Lisa’s baby joy
Woman’sDay found me a surrogate!
The pram is in the garage, the 14-weeks can pictures are hung on the wall and Lisa Tamati is pinching herself.
After battling infertility and other health-related issues, the 50-year-old champion endurance athlete and her firefighter husband Haisley O’Leary are finally going to be parents. And it’s all because of the couple’s plea in the pages of Woman’s Day last September, when they put out an SOS call for an egg donor and surrogate mother. “The story bore fruit!” laughs Lisa. “We now have a beautiful surrogate mum, Nicole Brisco, who is four months pregnant with our son, due in mid-July. It’s a Woman’sDay baby! It’s the greatest gift anybody could ever give us.”
Reachingout
As Hawera-based Nicole and her husband Kane arrive for our photo shoot, Lisa excitedly jumps up to greet them, asking, “Have you got a bump yet? Ooh, yes, look, it’s poking out!” Gathering around the table in Lisa and Haisley’s New Plymouth home, the two couples talk and laugh like they’re friends from way back. “It does feel like we’re family,” muses the former ultramarathon runner. “Nicole could be my younger sister. She looks like me, has a similar personality and we’re even from the same tribe – Te Atiawa. We’re bonded for life now.” Downplaying her selfless act, Nicole, a registered
nurse, says she’s always been a “helper” and the reward of assisting someone to achieve their baby dream outweighed the risks.
Already a mother to Ahli, five, and Parker, two, Nicole has completed her family, but she’s often thought about being a surrogate. By chance, the keen runner had signed up to Lisa’s online coaching group a month before reading the article that would bring the two women together.
Nicole recalls, “I turned to Kane and said, ‘Oh wow, you should see Lisa’s story – she’s looking for a surrogate.’ Kane replied, ‘You could do that!’”
So the 31-year-old posted a comment on Lisa’s private Facebook coaching page: “I’ve got a uterus that’s free.”
Lisa quickly messaged back, “Are you just joking or would you seriously consider it?”
Picking up the story, dairy farmer Kane, 32, continues, “When I got home from work, Nicole showed me Lisa’s reply and I said, ‘Oh, you’ve gone and done it now!’”
The couple went through counselling to ensure they’d considered everything the surrogacy entailed and that they could both cope with it, mentally and emotionally. They were soon given the green light and it was time to make a baby.
Like clockwork, Nicole fell pregnant on the first ovulation
cycle. “There’s no point mucking around and we also needed to fit the pregnancy around calving season on the farm!” she grins.
Once the pregnancy was confirmed, Nicole wrapped the positive pregnancy test in a little gift box along with a pair of baby running shoes, then she and Kane drove to New Plymouth under the guise of wanting to meet Lisa’s parents.
“When we saw it, we were so excited and happy,” smiles Haisley, 40, who is taking 22 weeks of parental leave to be the newborn’s primary caregiver. “We thought surrogacy was going to be a long-haul process. It’s mind-blowing that the first time we try, we succeed.”
“Haisley has always wanted to be a dad and this was the driving factor for me in asking
Woman’sDay for help,” says Lisa. “I didn’t want to take fatherhood away from him just because he married an older lady with damaged kidneys from smashing her body for 25 years.”
The couple began trying for a baby soon after they met five years ago. Fertility specialists told them the chances of having a child were near impossible – less than one percent – and Lisa was too old for IVF. Beating the odds, they were thrilled to become pregnant
but sadly suffered a miscarriage at 12 weeks.
Lisa remained on n fertility drugs until l a year ago, before realising that even if she miraculously y got pregnant again, n, the risks associated d at her age were too o high. But she was determined not to give up hope.
Heartened by broadcaster Toni Street’s treet’s recent journey with h her son Lachlan, Lisa met with Toni’s best friend and surrogate rrogate mother Sophie Braggins, ggins, who encouraged her er to “go for it and put a call l out”.
“Not everyone is s going to have an amazing g outcome like ours, but now I want to inspire others to o open up conversations and help people connect,” says ays Lisa. “How many other babies could be born?
“I feel so indebted ed to Nicole and Kane. Our baby will know that she was the biological mother and it’s important to me he e knows he has an extended d family with a half-brother and sister.”
Grinning, Nicole e adds, “When we told our r daughter that Mummy is going ing to have a baby for Lisa and Haisley, she gave the best response: esponse: ‘Why don’t you just t give them my brother Parker?’” ?’”