Welcome back to two Doting Dads.

My name is Matty Jay and I'm Ash, and this is a podcast all about parenting.

It is the good, it is the bad, and and we don't give advice, but our guests do give advice sometimes.

And this happens to be a best of Guest episode because Ash and myself we deserve a bloody break because we work hard.

Yes, we moved on from the Bahamas.

Wherever we moved on to Southeast Asia is lovely?

Is it the Philippines?

Yeah?

Sure, we're putting Philippines on the list of places to visit.

It's this is North Korea.

Actually.

In this episode, we do talk to Chantel Duncan, which her son had a close call with drowning.

We also have Becky Lucas struggling with her son's heart conditions.

Ben Tate you might remember him from Ben and Zara, and he had an incident where he almost missed the birth of his child because of an international ad that he was on.

We also have Sam Frost along with Hugo Tuv which is an amazing story.

And we finish it off with one of our closer personal friends of the show, Sassy.

We call him a.

Close Yes, I will.

I'll continue forever.

Can we call him that I comment on all I'm like that weird person.

There's always one or two people who comment on every post.

They're talking about you behind your back, for sure.

And every time they post anything, I'm like, that's so funny, because you guys are hilarious.

But Sasi's got one of my favorite episodes.

He is in a same sex relationship.

So he talks about the very long, difficult journey to surrogacy and becoming a dad.

Let's get into it, let's do it.

He has been speaking to a lot of experts lately, Sam about childbirth and what dads can do in that environment.

Was there anything in particular that Jordi did that was very helpful?

And if it doesn't have to be we were to be honest, Ash and.

I were both a bit average.

Yeah, we'd call it at the same time.

Was there anything that he did that you were like, probably wouldn't do that again.

So Jordy, while I was and Jordy, we love you again, asked for a cigarette while I was in labor.

Obviously my body is going through a lot.

Let me just emphasize.

Also, we'll just preface that we've done a tens machine, so we get, we get.

We're brave.

Okay, we are brave man, that is so we gotta be like, yeah, that's true.

We did do a tens machine and like we couldn't hack level ten.

Yeah we got to fifteen.

You guys must know exactly what it's like.

Oh yeah, the whole Yeah, but yeah, JORDI had a headache.

So the guy and I was like, you know, obviously in the thick of it, and I was to say ten, and Jordy.

Was like, hey, to be that guy, but I.

Have got a killer headache.

Like you.

And he's like, can you give me some about me?

I know?

And I still give him a hard time about that, and is he regret asking?

He's heard me talk about it, and he goes, well, I didn't want the moment meeting my son ruined by head.

Fair.

I know.

This is a bit of a traumatic one.

It's it's probably every parent's worse fear.

Yeah, but it involved this one the swimming pool two years ago.

Pretty much in a couple of weeks will be two years to the day that Yeah, that was you just you know, it's a possibility, you know how to protect everything.

You do everything by the book, but there's things that you cannot control.

And one for us is the fact that we have older there's more than one child.

We could be as safe and shut front doors, shut garage doors, shut poolgates, fix things, put things away, but you can't see what the older ones are doing and what they're forgetting to put away or what they're forgetting to check all the time.

And that that was the twenty second or twenty third of December.

We were prepping the house.

Sam and I were running around like headless chooks while the twins were sleeping or not crying, and trying to clean the house and get it ready for all our family to come over.

And I just remember seeing Paris, our third child.

Here is the bravest kid.

He literally has no fear.

And this is how it happened.

This is the issues.

Our boys are so boisterous and they have no fear.

And I remember watching him jump on the trampoline.

They do it after they go for a swim to dry off, and they call it like being a Liz.

They lay down on the mat on the tramp and they were all jumping, and then I remember looking back and he wasn't in the trampoline, and he's so loud, so you know where he is.

And I turned and I noticed that the pool gate was slightly opened.

There was a toy in the way, like a seat thing, and I just remember dropping my phone and then walking close out.

I couldn't see anything in the pool because he was so tucked up against the wall.

And I remember walking and I saw the head and I just screamed, like the bloody murder Sam's name.

It was like the worst exorcism voice that came out.

Neighbors everyone heard it.

I jumped in, grabbed him and he was this dead flop, like a complete flop.

Oh my, my husband came running out and I almost just like dropped him into his arms, and then he's screaming, called the ambulance, Called the ambulance.

And I couldn't find my phone.

I didn't know what I did with it, and so I'm running inside trying to check everything, and I could not find a phone, and he's yelling call the ambulus as he appliing that's performing CPR, and then I find it.

I'll call them, and by the time the answer I turn around, Comparis is up and Sam's holding them and he's just like crying, but he's like fine, So I'm calling, I'm telling them what's happened.

They're coming straight over.

We were able to check the camera footage so that we could tell them exactly how long he had gone under for and also for the council that they come and they checked for negligence.

So really, you know, we had everything to make sure that we were to the strict Queensland safety guidelines like our pool and everything like, you know, it wasn't our negligence and how that happened to the child and he was under for two minutes ten fuck.

H so long and like goosebumps that.

And he was only two two years old, he was tiny.

He blacked out at one minute twenty.

You can see him just give up.

I could have watched the video.

Sam sent it to me when I was in hospital, but I didn't watch it, but he watched it, and I don't think i'll ever.

Watch it, to be honest.

But we went into hospital, they did all the checks, they did all the scans, and they come in and this is the end of our journey there.

We'd stayed overnight.

They're like, okay, the report is there is not one single thing wrong with your son.

We can't find a single thing.

He has blocked his He's like completely blocked, so no fluid went down, nothing went in his lungs.

He's not at risk of pneumonia anything.

There's no temperature on your child.

There is nothing.

He's passing all the like neurological chests and things like that.

And I'm assuming they're kind of saying this, They're like, that's a miracle.

Yeah, oh yeah, gosh, he didn't take any water into his lungs, nothing his body, like a muscle contracted or something.

Yeah, it does.

It normally happened and definitely not at that age.

We walked out of that hospital.

Literally both just walked out of that hospital and they're like count your blessings and Merry Christmas.

And I was like, holy shit, did you Like straight away after that, I would have like concrete at the bull up.

Oh my gosh.

We were like and we didn't have to tell our boys because they were shocked.

They were they saw the whole thing.

We went straight online and I was like, if there is one thing that I can do to try redeem this situation, is everyone's gone and going to be around a pool for Christmas with their friends and family, and they're all going to drop the ball.

They're all going to turn a blind eye.

They're all going to be more relaxed, they are going to they're not going to think about what the older kids.

Might be doing.

And so we went online and we just spread, we fully spread the awareness of you need to watch pool gates, you need to be on the ball, You need to allocate someone to consistently watch the kids in the pool and check the gates.

Like yeah, you know, if it makes you feel any any better.

But when Marley was really young, we only had I think Lola might have been a newborn.

At our old house, we had a little paddle pool and stupidly we know not to fill it up like any higher than like ankle deep water, but we filled it up really high.

We had friends over and it was one of those situations where you're kind of entertaining.

You got friends over, Laura and I kind of got lost and who's looking after Marley.

We had a front and a backyard.

The paddle pool was in the front, and it got to a point where we said, where's Marley And we were looking around couldn't find her, and luckily.

She was just too small.

She was trying, she'd been trying to climb into the paddle pool which was filled up like a she and she was only you know, she was crawling at this stage.

And you know, we think, gosh, it's so easy to just lose them for a split second.

And you think, you mentioned before, you're like two minutes ten, that's a long time, but you think, gosh, it could have been, could have been so much worse.

Yes, just that things can change in an instance, and you just never ever want to take away the joy in each day and the opportunity to have each day.

I think that's what really brought us closer as a unit, is like it might be really hard to have five kids, but we would never change it for the world.

It was weird because yeah, in so many ways, I had a you know, he was a normal baby, and I just could not enjoy it in the same way.

And I like, really, it feels like life has started now.

Yes, So the lead up to the surgery, not knowing when it's going to happen, I suppose they.

Said yes, but then we did lock it in.

So after that hospital stay, the surgeon was like, let's just lock it in, we'll do it, and the leadof is just I mean, I lost my mind.

I was just like I would just walk around crying, weeping in public, like I don't know you, I just it was just so sad, so I'm going to cry.

So funny that I was talking about being having come but yeah, it's it's like a it's oh my god, it's embarrassing.

I mean, yeah, obviously it's a sad topic.

But he's really good now, like he's really he's really strong.

He's actually already lifting.

Other than you waiting for surgery or is it normal?

Like everything is well, they tell me, like they they're like, yeah, he can do everything.

He needs to check up every year for the rest of his life, and he will need when he's older, like when he goes through puberty.

They will need to put another valve in.

That's the main thing.

But the surgeon seems to think that they won't have to do open heart again, that they can do most of these things via catheter.

So I'll always worry, like I'll just always freak out.

And he's so active and sometimes I'm like, just chill.

I just want him to be a ballet dancer or something.

I wanted to be athletic, but like not contact sport.

Yeah, and I'm just scared that he was going to want to play rugby.

And because there's a fame that you do know Sean White, the Olympic snow border.

He has tetralogy a fellow really Yeah, so he needed like three open heart surgeries before the age of five.

It's like flying in the air, like twenty feet out.

Of our heart.

Yeah.

And like he you know, did football and like they can definitely do apparently whatever other kid does.

I will not tell George that.

Sorry George reading.

Yeah, I'm like, you're going to just live with mummy frog.

Like you know, when you go through that traumatic experience as a parent and you come out the other end.

And we spoke before about the fact that parenting is amazing, but those amazing moments are matched with moments where it's exhausting.

It's relentless.

Yeah, it's so bloody hard.

Do you ever get guilt where you're life You're like, you know, I thought I might lose you, Yeah.

And you're pissing me on Yeah, yeah, totally.

And then and then that's even harder.

Because I'm like, I'm not even allowed to have the normal experience of being pissed off at your kids.

Yeah, it does feel like I was it almost.

The different ways in which I feel I've been robbed emerge, like I don't even I wasn't even prepared, Like he's he's not a great sleeper, but only because we are.

You know, for the first six months of his life, they said, don't let him cry too much because he might go blue and lose oxygen.

And then he has his heart fixed, and they're like, yep, he's good.

His heart's like fixed, you can let him scream his head off.

But that's a very hard thing for us to do.

We don't want to do that.

So because of that, he just runs rings around us, like we just do whatever he wants, yeah, which you know probably isn't good for him.

Like I know that I need to teach him to sleep, and that will require me like dealing with my own anxiety around his health for his own sake, but that's just really hard to do.

And Yeah, I just feel angry sometimes that I can't even do.

I can't do that, Like, how was it for you from when the waters broke to when you ended up in hospital.

Wow.

Okay, so around two months before so we found out least was due on the fourteenth February, and I two months before I went for an audition for the lead in international TV commercial.

So we found out that lease was due with our firstborn on the fourteenth February.

And two months before that, I went for an audition for the lead in an international TV commercial.

And when you go for an audition, you sign a thing where it says do you have conflicts for any conflicts for the following day.

It's fourth, fifth, and sixth of February, And I just thought, no, I don't, because you.

Don't want to make it sound that you're difficult to work with or give any reason why you shouldn't be picked, right.

For sure, But also I'm going to sound like a numpty.

But I didn't think that our baby would come early.

Yeah, right, yeah, And I.

Just very genuinely it was just like just you on the fourteenth, Yeah you think that's the day?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did in that moment.

And so fourth of February rolls around.

I need to be in the Eastern Suburbs, was living in the Northern Beaches.

I get up at three thirty in the morning, I have to be there on set.

Oh, you booked the job.

I booked.

Sorry, I booked the job.

I booked the job, which is awesome.

Graduations, you.

Know, new family, young family, all that sort of stuff.

It was a good earn.

So I was stoked wake up at three thirty in the morning on the fourth of February to get ready to be on set.

And I think I've caught a plus five or something, and Lisa's not in the bed, and she's in the bathroom with the door closed, which is within itself.

And then I've gone, you're right, and she said, I think so my water's broken.

Yet.

So I opened the door, super excited.

And then in the absolute moment you do not want to make it about yourself, I've gone, holy shit, I've got to go to this thing.

Because I've been in the industry since I was a kid, I knew there could be legal.

Ramifications if I don't turn up.

And you know.

TV, that's the thing.

Time is money.

And it was an international thing, so all these people had come over from overseas.

It was like it was a big thing.

It was a massive thing.

So I said to her listener this is what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna call my sister Karli.

Carlie had actually helped a couple of people give birth.

She's a freak of nature, not a midwife ot occupation.

Seriously, she loved and I said, O call Carli.

She lived ten minutes away.

I'm going to get Karlie to come.

She takes you to the hospital.

I am not going to miss this.

I'm going to go there.

I have to front up.

We could be in a lot of trouble if I don't talk to them.

I'm going to front up, tell them what the go is.

But I'm not going to miss it.

I will make it.

I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to do it.

So my sister came, all, it's all good, it's all good.

It's all good.

The guilt that I had was mate to this day.

I feel still feel a bit sick about it.

Anyway, I get to set and I spoke to the head of production and they.

Were lived filthy are you?

Oh yeah?

Oh what kind of wait?

Just well, because I'd sign the thing and I hadn't told them, it looked like I was calling a swiftye and I absolutely wasn't.

And I said, I'm so sorry, but I'm not missing the birth of my first child.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, TV, anyone's production, whether it be a TV commercial, it's the most important.

Thing in the world, totally for them, right, And I get that, but I couldn't do it.

So I threw everything into a tailspin and they said, look, we're going to try and film well.

Unfortunately, the first assistant director had his wife had just given birth to their first about three weeks before, so he was really connected and in tune with okay, and he came up to me and said, mate, I'm going to do everything I can to get you out of here.

Let's film as much as we can.

You stay in touch with his sister, get updates, and we'll go from there.

Let's mind you.

I had to speak to the camera, so I was doing monologues and a whole bit.

It's anyway, mine's a bit preoccupied, yes, And.

So I'm sitting there, I'd say, if you want to do and then and cut, and then I look at my phone, Okay, we're okay at the moment, and then in action and do it again.

And I'll never forget this lighting guy.

He was an older bloke, he had three kids, he knew the drill, and he goes, I'm Ben, do you know how many centimeters dilated she is?

And now I shout out to one of our hospital birthday classes.

I didn't listen to this.

I went, I don't know.

Then my sister pings me and says, eight centimeters dilated.

That's big, that's the one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's we should know that.

We should Well, I feel so much better having you guys say that.

So then I've said eight centimeters to old me and he goes, oh shit, Oh is that close?

Is it?

He said, that's close?

And then the next text was in capitals, she's coming.

We knew having a little girl.

So I've told set.

It's a eastern suburb of Sydney to the mona Our that's that could be an hour drive.

Peak out me.

This is I think it was seven o'clock by this time and seven am and they've gone, go go, go, go, go go.

You've got to come back, just go.

So I've ran barefoot, jumped in the car and yeah, I'm not proud of this, but I did speed and I got a spending time.

I was spending finding the tunnel, which was later on retracted because I proved everything.

Which was quiet.

That's pretty cool.

I do that, Yeah, and some people don't get away with it.

That day.

I've got someone that was so maybe they had the same thing happened to them, but they.

Were lovely, so thank you.

Yeah.

So, and I try.

I'm on Pittwater Road and my sister's going hurry up, hurry up, and a police I was in the right lane and a police officer was in the bus lane pulled over and I'm trying to flag them.

I'm beeping at them.

He's looking at something on his monitor in the middle of the car and the one time I want to copy a look and he did not flinch.

Was I was beeping it because I'm thinking escorting, so doesn't flinch.

So I'm in and in and out of cars.

It's like the one of the worst roads to be and the potholes on that road ridiculous.

And so I'm using the bus lane doing everything I can.

I get to turn right into mine of our hospital, and I'm beeping, flashing lights at the red light and going I'm going I'm going complete melodramatic.

I want to be actor.

So I've done it.

I've gone the red of Rann.

In no shoes on.

Making a complete scene.

Unbeknownst to me, my sister, my beautiful wife Lisa, and the lovely lady mid the midwife were in the zone.

They were in a zen like state, and I run in and go there and they were not that pleased.

A midwife thought I was a jerk because why had I missed the first couple of hours?

I think anyway, she the midwife goes slow down and Lisa and I both looked at her and went, who's talking to and she pointed square.

It means that you and I went so held a hand, did the thing.

Three pushes, and little Zara Tate was born with Teddy.

Obviously you want to try and like he said, be upbeat and be like, no, I'm going to beat this.

This is not going to get me.

But they're like, at what time do you start planning about not being around for Teddy?

Yeah, it's it's a tough one.

Things definitely change when you're a parent.

Yeah, that's thinking about this.

Last night I gave him a bath.

It's the first time I've actually really.

Thought about this, and I haven't told his amber yet, but giving him my bath last night and he was just really happy and smiling at me, and he doesn't know what's going on.

And then going into this major surgery, I think, ship, how you know, things don't work out or my health doesn't go to plan the next six months, plus how's AMBA going to raise him?

And how I'm not going to be there for him.

And it was the first time I had these thoughts last night, and it's a really tough one.

But the thing is, he doesn't know what's going on, and I think in a way that makes it easier because he doesn't know that Dad's sick or Dad's not feeling well.

He just wants Dad to give him a bath and read him a book.

And I think that joy is a good distraction.

But it's something that until very recently, I haven't really thought about.

And it's not till you have a kid.

Your whole everything changes perspective.

There's more to life than you.

And for me, it just I guess in a way, it gives me the ultimate motivation to get through it, to be there for him to recover as best as I can.

You know, even the decision of having this big stereia is a major decision.

But I thought, you know what, I'm bloody good at changing his nappies.

I see to change another one.

You know.

One thing that doesn't where you're worrying me is poo.

So you know, I thought, you know what, it's just a bit of a life adjustment.

It's another major surgery.

Yes, there are other unknowns.

I've got such a small bow now, but there's only so much bow you can live with, so there's always those risks.

I keep having bow obstructions or keep going back here, and they have to take more about.

There will come a time where it's, like Jesus, you can only live with so much boo.

So they're things that I just have to constantly think about.

And being the father's been the greatest thing I've ever experienced.

And he does so much for me at such a young age, and he's so small, but he gives me a boost that I can never get from anything else.

There's something kids can give you that you can't get from anything else exactly.

And it's crazy to think that you know at some point over the whether it's the little while that he's been alive that you've had to have those thoughts of this kid could potentially grow up without me, and I think about that with my son, and I'm like, I couldn't imagine Oscar having to go through this life without me.

So it's incredible that you can put, you know, bring yourself here and sit with us and spread such a positive message about early detection and everything like that.

So I just wanted to commend you.

No, look, I told you.

Knew you would get me too, And look, that's okay.

You know, I used to apologize, like the natural thing when I used to cry, when during talks when I'm often talk about Teddy or what am has done for me, that'd be the real triggers.

I used to get quite emotional, and you know, the default was sorry.

But then I now kind of just embrace that I never apologized for crime because it's obviously it means so much to me.

And I think it's important that.

Guys realize it's okay to have a cry and be vulnerable and you give your dad a hug, give you made a hug, and that's the sort of the role model on a be for Teddy.

Is there anywhere along that process where you had the feeling of this is not going to happen.

One time, it was really hard.

We were away and we got matched with as Surreygate and we were like, oh my god, it's going to happen.

And we had the transfer date of when they were going to the fertility clinic, and to match with one you meant a lotbody emotionally saying I'm going to bring your dreams to life, and you know the reality, we're like four years in I think it was, and then we get a call from the surrogac agency the day of transfer and we're waiting to hear like, you know, the transfer embryo transfer transfer went really well, and we got told I hang on the surrogate actually can't actually be your surrogate anymore, and we were like, what the fuck, what do you mean, what's happened?

They said, we just found out the doctor.

Whilst doing the transfer overheard her in conversation say that she was on a medication, which actually she didn't disclose to us, which it goes against you being able to be a surrogate.

And we were like, oh my god.

They went so back to the drawing board and I hung up on us and we were like far out my god.

Yeah, So that really during the process.

That was when we were like, this took forever to get here, and then it just disappeared like that.

Can you describe that feeling you felt in that moment.

I looked at Marcus.

I can remember we're in BALI.

I looked at Mark and he was like you could tell her.

He was like, well, I don't know what to do now, and I knew exactly what I could do, and that was put a fucking email together and tear these motherfuckers to pieces, right, especially because when there was a lot of contracts throughout the process.

But at the end of the day, I made it clear to them that you're working with people that are really vulnerable and actually you kind of have to do your due diligence and this lies on you like you've taken us so far down a road and then you've just pulled it away from us and you've just said, oh, well, it happens back to the drawing board.

And so the sensitivity around it, you know, I'm pretty optimistic.

I knew we had.

I took it as a bit of a sign that, hang on, there was something wrong there, like that maybe it was a positive and a good thing, but I saw my husband.

Kind of go, oh my god, how much longer can we just keep doing this?

Yeah?

So then how was it when that took place to when you were able to lock in the surrogate that gave you the twins?

Amber came along?

I would say eight nine months later.

Still a long time, and you know, we've got we had something like, I've got thirty great ambryos sitting waiting to go right like which is which is a wild number?

And we got Amber and she just sorry, you have your surrogate.

She's getting the surrogate is not the egg donor.

Yeah, we've had an egg donor who we've got.

We were able to get forty one eggs from Wow split down the middle of twenty was fertilized with Marcus's SPM twenty one fertilized with mine, and.

Then they grow them to day five.

And then in America they tell you if it's a great A B or C or something, and B or C they do up to three thousand something like a genetic disorder testing, and they destroy any that are a level C is like won't let they say, pretty much won't lead to any you know, problems with shoes or miscarriages or whatever, and and so we ended up I think it's like nineteen grade a embryos.

Wow, she's like good number of US fucking basketball team, like totally unheard of.

So like we got forty one eggs and the standard is five to six eggs.

Wow, yeah, you like triple that?

Yeah, she fucking super human our aig donut and there are sperm And.

I don't know if you guys have spoken to her like a fertility clinic before that spell.

I kind of want to quickly take it to my own sperm.

If I'm like taking all we go to an IVF clinic.

Here to do?

I don't know.

The cum dump literally literally just like wank into a jazy here's what you've seen in the movies.

Right.

They even gave a straight porn that I had to walk out.

I was like, really what it really looked at my phone?

Right?

And the fascinating thing is you can't use lube because it can contaminate.

I just saw anywhere.

And then this lady we were like, you know, we were a bit worried, you know what.

If and she was with something like a character out of a movie, like imagine a like sixty five year old lady sitting behind a counter in a medical like, you know center, with a drry in her mouth.

She didn't have one, but it.

Was a classic receptionist and she's saying, all you guys are the same.

Let me tell you this, she said, I've been working in fertility for over twenty years.

Eggs women, they are so fragile and perfect.

She said, When you put any man's sperm under a microscope and look at it, it's that dumber always fucking swims again to the side of the glass.

Of the Peetrie dish.

Right, She's like, it's all the same.

Trust that you'll be fine.

Picturing the person from it.

So, yeah, we're apparently our sperm's perfect, all of us.

All of us, guys.

We rarely have problems congratution.

Actually, I was like, I bet you he's been naughty before, and I bet it was not great sperm.

Yeah, I thought that I was picking.

Up on it.

If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review, subscribe, send to a friend.

Well, even though we are on holidays, we'll still be able to tell whether you did or not.

Oh yeah, if you don't.

Actually, that's like a Christmas present for us.

They don't buy us anything.

No, I still want you to buy me something to cash.

Would like, what do you need?

What do you have to.

Everyone?

He naturally smell good.

Yeah, that's your natural pheromones.

Peromones?

What do we thought?

The men?

Anyway, just just make these quick So if you've enjoyed it, please give us a review or follow us on socials, the Two Dunning Dads on Instagram, TikTok and the Facebook group.

Back to the pool.

Yes, yes, actually we've got a flight to North Korea.

Oh yes, so we better not belated to the airport.

Bet and I we'll get in big trouble Buggers.

Two Doting Dads podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and the connections to land, sea and community.

We pay our respects to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestraight Islander peoples today.

This episode was recorded on gadagal Land