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Since having their children by surrogacy, Mike and his partner have been advocating for equality in surrogacy as well as modernising guidelines and laws. They have also tirelessly supported many others through their surrogacy journeys. In this episode, Zoe speaks to Mike about his own experience to becoming a parent with his partner Wes, the challenges they had, the many positives and why they are so passionate about changing many of the conversations around surrogacy. KEY TAKEAWAYS Children were always on the cards for Mike and Wes. Mike had previously been married to a woman and one of the reasons was because of how much he wanted children. He was desperate to have his own family. Wes had a daughter from a previous relationship which made the start of their relationship difficult, Mike had to grow a lot and recognise he was the adult in the situation. She is now 17 and an incredible person who Mike and Wes are very proud of: she also makes the best big sister! Once Mike and Wes had decided to have a child together, they spent almost 3 years researching the options and the best way to do so. They decided on UK surrogacy, which they had to do independently as no UK agencies were taking on new intended parents. When they found their surrogate, Mike and Wes thought they didn’t want to stay in contact or be involved with the surrogate afterwards. But after going through the journey and feeling how much this surrogate was doing for them – they couldn’t just ‘dispose’ of the friendship. She made them parents, Mike felt ashamed that at the beginning he didn’t truly appreciate what she was doing for them. It was important for Mike and Wes to be present and supportive at all the appointments with the surrogate. They had a few awkward situations where they were told only the Dad was allowed in or were triggered by healthcare professionals asking for the ‘real dad’. Their experience made them want to change laws and guidelines around surrogacy as well as make surrogacy more normalised. We need to educate people around surrogacy and usualise it. Policy was very outdated in the NHS, they wouldn’t allow both Wes and Mike be present at the birth. By challenging this they ended up changing policy around surrogacy in the NHS. By telling their story, both intended parents in surrogacy can now be present at the birth. Mike and Wes have supported over 300 men through surrogacy and they have now launched their own non-profit organisation, my surrogacy journey. It focuses on support, counselling and providing a real managed solution to surrogacy for all. It’s be a really exciting and hectic journey for both Wes and Mike. Mike jokes that it is a good job they really like each other as they live, work, lobby and parent together! BEST MOMENTS “I just longed to be a parent” “Children are really important in my world” “I have nothing but admiration and love for her and her husband” “We need to educate people better about surrogacy…we need to talk about surrogacy more and usualise it” “It was the best thing I have ever witnessed” VALUABLE RESOURCES www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk ABOUT THE GUEST Michael Johnson-Ellis @twodads.u.k @officialmysurrogacyjourney @themodernfamilyshow https://www.mysurrogacyjourney.com https://themodernfamilyshow.co.uk ABOUT THE HOST Zoe Cresswell Devoted mother of two (and a big hairy dog), UK trained midwife, doula and personal trainer, specialising in pre and postnatal fitness. Zoe was born in the UK and before moving to Dubai in 2013 and worked as a midwife in central London, both in a birth centre and a very busy NHS hospital. Although late to the scene, Zoe is an aspiring athlete having won numerous triathlons and representing Great Britain where she placed within the top 10 on the world stage. With her husband James, the couple will soon be launching their cloth nappy company, Bop & Bee, where they hope to inspire

An honest and insightful episode where Zoe speaks to Sarah of the Instagram account @sarah_and_marnie. Sarah talks to Zoe about finding out her baby had downs syndrome during pregnancy and life now with her beautiful 3-year-old Marnie, who teaches her something new every day.   KEY TAKEAWAYS Sarah met her husband Colin at a NYE party. They started trying for a baby quite early on as they were both in their early forties. Sarah had children from previous relationships but Colin didn’t have any children yet and Sarah surprised herself by being very open to the idea. Sarah fell pregnant after 12 months but sadly she miscarried at 11 weeks. She found this really difficult, loss wasn’t something she had experienced before. A few months after she fell pregnant again. They had a reassurance scan at 9 weeks and began to get excited. They then had a 12 week scan where they first found out that there may be a chromosomal abnormality. After having blood tests to give the chances of the baby having Edwards, Downs or Patau Syndrome Sarah made the decision to have an amniocentesis test to find out for certain. Several days after they received the news that their baby had downs syndrome. It was a relief to Sarah as this was the news she was hoping for, both Edwards and Patau syndrome are described as ‘not compatible with life’ and would have been a devastating diagnosis. Sarah received little support emotionally from professionals throughout the pregnancy. There wasn’t any counselling or much literature around becoming parents to a baby with Downs Syndrome. She did receive extra scans as there is a higher chance of heart problems, but other than that she didn’t receive any additional help in her pregnancy. Thankfully, when she told her friends and family about the baby having downs syndrome the response was positive and they received tons of support. Although Marnie is only 3 and a half she has already experienced a lot, including modelling! Marnie is a very happy, easy going and bright little girl. A lot of the struggles for new mums of babies with downs syndrome is fear of the unknown. Sarah helps run a FB group about the positives of life with a downs syndrome baby and child: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dsukpositiveaboutdownsyndromegreatexpectations   BEST MOMENTS   “It was a black cloud hanging over us waiting for that call” “For me, downs syndrome was something we could do together as a family” “When you experience loss and then you have your baby in your arms it’s like no other feeling” “Don’t be afraid”     VALUABLE RESOURCES www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk   ABOUT THE GUEST Sarah Louise @sarah_and_marnie https://www.facebook.com/groups/dsukpositiveaboutdownsyndromegreatexpectations   ABOUT THE HOST Zoe Cresswell Devoted mother of two (and a big hairy dog), UK trained midwife, doula and personal trainer, specialising in pre and postnatal fitness. Zoe was born in the UK and before moving to Dubai in 2013 and worked as a midwife in central London, both in a birth centre and a very busy NHS hospital. Although late to the scene, Zoe is an aspiring athlete having won numerous triathlons and representing Great Britain where she placed within the top 10 on the world stage. With her husband James, the couple will soon be launching their cloth nappy company, Bop & Bee, where they hope to inspire families to swap a few disposable nappies a day for the more planet friendly option of cloth. Zoe’s goal is to share her knowledge and experience, tell real life stories, manage expectations and open up those often difficult conversations. Zoe’s own motherhood journey has been full of twists and turns as she put everything on hold and went through numerous miscarriages and rounds of IVF.   CONTACT DETAILS Instagram : @zoecresswell_me Facebook: Zoe Cresswell LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-cresswell See omnystudio.com/listener fo

In this episode, Zoe speaks with Nina Willer, a diabetes specialist midwife and a type 1 diabetic herself. Nina opens up about her own journey to conceive, including her struggles with infertility and delves deep into the implications of diabetes in pregnancy and motherhood.   KEY TAKEAWAYS Nina met her husband at work in a surf shop before she became a midwife and now it has gone full circle and they work together again! Nina developed her diabetes when she was 21, having looked at a lot of research she believes that the cause was an already existing pre-disposition to diabetes and then a parasite that made her ill after travelling in Ghana, was the trigger. When Nina and her husband decided they wanted to start trying for a baby, Nina had to make a pre-conception plan due to her type 1 diabetes. They then began starting to conceive but after not falling pregnant they went for fertility testing and started on 6 months of Clomid. Nina and her husband had their first cycle of IVF, they were very open about this and told everyone as they wanted to have people behind them to support them in their fertility journey. But sadly, by day 5 the fertilised eggs hadn’t developed as they should but were still advised to have them implanted which did not result in a pregnancy. They learnt a lot from the first cycle and went ahead and had a second fresh cycle, on day 3 the fertilised eggs were still developing, they froze one egg and inserted two, but the two inserted did not result in a pregnancy again. On the third fresh IVF cycle, the eggs stopped developing on day three again. It was a really hard time for Nina and her husband, it was their third and final cycle. They decided to still have these eggs impanted but were told they would not result in a pregnancy. Nina and her husband knew they needed to take a break from IVF, so they went away and started to focus on other things. But, miraculously they became pregnant from their third an final cycle. They still expected this pregnancy to end in miscarriage but incredibly it didn’t and this pregnancy is no Nina’s five year old! The pregnancy wasn’t straight forward due to Nina’s type 1 diabetes but she was looked after incredible well and she had her healthy baby at 36 weeks via planned C-section. In 2019, Nina and her husband wanted to try again for another baby so decided to try a frozen cycle of IVF. It was an experience Nina found very difficult, she calls it the worst IVF experience she had and sadly it didn’t work. Several months later, they had stopped trying to get pregnant so were very surprised to find that after trying for 10 years they were pregnant! They had their miracle baby , delivered by one of their closest friends, 9 months later!   BEST MOMENTS “For a while I was a little bit angry at the diabetes stuff” “We did six months of Clomid and that’s a really hopeful time for a lot of people as you suddenly think, I’m making eggs and I’m making loads of them!” “We’re so lucky, the NHS has treated us very, very well” “One of the many things I find fascinating about type 1 Diabetes is that the glucose levels can tell us a lot about what’s going on” “It felt like I was having a miscarriage in a way, I had known that embryo for 5 years, that was my other child”    VALUABLE RESOURCES www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk   ABOUT THE GUEST Nina Willer @willerz_house   ABOUT THE HOST Zoe Cresswell Devoted mother of two (and a big hairy dog), UK trained midwife, doula and personal trainer, specialising in pre and postnatal fitness. Zoe was born in the UK and before moving to Dubai in 2013 and worked as a midwife in central London, both in a birth centre and a very busy NHS hospital. Although late to the scene, Zoe is an aspiring athlete having won numerous triathlons and representing Great Britain where she placed within the top 10 on the world stage. With her husband James, th

In this honest and raw episode, Zoe speaks to Julie Audette, a business owner and mother. Julie opens up about her experience with Twin-Twin Transfusion syndrome which her beautiful boys Elias And Zach were born with. Listen in to hear a story of sadness, faith and incredible strength.   KEY TAKEAWAYS Julie got married to her husband in 2013 and Julie became pregnant in 2014. At her first scan she got a ‘double congratulations’ from the Dr and found out she was pregnant with two boys. The beginning of the pregnancy was normal and Julie was carrying on with life normally. Julie was given extra monitoring because it was a twin pregnancy with a shared placenta but she didn’t feel any different. At week 21 Julie found she started to feel differently, she was in a lot of pain and was suffering with severe swelling. Julie went to see her obstetrician, had a scan and was referred to a specialist that day. They discovered that her twin boys had twin-twin transfusion syndrome and they would need an operation. Julie had already decided that she was going to give birth in Canada where she is from, so she reached out to the specialists after the diagnosis to see who could do the procedure needed for her twin boys. She was advised to fly to Canada as soon as possible. On the flight, Julie started deteriorating and was rushed straight to hospital on arrival to be stabilised. After a procedure to reduce her amniotic fluid she was able to leave the hospital but unfortunately had to go back in after deteriorating again. It was only week 23 but the decision was made to have an emergency C-section to deliver the twins, for their safety as well as Julie’s life. The boys were delivered by C-section but they went straight to NICU, 20 minutes later Julie was sadly informed that Elias had died and Zach was fighting hard for his life. Julie and her husband’s faith helped them deal with this devastating life event. It helped give them the strength to support Zach, who had to have a 5 month stay in hospital due to being born so premature and a heart condition. At 5 months, they had to make the difficult system to remove him from respiratory support and he sadly died a short time after. Julie and her husband have been supported a lot by their friends and family, it’s this as well as their faith, therapy and their attitude towards life that has helped them ‘come out the other side’.  Since this incredibly difficult and tragic time, they have had another child, their daughter, who they are so thankful for. BEST MOMENTS “It was just a beautiful announcement and we were double happy” “You see other people fighting…you have to accept and say this is your journey, this is life and this is what god intended for us” “We’re a family full on sunshine”  “We would not be able to heal without our family and friends”   VALUABLE RESOURCES https://www.rmhc.org Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) Parents - Peer support for families who have gone through, are going through or seeking more information about Twin to Twin Transfusion: https://www.facebook.com/Twin-to-Twin-Transfusion-Syndrome-TTTS-Parents-Arabia-1699149873687130   ABOUT THE GUEST Julie Audette @julie.audette [email protected] @coethical @themovement.ae https://www.rmhc.org Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) Parents - Peer support for families who have gone through, are going through or seeking more information about Twin to Twin Transfusion: https://www.facebook.com/Twin-to-Twin-Transfusion-Syndrome-TTTS-Parents-Arabia-1699149873687130   ABOUT THE HOST Zoe Cresswell Devoted mother of two (and a big hairy dog), UK trained midwife, doula and personal trainer, specialising in pre and postnatal fitness. Zoe was born in the UK and before moving to Dubai in 2013 and worked as a midwife in central London, both in a birth centre and a very busy NHS hospital. Although late to the scene, Zoe is an aspiring athlete having won numerous tr

In this episode, Zoe speaks to Tia about her journey with Lee to creating a family. They talk about the many failed IVF attempts, her experience of care, using an egg donor and the impact this has had on Tia’s emotional and physical health.   KEY TAKEAWAYS   Tia met her husband Lee online on a dating app. They would spend hours on the phone talking at the beginning, they then had their nervous first date and the rest is history. After 18 months of trying to become pregnant, Tia and Lee went to the Dr and they found that Tia’s bloods showed she had a very low chance of conceiving a child naturally. She later found out she had premature Ovarian Insufficiency. They had their first round of IVF in December 2019 but this was unsuccessful and Tia really struggled both mentally and physically dealing with the aftermath of this. They had more rounds of IVF and Tia began to suffer suicidal thoughts; but the hope she had for a positive outcome pushed her through. After 3 ½ years of trying Tia and Lee looked into egg donation and it was this process that has now allowed them to be pregnant with twins. Tia and Lee will raise their twins knowing how they were conceived. They hope that by doing this it will make it less traumatic for them. They are even going to make a book that tells them the journey their parents took to have them including information about their donor. After receiving less than the best care in the UK, Tia and Lee decided to look into egg donation and clinics abroad. They used the company Your IVF Abroad who matched them to the right country and then to the right clinic for them and their needs. A PTSD diagnosis is just one of the mental impacts that Tia is now suffering with. She is getting good help and support but still struggles, especially when people at appointments make comments without knowing her journey and what she has had to endure to get to this point. BEST MOMENTS “The thoughts of Lee’s sperm with another ladies’ eggs made me feel jealous” “Sometimes you’ve got to put yourself in a vulnerable situation to be able to learn and develop” “I just want the worries of a normal mum” “I always get the same questions over and over again… so I have to tell the story and am traumatising myself again and again”   VALUABLE RESOURCES https://www.yourivfabroad.co.uk www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk   ABOUT THE GUEST Tia Brown @the.browns.journey.to.four https://www.yourivfabroad.co.uk IVF Treatment abroad in Europe organised by successful patients in UK We offer practical and emotional support to facilitate your low cost fertility treatment abroad, in Europe at renowned IVF clinics with high success rates and no waiting lists. Contact us now, we are here for you, every step of the way. www.yourivfabroad.co.uk ABOUT THE HOST Zoe Cresswell Devoted mother of two (and a big hairy dog), UK trained midwife, doula and personal trainer, specialising in pre and postnatal fitness. Zoe was born in the UK and before moving to Dubai in 2013 and worked as a midwife in central London, both in a birth centre and a very busy NHS hospital. Although late to the scene, Zoe is an aspiring athlete having won numerous triathlons and representing Great Britain where she placed within the top 10 on the world stage. With her husband James, the couple will soon be launching their cloth nappy company, Bop & Bee, where they hope to inspire families to swap a few disposable nappies a day for the more planet friendly option of cloth. Zoe’s goal is to share her knowledge and experience, tell real life stories, manage expectations and open up those often difficult conversations. Zoe’s own motherhood journey has been full of twists and turns as she put everything on hold and went through numerous miscarriages and rounds of IVF.   CONTACT DETAILS Instagram : @zoecresswell_me Facebook: Zoe Cresswell LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-cresswel

In this honest and brave episode Zoe speaks with Hannah Sinnott. Hannah talks about her beautiful daughter Cora, who tragically died of birth complications at just 24 hours old. They discuss Hannah’s journey to motherhood, her tragic birth story and the difficulty of being pregnant again after such a devastating loss.   KEY TAKEAWAYS Hannah married her husband Joe in 2015 after meeting at university. They went on honeymoon to Thailand and made the decision not to come back and travelled for 18 months. Hannah and Joe have always been family orientated and Hannah has always loved children and babies, she knew she wanted to be a mum from an early age. When they decided it was time to start their family, Hannah fell pregnant quite quickly. Hannah had a straightforward pregnancy, it was low risk and there were no issues. She did a hypnobirthing course and planned a homebirth. She was nervous about birth like most first-time mothers but mostly remembers being excited. Hannah began labouring at home when she was 10 days overdue, when the midwife came she was already 6 cms dilated. She went to labour in the birthing pool and was at the pushing stages for a couple of hours but not much was happening. They knew something wasn’t right, eventually she was examined and it turns out she wasn’t fully dilated which meant her cervix was very swollen. She they went to hospital via ambulance. Once in hospital the babies heart kept started to dipping, she was put on oxytocin to help with the labour and babies heart dipped dangerously again – this is when the emergency buzzer was pressed and Hannah went into emergency surgery. Hannah woke up after her general anaesthetic and remembers just being so aware of the quiet. Joe came and before he even spoke she knew it was bad news; Cora was very poorly. A short time later they were told that their daughter was going to die. There were tests and investigations done at the time but no answers were found to why Cora died at that moment, all they knew is that she had been starved of oxygen. It was an incredibly devastating and tragic time for Hannah and Joe but they are thankful that they got to spend some time with Cora before she died. They were also allowed to spend some time with Cora after she passed and take photos and create memories, at the time Hannah didn’t realise how healing this would be. The support Hannah and Joe received from their families after the death of Cora was immeasurable. They helped them survive. After Cora’s death, more investigations were done. They flagged a few issues, mainly with the placenta but also with care. The heart monitoring wasn’t done correctly. Either of these things and Cora may have still been saved, but combined it was a tragedy. Hannah and Joe made the decision to move back to Hannah’s hometown, it was hard for Hannah to leave the nursey especially but they felt this was the right decision for them and their family. Hannah and Joe are pregnant again, but understandably this is incredibly triggering and difficult for them. It’s impossible for them to excited. One thing Hannah and Joe has found is people do not know how to support parents of baby loss, especially when time has passed and they are pregnant again. Hannah believes humans are ‘fixers’ and loss is not something you can fix so people do not know what to do for the best.   BEST MOMENTS “Joe was adamant we were having a girl…he said he had a dream early on” “I sometimes question if that was my body in distress”  “It must sound really morbid to people who haven’t experienced it, but it was just really special”  “I was in shock for a while, it just didn’t feel real” “You always need your mum”  “Until he is here safely I won’t believe he will be”    VALUABLE RESOURCES www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk   ABOUT THE GUEST Hannah Sinnott www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.or

Welcome back to the second series of Motherhood Exposed, where your host, mother, midwife, doula and personal trainer Zoe Cresswell explores the ups, downs and often complicated parts of motherhood. In this episode, Zoe returns to speak to Sophie Martin, known on Instagram and in the blogging world as the infertile midwife, to revisit her story of infertility, loss and the journey to her now 7-week old baby boy, Percy. To hear the previous episode with Sophie, go to episode 12.   KEY TAKEAWAYS Sophie did a frozen transfer of IVF and incredibly it worked first time. It was the beginning of December and although the UK was in the midst of the pandemic it was just “the loveliest transfer ever”! Sophie had been to the clinic so many times in the previous months, she knew the team really well and even got to choose to put Christmas songs on whilst it happened! The transfer worked and although Sophie was happy there was a mix of emotions after her previous late loss of twins, Cecil and Wilfred. She had some bleeding on Christmas Day which was frightening but at her first scan everything was luckily fine. Sophie told close family but didn’t tell anyone else she was pregnant until she was 25 weeks. She didn’t want to have to deal with people congratulating her when that wasn’t really how she felt; she felt scared. Even though Sophie suffered with a lot of anxiety she wasn’t helped by any perinatal teams after being referred three times. She didn’t have any professional support at all being pregnant after loss, which must have been incredibly difficult. At 22 weeks, Sophie suffered a threatened pre-term labour and after dealing with this she couldn’t go back to her normal job role. She had a month off but was then able to work from home due to Covid before delivering her baby boy Percy via a planned C-section. Although an experienced midwife, Sophie recognises now that there was so much she didn’t know about motherhood, especially around breastfeeding. She feels like she truly understands how relentless and difficult it is for so many mothers. After having Percy, Sophie has been quite shocked by a lot of the emotions that she has had to contented with, including both loss and relief but also immense sadness. Having a baby after fertility problems or loss is incredibly complicated. If someone had told Sophie a year ago she would now be sat with a 7 week old baby, she would not have believed them. Her advice to those in that position is that you have to have hope and if you do manage to have the baby in your arms, don’t imagine it will be the ‘fix all’ to everything because it unfortunately doesn’t work like that.   BEST MOMENTS “The transfer couldn’t have gone any better…it just felt really special, I couldn’t have asked for a better transfer” “He was very good at helping me rationalise it” “People know breastfeeding is hard…the hard bit is actually feeding, just the relentlessness of it” “You can’t necessarily process it all whilst you’re in it, it’s only once you’re out of it you have to start processing it”   VALUABLE RESOURCES www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk   ABOUT THE GUEST Sophie Martin Midwife and mother IG @the.infertile.midwife www.theinfertilemidwife.com www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk   ABOUT THE HOST Zoe Cresswell Devoted mother of two (and a big hairy dog), UK trained midwife, doula and personal trainer, specialising in pre and postnatal fitness. Zoe was born in the UK and before moving to Dubai in 2013 and worked as a midwife in central London, both in a birth centre and a very busy NHS hospital. Although late to the scene, Zoe is an aspiring athlete having won numerous triathlons and representing Great Britain where she placed within the top 10 on the world stage. With her husband James, the couple will soon be launching their cloth nappy company, Bop &

In this episode, Zoe speaks with mother of four daughters, Leona Bugden. Leona talks about her experience of being a teenage mum and now parenting her eldest daughter who is a teenager herself. Leona also has three younger children with her husband Ross. She talks about her experiences with the NICU as well as pregnancy and birth during covid.     KEY TAKEAWAYS     Leona found out she was pregnant with her first child at just 18. It was a huge shock, it took her a while to take a test as she kept having periods and was on the pill. At first Leona didn’t even consider that she would be a mum but she then made the decision to carry on with the pregnancy, her mum was so supportive and helped her in every way from the very beginning. Some of Leona’s teachers were supportive but the head of her school was absolutely awful to her, luckily her mum stood up for her and took no nonsense at all. Leona finished her a-levels and had her little girl Elyssa in the September that year. When Elyssa was 1 Leona went to university, her mum provided so much help in order for her to do this. But even so it was so difficult splitting herself in so many directions, she often felt like she wasn’t managing any aspect. Parenting a teenager can be so difficult and worlds away from a baby or toddler. Leona wants to prepare Alyssa for the world but she also wants to protect her at the same time. It’s a balance between giving her freedom, support and protection. Leona getting together with her now Husband Ross at 23 was quite a difficult time, for all involved. But he has been a great father figure to Elyssa and even asked her before proposing to Leona! Elyssa now has three younger sisters, but Ross treats all of them exactly the same, Elyssa was his first daughter. Leona had straightforward births with her first two daughters, Alyssa and Indigo. With her third daughter, Willow, she had a scare at 28 weeks with a bleed, she was ok but was then born prematurely at 34 weeks and had to have a stay in the NICU. With Leona’s fourth daughter, Dustie, she lost her plug at 30 weeks, she went into hospital and once there she started to bleed. She was admitted and she had to do all of this alone because of Covid. Her waters broke but when she got examined she was actually less dilated than when she first came in and was taken to the labour ward. Sadly, the midwife now caring for her wasn’t being very supportive, Leona was very alone and very scared. Eventually a Dr came and examined her again and Dustie was born 28 minutes later!         BEST MOMENTS   “She was how I became a mummy”   “I’m not going through with it, I’m having a baby”   “She was very much like a second mum…she has this incredible relationship with Elyssa that is different to any of the others because she helped raise her”   “I want to keep her young but I want to let her grow”   “You hand over your whole life in this little person and you are handing over every little bit of trust you have”     VALUABLE RESOURCES   www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk         ABOUT THE GUEST   Leona Bugden   @leona_bugden     ABOUT THE HOST Zoe Cresswell Devoted mother of two (and a big hairy dog), UK trained midwife, doula and personal trainer, specialising in pre and postnatal fitness. Zoe was born in the UK and before moving to Dubai in 2013 and worked as a midwife in central London, both in a birth centre and a very busy NHS hospital. Although late to the scene, Zoe is an aspiring athlete having won numerous triathlons and representing Great Britain where she placed within the top 10 on the world stage. With her husband James, the couple will soon be launching their cloth nappy company, Bop & Bee, where they hope to inspire families to swap a few disposable nappies a day for the more planet friendly option of cloth. Zoe’s goal is to share her knowledge a

This episode is part 2 of a double episode with Kreena Dhiman. If you haven’t listened to part 1 yet, go back to the previous episode of the podcast.   An incredible story full of strength, inspiration and told by Kreena in such a positive and empowering way.     KEY TAKEAWAYS     When Kreena was in intensive care in Canada she received a message from a potential surrogate. This made Kreena feel so much positivity and gave her hope for the future. This surrogate had such an appreciation for the intended mother of the child, she was never someone who wanted to be showered with praise and gratitude. Kreena found this so refreshing. It’s important to remember that for a woman to come to the decision to have another person carry their baby, they will have already had to overcome so many things and endured a lot of trauma. After embryo transfers, Kreena had one embryo that was very strong and this was transplanted into the surrogate, the rest of the embryos were supposed to be frozen after the transfer but devastatingly this was not carried out and Kreena lost all of her pre-cancer embryos. Amazingly, the transfer took and they were pregnant! They couldn’t believe they were lucky enough for this to happen. Often in Kreena’s culture and community surrogacy is hidden. Kreena and her husband never understood why people wouldn’t want to share this incredible thing so have always been very open with their children, family and everyone else. After the birth of their first child, Kreena and her husband decided they wanted to grow their family further. They didn’t have any embryos so they thought they would just need to find a surrogate of colour, so that they looked like her and her husband as she wanted her family to look ‘uniform’. She considered ‘known’ egg donation so that she would know more about the donor as she felt more disconnected than with Amara. Kreena found an incredible donor whose Bio she connected with straight away. When they met, they were supposed to just chat for ten minutes but talked for hours and even met up again the next day. Sadly, their first surrogate could no longer carry their second child for them, this made Kreena question so many things, including a lot of her beliefs. Luckily Kreena found another surrogate who was perfect for her family, it all happened quite quickly but it was incredible and they soon found out they were having triplets!     BEST MOMENTS   “The minute I made it through that I knew I wasn’t going to die”   “I wanna carry a baby for someone but I don’t want another baby and I can’t fulfil my dream of being a surrogate without someone like you who can’t carry their child”   “Right now, we have to just pray that you’re pregnant”   “Motherhood doesn’t come from the pregnancy or genetics, motherhood comes from the love in my heart”     VALUABLE RESOURCES www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk       ABOUT THE GUEST Kreena Dhiman @kreenadhiman  https://coppafeel.org https://www.breastcanceruk.org.uk         ABOUT THE HOST Zoe Cresswell Devoted mother of two (and a big hairy dog), UK trained midwife, doula and personal trainer, specialising in pre and postnatal fitness. Zoe was born in the UK and before moving to Dubai in 2013 and worked as a midwife in central London, both in a birth centre and a very busy NHS hospital. Although late to the scene, Zoe is an aspiring athlete having won numerous triathlons and representing Great Britain where she placed within the top 10 on the world stage. With her husband James, the couple will soon be launching their cloth nappy company, Bop & Bee, where they hope to inspire families to swap a few disposable nappies a day for the more planet friendly option of cloth. Zoe’s goal is to share her knowledge and experience, tell real life stories, manage expectations and open up those often

This episode is part 1 of 2 with Kreena Dhiman. In this first part Kreena talks about her background story to becoming a mum, after being diagnosed with stage three breast cancer and then 3 years later suffering from heart failure.   An incredible story full of strength, inspiration and told by Kreena in such a positive and empowering way. Listen to part 2 for Kreena’s surrogacy journey.     KEY TAKEAWAYS   Kreena met her husband when working part time before university but they didn’t start dating until they both graduated and moved back home. There were some initial difficulties before they got married due to religious differences and their parents expectations but they made their way through this. Kreena honestly believes she wouldn’t have been able to go through the journey they have without her husband by her side. Kreena was diagnosed with breast cancer just three years into their marriage at age 33, this diagnosis forced her to put herself first, something she was not used to doing. She still attributes some of her difficulties to her struggles as a British Asian and growing up seeing things no child should in an abusive household. The breast cancer diagnosis threw Kreena’s life into turmoil, everything she felt she was and she had was no longer there, she ended up losing her hair, being put into early menopause and having a double mastectomy. She was also asked about how important motherhood was to her, her answer was massively, she had always wanted to be a mother, she couldn’t see a future without children. After doing a lot of research and recognising that being pregnant wasn’t important to her, having that child for the rest of her life was, Kreena started to look into surrogacy. She immersed herself into the UK Surrogacy community and built up as much knowledge as she could so that they would be ready whenever the time came. Kreena and her husband had decided they would find their surrogate on a private Facebook community dedicated to surrogates in the UK. They took a holiday to celebrate the decision and the end of Kreena’s cancer treatment but upon landing in Vancouver she became very unwell. 24 hours later she was in a hospital coming in and out of consciousness; they couldn’t find out what was wrong with her but her husband was warned that she probably wouldn’t make the next 24 hours. The last team to assess her were the cardiology team who discovered she had heart failure, probably caused by one of the cancer drugs she had. Incredibly she pulled through, she was discharged later but was still too unwell to fly so had to stay in Vancouver for another 8 weeks until she was allowed to fly with medical assistance.     BEST MOMENTS   “There was a lot of expectation upon both of us”   “I think my breast cancer diagnosis helped me realise that I was the most important person in my life”   “For me I felt like I had lost all forms of my femininity”   “The last thing I wanted to do was bring a child into this world and then me not be here for that child”   “I was so relieved to just touch UK soil”     VALUABLE RESOURCES www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk       ABOUT THE GUEST Kreena Dhiman @kreenadhiman  https://coppafeel.org https://www.breastcanceruk.org.uk         ABOUT THE HOST Zoe Cresswell Devoted mother of two (and a big hairy dog), UK trained midwife, doula and personal trainer, specialising in pre and postnatal fitness. Zoe was born in the UK and before moving to Dubai in 2013 and worked as a midwife in central London, both in a birth centre and a very busy NHS hospital. Although late to the scene, Zoe is an aspiring athlete having won numerous triathlons and representing Great Britain where she placed within the top 10 on the world stage. With her husband James, the couple will soon be launching their cloth nappy company, Bop & Bee, where they hop

Today Zoe speaks with Maya from the Instagram account @caribbeansnowflake about the tragic loss of her son Leo at 12 days old and her journey to becoming a mum for a second time via IVF to her son Freddie. Maya has incredible strength and resilience to endure what she has had to go through as a mother, but she has always tried to live her life filled with gratitude and positivity and this shines through in the way she talks about her trauma.     KEY TAKEAWAYS   Maya met her husband on a ski trip and at first didn’t even like each other! But they met again and discovered they had a lot in common and the rest is history. Both Maya’s pregnancy and labour with Leo was quite straightforward and normal. Living in the Cayman Island her pregnancy and birth was Dr lead, but this is standard. It was only the Monday after the birth when Leo wasn’t feeding well and the Dr thought he was looking a bit weak that they started running tests and put Leo on a feeding tube in the nicu.   The long days and nights waiting for a diagnosis were extremely hard and difficult for Maya and her husband. You aren’t supposed to be apart from your baby. After many scans and test they still did not know what was wrong with Leo and he was going downhill fast, the Drs had to incubate him and were recommending that they took him to Miami – they were told at best he would be severely disabled. Once they arrived in Miami Leo had more tests and he was finally diagnosed with a severe case of NKH, which is a genetic disorder caused by a mutation. It is very rare but is terminal and severely affects quality of life. After having the diagnosis, they made the difficult decision to turn off Leo’s life support, it was devastating. The aftermath of Leo’s death was heartbreaking and traumatic but Maya and her husband really wanted to bring another baby home in the future. They underwent genetic testing on themselves and discovered they would have a 1 in 4 chance of having a baby with NKH. They chose to go down the IVF route so that all their embryos could be genetically tested. Knowing that it wasn't the end of the road helped them with their grief. They had one genetically clear embryo, they had this transplanted successfully and 9 months later they had their son Freddie.     BEST MOMENTS   “That was probably the shittest night of my life”   “There can’t be anything wrong with him, look how perfect he is”   “Your brain can’t process all that information at once”   “It was his gift to us that they all got to meet him”   "It helped with the grief knowing it wasn't the end of the road"    VALUABLE RESOURCES No Matter What: https://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Matter-What-DebiGliori/dp/1408850001/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=no+matter+what&qid=1623171787&sr=8-1 www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk       ABOUT THE GUEST Maya IG: @caribbeansnowflake IG: @makingittomotherhood         ABOUT THE HOST Zoe Cresswell Devoted mother of two (and a big hairy dog), UK trained midwife, doula and personal trainer, specialising in pre and postnatal fitness. Zoe was born in the UK and before moving to Dubai in 2013 and worked as a midwife in central London, both in a birth centre and a very busy NHS hospital. Although late to the scene, Zoe is an aspiring athlete having won numerous triathlons and representing Great Britain where she placed within the top 10 on the world stage. With her husband James, the couple will soon be launching their cloth nappy company, Bop & Bee, where they hope to inspire families to swap a few disposable nappies a day for the more planet friendly option of cloth. Zoe’s goal is to share her knowledge and experience, tell real life stories, manage expectations and open up those often difficult conversations. Zoe’s own motherhood journey has been full of twists and turns as she put everything on hold and went through numero

In this episode, Zoe explores the devastation of infertility as she speaks with Rachel Lyons, who after a long journey of infertility, found hope and belonging in adoption.     KEY TAKEAWAYS   Rachel met her husband through mutual friends at a NYE fancy dress party, there was instant attraction from both sides and a couple of years later they were married! They began trying for a baby just before they got married, Rachel thought it would take some time as she has a long surgical history with Crohn’s disease. After 9 months of trying the anxiety of it all was really affecting Rachel and so she went to the doctors. they were very understanding and ran tests on her, which all came back normal. They were referred to an IVF clinic and this is where Rachel’s consultant said that there were unknowns associated with her past surgeries but they didn’t know anything specifically, they were diagnosed with unexplained infertility. It was a really isolating, difficult and sad time for Rachel, she felt responsible somehow. The first round of IVF they underwent didn’t work. After this Rachel started having pain in her back, she had to have surgery. Whilst undergoing surgery her surgeon took a look at her ovaries, when she came round, the surgeon gave her some hope by saying she needed to just keep trying to conceive. They underwent another round of IVF, but this didn’t work either. Rachel was in the lowest point in her fertility journey and in her life, she felt that mentally and physically she couldn’t do anymore IVF. After some really scary thoughts and a lot of soul searching she knew she needed to take a different path to parenthood, this led her to adoption. It took Rachel’s husband some time to process everything that had happened so far but once he had decided adoption was the right road to take he was very quick at setting things in motion for them. It was the first time Rachel felt so excited and hopeful for the future, she knew only something amazing would come from the path they were going down. The process for adoption wasn’t too difficult for Rachel and her husband, she thinks this is partly due to the fact they had some great social workers but also because they were emotionally ready to deal with all of the difficult aspects and part of the process. Everything happened quite quickly and they were matched with a little girl and were given half a day after meeting her social worker to get everything together, as they would be bringing her home the next day! They were handed their tiny 3-month-old baby the next day and the emotions they both felt were just indescribable. Everything made sense, the stars aligned and Rachel knew everything they had to go through to get to now was for this incredible thing to happen. Rachel is so passionate about the communities she is in and supports so many women in different ways, giving them the support she never had when she was in such a difficult and isolating place.     BEST MOMENTS   “A special little girl born from her heart”   “Deep down I just always knew there was going to be an aspect of difficulty, I just had that gut feeling”   “Why does my body just keep failing me, why can’t I do what my body should be able to naturally do, I just felt this immense responsibility of it not working”   “I knew it didn’t matter to me how I became a mum, I just knew I had to be a mum”   “I felt like the only thing that was going to come from this experience was something really amazing”   “You can’t take anything personally, it’s not about you it’s about the child”   VALUABLE RESOURCES https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bump-Road-Story-Fertility-Trying-ebook/dp/B08NG3Y5BW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2BSEGG3JUCXJ4&dchild=1&keywords=a+bump+in+the+road&qid=1622450226&sprefix=a+bump%2Caps%2C276&sr=8-1   www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk       ABOUT THE GUEST Rachel