TERMITES”! This is the one word, aside from fire that will send a shiver up the
spine of any homeowner. For a couple of
years or so I was a member of a business network, Action Network, along with
Ben MacCotter and his father Jackson of MacCotter Pest Control. (I'm still a member, but regrettably they've left.) Each week Ben or Jackson would tell some
story of death or devastation that would send a shiver up the spines of all the
members present. Sometimes we would hear
about mound ants or cockroaches, rats or bird lice or even creepily of all –
bed bugs, but the stories of devastation to ordinary homes caused by termites
were the most traumatic and scary.
Whenever
Ben wanted to scare everyone present, he would start out with that
word: "TERMITES!" Instantly he would have everyone's attention.
One
great story was about the home buyer who got a building and pest
inspection report from a builder. It might be stating the obvious- but a
builder isn't a pest inspector. He reported that the house was in great
condition, "solid" and that there was no evidence of termites. Three
weeks after purchase, the buyer was bathing her children and noticed
termites in the bathroom door frame. On the MacCotter's checking the
home and the report, they saw that the builder had taken photos of
current termite activity- but not knowing what he was looking at
declared that everything was OK. He hadn't seen what a trained eye saw
easily.
What have termites got to do with surrogacy? Everyone says that buying a home is the most
important financial transaction that occurs in your life and therefore the most
important decision. Buying a home is
extremely important, but I wouldn’t consider it the most important. The most important decision in someone’s life
is whether or not to have a family. For
many people, the option of last resort (and in some cases, first resort) – that of surrogacy – is the only one
open to them.
When buying a home, as
with undertaking surrogacy, especially international surrogacy, prevention is
better than cure. You don’t have to have
a building and pest inspection undertaken when buying a home. With luck, you can save the money and buy a
house and live in the house for the next 30 years without any drama.
However, not having a
good building and pest inspection increases your risk. It could be that the house you thought you
bought was not the house you thought it was, it was merely a house of
cardboard. You still owe the debt to the
bank, but you don’t have anything to show for it- except devastation and cost.
You could decide to get
someone dodgy to do your building and pest inspection report. Filled with self-delusion, you might satisfy yourself
that you’ve done something – even if
that something were entirely inadequate and you still have in fact a house that
is made of cardboard, not solid at all.
Or you could in buying a
house go to a reputable pest controller, like MacCotter Pest Control, get a
thorough report done, understand what your risks are and decide based on
openness and transparency as to whether or not to proceed.
Quite simply, the same is
for international surrogacy – the most complex way known to humanity about how
to conceive a child.
Not to get good quality
legal advice from an Australian lawyer experienced in international surrogacy –
before you go overseas is quite
simply dangerous. You might be
committing a criminal offence that you didn’t know existed. You might go to a dodgy agency. You might pay far too much.
There is a lot of
information out on the internet. Much of
it is inaccurate and may not apply in your circumstances.
If you wouldn’t take the
risk when you buy a home, why would you take a similar risk when spending a
large amount of money, putting your heart on the line and having a baby through
international surrogacy?
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