RTÉ's Darragh McCullough, his wife and baby born via surrogacy turned away from EU border
Darragh McCullough, who lives in Co. Meath, spoke about the private struggle he and his wife endured as they tried to become parents.
An RTÉ broadcaster has revealed he and his wife are stuck in northern Greece with their new baby born via surrogacy after being turned away from the EU border.
Darragh McCullough and his wife Aoife welcomed their first baby, a little girl named Grace, three weeks ago. However, as they attempted to return home via the Turkish/Greek Cypriot border, they were refused entry.
The presenter told RTÉ radio about the couple’s 15-year journey to become parents via failed IVF treatment and their battle to return home.
“When we got to the border the guards basically waved us away and the taxi driver informed us that the laws had changed the day before and we need more paperwork,” he explained.
“We have to present more paperwork to the Turkish Interior Ministry and there's a national holiday here for the next couple of days, so we are basically holed up.
“I was really annoyed about it at the time but at the end of the day all we lost was accommodation that was booked in the south for a couple of days."
The farmer who lives in Co. Meath spoke about the private struggle he and his wife endured as they tried to become parents.
"In some ways part of me had resigned myself to the fact that we wouldn't have a family and that was fine,” he said.
“We are happily married, as far as I know, and we are lucky in many respects, but we had a lot of ups and downs through IVF and even this surrogacy journey was not straightforward and is not straightforward because we are not there yet in terms of getting Grace home."
The couple received a phone call to say their surrogate had gone into labour and they had to book flights and rush to North Greece to welcome their daughter.
“The next day we were in Dublin Airport getting a flight to Paphos in the south of the country,” he said.
“It’s a long flight four or five hours long, we landed then we jumped into a taxi, drove for two hours to the hospital in the north of Cyprus.
“We landed around 12 midnight, with all our suitcases, cots and baby formula and quite nervous and ushered up to a room and inside the room was a nanny who was snoozing and a little baby called Grace.
He also explained the moment he held his daughter for the first time.
“It's all a mad mix of adrenalin and excitement and nervousness and terror and joy and at the end of maybe 15 years of trying to start a family this is what we hoped and dreamed of.
“To be honest with you, the moment where I felt most emotional about it was when we first took her out in the pram on the street."
