Top Aussie designer: joy after our Thai surrogacy nightmare
When Aaron Elias met fashion designer Jayson Brunsdon, he knew they would have a family together. Yet he didn’t know the path to parenthood would involve moments of desperation, cruel discrimination and an accusation of child trafficking, writes Juliet Ri
It’s 35 degrees outside and though his parents are wilting, Roman Brunsdon is running around his home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs like a champion greyhound, chuckling as he delights in an apartment full of people. His mother, Rebecca, 38, looks on with a knowing smile from her chair in the middle of the room, where she’s having her hair and make-up done for The Weekly’s photo shoot, while Daddy Aaron, 45, tries to hold up clothes in front of the darting two-year-old in preparation for his portrait. Papa Jayson, 52, one of Australia’s bestknown fashion designers, is giving advice on colours from the sidelines, standing in front of a whirring fan in an attempt to cool down.
Roman has been a ball of energy since before he was born and now he’s a toddler there’s no stopping him. “It was interesting,” says Aaron, later. “When we went for the ultrasound in Thailand, just before he was born, the doctor said, ‘He’s very active in the womb’.” Aaron is referring to surrogate Porn’s womb. Porn is the Thai mother of two from Chiang Mai, who was 33 years old when she carried Roman – the product of Rebecca’s egg and Jayson’s sperm – for nine tumultuous months, giving birth two years ago in a Bangkok hospital, with Aaron in the delivery room, Jayson pacing the corridor outside and Rebecca anxiously watching her phone for messages back in Sydney.
On the surface, this may look like a very modern family with two dads and the miracles of the latest fertility medicine. Yet as I sit down to talk with Roman’s parents and his mother, Rebecca, I realise this beautiful little boy is actually part of a very traditional family, surrounded by a rich network of involved half-siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles.
The story of how Roman came to be here is the subject of Aaron’s powerful new book Designer Baby. The book, says Aaron, is for Roman, “so when he grows up, he can understand everything and have every detail”. Yet it’s also because Aaron and Jayson are hopeful that their terrifying path to parenthood will inspire changes to the surrogacy laws in Australia, making this process easier for all prospective parents.
“Aaron asked and I said yes immediately. I felt honoured.”
A traumatic childhood
Aaron Elias Brunsdon was born in Singapore, the son of a “stern” school teacher father and a “stay-at-home mum”. He and his two siblings spoke English and a bit of Malay at home and his family was part of a tightknit, 1500-strong community of Singaporean Sephardic Jews. Aaron says he always felt like an outsider and not just because of his religion. “I didn’t play soccer, like my brother, instead I preferred to stay home and read. And I couldn’t really relate to my heritage and didn’t feel – or look – Singaporean. I was slightly effeminate as well, and I was always troubled.
I felt like I didn’t fit in.”
Aaron describes himself as a naughty, stubborn and rebellious child who “craved” the attention of his family. Then, from the age of seven, Aaron became the victim of shocking sexual abuse, robbing him of his childhood. The perpetrator was a man within his community and the abuse continued for two long years.
“It’s very hard talking about it even now,” says Aaron, fighting back tears. “After it stopped, I was very scared. Every time I saw him, I ran.”
As a teenager, Aaron had a few girlfriends – one relationship lasted three years – but he says it never felt quite right, though he didn’t fully appreciate why. “I don’t think I really knew I was gay until I was 17 or 18.” Even when he did know, Aaron didn’t tell his family. Homosexuality was – and still is – illegal in Singapore and he knew his parents would not take the news well.
So, after his compulsory National Service, Aaron “escaped” to Australia and a new life, where he could be himself. At first, Aaron moved in with his Auntie Sally (actually his dad’s first cousin) in her sprawling family home in Bondi. Aaron was especially close to Sally’s daughter, Rebecca, who he saw as his “little sister”. “I used to write to her every week from Singapore and the other day she pulled out all the letters.”
Jayson says Aaron and Rebecca are like peas in a pod. “They’re always having secrets and whispers together,” he says, laughing.
“I’d joke that Aaron is my husband,” says Rebecca. “It was playful and great, but the older I became, the closer our connection has been.” Little did she know then that their special bond would be the key to Aaron and Jayson fulfilling their dream to be parents.
When Aaron met Jayson
Jayson Brunsdon was born in the
’60s and describes his childhood on Sydney’s Northern Beaches as “very Australian, middle-class, suburban. I spent a lot of time on my own and would draw on my blackboard in the backyard,” he says. “I loved old movies and my mother would watch them with me.”
Jayson says he was five years old when he knew he was gay. “I had a crush on the boy who was in Flipper, Luke Halpin,” he recalls, smiling.
His parents didn’t know any gay people and it wasn’t “until I was about 17 or 18 that they started questioning me. I had a girlfriend for a few years, but then I started having sex with boys when I was about 16.
“My parents were concerned on all levels. There was AIDS, there was the fear that you’re going to grow up all alone, you’re never going to have a family – all that stuff.”
Aaron was the manager at Sydney’s premier gay club Stonewall and Jayson was an internationally acclaimed fashion designer when they were introduced at a party. “We fell in love immediately,” Jayson says. “I remember dropping in on a friend and I said, ‘I think I’ve fallen in love. I fell in love last night.’ And that was it. We had a date on the next night and we saw the movie Life Is Beautiful.”
“I knew for certain I was going to spend the rest of my life with this man, the one who comforted me through the film,” says Aaron, “and I knew I would be a father and have a child with him some day. It was a premonition. I’d always thought I was going to have a child, ever since a very young age, but when I met Jayson, I just knew it.”
The lights came up and an over-excited Aaron told Jayson his thoughts. As first date proclamations go, this was pretty intense, but Jayson wasn’t fazed at all. Unlike Aaron, he’d never considered parenthood. “I think growing up gay in Australia, it wasn’t something that was on the agenda. The way society was here in the ’80s and ’90s, you didn’t have children if you were gay; it just didn’t happen.” Yet Aaron’s assured vision of their future sparked something in Jayson and the impossible started to seem possible.
Jayson and Aaron became inseparable. Then, in 2008, their lives came tumbling down when Jayson was diagnosed with testicular cancer. It was a tumultuous time, but when Jayson finally received the all-clear, following extensive surgery, it made the couple even more determined to start a family of their own – and soon.
Project surrogacy
Surrogacy within Australia was not a legal option for the couple. Aaron began extensive research and discovered Sam Everingham, the director of Families Through Surrogacy, who advised them to look at the excellent surrogacy clinics in Thailand and slowly a plan took shape.
In theory, a surrogate is not allowed to be paid for her services. Instead, Jayson and Aaron paid the clinic, the doctor, the hospital and the staff what are termed daily living expenses and medical costs for their surrogate. In actuality, these expenses are more than the surrogate would earn doing other work. It’s a crazy loophole that allows surrogates to work and couples who can’t give birth – both heterosexual and homosexual – to bring children into the world. For Jayson and Aaron, the overall cost of having Roman – including flights and stays in Thailand – was about $100,000.
Finding a mother
Aaron wanted their baby to be part of them both and thought the ideal solution was for Jayson to be the biological father and Aaron’s sister, Florence, to donate her eggs, with their Thai surrogate as the carrier for their baby. “The main reason I wanted to ask my sister was so that there was a blood link between me and our child,” explains Aaron.
It was a good plan, but they both knew that Florence, who is religious with traditional values, was a long shot. When Florence said no, “It was devastating,” says Aaron, with a deep sigh. “She thought we were playing with nature, that it was not normal.” Florence didn’t only think donating her eggs was a bad idea, she was against her brother’s plans to be a parent, which cut very deep.
Aaron and Jayson were crushed. They started thinking about donor eggs and then came their light bulb moment. What about Rebecca?
“Aaron asked and I said yes immediately. I felt honoured,” says Rebecca.
All three were thrilled and started plotting, but there were others involved here, too. There were Rebecca’s three children, Noah, Ariel and Aidan (now 14, 12 and 10 respectively), her partner, Simon, her mother, Sally. There were both Jayson and Aaron’s parents … the list goes on. The couple decided to reveal their plan to Rebecca’s immediate and extended family in one hit, at the Hanukkah dinner.
The family comes together for Shabbat every week and it’s always a joyous, “hilarious” and very noisy gathering. I imagine it’s like a scene from a Woody Allen movie. “It’s more like being in The Nanny,” Jayson quips.
“Rebecca announced to everyone that I had some good news to tell and I kept pinching her under the table,”
says Aaron, who started to explain that after 16 years together, he and Jayson were going “to live our life-long dream of being parents and we’ve started the process, and we’re going to have a baby in Thailand”.
The room erupted into “mazel tovs”. So far, so good. Then Rebecca chimed in with, “That’s not all. I’m Jayson and Aaron’s donor mum.”
“Complete silence. You could hear a pin drop,” says Aaron. Rebecca’s mum, Sally, was worried. How would her children – who were not at the table for the announcement and weren’t told until much later – react? And Rebecca’s partner, Simon, was shocked, especially since not long before he had talked to her about having a child together and she had said the time wasn’t right.
“Looking back on it, we should have told them separately and given them time. But we were just so excited and we just thought everyone’s going to be on the same page,” says Rebecca. Although not 100 per cent convinced, eventually, they all were supportive.
Trouble in Thailand
And so the roller-coaster started! Everything was planned by Kay, the
Thai surrogacy agent, to whom both Aaron and Jayson say they owe “a huge debt of gratitude” and is now a good friend. Leading fertility specialist Dr Pisit had trained at Monash in Melbourne and his
IVF clinic was modern, impressive and exciting, says Rebecca.
The trio prepared to meet surrogate Porn. “She had a gentle, sweet, honest nature and seemed very humble,” says Jayson. “I remember her energy was so nice and I said to Aaron, she reminds me of my mum,” adds Rebecca.
They were putting the life of their child in this stranger’s hands and, of course, they were worried. Porn could have refused to hand over the baby.
She could have decided to have a termination when the going got tough – and it did. She could have run off with their money, paid in instalments throughout her pregnancy. Yet their only option was to trust her.
It was only at this point that the couple started to realise that they hadn’t considered the viability of Jayson’s sperm following his chemotherapy. “I remember my father saying to me, ‘Have you had your sperm tested?’ I just didn’t even think about it.” What’s more, Rebecca’s eggs were not growing quickly enough. Eventually just one egg stood the test of time in Porn’s womb. They were on a knife-edge – there was only one chance for this to work.
Against all odds, Porn became pregnant. When they discovered it was a boy, Jayson was in Ballina visiting his parents. “My father was so happy, so happy,” he says, with a tear in his eye.
Then, just three days later, Thai surrogacy laws were put on hold as the reported (and later proven to be erroneous) abandonment of Down syndrome baby Gammy by an Australian couple played out in the media. The new Thai military junta government quickly reviewed the laws around surrogacy and targeted clinics.
Surrogates were scared and it was reported that many were opting for termination. Jayson and Aaron’s clinic was one of those closed down and soon there was a new law banning homosexuals from using
Thai surrogates.
For about five weeks, Jayson and Aaron had no idea what would happen to their son and feared they may lose him all together. “I just felt so victimised,” says Jayson. “We just want to have a family. What’s so wrong with that! I was really angry.”
Aaron and Jayson were lucky, though – the new ruling wouldn’t kick in until after Roman’s birth.
In Daddy’s arms at last
Roman was to be born by Caesarean and only one dad was allowed in the theatre with Porn. Jayson decided that Aaron would be the first to see their son. “I thought it had to be Aaron. We had been through so much and he had carried the whole thing, and I thought he needs to have that first connection.”
The birth was quick, over in 10 minutes, but for Aaron, it was the most joyous 10 minutes of his life. “The whole thing was so blurred. There was this child in front of me wriggling and I thought, that’s my son. It felt so surreal, I just couldn’t believe it. I started to cry and I was trembling. I said, ‘Darling, darling, it’s Daddy. Papa is outside waiting for you.’”
Back in their hotel room, Aaron’s parents came over from Singapore to help out as Aaron spent hours
at the Australian Embassy with the endless paperwork.
Yet they had one more battle in store and this one had them shaking in their boots. On their way to the airport, Jayson felt strangely nervous. “He gets this sixth sense,” says Aaron. Roman was in a striped onesie sleeping in his bassinet when his proud fathers carried him through Immigration. Aaron had been told that the Embassy would smooth their way through the airport and there should be no hiccups.
“We put our bags on the X-ray machines and there were four or five of them making horrible jokes about us. Jayson said to me, ‘Just let this moment pass, let them have it.’ I bit my tongue and we went into the Customs area,” says Aaron.
“They were military police who appeared from nowhere and they stopped us,” continues Jayson. The men were menacing, angry and bullying, and words like “child trafficking” were bandied about. They demanded to see Roman’s mother. Under Thai law, the birth mother is the child’s legal guardian and surrogates need to sign a form to allow parents to leave the country with their child. Porn had already done this, but the authorities were not content.
“I was absolutely dying inside,” says Jayson. “Then it flashes through your mind, I could go to jail.”
“I thought Jayson was going to be arrested and they were going to take Roman away from us. It was truly one of the most frightening times of my life,” says Aaron.
Eventually, the Embassy helped out and Jayson and Aaron found themselves heading for the airport gate. “We held each other’s hands the whole way home and Roman just slept through the whole thing.”
Back in Australia, Rebecca held Roman in her arms for the first time. “She was crying,” says Aaron. “I stared into those big eyes and he stared at me. He was just adorable,” says Rebecca.
Was it hard for Rebecca to leave her biological son with Aaron and Jayson? “No, because I knew that was my role. I was his mother, but he was being raised by his parents, that’s Jayson and Aaron. I really believe that they will do everything for this child to raise him as a great person.”
Roman sees Rebecca and his halfsiblings all the time and has a huge extended family in Australia and Singapore. “He’s a happy, happy boy and it’s such a credit to Jayson and Aaron,” says Rebecca. “They’re such good parents.”