'Scouse Dads' share surrogacy journey on Instagram to help others

A couple who are expecting a baby boy in the summer have opened up about the experience of starting a family via a surrogate in a bid to help others.

David Heath, 35, and Sam Arblaster, 29, said it had been a "long" but "magical" journey after starting the process during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.

The couple, from Liverpool, have set up an Instagram account called Scouse Dads to share their surrogacy story.

"We want the gay community to know that there is that option," said Mr Heath.

The couple, who have been in a relationship for eight years and run Attitude Dance School in Bootle, the happy news in January that their surrogate is due to give birth in July.

"Growing up as a gay man, it's not something you learn at school," Mr Arblaster told BBC Radio Merseyside.

"You basically have to type into Google: 'How can I be a parent?'

"The NHS is amazing in everything they do but like us, they're not told about surrogacy.

"They're not educated on how to deal with a surrogacy agreement."

Mr Arblaster said the couple created their embryos in 2020 before starting the process to find a surrogate.

"So that's where we donate our sperm and we get an egg donor and we create the embryos together," he said.

"At the end of 2020 we actually created 10 frozen embryos which then go into storage.

"In 2021 that's when we started the second part of the process which is basically to find a surrogate."

Mr Arblaster said the couple had faced "a lot of challenges along the way".

"[For example] when only one of us is allowed into a scan," he said.

"We've had to go higher above to get authority to say we're the parents - not our surrogate.

"The surrogate has been called 'mum' and for her mental state - it's hard.

"She's growing something inside of her that she's not keeping."

The law states that a couple must apply for a parental order or adoption to become the legal parent of the child after they are born.

Mr Heath said: "On the birth certificate it won't be me or Sam, it'll be the surrogate and if she's married it'll be the surrogate's husband as well.

"It is a bit upsetting that that it's our biological child but we won't be on that birth certificate."

However he added that despite the hurdles they had faced "it's been an amazing time for me and Sam".

"It's a long process but it's a magical one at the same time," he said.

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