A Queensland woman gave birth to twin children with separate sets of biological parents last year, in what is believed to be an Australian first situation so rare it had not been contemplated by state surrogacy laws.
The woman, anonymised in a court judgment, conceived an unplanned natural pregnancy about the same time as she received an IVF embryo transfer under a surrogacy arrangement with another couple.
Both children were born on the same day in November ۲۰۲۵ via caesarean section. There has been no dispute about the children’s parentage – both have been raised separately during the past ۱۰ months by their respective biological parents.
But the situation has required a complex case in the Queensland children’s court because surrogacy rules were written to ban situations where “birth siblings” born from surrogate pregnancies were separated.
The court ultimately ruled that while the children were “gestational twins”, they were not birth siblings for the purpose of surrogacy laws, and made an order that formalised the parentage of the biological parents.
According to the judgment, the couples involved entered into an “altruistic” surrogacy arrangement after being connected by mutual friends.
One couple, anonymised as BNJ and DRJ in the court judgment, had been unable to conceive a natural child because BNJ has a medical condition where she was born without a uterus.
They met DZ and FZ, who already had five children. DZ agreed to become a surrogate, and an embryo was inserted via IVF in April ۲۰۲۵.
About two weeks later, an ultrasound identified that DZ was carrying two foetuses. Subsequent testing revealed that one child, a girl, was the biological child of BNJ and DRJ, and that the other, a boy, was the biological child of DZ and FZ.
The boy was “conceived separately to the … embryo implantation process, and without medical assistance”.
“[DZ and FZ] had not intended to conceive a child at the time, however that is not to suggest the child is anything other than loved and wanted by [them]”, the court judgment says.
Earlier this year, the parties hired an independent counsellor to prepare a report for court proceedings that would be required to establish that BNJ and DRJ are the parents of the girl.
The report noted “the potential significance of [the children] being born of a twin birth, and that such relationship is likely to carry ongoing emotional and developmental significance for both children over time, notwithstanding the children are being raised in separate households”.
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Both families told the counsellor they intended the children “will grow up knowing one another and be raised with an age-appropriate understanding of their place within the wider family network”.
“The parties also demonstrated a shared understanding that openness and honesty regarding [the girl’s] origins and parentage will be in her best interests over time,” the judgment said.
Judge Jodie Woodridge KC considered whether the language of the Queensland Surrogacy Act prevented her from making a parentage order in relation to the girl.
Under the act, a court cannot make a parentage order in relation to only one “birth sibling”, a term defined to mean a “brother or sister of the child who was born as a result of the same pregnancy”. If twins are born as a result of a surrogate pregnancy, any parentage order must be made in relation to both children “and to the same intended parents”.
Woodridge ruled that “in the unique circumstances presented by this case” the boy and girl were not birth siblings and that the act did not prevent the order sought by both sets of parents.
