No need for Prince Charming

Fiona O’Neil is a fertility and workplace coach, founder of The Fertility Framework, and the kind of person you want in your corner when your boss has no idea what IVF actually involves.
A note before we begin: this episode touches on pregnancy loss — including recurrent loss and late loss — experienced by both Alisha and her guest. As always on this podcast, we share these things honestly and without drama. If you’re in a tender place today, please be kind to yourself as you listen.

Nobody prepares you for the collision between fertility treatment and your working life. Not your clinic. Not your HR department. Certainly not the two-day bereavement leave entitlement Australia currently offers for pregnancy loss.

Fiona O’Neil has lived the long version of this — fifteen years, 21 embryo transfers, every form of donor conception, two anonymous egg donation trips to South Africa, and a late endometriosis and adenomyosis diagnosis that reframed everything. She became a mum through embryo donation; her son is now eleven. And out of all of it, she built The Fertility Framework: a one-on-one coaching and workplace training practice helping people navigate fertility treatment without having to choose between it and their career.

In this episode, Alisha and Fiona cover the practical ground that rarely gets spoken about — when and how to tell your manager, what you are and aren’t required to disclose, how to manage the unpredictability of a treatment cycle, what good support from a workplace actually looks like after a failed cycle or pregnancy loss, and the specific pressures that fall on solo mums who are funding treatment themselves. Alisha shares some of her own experience too — including what it was like to go back to work after her son’s stillbirth, and what helped people around her find the right words.

This is a practical episode. It will change how you think about the conversation you’ve been dreading.

In this episode:

What to put in place before your first cycle — treatment schedule, workplace leave policies, and why you need a “warm person” in your corner before you need them

Whether to tell your manager — the real pros and cons, and why the calculus is different for solo mums who are funding treatment alone

How much to actually disclose — why “egg freezing” might serve you better than “IVF,” and why disclosure doesn’t have to be all or nothing

What a good manager conversation looks like — come with a plan, specific dates, a backup for important meetings, and always follow up in writing

Managing the unpredictability of a cycle — how to identify your high-stakes commitments in advance and build an agreement your team can actually work with

Long-term exhaustion — when to reassess, when to change your specialist, when to change your treatment plan, and when permission to stop is the most important thing you can give yourself

What workplaces get wrong after failed cycles and pregnancy loss — why there’s no expiry on support, and what to actually say to someone who is grieving

Australia’s two-day bereavement leave entitlement for pregnancy loss — what it means, and why it’s not enough

Specific advice for solo mums: who drives you home after retrieval, how to compare clinics on cost (not just success rates), and why choosing to do this solo doesn’t mean you have to do everything solo

What Fiona’s one-on-one coaching looks like — prep before appointments, debrief after, advocate in the room, available nationally via Zoom

Alisha on going back to work after her son’s stillbirth — and how inviting her colleagues to the wake gave them a language they didn’t have

Key Takeaways:

The only information you need to give your manager relates to how you’re going to continue doing your job successfully during treatment — nothing more is required

Disclosure doesn’t have to be all or nothing — “egg freezing” is a legitimate and accurate framing that protects you from the “mummy track” assumption

Always follow up a disclosure conversation in writing — a quick email confirming what was agreed protects you if circumstances or managers change

Agree upfront which commitments are genuinely unmovable, and build a clear communication process for the unpredictable days — your team needs a plan, not an apology

One in four people is experiencing pregnancy loss. The colleagues around you need to know what to say, and “what would best support you right now?” is always the right starting question

When all else fails, pretend you’re your best friend — the advice you’d give her is almost always better than what you’re giving yourself

Choosing to be a solo mum is a very empowering decision. It doesn’t mean you have to do everything solo — especially the practical bits like who drives you home after retrieval

The goal is to feel like you’re in control — regularly reassessing what’s working and what isn’t is how you stay there

Resources mentioned:

The Fertility Framework — Fiona O’Neil’s one-on-one fertility and workplace coaching, available nationally via Zoom: thefertilityframework.com.au (confirm URL with Fiona before publishing)

Workplace training: Fiona’s sister is a psychotherapist within The Fertility Framework — they offer fertility-aware leadership training, language and culture sessions, and workplace policy review

The Bump Membership — Solo Mum Society’s membership for women who are TTC or pregnant solo: solomumsociety.com/the-bump

This episode is brought to you by City Fertility
Exploring fertility treatment as a solo mum in Australia? City Fertility offers an exclusive 20% discount for No Need for Prince Charming listeners. Claim your discount here.

Currently TTC or pregnant solo?
The Bump Membership is built for exactly where you are right now — community, support, and information for women navigating the TTC and pregnancy journey without a partner. Find out more.

Kate was 39, grieving her dad, and finally certain. She’d spent three years in a COVID relationship, lost her father to cancer, watched her partner lose his dad, and felt the whole thing quietly unravel. When it did, the clarity was instant: she rang Melbourne IVF two months before her 40th birthday.

What followed was ICSI, 13 eggs retrieved, a failed first transfer, a natural frozen cycle that worked — and then the worst hyperemesis gravidarum her obstetrician had ever seen. Kate was on 13 tablets a day, had IV fluids at home, missed most of a school term, and spent the first trimester in what she describes honestly as anxiety and depression. Her baby was perfectly healthy. She wasn’t, and she talks about it without filters.

She also talks about the C-section she loved (favourite song, saw the placenta, best part of the whole process), the Airbnb-for-mum postpartum hack, the triple feeding she stopped at three months, and Oliver Ian — 11 months old, named for her nan Olive and her dad Ian.

Trigger warnings: Hyperemesis gravidarum; mental health impact during pregnancy (anxiety, depression); pregnancy movement scare (resolved).

In this episode:

Grief as the catalyst that made everything clear

Choosing Melbourne IVF and Dr Kate Stern

ICSI at 40 — why Kate went straight there

The pre-op cubicle moment (feeling dad and nan)

13 eggs, failed first transfer, natural frozen cycle

Hyperemesis gravidarum — the honest account

Elective C-section at Francis Perry Hospital

The Airbnb-for-mum postpartum solution

Triple feeding, formula feeding, and enormous relief

Oliver Ian: three generations in a name

Frozen embryos — the home freezer decision

Why Kate decided one child is exactly right for her life

This episode is brought to you by City Fertility
Exploring fertility treatment as a solo mum in Australia? City Fertility offers an exclusive 20% discount for No Need for Prince Charming listeners. Claim your discount here.

 

Still considering whether this path is right for you?
The Considering Solo Motherhood course helps you make an informed, empowered decision — and understand what the process actually looks like before you start. Live or on demand, from anywhere in the world. Learn more here.

Danielle spent a year travelling solo around Australia in a campervan — her “year of summer” — using the time and the open road to work out whether she was ready to become a solo mum. Now she’s the mum of six-month-old Summer, and she couldn’t be happier.

In this episode, Danielle shares her journey from hopeless romantic to intentional solo mum: setting a cutoff age of 35, freezing her eggs at 34, navigating interstate treatment from Tasmania to Melbourne, a chemical pregnancy on her first IUI, a C-section at 38 weeks with her sister by her side, and the moment everything shifted.

She also covers some of the practical side: accessing superannuation for fertility costs, choosing a local Australian donor for regulatory and identity reasons, and what it’s like to build a solo mum community in a small state.

And her message to Summer, recorded when Summer was just six months old, is not to be missed.

Trigger note: This episode includes mention of a chemical pregnancy.

This episode is brought to you by City Fertility
Exploring fertility treatment as a solo mum in Australia? City Fertility offers an exclusive 20% discount for No Need for Prince Charming listeners. Claim your discount here.

 

Still considering whether this path is right for you?
The Considering Solo Motherhood course helps you make an informed, empowered decision — and understand what the process actually looks like before you start. Live or on demand, from anywhere in the world. Learn more here.

Surrogacy is legal in Australia. Most people don’t know that.
This week I’m joined by Sarah Jefford — family creation lawyer, egg donor, and surrogate — who has spent the last decade working exclusively in family creation law. No divorces, no custody battles. Just helping people build their families in all the different ways that looks like today. She’s based in Melbourne, works nationally, and has both donated her eggs and carried a baby as a surrogate for a gay couple she met through Facebook.

This episode is for any solo mum who has been on a long fertility journey and is now wondering whether surrogacy is the next option — or for anyone who has thought about being a surrogate themselves.

Sarah explains how surrogacy actually works in Australia, why it’s so hard to find a surrogate, what you can and can’t legally pay for, how the legal process after birth works (and why it’s more complicated than it sounds), and how to share your story online without falling foul of the no-advertising laws. She also covers overseas surrogacy — including which states make it illegal for their residents to pursue it commercially overseas, and what happens when you bring a baby back to Australia.

The numbers are sobering: fewer than 100 surrogacy births happen in Australia each year. Over 350 Australian children are born via international surrogacy annually. The laws haven’t kept pace with how people actually find each other — which is Facebook — and there are no agencies to help match surrogates with intended parents.

But it does happen. Regularly. And the advice from someone who has done it — both as a surrogate and as a lawyer — is simply: build community, share your story, make connections. Your surrogate might already be in your orbit.

In this episode:

How Sarah went from divorce law to family creation law — via IVF, egg donation, and surrogacy

What gestational surrogacy (using a donor egg and embryo) versus traditional surrogacy (surrogate’s own egg) actually means

Why altruistic surrogacy laws limit the number of women willing to put their hands up — and what intended parents can legally cover

Lost income, medical expenses, maternity clothing, acupuncture, lawn mowing — what expenses are covered and what aren’t

The post-birth legal process: parentage orders, birth certificates, and what it means that the surrogate is always initially the legal parent

State by state: why Victorian surrogacy must occur in a Victorian clinic, why Tasmania requires a Tasmanian surrogate, and why national laws are long overdue

The advertising prohibition — and how to share your story without technically advertising

Overseas surrogacy: which states prohibit their residents from commercial surrogacy overseas, and the complexity of bringing a baby home

How to find a surrogate: Facebook communities, state-based groups, your beautician

What the Big Conversations list is and why intended parents and surrogates need to work through it before they begin

Pregnancy termination, vaccination, circumcision, home birth — the conversations that need to happen before conception

Centrelink and paid parental leave for both surrogates and intended parents

What it was actually like for Sarah to carry a baby for someone else, and what she’d say to someone thinking about doing the same

Resources:

Sarah Jefford’s website

Preparing for Surrogacy

The surrogacy process in Australia

So you want to be a surrogate

Key Takeaways

Surrogacy is legal in Australia — but finding a surrogate is genuinely difficult, and most are found through social media or existing relationships

You cannot advertise for a surrogate, but you can share your story — there is an important distinction

What intended parents can cover: medical expenses, counselling, legal fees, lost income, maternity clothing, pregnancy-related allied health, domestic help. What they can’t cover: a profit or payment above actual expenses

The surrogate is the legal parent until a parentage order is granted by a state court — this applies even in gestational surrogacy where she has no genetic connection to the baby

Each state has different laws — Victoria, Tasmania, and WA have specific restrictions that affect intended parents in those states

NSW, Queensland, and ACT residents are technically breaking the law if they pursue commercial surrogacy overseas

The counselling is not an assessment of your worthiness — it’s preparation for what could go wrong, and it’s genuinely useful

Talk through the hard scenarios before you begin: miscarriage, pregnancy complications, termination, what happens if the relationship breaks down

Build the surrogacy community broadly — not just in surrogacy-specific groups. Your best connection might come from somewhere you didn’t expect

Over 350 Australian children are born via international surrogacy each year — the laws have not kept pace with reality

 

This episode is brought to you by City Fertility
Exploring fertility treatment as a solo mum in Australia? City Fertility offers an exclusive 20% discount for No Need for Prince Charming listeners. Claim your discount here.

 

Still considering whether this path is right for you?
The Considering Solo Motherhood course helps you make an informed, empowered decision — and understand what the process actually looks like before you start. Live or on demand, from anywhere in the world. Learn more here.

She does both, and solo is easier.
Merryn grew up thinking life would look a certain way. Her parents together, her aunties and uncles together, everyone partnered, everyone staying. She figured the same would happen for her. She spent her 20s travelling Europe, living in Perth, playing football, nursing, having classic terrible dating stories. She moved back to Victoria at 30, booked a fertility check just to see where things stood, and met someone through a friend from work.

She thought she’d finally got it right.

Two weeks after her son Sully was born, her best friend took her for a walk and told her she’d been contacted by the ex. It turned out Merryn’s partner had been regularly visiting his ex-girlfriend during night shifts and coming home to her while she was pregnant. She kicked him out. She tried to make it work for Sully’s sake. She eventually couldn’t.

By the time Sully was 18 months, Merryn had gone back to the fertility clinic. She did two IUIs that didn’t work, then IVF — 22 eggs at 36 and a half, eight embryos. First frozen transfer. Positive.

What followed was a pregnancy that started beautifully and got complicated — placenta previa diagnosed at 20 weeks, a bleed at 25 weeks, waters breaking at 33 weeks, and then at 36 weeks an emergency caesarean under general anaesthetic for a placental abruption. Sinclair came out at 2.4 kilograms. Merryn’s best friend was in the waiting room because they couldn’t have a support person under general anaesthetic. Sinclair spent three days in NICU, Merryn got a hotel near the hospital so she could feed him every four hours, and they went home.

He is now 19 months old, platinum blonde, cheeky, a watcher, doesn’t talk much but is doing things the whole time. The Dennis the Menace of the family.

Merryn is now 20 weeks pregnant with a girl — same donor, same clinic, first transfer again. Sully is six and has strong opinions about gender reveals. Sinclair has no idea what’s coming and is currently learning not to hit babies.

And two months ago, Merryn moved into a duplex she built next door to another solo mum. Shared backyard, no fence, kids running free, baby monitor working across the wall, dropping each other’s kids at school, nipping to the shops while the other one watches them. Six weeks in and she says it’s already a game changer.

She also does both — co-parenting Sully with his dad, and raising Sinclair and her daughter on her own. And she says, unprompted and clearly: solo is easier.

In this episode:

Travelling, nursing, Perth, football — and a decade of dating that never led anywhere serious

Getting a fertility check at 31 out of curiosity — not yet ready to go solo

Meeting someone through a colleague, getting accidentally pregnant with Sully at 32, and thinking she’d finally got her life plan back on track

Finding out two weeks postpartum that her partner had been sleeping with his ex throughout the pregnancy

Staying civil for Sully’s sake and the strength that took — then finding her feet as a solo mum

Going back to the clinic when Sully was 18 months old: two failed IUIs, then IVF at 36 with Dr David Wilkinson at City Fertility

22 eggs, 8 embryos, a first frozen transfer that worked

Placenta previa at 20 weeks, a bleed at 25 weeks, waters breaking at 33 weeks and then an emergency caesarean with general anaesthetic at 36+4

Her best friend waiting outside the theatre — and getting Sinclair’s first cuddle because Merryn couldn’t

Three days in NICU, a hotel near the hospital, and coming home

Sinclair at 19 months: platinum blonde, a watcher, the Dennis the Menace stage

Telling Sully about donor conception — “you’ve got a dad, this one’s got a donor” — and him accepting it completely because his best friend’s family looks similar

Going back for number three — same donor, same clinic, first transfer, 20 weeks pregnant with a girl

What it’s actually like to do both — co-parenting Sully and solo-parenting the younger two

Building a duplex next to another solo mum and what six weeks in actually looks like

Shift work as a solo mum — getting government approval for in-home care overnight\

What she’d say to any woman who has a child from a previous relationship and wants more

Key Takeaways

If you already have a child from a previous relationship and want more — solo is a viable, genuinely easier path than co-parenting again

Solo motherhood and co-parenting can coexist in one family — it is hard, but it’s doable and women do it

The complexities of being a solo mum almost always come from the co-parenting side, not the parenting itself

Building your living situation intentionally — even a duplex next door to another solo mum — is a legitimate, practical, brilliant idea

Shift workers who are single parents are entitled to government-subsidised in-home care — it exists, it just takes paperwork

Get the process started before you’re sure — Merryn was dating while she was on the donor registry and that’s completely fine

Start before 35 if you can — not because it’s impossible after, but because every year matters

 

This episode is brought to you by City Fertility
Exploring fertility treatment as a solo mum in Australia? City Fertility offers an exclusive 20% discount for No Need for Prince Charming listeners. Claim your discount here.

 

Looking for a way to help explain your family to others?
My Perfect Family is the perfect book to show there are so many different ways to create a family, whilst normalising the language associated with donor conception. Perfect for all families who want to show their children that families come in many forms and that not all families look like theirs. Get your copy here.