Where we are at in the process of things;

We have been researching locations and options for surrogacy for over a year now. Some of the best options for affordability and ethical practices, along with protecting the rights of us - the would be parents, are found in Europe.

The primary issue we currently face is the legal limitations of the countries we wish to raise a family in - as far as what those countries will allow.

For example, in Australia in NSW, QLD and ACT (from what we have researched) only altruistic surrogacy is legal - meaning only a volunteer who receives nothing more than medical expenses covered is legal at present. Commercial surrogacy could potentially see you prosecuted for human trafficking violations, which we obviously don’t want and we would never consider any methods/locations/clinics we believe are in any way associated with that sort of behaviour.

So given we are going off what Google tells/shows us - after the Wedding (19APR2025) we got a referral from our GP to speak to a Fertility Specialist with City Fertility who I (Zeek) have been a patient with since storing my sperm before my Lumbar Surgery in 2023.

City Fertility have connections with Rainbow Fertility and experts who can assist us in knowing the reality of the legalities and what avenues we can pursue to keep ourselves safe in Australia. We have a Zoom conference booked with the Fertility Specialist on 20JUN2025 and then we can make a informed decision on whether Australia will be a viable place for us to have children, or potentially if we need to set up abroad permanently - or until the Australian Laws catch up to modern times, which does seem in the pipeline but we aren’t getting any younger.

Our secondary choice long term is staying in Taiwan permanently. Taiwan also has a no commercial surrogacy policy within Taiwan, however we could potentially have our children in Europe and then have them recognised in Taiwan. This is likely the avenue we will go down if we get road blocked in Australia.

Our third option is moving to California where the laws are more liberal and up to date for non-traditional couples wanting to start families, however; we are very apprehensive given the current political climate and not wanting our kids growing up with shooter drills and gun violence being so prevalent.

So at present - 12MAY2025 - we are in the research and conversing with specialist stage to make the most informed decision for success and safety of our future family.

More updates to follow in coming months.

Transparency of fund raising/donations;

At present we have raised around $2000AUD from friends and family.

We initially used GoFundMe, however they take a chunk of the donations which is why we have moved to requesting direct transfers.

All donations will be stored in a seperate savings account only to be spent on expenses directly related to us starting our family.

Currently we have around $1050AUD in the account as we are waiting on GoFundMe to deposit the most recent donations.

I (Zeek) have attached screenshots below to show this.

Once GoFundMe have deposited their balance, I will set up a reporting spreadsheet with monthly updates of deposits and expenditure for transparency.

We have our own savings to go towards our family, however we keep that seperate on our mortgage offset to keep our interest down and understandably will not be publicly disclosing/reporting that.

We just want to be transparent on the donation side of things so no one feels ripped off or that we are wasting/misusing their contributions.