Aussie couple trapped in Mexico raising money on GoFundMe to get home

A Melbourne couple, who travelled to the other side of the world for the birth of their daughter, are now desperate to get home.

A Melbourne couple, who travelled to Mexico after being accepted into a surrogacy program, have spent months trapped on the other side of the world with their newborn daughter amid the global coronavirus pandemic.

Daniel Brown and his partner, Daniel Wallace, made the decision to travel to the popular resort town of Cancun, after finally being accepted into the country’s surrogacy program.

“Starting a family was a life-long dream for both of us and something that as a same-sex couple we wanted to achieve but didn’t truly know how and what path we wanted to take to make our dream a reality,” Mr Brown told news.com.au.

“After years of research we decided to go down the path of surrogacy. When we started there wasn’t a lot of information online about this and was a journey that we felt wasn’t really openly discussed. So after talking to surrogacy agencies across the world, we decided to do this in Cancun, Mexico, as this was where we felt the most comfortable during all our interactions.”

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Daniel Wallace and Daniel Brown got married in March 2019.

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From egg donor selection, to creating the embryos and then being assigned a surrogate by the agency, the pair travelled to Cancun in mid-2019 to begin the journey to parenthood.

It was no smooth sailing for the pair, who have been affectionately dubbed ‘The Daniels’ by friends, with their first egg transfer unsuccessful.

They waited a few months before a second attempt was made, which was successful – meaning they’d be welcoming a baby girl in July 2020.

“We were over the moon to find out it was successful,” Mr Brown said.

“I remember it to this day, Daniel called me while driving to work in absolute tears. I was at work and kept asking what was wrong and he told me we’d received the comms confirming we were officially pregnant.”

At the time of learning they would be welcoming a daughter, the pair – and the world – had no idea the curveball 2020 would bring.

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The pair welcomed the birth of their daughter, Amaya, in July.

The couple travelled to Cancun after being accepted into a surrogacy program.

In March, the federal government introduced a travel ban to stop Australians travelling overseas. The decision was made to help limit travellers returning to Australia with coronavirus and the risks of spreading coronavirus to other countries.

Exemptions, however, have been made for certain circumstances such as on compassionate and humanitarian grounds. For this reason, ‘The Daniels’ were given permission to travel from Melbourne to Mexico in early July, just as Victoria’s lockdown 2.0 was rolled out and their baby was weeks away from being born.

It was a decision the pair didn’t think twice about, however, say was “extremely stressful and scary” nonetheless.

“For us – we were heading to (and have been living in) a country with some of the highest cases in the world and due to the strain on the economy, their official lockdown has ended and everything has reopened despite their cases rising every day – as they have no other option,” Mr Brown explained.

COVID restrictions have stopped the pair, along with their newborn daughter, from returning to Australia

“If this was just us as two adults? Sure it would be scary. But add a newborn child into the mix? It’s been tough.

“For the safety of our daughter we have been following the same restrictions that are currently in place back home. As despite the risk being low for an infant, that’s a risk we can’t take. For her, and for ourselves.”

The couple had planned to be abroad for no more than two months, but during the flight to Cancun they were told their surrogate was positive with COVID.

“Thankfully for her health and for the baby she was asymptomatic,” Mr Brown explained.

“This meant the birth was delayed a week in hopes that her second follow up test would come back as negative. Unfortunately her second test came back positive again, but having already delayed the birth by one week, the doctor made the decision that our daughter had to be born due to the amniotic fluid starting to get low and didn’t feel comfortable postponing this any further.”

The pair, who married in March 2019 and became parents in July 2020, are raising money on GoFundMe to afford the tickets to get home from Mexico with their new daughter.

Their daughter, Amaya, arrived safely but the ongoing lockdown situation in Victoria – and the restrictions placed on international flights entering Australia capped – meant the new family faced a lengthy and costly battle to return home.

“In total we’ve spent approximately $18k on flights and an additional $2k on extended accommodation,” he explained.

“Coupled with the additional $10k of hospital safety costs due to our surrogate having COVID, and not being able to receive any parental pay from the government until we arrive back in Australia, it’s put a bit of a strain on things. You can try and plan for the worst but no one expects an additional $30k on what is already an expensive journey to undertake.

Chenall Simons, a friend of Mr Brown, started a GoFundMe page to source much needed funds to help the young family with hospital costs, accommodation, flights and the added cost of hotel quarantine when they do step foot on Australian soil once again. The page has so far collected more than $11,000 in funds for the family.

There are still flight caps in place for international arrivals, which has made it difficult for returning Australians to get home from around the world. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images.

The young family, who are living day to day in an Airbnb in Cancun, say while they have a flight booked for October 8, they fear they may still get bumped in favour of a passenger willing to pay more for a business class seat.

“Had we not booked these flights, when we looked after finding out we would not make our flights on 13th September the next available were the start of November,” Mr Brown said.

“Naturally there were a few business flights available here and there, but after being abroad for over 2 months and multiple flight bookings and cancellations we weren’t in a position to be paying $20k per person to return home.

“We should be able to get some of the cancelled flight fares back, but with COVID these can take a few months to be processed and so is a waiting game.”