‘My sister carried my baby’: The late-night call that saved Aimee’s dream of motherhood

Exclusive: Born with a congenital birth defect, Aimee Morrisby had built up a lifetime of tolerance for physical pain. But nothing could have prepared her for the doctors’ cruellest blow yet: the revelation that carrying a baby could kill her.

“I physically felt my heart break,” the 36-year-old tells nine.com.au.

Aimee, a speaker, author and wellness coach, was born with a rare bowel condition called long-segment Hirschsprung’s disease. It means she lives with just 60cm of her small intestine – most adults have six metres.

“I was told my whole life that carrying a baby might never happen for me, so I didn’t let myself dream about it,” she says.

Everything changed late one night when her younger sister, Shayna, called and offered to be her surrogate, simply asking, “Do you want to have a baby?”

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Before that pivotal phone call came a decade of unrelenting medical trauma: two miscarriages, an ectopic pregnancy that required chemotherapy medication to end, a failed transfer, and a failed intrauterine insemination.

At 22, she decided to investigate her fertility, only to end up in hospital with a twisted fallopian tube after coming off the pill.

A specialist saying her reproductive system looked like that of a woman in her 40s prompted Aimee and her husband, Jake, to begin IVF straight after their wedding.

Then, in 2014, a colorectal surgeon attempted to move her stoma so she could carry a baby.

“He couldn’t,” she says.

“My uterus was fused with scar tissue from a lifetime of surgery, and he told me that if any of those pregnancies had progressed, I could have bled to death.”

Though devastated, Aimee and Jake accepted defeat and made peace with a childless life before moving to the Gold Coast – that was until Shayna called, offering to be their surrogate.

They couple packed up and moved back home to be near Shayna, who carried their biological daughter, Francesca, now 10.

Asked if it was difficult to see her sister pregnant with her baby, Aimee admits people usually expect her to say yes.

“Mostly, I felt relief,” she says, recalling daily texts, check-up road trips to Brisbane, and sharing late-night chocolate ice cream.

“What I remember most is how close we became ... I didn’t feel a second of jealousy, only gratitude that someone I loved would do this for me.”

Yet, even after a healthy pregnancy, the family faced a complex legal journey once Francesca arrived.

In Australia, surrogacy must be altruistic, meaning a surrogate can have eligible expenses covered but cannot make a profit. 

Commercial surrogacy – available in parts of the US and used by celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton – is illegal.

Because of these strict laws, Francesca was legally her aunt’s child at birth.

That required Aimee and Jake to navigate an arduous court process, mandatory counselling, medical evaluations, and tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees just to become their biological daughter’s legal parents.

Looking back, she says every struggle was worth it the moment they learned their daughter hadn’t inherited her condition.

Aimee’s illness had been discovered at birth when she failed to pass her meconium, a baby’s first stool, which is often the first indicator something is wrong.

Francesca had no such complications.

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“Everything we’d been through led to that moment,” Aimee recalled.

Francesca has grown up knowing the story of her birth, which has only strengthened the bond she shares with her aunt Shayna.

“She knows she grew in her aunty’s tummy, and she carries her aunty’s name as her middle name.”

Aimee Morrisby’s debut memoir, Still Here, is available November 23.