December 16, 2025 • 14 mins
China's wealthy elite have turned their attention to the US in order to utilise their less-regulated surrogacy system to build their families.
In New Zealand, the surrogacy sector is more regulated - where the process is an altruistic arrangement and a prospective caregiver has to legally adopt the child from the person who becomes pregnant.
Caller Dominique joined the Afternoons team to discuss her journey with this process.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We're talking about surrogacy. This is on the back of
a story by The Wall Street Journal which uncovered in
the largely unregulated you with surrogacy industry, wealthy Chinese elites
using American mothers to have children.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
This is interesting from Ryan. When you have all the
money in the world, DNA is the next big thing.
Happens a lot more than we know. Some already have
fifty to one hundred kids. So is that saying that
you've got all the money in the world, but there's
a sort of immortality part of spreading your DNA around.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I suppose it would be so you are.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Having a bigger footprint on the world because you know
you remain mortal.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, you've hit the billionaire goal and the next thing
is have lots of kids.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Dominique, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Thanks for giving us a call. So you have a
wonderful story. You have a baby on the way via surrogacy.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
I do. I actually had it. I haven't been listening
to the show, but a friend of mine text and
was like, Hey, do you talking on the radio? They're
looking for someone who is going through surrogacy. So my
husband and I am currently expecting a little girl six
(01:28):
months away after like a five year journey with IVF,
and we are expecting her vias furrogacy, which is very cool.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
How did you thank you so much for it, for
bringing in and thank your friends for getting hold of
you for us, this is this is great and great
to hear your story. So once you decided to go
the sarrogathy surrogacy past, how did you approach that dominique?
Speaker 4 (01:52):
So in New Zealand, it's quite a complex procedure. It's
not something we could just decide. We had to be
I guess offered by our medical practitioners. Our like fertility
doctors recommended that it might be the only way that
it would sort of happen for us. And so you
(02:13):
go in front of the New Zealand Ethics Committee to
get approval, you've got to have a bit of a
history with a fertility clinic of not being able to
get pregnant or you know, IVF not working, which we had,
and so once we were offered that as an option
(02:37):
in New Zealand, it's it's completely altruistic. So we couldn't
go to like an agency how they've got in America
and offer to pay someone. So I put it on
our social media and an old friend of mine reached out.
We have been back. We had lots of people reaching
out that ultimately went with an old friend, which was
(03:00):
amazing because the other problem with the law in New
Zealand is that the birth mother is seen as the
legal parent, and the birth mother has up until a
year after your child is born to change their mind
(03:21):
because we have to adopt our baby once she's born.
And so yeah, a little bit scary if you get
someone that does change their mind, they've got a whole
year to decide that.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
What was the motivation for the old friend to do
the surrogacy, because you know, as you were saying, for
it's not a it can't be a commercial venture here
in New Zealand, it has to be altruistic from the
sarg mother.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Yeah, look, she is just one of those people that,
in fact, when I posted on social media, I knew
that she would be someone that would offer because that's
just so in her nature. And I mean, I can't
understand how anyone, you know, could possibly want to give,
Like it's just the biggest gift that you could give someone.
(04:08):
And I think that is exactly the reason why she would,
you know, want to do it. She's got two little
boys of her own, and you know, just said it's
something that she had thought about previously, and just like, yeah,
just a very very good, amazing kind person.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
What a wonderful person. So you mentioned before you had
the five years of IVF and unfortunately unsuccessful. So the
conversation you and your partner had when you were looking
at what next, how how did that journey go when
you were thinking about surrogacy and looking further into.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
It, it was I think something neither of us had
ever really thought we would be those people that were
going down this you know road. It was a huge
relief when the doctor suggested that we looked down this
past because you know, after like several rounds and so
(05:08):
the failures, you just it does start to really like
eat away at you. So, yeah, we were both relieved,
and thankfully my partner was also very open to the
idea of surrogacy. You know, it's it's our DNA, so
it's it's still our child, you know, biologically, it's still
(05:29):
our child, I think, which was really important for us.
You know, I know some people open to adoption that
wasn't I mean, I hadn't been considered at that point.
So yeah, for us, I think it was really important
having a child that was our own DNA.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Now I mentioned before that commercial surrogacy is illegal in
New Zealand, but you are allowed to reimburse the surrogate
reasonable expenses. You must feel, you know, the weight of
wanting to look after this old friend that's doing this
for you. So how are you supporting them in a
non commercial way, not paying them, but how you reporting
(06:08):
them with their needs and just day to day.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Honestly I would I would happily buy her anything she
asked for, but she again, she's not the kind of
person that is going to do that. That just is
so against every bit of who she is. But like
I said, she does have two little boys, which very
very big into dirt bikes motorcycles, so they've got to
(06:36):
they've got to do it. Bikes coming for Christmas from
from Santa. Yeah, I'm very excited to see some videos
of them receiving early hours of the morning.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
So just to confirm, because I might have misheard that.
So there's the game. Mates are from you and your husband?
Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Yeah, they call it an embryo. I want to get
to that stage. Yes, embryos okay, yeah, no no, so yeah,
it is our embryo which was transferred and yeah, four
months ago.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
So Dominique, have you have you talked about the birthday?
And you know and and and who I guess you
know it takes your daughter home after the birth. How
that's going to run?
Speaker 4 (07:27):
So again in New Zealand, you've got a social worker
that gets assigned to you the minute you start this process,
and we have to ring that social worker the minute
my surrogate surrogate goes into labor and they basically prepare
start to prepare the documents that will allow you to
take your child home straight after birth. So they leave
(07:53):
they you're not legally adopting the child that day. That's
a six month process that happens six months after birth.
But you do get to take your baby home as
a I think it's under like a legal guardian it
kind of situation.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
So you and your husband will be there for the birth.
You're there, We're well we will so I mean it's
to my years.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
It sounds like quite a daunting thing that you've gone through,
a beautiful thing, but adorting thing, and you mentioned your
doctor suggested it as a potential. Are there organizations processes
in place to guide you through what you need to
do to make it as easy as possible.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Not really there. So once you kind of get told
that this could be an option for you, they panned
you like a document stating the steps of like where
to next, and then it's on you to find a surrogate,
to make contact with all the right people, lawyers, social workers.
(08:58):
There isn't an agency who sort of manages it all
for you. And so through this process I met several
other girls, you know, woman families that have been through similar,
you know, a similar process and began to sort of
(09:19):
tack off the boxes one by one of you know,
finding a social worker, finding a lawyer for myself, finding
a lawyer for our surrogate, having to go through the
IVF process again, so you know, it was it took
me about a year all up, working working my way
through that process. And then again you have to put
(09:41):
together a large amount of information to get approval by
the New Zealand EFS Committee. And one of the hardest
parts about surrogacy in New Zealand is obviously finding the surrogate.
So unless you know someone who has sort of offered,
and it's not a conversation that's often had, you know,
(10:03):
around a drink or over the dinner table, it's really
tricky and hence the need for us to put it
on social media. You know, we didn't really know where
to start that conversation. When we posted it, we had
an overwhelming response from like our community of people I
guess around us. I think maybe like sixteen people responded
(10:27):
with genuine interest in helping us, which was mind blowing. Yeah,
people shared our you know, our Instagram post over and
over again, and you know, thousands of people had seen it,
and I began sort of working my way through the
messages and then, you know, my friend, my old friend's
name popped up, and that was very reassuring because even
(10:53):
before so once you start, you get told that you
have to know someone for at least six months. So
if someone had reached out and it wasn't someone I knew,
I needed to know them for six months before I
could even sort of start the conversation, which six months
is not not a hell of a lot of time
(11:13):
to trust somebody with with that, you know, so we
were really hopeful that someone we knew already would reach out,
which ended up happening.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Dominic, thank you so much for talking to us today
and thank you being for being so open. It's it's
really really interesting. Now you're in the situation where you
and your partner are going to be the biological parents.
So it's it's very different from adoption and how things
go forward. But what kind of relationship do you see
the surrogate mother having with your with your daughter going forward?
Speaker 4 (11:46):
If any, It's definitely will be part of her story.
And again it's something that then the counselors that we
work through work with, they tell you that it has
to be known to that child, like every child has
(12:07):
a right to know how they came into this world.
So by New Zealand's law, it is actually on us
to all to share the information. It's not information we
can withhold. So for us, I guess it'll just be
it will just be part of her story of how
you know, she came to be. I mean, she is
(12:29):
an old friend of mine, so I've always had a
friendship with her. It's not you know now it's just
because yeah, yeah, yeah, so so it's nice. It'll just
be continued, you know, and probably change slightly. You know,
we'll probably see him more than I did previously.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
And so you say it's going to be part of
your daughter's story. When will let stories start? If you
know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
They sort of advise you that the minute your chrial
starts asking, that's that's a conversation. And there's lots of
resources they've given us, like nice books for children, you know,
because again like mystarrogate, she's got two little kids who
are going to be asking, you know, where this baby
is going when the baby arrives and then doesn't come home,
(13:21):
you know, so there's there's books around that both for
her kids to sort of have an understanding and make
the full circle connection, you know, because there are only
like six and four.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Yeah, oh yes, right, I see. And so are they
any concerns from you that you know she's had two
boys now having a girl, you know, is there any
concerns that you know what I'm asking?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Look, I do know what you're asking. I do know
there are not Maybe maybe if I didn't know her,
like sure that would cross your mind. As her husband
said to my husband, you know, like you one thousand
percent need to pick up this baby. I did not
sign up for another one. So we reassured him that,
(14:12):
you know, we will be absolutely taking her home. You know.
They didn't want any more children. And actually that's part
of the you know, that's part of the process they
and they get asked, you know, do you want more kids?
The ant has to be not. You can't they can't
say yeah, yeah, we kind of do. You know, you
probably wouldn't get approved.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, Dominique, it's been wonderful to chat with you and
so so happy that you've got a beautiful baby on
the way in another three months. And can I just say,
you know, is knowing the pain of having trouble having children,
it's a wonderful thing that has happened to you and
your partner. And thank you very much for having a
chat with us.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Much appreciate it. Guys.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Have a great day you too. What a great call
from Dominique.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
For more from News Talks, there'd be listen live on
air or online and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We're talking about surrogacy. This is on the back of
a story by The Wall Street Journal which uncovered in
the largely unregulated you with surrogacy industry, wealthy Chinese elites
using American mothers to have children.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
This is interesting from Ryan. When you have all the
money in the world, DNA is the next big thing.
Happens a lot more than we know. Some already have
fifty to one hundred kids. So is that saying that
you've got all the money in the world, but there's
a sort of immortality part of spreading your DNA around.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I suppose it would be so you are.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Having a bigger footprint on the world because you know
you remain mortal.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, you've hit the billionaire goal and the next thing
is have lots of kids.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Dominique, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Thanks for giving us a call. So you have a
wonderful story. You have a baby on the way via surrogacy.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
I do. I actually had it. I haven't been listening
to the show, but a friend of mine text and
was like, Hey, do you talking on the radio? They're
looking for someone who is going through surrogacy. So my
husband and I am currently expecting a little girl six
(01:28):
months away after like a five year journey with IVF,
and we are expecting her vias furrogacy, which is very cool.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
How did you thank you so much for it, for
bringing in and thank your friends for getting hold of
you for us, this is this is great and great
to hear your story. So once you decided to go
the sarrogathy surrogacy past, how did you approach that dominique?
Speaker 4 (01:52):
So in New Zealand, it's quite a complex procedure. It's
not something we could just decide. We had to be
I guess offered by our medical practitioners. Our like fertility
doctors recommended that it might be the only way that
it would sort of happen for us. And so you
(02:13):
go in front of the New Zealand Ethics Committee to
get approval, you've got to have a bit of a
history with a fertility clinic of not being able to
get pregnant or you know, IVF not working, which we had,
and so once we were offered that as an option
(02:37):
in New Zealand, it's it's completely altruistic. So we couldn't
go to like an agency how they've got in America
and offer to pay someone. So I put it on
our social media and an old friend of mine reached out.
We have been back. We had lots of people reaching
out that ultimately went with an old friend, which was
(03:00):
amazing because the other problem with the law in New
Zealand is that the birth mother is seen as the
legal parent, and the birth mother has up until a
year after your child is born to change their mind
(03:21):
because we have to adopt our baby once she's born.
And so yeah, a little bit scary if you get
someone that does change their mind, they've got a whole
year to decide that.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
What was the motivation for the old friend to do
the surrogacy, because you know, as you were saying, for
it's not a it can't be a commercial venture here
in New Zealand, it has to be altruistic from the
sarg mother.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Yeah, look, she is just one of those people that,
in fact, when I posted on social media, I knew
that she would be someone that would offer because that's
just so in her nature. And I mean, I can't
understand how anyone, you know, could possibly want to give,
Like it's just the biggest gift that you could give someone.
(04:08):
And I think that is exactly the reason why she would,
you know, want to do it. She's got two little
boys of her own, and you know, just said it's
something that she had thought about previously, and just like, yeah,
just a very very good, amazing kind person.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
What a wonderful person. So you mentioned before you had
the five years of IVF and unfortunately unsuccessful. So the
conversation you and your partner had when you were looking
at what next, how how did that journey go when
you were thinking about surrogacy and looking further into.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
It, it was I think something neither of us had
ever really thought we would be those people that were
going down this you know road. It was a huge
relief when the doctor suggested that we looked down this
past because you know, after like several rounds and so
(05:08):
the failures, you just it does start to really like
eat away at you. So, yeah, we were both relieved,
and thankfully my partner was also very open to the
idea of surrogacy. You know, it's it's our DNA, so
it's it's still our child, you know, biologically, it's still
(05:29):
our child, I think, which was really important for us.
You know, I know some people open to adoption that
wasn't I mean, I hadn't been considered at that point.
So yeah, for us, I think it was really important
having a child that was our own DNA.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Now I mentioned before that commercial surrogacy is illegal in
New Zealand, but you are allowed to reimburse the surrogate
reasonable expenses. You must feel, you know, the weight of
wanting to look after this old friend that's doing this
for you. So how are you supporting them in a
non commercial way, not paying them, but how you reporting
(06:08):
them with their needs and just day to day.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Honestly I would I would happily buy her anything she
asked for, but she again, she's not the kind of
person that is going to do that. That just is
so against every bit of who she is. But like
I said, she does have two little boys, which very
very big into dirt bikes motorcycles, so they've got to
(06:36):
they've got to do it. Bikes coming for Christmas from
from Santa. Yeah, I'm very excited to see some videos
of them receiving early hours of the morning.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
So just to confirm, because I might have misheard that.
So there's the game. Mates are from you and your husband?
Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Yeah, they call it an embryo. I want to get
to that stage. Yes, embryos okay, yeah, no no, so yeah,
it is our embryo which was transferred and yeah, four
months ago.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
So Dominique, have you have you talked about the birthday?
And you know and and and who I guess you
know it takes your daughter home after the birth. How
that's going to run?
Speaker 4 (07:27):
So again in New Zealand, you've got a social worker
that gets assigned to you the minute you start this process,
and we have to ring that social worker the minute
my surrogate surrogate goes into labor and they basically prepare
start to prepare the documents that will allow you to
take your child home straight after birth. So they leave
(07:53):
they you're not legally adopting the child that day. That's
a six month process that happens six months after birth.
But you do get to take your baby home as
a I think it's under like a legal guardian it
kind of situation.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
So you and your husband will be there for the birth.
You're there, We're well we will so I mean it's
to my years.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
It sounds like quite a daunting thing that you've gone through,
a beautiful thing, but adorting thing, and you mentioned your
doctor suggested it as a potential. Are there organizations processes
in place to guide you through what you need to
do to make it as easy as possible.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Not really there. So once you kind of get told
that this could be an option for you, they panned
you like a document stating the steps of like where
to next, and then it's on you to find a surrogate,
to make contact with all the right people, lawyers, social workers.
(08:58):
There isn't an agency who sort of manages it all
for you. And so through this process I met several
other girls, you know, woman families that have been through similar,
you know, a similar process and began to sort of
(09:19):
tack off the boxes one by one of you know,
finding a social worker, finding a lawyer for myself, finding
a lawyer for our surrogate, having to go through the
IVF process again, so you know, it was it took
me about a year all up, working working my way
through that process. And then again you have to put
(09:41):
together a large amount of information to get approval by
the New Zealand EFS Committee. And one of the hardest
parts about surrogacy in New Zealand is obviously finding the surrogate.
So unless you know someone who has sort of offered,
and it's not a conversation that's often had, you know,
(10:03):
around a drink or over the dinner table, it's really
tricky and hence the need for us to put it
on social media. You know, we didn't really know where
to start that conversation. When we posted it, we had
an overwhelming response from like our community of people I
guess around us. I think maybe like sixteen people responded
(10:27):
with genuine interest in helping us, which was mind blowing. Yeah,
people shared our you know, our Instagram post over and
over again, and you know, thousands of people had seen it,
and I began sort of working my way through the
messages and then, you know, my friend, my old friend's
name popped up, and that was very reassuring because even
(10:53):
before so once you start, you get told that you
have to know someone for at least six months. So
if someone had reached out and it wasn't someone I knew,
I needed to know them for six months before I
could even sort of start the conversation, which six months
is not not a hell of a lot of time
(11:13):
to trust somebody with with that, you know, so we
were really hopeful that someone we knew already would reach out,
which ended up happening.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Dominic, thank you so much for talking to us today
and thank you being for being so open. It's it's
really really interesting. Now you're in the situation where you
and your partner are going to be the biological parents.
So it's it's very different from adoption and how things
go forward. But what kind of relationship do you see
the surrogate mother having with your with your daughter going forward?
Speaker 4 (11:46):
If any, It's definitely will be part of her story.
And again it's something that then the counselors that we
work through work with, they tell you that it has
to be known to that child, like every child has
(12:07):
a right to know how they came into this world.
So by New Zealand's law, it is actually on us
to all to share the information. It's not information we
can withhold. So for us, I guess it'll just be
it will just be part of her story of how
you know, she came to be. I mean, she is
(12:29):
an old friend of mine, so I've always had a
friendship with her. It's not you know now it's just
because yeah, yeah, yeah, so so it's nice. It'll just
be continued, you know, and probably change slightly. You know,
we'll probably see him more than I did previously.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
And so you say it's going to be part of
your daughter's story. When will let stories start? If you
know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
They sort of advise you that the minute your chrial
starts asking, that's that's a conversation. And there's lots of
resources they've given us, like nice books for children, you know,
because again like mystarrogate, she's got two little kids who
are going to be asking, you know, where this baby
is going when the baby arrives and then doesn't come home,
(13:21):
you know, so there's there's books around that both for
her kids to sort of have an understanding and make
the full circle connection, you know, because there are only
like six and four.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Yeah, oh yes, right, I see. And so are they
any concerns from you that you know she's had two
boys now having a girl, you know, is there any
concerns that you know what I'm asking?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Look, I do know what you're asking. I do know
there are not Maybe maybe if I didn't know her,
like sure that would cross your mind. As her husband
said to my husband, you know, like you one thousand
percent need to pick up this baby. I did not
sign up for another one. So we reassured him that,
(14:12):
you know, we will be absolutely taking her home. You know.
They didn't want any more children. And actually that's part
of the you know, that's part of the process they
and they get asked, you know, do you want more kids?
The ant has to be not. You can't they can't
say yeah, yeah, we kind of do. You know, you
probably wouldn't get approved.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, Dominique, it's been wonderful to chat with you and
so so happy that you've got a beautiful baby on
the way in another three months. And can I just say,
you know, is knowing the pain of having trouble having children,
it's a wonderful thing that has happened to you and
your partner. And thank you very much for having a
chat with us.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Much appreciate it. Guys.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Have a great day you too. What a great call
from Dominique.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
For more from News Talks, there'd be listen live on
air or online and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
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