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On the latest episode of Insights presented by Sean O'Rourke, Sean invites podcaster and breast cancer survivor Georgie Crawford to share in an open, raw, and sometimes humorous conversation. Listen back above.
In 2017, several months after the birth of her first child, Georgie discovered a lump in her breast. Going straight to her GP - and ringing around multiple breast clinics to ensure a quick appointment - she was sent for an ultrasound, a mammogram and a biopsy.
Soon after, her doctor confirmed her fears: she had stage two breast cancer.
Thankfully, additional tests showed that the cancer had not spread to her lymph nodes, but this still left the new mum having to cope with two operations and a round of preventative chemotherapy.
Having always dreamed of a big family, one of the The Good Glow presenter's main concerns ahead of the treatment was how it would affect her fertility. With her doctor recommending IVF, Georgie and her husband managed to freeze 15 embryos which could be used at a later date.
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If George wanted to try to carry a child, she would have to come off her prescribed medication. The problem was, COVID-19 was spreading globally, and the broadcast says she simply didn't feel comfortable making that choice.
"Especially because I had a pregnancy-related cancer," she told Sean. "I was diagnosed within a year of having my baby so I didn't know... it's the million dollar question of how did I get cancer in the first place? It was very close to my pregnancy so I would have felt really scared to be pregnant again."
In the end, she and Jamie decided to explore surrogacy as an option.
"I didn't know much about surrogacy until I heard Rosanna Davison's story. I just kind of thought this is for people to go to America - I didn't know much about it, but I was getting my hair done one day and Rosanna Davison walked behind my chair. One of the girls said, 'you know, Rosanna is doing the surrogacy journey. And I said, yeah, it's amazing'.
"And she said she's doing it in Ukraine and I said 'oh, really? Ukraine!’I didn't know anything about it. And then I just started researching and found a solicitor called Annette Hickey, who's an incredible woman. And I needed to learn a lot about it before I made any decisions.
"But she was telling us, you know, there's a really safe, ethical pathway to having a baby in Ukraine with a surrogate mother. And we decided that this was the right thing for us to do."
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"The cost was my life savings," she adds. " Everything that I had worked for, for years, went into it. And my family helped us as well and Jamie's family. But really every penny that we made went into a savings account".
Unfortunately, just as the surrogacy plans were being put into action, Russia invaded Ukraine and everything came to a halt. In the days leading up to the initial attacks, the couple's solicitor advised that they "put the brakes on everything".
"A couple of weeks later I was sent a picture of a man holding a Ukraine flag beside a car," she explains. "And in the boot were huge chryo-therapy chamber things. I'm in a surrogacy Whatsapp group in Ireland, and it said: 'these are IVF and embryos' and that was our clinic."
Some time after this, Georgie was informed that an embryologist in the clinic, on that Thursday, put everyone’s embryos into the boot of his car and drove them to Slovakia to save them.
"So, Tahlie, our second child was in Slovakia as an embryo."
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About a year later, moving the entire process to Tbilisi, Georgia, the couple were matched with a new surrogate, and a healthy pregnancy followed. With that, her miracle baby was born and her family was complete.
"I don't have plans for the other ones, we have embryos in Georgia, and we have some in the Beacon in Dublin but I think... I think unless I win the lotto, I think we're done".
With healthy embryos remaining, Sean asked about the possibility of donating them, and Georgie admitted it was something she has considered.
"I have thought about that so many times, but I just don’t know if I could donate my embryos because I’m so in love with my two children, I don’t think I could know that I have a third out there that I couldn’t kiss and hug every single minute of the day".
Listen back to the full episode above or click here.
If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.
