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Indian Surrogacy transcript

Reporter: Monique Wright

Producer: Niki Hamilton

LISA: It's still just amazing, you know just staring into his eyes and him looking back going, you're mine, you're our baby! And there’s another one of you! And you know this is it for life. It just doesn’t end.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: They say all's well that ends well but in the case of Lisa and Nik they’ve been to hell and back to create their family.

Their journey crossed continents and cultures.

Bringing extraordinary highs and harrowing lows.

We last saw them in Mumbai. Surrogate City.

Where their twin babies were growing in the womb of another woman barely out of her teens. Already with two children of her own, Farrah is illiterate and so is her husband. This could be their ticket out of poverty. But she'll never be able to see or touch the babies.

LISA: She's wanting this for us. It's really bizarre, it's like you’re going shopping in the most surreal shopping experience of all time.

NURSE: This is our surrogate home. This is where most of the surrogates rest 15 days after the embryo transfer.

LISA: There are women in this world that are willing to carry a child for someone else that they have no biological link to, full biological babies, my eggs, Nik's done his job, it's our baby and she hands it over at the end. She just wants to create a family for us. That part's yeah, it's mind blowing.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: All the women in this room are carrying babies for other people, mostly Western couples. For some this is a place for hope. To critics, it's a baby factory.

How will this change your life do you think?

SURROGATE: With the money I get I will make something of my life and the children's life.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: How do you feel about terms like rent a womb, shop for a baby?

NIK: Disgusted.

LISA: You don't rent a womb you know if you want to use the rent word we're renting an entire woman including her brain which has made this decision.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Lisa and Nik's journey began a decade ago when at 29 she was diagnosed with cervical cancer and needed a hysterectomy.

Lisa thought she'd never have children.

Then 8 years later, Lisa learnt she was still producing viable eggs. It meant she could have her own biological baby, but she'd need another woman to carry it.

With commercial surrogacy illegal in Australia, they started a world wide hunt.

Was India your last resort?

LISA: Oh yes, yeah.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Using Lisa's eggs and Nik's sperm, Farrah was implanted with several embryos.

Within weeks it was confirmed she was pregnant with twins.

What's going on?

LISA: It's real.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: It's everything they hoped, the babies are healthy.

But their elation was short-lived.

The next day Farrah's husband decided he didn't want his wife carrying two large western babies. He threatened a termination unless Lisa and Nik paid more money.

These babies have your DNA, both of you, what rights if any, do you have now?

LISA: That's what we’re going to have to re-explore and very carefully re read that contract.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Farrah was to get around 11 thousand Australian dollars. The equivalent of what her husband would earn in four years.

But he wanted another seven thousand to let the second twin live.

LISA: I mean anyone who says surrogacy is easy is just deluded. I said cancer was easier. Cancer was easier than this.

Our concern was if we agreed to it now you know what would it increase to and change to as the pregnancy continued.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Eventually Lisa and Nik did agree to pay.

LISA: If someone you know is pushing for more money and basically blackmailing you or holding your unborn baby to ransom, you know what can you do?

MONIQUE WRIGHT: All up their twins would cost them over 100 thousand dollars.

On August 20, Farrah was booked for a caesarean at a Mumbai hospital.

LISA: We found out at about 8.30am that Farrah had actually some issues with signing consent forms. Surrogacy hasn't been tested legally yet so the hospital just got a little bit nervous. They asked us to leave.

She was, she was crying. The roads are not good to start with and there's potholes and we knew she had a baby wedged in her pelvis.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Hours later in this rundown building in a Mumbai suburb, the first of their babies was born.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: So when did you see the second twin that was born, Taj?

LISA: Taj was the smaller of the two babies, so he needed more help, to get going, a bit more work on the respiration and the breathing so it was about 20 minutes. And then we were nervously waiting outside the room and I was just trying to get anyone to tell me what sex the second baby was and no-one would tell me anything and they just kept saying you will see.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: And that's when the biggest surprise so far came for these new parents.

After months preparing for twin girls, like everything else things didn't go to plan.

They got the twins. But they were both boys.

NIK: I was just speechless. I really was, after everything that we'd gone through here they were. And they were just looking at you. And granted, we couldn't see Taj's face because he had the oxygen mask on, but it was, there they are and you just touch them on the leg and it was like ok, it's real.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Their sons were born premature.

Alex did better than Taj, who was critically ill with pneumonia, heart problems, and a serious blood infection.

NIK: I don't think I could think of a day where I didn't think I'd be bringing two live boys home. I thought I'd be bringing one very healthy, happy boy and one deceased child. That was my biggest fear for 20 days.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Could you touch him? Could you cuddle him during that time?

LISA: Couldn't see him. We looked through a glass panel in a door.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: After a week Lisa and Nik were able to take Alex back to their hotel.

But through all this, they had no contact with Farrah, the woman who'd carried their babies.

LISA: I'm still thankful to her and grateful that she offered her services and her mind and her body to do this for us. I saw her just leading up to birth and she was huge. Like, she would have been in a lot of physical discomfort.

So I've got gratitude to Farrah, especially for creating our family for us

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Where does this leave Farrah then?

NIK: It leaves Farrah in a very wealthy state. No matter how, whatever happens, she's got more money than she’ll ever see in her life.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Nick, that sounds a bit heartless, saying that what she's left with now is just that she’s wealthier. I mean she has got to have physical issues that she would've been dealing with for several weeks as well as emotional ones – of which we don't know what they are.

NIK: See the thing is, we will never know. Now if she did, I'm very apologetic for that. She was employed for a certain amount of time, and that actually sounds really bad. But she was really just employed for a certain amount of time and after that, she gets her money, we go our separate ways, we get on with our life and she gets on with her life with her children.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Is this how you feel about it, what it just a business transaction?

LISA: This is how I tell everyone now. Anyone who's looking at surrogacy in India, which is still a brilliant option at creating a family, it has to be business. Check your emotions at the door when you go, potentially to the point don't even meet your surrogate, so that you don't have any bonded connection, that it is purely a business transaction

MONIQUE WRIGHT: The journey to become parents was the longest of Lisa and Nik's lives.

A chaotic minefield stretching almost 10 years.

Even still, that chaos is nothing in comparison to being home in Adelaide coping with twins.

So you've done it, the babies are home, we can hear them, you've got your family.

NIK: Yeah and do you know out of everything you can go through, the late nights, the no sleep, the stress, the confusion, you look into their eyes when they want a cuddle and you know it's worth it. You wouldn't replace it.