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    Amazing Grace: A Story of Surrogacy and the Love of Two New Zealand Sisters
    Amazing Grace: A Story of Surrogacy and the Love of Two New Zealand Sisters
    Amazing Grace: A Story of Surrogacy and the Love of Two New Zealand Sisters
    Ebook135 pages1 hour

    Amazing Grace: A Story of Surrogacy and the Love of Two New Zealand Sisters

    By Venetia Sherson

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    About this ebook

    When 31-year-old New Zealand lawyer Jemani Alchin-Boller was diagnosed with cervical cancer and told she needed a radical and urgent hysterectomy she thought her dreams of being a mother were dashed. Then her sister Maddy sent her a text saying, "You can have my womb." Amazing Grace is a story of the love and resilience of two sisters. It is a poignant, personal narrative that will inspire and encourage others who – against tough odds – are determined to be parents...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJAG Publishing
    Release dateJun 27, 2021
    ISBN9780473578770
    Amazing Grace: A Story of Surrogacy and the Love of Two New Zealand Sisters
    Author

    Venetia Sherson

    Venetia Sherson is a writer and editor. She was editor of the Waikato Times newspaper in Hamilton, New Zealand for six years and has written for magazines and newspapers throughout her career. In 2003 she was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Journalism. She edited two books during her tenure as Editor in Residence at Waikato Institute of Technology and has co-written two books with friend and journalist Denise Irvine: Stand By Me, about the Waikato Women’s Refuge, and The Open Door, about a project to end homelessness in her home city, Hamilton. She is also Grace Sherson’s grandmother.

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      Book preview

      Amazing Grace - Venetia Sherson

      First published 2021

      JAG Publishing

      Copyright © 2021 in text: Venetia Sherson

      Venetia Sherson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      All rights reserved. Except for short extracts for the purpose of review, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

      ISBN 978-0-473-57877-0

      Disclaimer

      While this book is intended as a general information resource and all care has been taken in compiling the contents, neither the author nor the publisher and their distributors can be held responsible for any loss, claim or action that may arise from reliance on the information contained in this book. As each person and situation is unique, it is the responsibility of the reader to consult a qualified professional regarding their personal care.

      PROLOGUE

      The Worst Day

      Breathe, she tells herself. Just breathe. But breath won’t come. She tries to focus. The specialist is explaining the next steps. She hears the words urgent and essential. The specialist shows a picture of a cone biopsy of her cervix and pinpoints where the abnormal cells have spread. She hears her mother, a barrister, asking probing questions in the way she would of witnesses in court. What are her options? There must be an alternative. What can we do? She sees her sister, watching her. Keeping her safe with her eyes. Telling her silently, this will be all right. We will get through this together. She trusts her sister more than anyone else in the world. They have been besties since childhood. She wants to believe her. But two words are on rotate in her brain.

      No babies.

      She is 31 years old, a lawyer, newly in love, planning a life together, a family.

      No babies. 

      On the drive home, her sister holds her in her arms while her mother manoeuvres the car through motorway traffic. She thinks now how hard that must have been and of her mother’s reassuring focus on solutions. She remembers cars passing through a blur of tears. Feeling overwhelmed and disconnected. And angry. Why me? she asks over and over. And then, the universal mantra of those faced with devastating news: It’s just not fair.

      It takes two hours to travel from Greenlane Hospital in Auckland to Hamilton. They drive straight to her mother’s house and she dials her partner’s phone. Can you come? When he arrives minutes later, her mother and sister leave them alone. It’s a warm spring day and they sit by the pool. There are the sounds of children playing in the park opposite. Babe, it’s the worst news, she says. The cancer is aggressive. They need to do a radical hysterectomy within a month in case it spreads further. That means I can’t have children. Then she buries her head in his chest and weeps. He holds her and strokes her hair. He talks about her health being more important to him than fertility.  It’ll be okay, babe, he says. She doesn’t believe it then. But she feels his strength will get them through...

      CHAPTER 1

      An epiphany in the jungle

      In 2015, Jemani Alchin -Boller sat with her friend Dani in the lotus position on the roof of their tiny wooden cabin in the Costa Rican rainforest, looking at the moon and trying to figure out her life. The air was thick with the croaks of red-eyed tree frogs and the chirps and rustles of other creatures going about their nightly business. It was a new moon, too pale to see far into the jungle, but the women had hauled an old lamp up a ladder through the loft, along with a bottle of Argentinian Malbec. The lamp illuminated their faces, their hair loosely knotted, hands in a mudra position – index fingers lightly touching their thumbs. The moon’s fine crescent made the stars look brighter and the sky darker. Jem closed her eyes.  She was 30; she had a law degree; she had travelled for two years, non-stop, supervising busloads of hormone-fuelled backpackers around Europe. She had walked out of a relationship after eight years, finally understanding it was unhealthy for both of them. She had imagined her life taking shape like a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces neatly interlocked. But everything felt fragmented and uncertain. Back home in New Zealand, friends were mostly married, planning babies and new curtains. She met them for coffee and drinks but felt out of place in their world. Have you met anyone? they asked, stunned that their beautiful friend was still single. When are you going to begin practising law? It was the same questions she asked herself, along with, "What do I want from my life?" 

      It was Dani’s idea to come up on the roof. Dani was a life coach and on her own journey of self-discovery. She was two years younger than Jem, single without kids and moving from country to country working from her computer on charity projects. She viewed the moon as an ally in finding answers to the Big Questions and saw it could be helpful to her friend. A new moon is rejuvenating, she said as they clambered up the ladder, balancing the Malbec and the lamp. A time for new beginnings. The new moon contemplation included a ritual that involved writing down a list of things to let go of, then burning it. When the negative thoughts had been seen off, new intentions could be set in play. The approach made sense to Jem and, in a rich jungle setting with an edge-of-the world feeling, it felt like a good place to jump off.

      When Dani had suggested Jem join her in Costa Rica, Jem was weighing up whether to attend a wedding in Hawaii. She worked out she could have six weeks in Costa Rica for the same price as a wedding outfit and a hotel for a few days in Honolulu. Time with her friend seemed an ideal escape from a life that was rapidly settling into a humdrum round of work, study and admiring other couple’s babies. She stored her stilettos and suits at her mother’s house, booked a flight from Auckland to San Jose, then jumped on a tiny plane that landed on a grass runway in the middle of the jungle, the closest landing strip to Santa Teresa, a tiny hamlet near the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsular, peppered with yoga retreats and organic eateries. The town is nirvana for surfers, big-city drop-outs, and the odd celebrity on a detox diet. The most common expression is pura vida which translates as simple life. The biggest concern for locals – Ticos – is whether to pave the bumpy, dusty track that serves as the main road. It was May when Jem arrived and the temperature was in the mid-30s. Swathes of mist hung about the forest and she could hear monkeys jabbering in the trees. Quad bikes were lined up to take the new arrivals into town. Jem heaved her too-full backpack from the plane and jumped on a bike behind a bare-backed local.

      The house where Dani lived was a small square two-storeyed building divided into two flats. Dani lived in the upstairs flat. Two Americans who owned a tattoo parlour lived below, surfing, and smoking dope when they weren’t engraving pura vida on departing travellers’ arms. Jem and Dani shared a bed, except when Dani’s boyfriend stayed over, when she moved to the couch. Her days settled into an easy pattern, beginning at dawn when she walked a few metres to the beach, sucked in the sea air, wrote in her diary, and listened to Jack Johnson and Ed Sheeran on her phone. She jotted down random thoughts and tried not to beat herself up for not having answers to all life’s questions. She practised yoga with a gentle grey-haired yogi who talked about life as a process in a constant state of change.

      The contrast with her previous life could not have been greater. As a tour-guide, her life had been fast-paced and party-fuelled: sky-diving in Austria, bungy-jumping in Croatia, toga parties in

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