. Vicki, a childcare educator, and electrician Matt, both 41, have also been through the heartbreak of cancer treatment and have frozen embryos they hope will be implanted by the end of the year.
They had all known each other through South Australia’s tight-knit surrogacy community for several years but their official arrangement did not begin until last December, when Ms Andrews offered to act as surrogate by presenting the couple with a box of homemade biscuits topped with the words “would you like to borrow my uterus” written in icing.
“I kind of froze and started crying. Poor Matt didn’t even get a hug, I went straight to Danni … and cried more,” says Vicki, who has been married to Matt for 11 years.
“We were thrilled, not just because of the possibility of starting our family after so long, but for the amazing friendship that we had built with Danni, Troy, Jordy, Clarity and Dusty.
“As an intended parent, and I would say for surrogates as well, you worry that you might not find the level of friendship that you hope to find in going on a journey, and I’m so very happy and grateful to be going on this journey with someone who I consider to be one of my dearest friends.
“Regardless of the outcome of our journey on the surrogacy front, the journey of our friendship is infinite, and I can’t picture our lives going forward without Danni and her family involved in it.”
IT’S THE LAW, BABY
Adelaide lawyer Simone Cureton has a unique personal insight into the legal intricacies of surrogacy in South Australia – she’s acted as a surrogate mum twice for two different families.
Ms Cureton, who runs the Adelaide law firm Equal Justice Lawyers, gave birth in 2018 and 2021 to two little baby girls who she “absolutely adores”.
“I’m very lucky to still have really great relationships with both families,” says Ms Cureton, who now specialises in working with birth mothers and their “intended parents” on the legal frameworks needed to progress through surrogacy.
Surrogacy in South Australia is altruistic, not commercial, meaning the surrogate mother cannot be paid for her service. It is covered by state legislation that guarantees that the birth mother will not be left out of pocket for any expense or financial disadvantage, including maternity clothes, incidentals such as parking fees and loss of income for having to take time off work during the pregnancy.
Surrogacy became legal in 2016 and changes to the law in 2020 allowed for traditional surrogacy, which uses the birth mother’s egg, extended availability to single mums and increased the minimum age for a surrogate from 18 to 25.
Ms Cureton says babies are initially registered under their surrogate mother’s name. But at 30 days, the new parents come before a Family Law Court judge, who grants an order to remove the surrogate’s name and legally recognise the parents on the birth certificate.
“It’s a really nice final piece, it’s a nice hearing,” she says. “Quite often the judge will very kindly leave the bench and present a teddy bear for the baby. It closes the chapter and lets the family move into the next phase.”
Anna McKie, a support manager for Surrogacy Australia, says about 120 surrogate births occur across Australia every year. Prospective parents far outweigh the number of women who are prepared to volunteer.
More Coverage
Originally published as ‘I carried my friends’ baby’: Surrogate’s labour of selfless love
Cornes calls out ‘insidious’ ageist slur against Hinkley
The AFL’s $20,000 fine slapped down on Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley was a ‘disgraceful abuse of power’ and the reaction was unjust, according to SA footy legend Graham Cornes.
SA freezes through record-breaking morning temperatures
One of Adelaide’s weather stations has recorded its coldest ever September morning on record with data dating back over 100 years.