Claire Colthurst with Mark (left) and Ben (right) at the recent baby shower.
A pregnant Whangārei mum explains to Jodi Bryant why she is carrying out the ultimate selfless deed and relinquishing the baby she will give birth to in March.
When the baby inside Claire Colthurst moves, she feels no emotional connection. But though void of maternal feelings, she knows the little boy she will give birth to in March will be well-loved.
After giving birth to her firstborn almost 16 years ago, there were no more babies on the agenda for Colthurst. A further three births later, she is now carrying for the fifth time. But that’s where her journey with this baby ends.
The selfless 39-year-old will hand over the baby she is carrying to a same-sex male couple who have been trying various avenues for the last four years to have a baby of their own. Knowing little about surrogacy, Colthurst explains how her decision came about.
“I’ve never had any trouble (conceiving and carrying) and have been very lucky but my mum had had some issues with miscarriages and a rough pregnancy and birth with me and so it had always been on my radar that people did struggle to carry babies to term.
Then mum passed away 18 months ago, and I don’t know if it was a bit of a life change because of that but I just wanted to have done one super-selfless deed, that had no favourable or monetary outcome, where it would change someone’s life.”
In New Zealand, it’s illegal to compensate a surrogacy and carries a hefty fine. While pregnancy-related costs can be covered, no money changes hands.
Her offer is all the more kind considering Colthurst doesn’t enjoy pregnancy and so far this one has been a rough ride.
“I really, really don’t like it. I get polyhydramnios (excessive fluid) so I’m just ginormous and super puffy, and I get oedema in my feet.
“It goes to the extreme. I struggle with feeling not myself and having a foreign being inside me and limited movement.
“I’m not one of those natural pregnancy goddesses that glow. So I’m just miserable,” she laughs. “But I just have to truck through and I have willpower so kind of just barrel through.”
There was Connor, nearly 16, with whom she had a 36-hour, traumatic labour as he was posterior and she needed a lot of stitches after.
As a single mum, she thought that would be it but then she met husband Patrick and was pregnant with Ahria, 11, six months later.
Colthurst found Ahria’s easy birth to be healing after her last one.
Then Willow, 8, the only planned baby, came along and was out 51 minutes after the first contraction. They thought they were done but then along came Knox, 5, who was also posterior and the hardest to get out.
“But I still really enjoy the labour and delivery side, that’s my most empowering part. Maybe because it’s the end of the journey of pregnancy which I don’t enjoy,” she muses.
Colthurst, who says she is “super-fertile”, initially looked at egg donation, however, Patrick wasn’t comfortable with that option.
“Patrick was 100% on board with surrogacy but he had two conditions; to not use my eggs, and he really wanted me to do it for a same-sex couple, especially men as their opportunities to have children are so much lower and they don’t get public funding for IVF, they have to rely on the generosity of someone offering to be a surrogate for them.”
Her first step in July 2023 was putting up a post on the NZ Egg Donor and Surrogacy Facebook page seeking information on the process. She was inundated with replies.
“I received around 75 replies that were simultaneously heart-breaking to read and just desperate.
I found it really hard to read through them. I had to turn the comments off as, although most of them were positive, some were treating me like I was a walking uterus.
There was probably only a handful of people who introduced themselves about why they were on the infertility journey and got to know me.
It was really hard and I was struggling big time. It opened my eyes a lot as well about the struggle people have had as I never experienced that so I had gone into it naively.”
In amongst them, she received a message from an Auckland-based guy named Ben who simply answered all the questions she’d asked, sent her information and put her in touch with a co-ordinator.
“He was just informing me and getting to know me as a person. Not once did he say, ‘Actually me and my partner are looking for a surrogate. It wasn’t until down the track after we’d got to know each other that he asked and said, ‘I don’t know if you’re interested or if we gel …’”
The two couples FaceTimed and, “it was just a really comfortable conversation.
“After the conversation ended, my husband looked at me and said, ‘They’re the ones’. I felt like that from the get-go. Everything felt organic like nothing was forced.”
After they had all the information needed and Ben and his partner Mark had made contact with their co-ordinator, Colthurst had a full medical to ensure she was a viable surrogate which came back that she was the perfect candidate.
Then all parties underwent mandatory counselling, both individually and together.
At the joint session with both counsellors present, Colthurst recalls being asked invasive questions of things she had never considered, such as what they would do if tests showed Down’s syndrome, or if the baby’s or her health was compromised and she was medically incapacitated where her husband needed to make a call.
Then there were questions regarding should the couple separate. They even broached child support and wills.
“Because their child is legally mine and my husband’s until they formally adopt it, we are the birth parents on the birth certificate until then so we had to put plans in place to protect ourselves and them. There were some random, really archaic things that I hadn’t expected to pop up,” Colthurst explains.
However, none of this changed her decision. “I knew I was in it until we had a successful pregnancy.”
Both men, in their early 30s, had embryos frozen and, in May, Colthurst travelled to Auckland where one of the thawed embryos was transferred into her uterus via a catheter. She was sent home to wait 10 days for blood tests to confirm a pregnancy. It was unsuccessful.
“I was devastated,” recalls Colthurst. “I felt like my body had let me down.”
However, the second embryo transfer in June was successful and so far the pregnancy has gone smoothly. While the baby is 100% healthy, Colthurst is undergoing complications “which are a whole different ball game” to her other pregnancies.
“I have really high blood pressure, bad oedema already and lots of random things going on. I’ve spent a lot of time in hospital and have been told I am 300% likely to get pre-eclampsia. My body is essentially trying to reject it.
“But I would like to deliver naturally without putting myself or baby at risk. I’d like to hand a really healthy full-term baby to the guys.”
Together for seven years, it’s been a four-year expensive process for Ben and Mark involving two surrogates, after the first one fell through, and two egg donors.
They have been “super supportive” of Colthurst and her health throughout the journey, offering to hire a cleaner and food services to ease the pressure.
They have also been in regular contact FaceTiming once a week and messaging throughout the day. Earlier on, they came up for the day and met Colthurst’s family and spent a day with them at their Pataua South home.
While she does concede it takes a massive toll on the body and family, her family have been supportive.
“All my kids are fully aware of what’s going on. They know I’m just the oven baking the baby for the couple we’re doing it for and my 5-year-old asked, ‘Once you’ve done growing this baby for the guys, will you grow one for us?’ I’m like, ‘Noo, no-no, we’re done.”
Her extended family are also supportive although her dad had some initial reservations. “More so, because he knows I hate being pregnant and, this time, I wouldn’t have my mum at my labour and birth as she sat through all my other ones.”
Others’ reactions have been disbelief that she would do this for free while some have been critical of her helping out a same-sex couple, which opened her eyes to how people can still be judgmental in today’s society.
“As a result, I’ve become super-protective as I know there’s some same-sex gender who shouldn’t be parenting. The love and support for them is what determines if they’re going to be a good parent.”
This was confirmed at the recent baby shower she attended at the couple’s Auckland home.
“If I hadn’t been 100% convinced that I’d chosen the right couple, I was that day. Their friends and family are just incredible, beautiful people with so much love and they are just so excited.”
She also met the egg donor therewho she hit it off with.
When it comes time to hand over the baby boy she gives birth to, Colthurst says she will have no trouble.
“I don’t get emotional with my babies. I bond with them afterward when breastfeeding so I don’t feel emotionally invested at all. I’m not having to prepare or buy anything or think of names. I just feel like it’s a part-time job that I’m not being paid for,” she laughs.
While she’s happy to breastfeed the first few days to provide the golden colostrum and even continue to pump and send milk, she says that will ultimately be the parents’ call, as is whether she stays in the baby’s life.
“I have said that I would like semi-regular updates as they feel comfortable but I’m also conscious of the fact that we live separate lives.
I have four children, a job and my own family. I will always be there for them if they want advice in the middle of the night. I think it would have been different if it had been my egg and been mine.
“At the baby shower, it was almost a bit overwhelming as everyone thought I was some kind of saint whereas I was just doing it because I can. Their parents said to me: ‘This baby is going to be so loved’ and I have no doubt.”
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