Pandemic sends family scrambling to get son
When Robyn Renyard heard in mid-march that the Canadian government was starting to turn international visitors around at the airports, she panicked.
Robyn and her husband, Michael, live in Adelaide, Australia. They had been planning to fly to Saskatoon in early April to witness the birth of their son, who was being carried by a surrogate, and bring him home.
Then the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic and Canada announced it would close its doors to the world by restricting international flights and turning international visitors away.
A few days later, the Australian border closed as well.
“We were sort of stuck between not being able to get into Canada because we weren’t residents and not being able to get out of our own country as well,” Robyn said.
She reached out to her lawyers in Saskatchewan and Australia, who began working on getting her and Michael travel exemptions for compassionate reasons. Time was ticking by. Their little boy was due April 18 and they would have to self-isolate in Canada for 14 days after landing. Each day they stayed home waiting for their exemptions, more international flights were cancelled.
“It was just many, many sleepless nights of anxiety and worry and I can’t explain how stressful it was,” Robyn said. “If we didn’t get there in time, then what would happen to our baby?”
Robyn and Michael, now ages 48 and 47 respectively, spent years trying to start a family on their own. After three miscarriages and a hysterectomy, they realized they would need to find an alternative way to have a baby. They looked into surrogacy within Australia, but because surrogacy arrangements are not enforceable there, they decided to look elsewhere.
Robyn and Michael, who have friends in Canada, signed up with a Canadian agency in December 2018. It was through that agency they met Jasmine Akre.
Acre, 35, lives in Martensville with her husband, Jay, and two sons. In 2018 they decided not to have any more kids of their own and Jasmine was overcome with a sense of grief that she would never be pregnant again. One day, while scrolling through her Facebook feed, she stumbled across an advertisement for a surrogacy agency. The next thing she knew, she was on the phone with the agency, inquiring about signing up before even talking with Jay, she said.
Jasmine and Jay pored through the profiles of couples looking for a surrogate and were overwhelmed by the number of people looking for help starting a family. Jasmine wanted to choose a couple she could be friends with, and the agency eventually suggested she have a video call with Robyn and Michael. As soon as they started talking, things “clicked,” Jasmine said.
“I just knew right away: These are my people, I’m totally doing this with these people,” she recalled.
Jasmine was matched with the Renyards on March 15, 2019. In August, she flew to Toronto to be implanted with an embryo. The pregnancy test she took two weeks later confirmed she was pregnant.
In the months before the baby was due, Jasmine and the Renyards made plans for the birth. They would be with Jasmine in the hospital, and a photographer would capture the moment.
“It was supposed to be like a party in the room,” Jasmine recalled.
COVID-19 threw those plans into disarray. At some points it looked like the Renyards might not even make it to the country, let alone the delivery room.
Jasmine assured the couple that she would care for the baby if they didn’t make it in time. Robyn said she hoped she wouldn’t have to take her up on the offer; it was a lot to ask of someone who had already given so much, and she worried about how difficult it would be for Jasmine to surrender a baby she had not only carried, but cared for.
After three weeks of trying, the exemptions came through and flights lined up. The Renyards flew from Adelaide to Saskatoon with stopovers in Sydney, Tokyo and Vancouver, to arrive on April 10.
They went straight to a rented home to self-isolate for 14 days.
Robyn and Michael resigned themselves to the fact they would not be able to see their baby as soon as he was born. But April 18 came and went — still no baby. Another day passed, and another.
On April 23, the Renyards got a letter informing them that their self-isolation was over. That evening, Jasmine when into labour.
Restrictions had started to ease in Saskatchewan by then; as Jasmine laboured, she asked if the Renyards would be allowed into the delivery room. The unit manager eventually agreed.
Robyn and Michael rushed in about 20 minutes before Joseph Michael Renyard entered the world at 2:40 a.m. on April 24.
“It was incredible to see,” Robyn said. “Apart from it being the most amazing thing to see your son being born, it was also incredible for us because we had been so far away from Jasmine and trying to get a gauge of how much she was going through, to be able to see the sacrifice that she’d made, just physically her being in labour, I think was important for us to see what this amazing human being was doing for us.”
Jasmine says she knows the final minutes of labour weren’t pretty, but she is so grateful the Renyards were in the room to witness them.
“What we were fighting for and hoping for was that they would get to see him delivered, because there’s something about that. I always wanted that to be a part of our story, for them to see him be born,” she said.
“I watched my sister give birth to my nephew and I’ve never felt so close to a child that wasn’t mine. There’s something about when you’re in the room when a child is born. You’ve seen them from their first breath, and you get to see this dirty, magical, crazy, ugly, beautiful thing happen. And there’s something about that that’s so amazing, I did not want them to be robbed of it all.”
In the days that followed, the Akres and Renyards formed a virtual household and saw each other every day.
“(Jasmine and Jay) basically helped us become parents and helped us with everything,” Robyn said. “They were just incredible to us.”
The Renyards were also trying to sort out the logistics of taking their son home. They needed custody papers, but courts were not operating at full capacity. They needed a passport, but passport offices were closed save for exceptional circumstances. They needed to find flights that would take them home, but international flights were few and far between.
With the help of their lawyers and staff at the provincial courthouse, passport office and a London Drugs photo centre, the Renyards eventually found themselves saying a difficult goodbye to the Akres and then making their way home with stops in Toronto, Montreal, Doha and Sydney.
Joseph slept most of the 30-hour journey.
In Australia, international arrivals must self isolate for 14 days in a hotel, so when the Renyards finally landed in Adelaide on May 13, a border security agent escorted them to a hotel. They washed baby clothes in the sink, ate meals brought in disposable containers and sometimes gathered at the window to wave down at Robyn’s mother, who would come to catch a glimpse of her grandson from seven stories down.
The family returned home May 27.
They are still in constant communication with Jasmine and Jay, who have been named Joseph’s honorary aunt and uncle. Though Joseph is across the world from where he was born, his new room in Australia is filled with mementos from Canada. Robyn said the family looks forward to returning to Saskatoon to visit with the Akres when it’s safe to do so.
“Obviously it’s a dream come true for us,” Robyn said. “We sort of went the long way around to get there, but we definitely feel that out of this we’ve got family for life now, and that’s so important to us. And as Joseph grows he’ll get to know the story — the incredible story.”
(Jasmine and Jay) basically helped us become parents and helped us with everything. They were just incredible to us.