Love, babies, and a bold journey

Melanie Arthur and Leah Kerr made headlines last year when they announced that they were going to have each other’s babies. Charles Anderson speaks to the Nelson couple about their journey and how life looks now with two new additions to the family.

Photos: Tessa Claus

They don’t do things by halves. When Leah Kerr and Melanie Arthur met each other about 10 years ago, they became friends. Now they have had each other’s babies.

It was three years ago when that friendship turned into something more. Fast forward and now they have crammed in two pregnancies, two births, a soon-tobe wedding and a honeymoon. All with six-month olds Alfie Allan and Charlie Elias Arthur-Kerr in tow.

When they got together it was not without its pain both leaving previous relationships with two children each.

“We just didn’t know how true love would feel until we found it,” says Melanie.

That became their north star. So when the dust settled, they sat down and asked each other what it was that they wanted out of their lives - that was just theirs. Melanie said ‘travel’. Leah said ‘children’.

“In my mind, I was like, if I ever had a child with a female I'd want to swap eggs, so therefore the baby is a part of both of us,” Leah says. “If Melanie had her own, and I had just my baby, I don't think we would have cared, but it just takes that layer away.”

It also means they are both allowed to be on the birth certificate, which is rare for the situation.

However, Melanie wasn’t sure. They already had four other children between them, aged between 11 and 20, and she worried about the impact of bringing another complexity into their lives. They had counselling to help them come to the right decision.

“I didn’t want to push Melanie to have children, and whatever we decided we wanted to make sure no one felt pressured into it,” says Leah.

But soon they realised that this was a way of solidifying their love and their relationship.

“It kind of spiralled from there,” says Leah.

They moved out into a tiny home in Todds Valley, a space that was just theirs to build their new lives. Then they set about planning how they would have each other’s babies - Leah’s eggs inserted into Melanie, and vice versa, both with the same sperm donor.

“We went for our initial visit and then the gynecologist said it's a four year minimum wait for a donor in New Zealand,” says Leah.

That sort of time frame did not suit.

“We wanted to go through it together,” Leah says. “It came a bit down to us being close to 40. It was like ‘we're gonna do this anyway’. And it's like, may as well do it now rather than wait until, I don't know, 42 or 44.”

So they did their own research on private platforms where people were offering their sperm. Unsurprisingly, they found a few duds.

“We had two people who private messaged with all of the information,” Melanie says. “One of them had been through the clinic and they wouldn’t allow him to donate anymore because they had reached their capacity. So that kind of put us off.”

There were also some concerns from their specialists. The idea of having two mothers going through pregnancy at the same time was not particularly heard of. Also there was a risk that if the eggs split then they would be dealing with four babies, not two. But that did not deter them and, soon enough, they had their donor.

“He asked us early on if race was an issue,” says Melanie.

They hadn’t thought about that. It turns out the donor was from Uganda. While they believed it might throw up some issues they hadn’t thought about, they decided it wasn’t anything they couldn’t handle.

Despite Leah, Melanie, and the donor all having genetic markers for four separate conditions, they were relieved to discover that none of these conditions were passed on during testing. This allowed them to proceed with IVF at the end of 2022 without concerns.

Following this, they underwent daily hormone injections for IVF and the egg retrieval procedure. In the end, Melanie had six fertilized eggs, while Leah had nine.

So they had their donor. Then they had harvested their eggs. From there, it was a traditional IVF process. The only other difference being that neither woman ever had difficulty falling pregnant. So once they were both inseminated they pretty much knew it had worked.

“Five days later I was nauseous,” says Leah. They hadn’t told anyone but had a slip up when they decided to take pregnancy tests and left it on the window sill. Melanie’s mother found it.

The news was initially met with mixed reactions from friends and family, and confusion from some over their decision to swap eggs, but now the majority of their loved ones are supportive.

But it was their other children whose reactions they cared about the most. Leah’s daughter had her reservations about it at the start. She called it a terrible idea. But now that the babies are older she is one of their biggest fans.

“She has actually been amazing with them. If we give her the babies, she will hold them and she's so good with them.”

Before any of that, they needed to actually give birth. Their due dates were six days apart. There were nerves they could possibly go into labour at the same time or miss each other’s births.

Leah was induced first at 37 weeks and six days. Alfie's growth was found to be stunted during a scan, coupled with Leah experiencing high blood pressure and suspected pre-eclampsia, necessitating his early delivery.

“It was safer to get him out.”

Pre-eclampsia, a perilous pregnancy condition marked by high blood pressure and fetal growth restriction, poses severe risks to both mother and baby if left untreated.

Additionally, Leah grappled with persistent pain due to two herniated discs in her back. Despite being advised to undergo spinal surgery during pregnancy—a significant decision—she managed to hold off until reaching 37 weeks.

Reflecting on Leah's resilience, Melanie recounts the moment when, at 37 weeks pregnant, they decided to wait until after birth for the surgery. Leah recalls enduring escalating pain throughout labor, culminating in Alfie's birth after seven hours of intense labour on November 1, 2023.

During the pivotal moment of birth, with the midwife momentarily absent, Melanie glimpsed the imminent arrival of Alfie's head. Although momentarily taken aback, she swiftly adjusted, contemplating whether she would need to assist in catching the baby.

Fortunately, Alfie was born with one powerful contraction just before the midwife returned to safely receive him.

However, he was very small and needed to be admitted to the Special Care Baby Unit. Melanie says it felt like she herself had already had a baby.

“But I was still pregnant. I've got a baby here. So it was weird.”

She praises the hospital staff for how they looked after them.

“The hospital staff were really lovely. They put another bed in Leah's room, so we just stayed in for the week, which they usually don't do.”

But they had another birth to prepare for.

Melanie had undergone Caesarean sections for her first two births due to the absence of spontaneous labour. Given her history, a C-section was scheduled for November 20 as a precautionary measure, though Melanie remained open to the possibility of a natural birth before that date if feasible.

“I remember the midwife saying, ‘I don’t know if you’ll make it that long. With all the hormones in this house, you’ll probably go into labour soon’. This was actually quite a science experiment having two women together in the same household,” says Melanie.

It turns out they were right.

On November 11, Melanie thought she was experiencing lots of Braxton Hicks contractions during the day. Then, she found something was definitely happening after getting out of the shower that night.

“I was drying myself, but I was still wet.” Her water had broken.

Since it was 10pm, Melanie's mum hurried over to care for baby Alfie, allowing Leah and Melanie to return to Nelson Hospital for the second time in just one week.

“As much as it terrified me because I’ve never done it, I thought I should try and do a natural birth,” Melanie says.

However, those plans were put to the side when she ended up having an emergency Caesarean after a scan during labour showed her baby was breech.

So, with Leah right by her side in the operating room, Charlie Elias Arthur-Kerr was born a healthy 3.9kg. They had been used to Alfie being tiny. So when Charlie came out he was huge.

“I turned to the anaesthetist and said, ‘I’m quite glad I didn’t have to push that out.”

When they arrived they got used to having two babies in the house and realised that every child was different. All their previous children had been relatively easy.

Charlie and Alife, however, are very particular about their needs. It means that each of the mothers will breastfeed the other, particularly if it means allowing the other to get some sleep.

“Like my previous kids, but they would just kind of, like, chill out on the floor and play with the toys,” Melanie says.

These boys, however, need constant stimulation. “So every day we just go somewhere. Like for a walk or whatever. We just go somewhere.”

The couple are besotted by the new additions to the family. “We feel that they're both equally our babies,” says Melanie. “Technically he’s not my DNA, but he feels like my DNA.”

While the boys aren’t technically twins, they are considered twins by the Multiples NZ society.

Melanie and Leah are both on maternity leave until the end of the year and plan on making the most of it. The couple are looking forward to their Queenstown wedding this month, then the boys will be baptised the next day with their closest friends and family present.

They have managed to find a priest who is accommodating of their unique circumstances.

And then it’s off to Italy for their dream honeymoon with the babies in tow. Venice, Parma, Tuscany and London are all on the cards.

“We can’t wait,” Leah says.

They will have to return to work later in the year, which will have its own set of challenges. But after everything they have gone through, they know they made the right choice.

The wedding and honeymoon will cap off a journey two years in the making, one that resulted in the latest additions to the family.