Ms Cathy Wheatley:

I thank Senator Keogan for her question. When we were deciding where to go to create our family, we looked at the clinics and the countries which had the best protections in place for the surrogate. One of the things that we also worried about was that psychological impact on the surrogate. There is the physical act of giving birth and one’s brain, emotions and everything need time to catch up with that. We chose a clinic which offered support to the surrogate after she had given birth. It was very important to us that she had access to counselling before and after birth, if she needed that. I have been told that some surrogates do not wish to avail of this but it was very important to us to safeguard the fact that if she needed it, there would be support there for her.