She’s had three very difficult pregnancies and buried two babies.

Georgina’s first was born at just 32 weeks, her second at 21 weeks and her youngest had just 23 weeks in the womb. Most women go into labour between 38 and 42 weeks.

Though desperate to have another child and give her oldest boy Isaac, now 3, a sibling, Georgina can’t risk losing another baby.

Her daughter Xenia, born on April 4 2017, lived just nine minutes. Christian was born on March 15 and died three days later.

“In our eyes it would just be a terrible gamble. It is a risk that we are just not prepared to take again without having any answers as to my why body goes into early labour,” Georgina says, blinking back tears.

OPINION: Parents should be able to pay surrogates

SURROGATE mum’s plea for new laws in the Northern Territory

WE want to pay you to carry our baby, say Darwin couple

“These are little lives we are dealing with and, mentally and emotionally, the thought of losing another baby would completely destroy my family and me.

“This is why our only hope, our only option, is to have a surrogate carry our baby.”

Luckily, Georgina and Jason have had a family member offer to carry a child for them which, if they lived in any other Australian state or Territory, would mean the family could start their surrogacy journey.

But the family live in Darwin, which means they have to wait for the NT to catch up with the rest of Australia.

If the Territory introduced surrogacy laws tomorrow, Georgina and her husband Jason say they’d be first in line to access the “life changing” treatment.

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THE NT is the only jurisdiction in Australia with no surrogacy laws, explains Surrogacy Australia president Sam Everingham.

It’s not illegal but it isn’t legal either.

This means you can’t — legally — carry a baby for someone in the NT.

The lack of legal guidance forces Territorians wanting to use an Australian surrogate to move to another state or territory to have a baby, explains Sam, because they need to live in the same state as their medical provider to access treatment.

They’ll also need to cough up between $40,000 and $100,000.

Instead of relocating, Sam says an increasing number of Territorians are choosing to travel to countries such as Ukraine and Georgia, where the process of having a child using a foreign surrogate is cheaper and less complicated than in Australia.

Ukraine’s overseas surrogacy industry has soared by 1000 per cent in two years, turning it into the baby-making capital of the world.

In Australia, surrogates cannot profit financially from helping a couple have a child but Ukraine places no limit on what a surrogate can earn — and the money from childless couples can be life-changing in the poor country. A fifth of all Australian surrogate babies are now born in the Ukraine — about 50 in the past year alone. Ukraine also recognises the intending parents on the birth certificate of babies, but in some Australian states, the birth mother is named on official documents and parentage needs to be transferred to biological parents.

David* travelled to Georgia from Darwin in 2017 to have a baby after becoming frustrated by how slow and complicated the surrogacy process was in Australia.

“It’s just too difficult in Australia, really,” he says.

“There’s just too much red tape and barriers and issues and things to think about — it’s just too complex. It’s a minefield.”

In 2016, David and his wife Sarah* started looking into having a baby with the help of a surrogate in Queensland. But six months after linking up with an interstate agency, they were still waiting to get any information at all.

“Six months, nine months, and we heard nothing,” David says.

“When I realised nothing — literally nothing was happening — this is not something I have time for. There is no clarity about it.”

By contrast, 10 months after signing up to a surrogacy agency in Georgia, David and Sarah were holding their newborn baby.

“I would recommend it any day, any time it was the best decision one could make,” he says.

All in all, the couple spent at least $70,000 to have a child.

But costs aside, David says what attracted him most to having a baby in Georgia was surrogacy contracts the country recognises.

Because of these, David and Sarah were able to get their names on their child’s birth certificate immediately and were both recognised as the child’s guardian.

A major fear for many would-be parents is a surrogate changing their mind and wanting (and being allowed) to keep the baby, despite it having none of their DNA.

But the Georgian contracts make this impossible.

In the NT, however, David and Sarah would have had no legal protection had that happened.

Despite this risk, a small number of Territorians use surrogates “unofficially”, Sam Everingham says, sidestepping the medical process and taking matters into their own hands without any legal protection.

He’s hopeful 2019 will be the year the NT Government introduces legislation to make it easier for Territorians like Georgina, David and Sarah to have children.

“The government has committed to putting in some legislation and we’re excited about that,” Sam says.

“In Canada, the intending parents go on the birth certificate straight away. We’d really like to see similar laws as in Canada adopted here.”

Looking at the surrogacy laws in Australia, Sam is calling for the NT Government to mirror South Australia’s 2018 Surrogacy Bill, which is open to public comments until February 15. “The new SA laws are probably the best example of best practice at the moment,” he says.

That bill — with 69 recommendations — is still in its draft stage and is expected to introduced to parliament later this year.

It will allow single people to access surrogacy and increase the legal age of surrogate mothers and intended parents from 18 to 25.

In the bill, commercial surrogacy is still illegal and couples can’t pay to advertise for surrogacy, nor provide a surrogate with any payment other than to recover associated costs, such as travel and medical expenses.

Intending parents and the surrogate all have to undergo counselling.

And those changes are hopefully coming soon.

In August last year, Health Minister and NT Attorney-General Natasha Fyles asked the NT’s Health and Attorney-General and Justice Departments to work together to develop advice about surrogacy laws suited to the NT.

At the time, Ms Fyles said she was waiting on the South Australia Law Reform Institute to finish its review on surrogacy laws and hand down its report so it could be used as a reference. Last week, Ms Fyles confirmed the Government was looking at introducing surrogacy legislation in the NT, but was unable to provide an exact start date for when that might happen.

The campaign isn’t new.

Three years ago, Darwin council alderman and mother-of-two Rebecca Want de Rowe looked into being a surrogate herself and realised how the lack of legislation left Territory families in legal limbo.

Mid last year, she launched an online petition, calling on the NT Government to introduce altruistic surrogacy laws.

“After my hubby and I had a miscarriage, it made us realise how lucky we are to have conceived our two children so easily — we had very easy pregnancies,” she says.

“I think that everyone should be able to enjoy the joy of children, I couldn’t think of anything better.”

To be a surrogate in most states, women have to be over 21, have completed their families, and have strong social supports.

Rebecca has now signed up to help a couple in Victoria have a baby, but says the process itself isn’t easy.

She starts the mandatory counselling process this month and hopes to be pregnant later this year.

“The hardest thing will be being away from my family for 2-3 months, as I can’t give birth in Darwin,” she said. “I’m hoping this won’t be the last time I’m a surrogate, and next time I can birth at home.”

While Rebecca’s personal surrogacy journey will be her focus this year, she’s also hopeful the NT Government will make a firm commitment to legalise surrogacy in the next six months. “We’re hoping by the middle of the year we’ll have a more definite answer from the government about whether its something they will commit to,” she says. “Knowing that there is that light at the end of the tunnel, and have that dream come true is what has been pushing me to keep pushing it.”

■ ■ ■

TWICE a week Georgina and her little “miracle baby” Isaac, 3, visit Thorak Regional Cemetery to see Xenia and Christian.

“They’re always with us, I talk about them I talk about them with Isaac — even though he’s little, he understands something,” Georgina says.

“He makes comments like ‘Xenia and Christian love Isaac’ and ‘babies are sleeping’.”

At 40, Georgina’s time is running out to have another baby and give her son someone to grow up with.

“We’d really like to give him a sibling, I’ve got siblings, my husband has siblings and not so much a big family, but our aim was to have at least two kids,” she says. “But — I can’t let that rule out lives. If it happens, that would be fantastic, but we don’t want to stop living. We’re so grateful to have Isaac, we’ve been so blessed — he’s our little miracle.”

Now, Georgina’s focus is making sure the NT Government understands why Territory families want these laws introduced.

Neither Georgina or Jason want to move away from Darwin — for them, the NT is home and where they want to raise their children.

“This is why we pray that one day soon, we catch up to other parts of Australia to be able to make a dream of having another child a reality,” she says.

*Names have been changed for privacy reasons