Super sisters: ‘We’ve got 22 kids between us’
MEET THE SELFLESS SIBLINGS HELPING WOMEN ALL OVER AUSTRALIA
When Samara van der Worp and her now husband Wynn went on their first date, he asked her if she had children. Nodding, she told him she had 10. ‘I thought it might scare him off, but it didn’t,’ 32-yearold Samara laughs, going on to explain that while all 10 are biologically hers, only one, Alex, lives with her. The Brisbane mum is an egg donor, and over the past six years she’s donated 15 times – resulting in nine children for families unable to have kids of their own. ‘I became interested in egg donation after my own rocky experience having a child,’ Samara tells New Idea. ‘I have a hormone deficiency, which makes it very difficult for me to get pregnant, and it took five years to conceive Alex. It was a long and painful journey and I wondered, with egg donation, if I could take that pain away from another desperate family.’
As she looked into it and then made the decision to donate to a woman who’d been trying for a baby for 15 years, her sister Sarah was by her side.
‘Sarah’s seen all my struggles and always been very supportive,’ Samara says. ‘About six months after I donated eggs, she talked to me about whether she could do it too. I told her if you can, you should, and our journey began there.’
‘I had three children very easily,’ Sarah, 34, reveals. ‘I know how lucky I am and if I have eggs I’m not using, it makes sense to share them.’
Over the next six years, the pair met hundreds of childless families and went through
numerous, often painful, egg retrievals to help some of them.
‘I woke up from one retrieval to see 32 written on my hand, which was the number of eggs they’d extracted,’ Samara remembers. ‘My nurse was so excited it was such a huge number, but I’d seen the lady next to me had zero written on her hand. She was bawling and her pain killed me. I know what it feels like and it inspired me to keep donating.’
As their babies were born all over Australia and New Zealand, Sarah and Samara developed a huge extended family.
‘There’s no expectation to stay in touch, but the women I’ve helped have become great friends with me and often each other,’ Samara says. ‘We have a Facebook group and we meet up annually. There’s one little girl, Ruby, who looks just like I did when I was her age. I love it and feel so lucky to have these families in my life.’
Alex, now eight, loves it too – calling the kids his ‘egg cousins’.
‘He says they are our ‘chosen family’ because they are the people we chose to help,’ says Samara, smiling.
Most recently Samara helped Paula and John Kavanaugh have baby Liam.
‘We’d been trying for a baby for about five years and two previous egg donors hadn’t worked,’ Paula, 44, says. ‘When Sammy’s eggs gave us Liam, it was the gift that made our lives complete. I can never express how grateful we are, and I was doubly lucky because Sammy’s also become... Liam’s godmother.’
Months later, Paula asked Samara if she would consider donating again to give Liam a little brother or sister, but for once, Samara said no.
‘Wynn and I were going through IVF and at last we’d fallen pregnant,’ she explains. ‘Of course I still wanted to help Paula, so I spoke to Sarah about whether she’d do it instead.’
Sarah, who has three kids of her own and two stepchildren – and has helped create nine more babies – agreed straightaway.
‘It meant Liam would share a genetic link with his sibling because Samara and I share genetics,’ Sarah says, adding: ‘It means his brother will also be his cousin, which is quite weird!’
The process was successful on the first embryo transfer and Paula is now 12 weeks pregnant with a little boy.
‘Samara and Sarah have given us an opportunity we never would have had otherwise,’ Paula says. ‘They are so humble about it though, and both tell me it’s no big deal. It’s obviously a huge deal for us!’
Sadly, Samara lost her baby at 12 weeks, but she refuses to let her sadness impact on how she feels for other families.
‘I’m always excited for my recipients,’ she smiles. ‘I’d love another baby, but if I can’t make it happen for myself, why wouldn’t I help someone else? They deserve it as much as I do, and actually their happiness takes away some of my sadness.’
‘Her pain killed me. I know what it feels like and it inspired me to keep donating’