He performs in full drag to sold-out audiences across Belgium. He is also a parent. And the world has had a lot of opinions about whether those two things are allowed to coexist.

Mocca Bone from Drag Race Belgique sits down with Richard Westoby for one of the most unexpectedly moving conversations IVF Daddies has ever recorded. Because underneath the sequins and the beard and the spotlight is a person who went through one of the most emotionally brutal processes a family can face: international adoption. While being visibly, unapologetically queer. While the system watched and judged and made him prove himself in ways no straight parent ever would.

What this episode covers:

What international LGBTQ+ adoption actually involves that nobody talks about publicly because most people who go through it are too exhausted afterwards to explain it.

What it feels like to face institutional judgment at every stage of a process that is supposed to be about finding a child a loving home.

Why visibility in drag culture is doing something for queer family normalization that policy and legislation has failed to do in decades.

What raising children in a world that is still forming its opinion about your family does to you as a parent and what it does to your children.

How Mocca balances a public performance identity with the private reality of parenthood and why he refuses to separate them.

Why love not labels defines a family and why that sentence is easy to say and genuinely hard to live when the system disagrees.

What comes next for queer families in Europe as adoption law, surrogacy regulation, and public perception continue shifting simultaneously.

This episode is only 16 minutes long.

It will stay with you considerably longer than that.

CHAPTERS

00:00 When Chosen Family Becomes Real

02:29 The Adoption Journey No One Talks About

04:50 Facing Judgment with Pride

07:32 Raising Kids in a World That's Still Learning

10:07 Media, Drag, and Family Representation

12:57 Balancing Spotlight and Parenthood

15:26 Hope, Courage, and What Comes Next

CONNECT WITH MOCCA BONE

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mocca_bone

Drag Race Belgique: https://www.instagram.com/dragracebelgique

Listening in a browser? Open this in the Spotify app and hit follow. That is the only way Spotify tells you when new episodes land. No clinic deals. No referral fees. No false hope. IVF Daddies is the independent reference system for IVF, surrogacy and egg donation.

The fertility industry spent a decade selling egg freezing as an insurance policy. Dr. Sarah Mikowski is here to tell you what the fine print actually says.

This is not an attack on egg freezing. It is the honest version of the conversation you deserved to have before you walked into a clinic, saw the glossy brochure, and got a number that felt reassuring but told you almost nothing useful.

What this episode covers:

The single most important distinction in fertility medicine that almost no clinic explains clearly: egg quantity is what your tests measure. Egg quality is what actually determines your outcome. They are not the same thing and the difference between them can cost you years.

Why there is an optimal age window for egg freezing that is significantly earlier than most women are told and what happens to your statistical advantage every year you wait past it.

What the hormonal stimulation injections and retrieval process actually feel like physically and emotionally from someone who will not minimize it to make you more comfortable with booking.

The live birth rate statistics per frozen egg that clinics have access to and rarely volunteer. The number that changes how you evaluate whether your current plan makes sense.

Why you do not need a partner to freeze your eggs and why waiting for one is one of the most common and most costly decisions women make.

Why egg freezing does not damage your future fertility but why acting without full information absolutely can.

What lifestyle factors actually affect egg quality in ways that matter and which ones are fertility industry noise designed to sell you supplements.

Your biological clock should not be driven by fear.

It should be driven by this.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Understanding Egg Freezing

02:50 The Optimal Age for Egg Freezing

05:38 The Egg Freezing Process

08:49 Managing Expectations and Side Effects

11:27 Long-term Considerations and Recommendations

Listening in a browser? Open this in the Spotify app and hit follow. That is the only way Spotify tells you when new episodes land. No clinic deals. No referral fees. No false hope. IVF Daddies is the independent reference system for IVF, surrogacy and egg donation.

You beat cancer. You did the hardest thing a human body can do. You survived.

And then you found out that the treatment that saved your life may have taken something else. The chance to have a child. The future you were fighting to get back to.

Dr. Paul Brezina works at the intersection of oncology and fertility. He sees what happens when cancer survivors discover too late that there was a window to preserve their fertility before treatment began. A window nobody told them about. A window that is now closed.

This episode is about that window. And about the programs fighting to keep it open at the exact moment funding is being cut.

What this episode covers:

The critical timing window for fertility preservation before cancer treatment begins that most oncologists do not raise and most patients do not know to ask about.

Why the conversation between oncology and fertility medicine has historically been siloed in ways that cost survivors their reproductive future.

What sperm freezing, egg freezing, and embryo banking before chemotherapy actually involve and why the process is faster and less invasive than most survivors assume.

How new oncofertility programs are changing what is possible for cancer patients right now and why access to those programs is not equal.

Why government funding cuts to cancer research in 2025 are not abstract policy decisions. They are families that will never exist.

What the medical system is getting structurally wrong about the moment of cancer diagnosis and what needs to change.

Why awareness at the point of diagnosis saves more than health. It saves the future the survivor was fighting to reach.

They survived cancer.

They deserved a complete future.

This episode is for every survivor who was never told they had options. And for every doctor who needs to understand why that conversation cannot wait.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Cancer Survivors and Fertility

03:10 The Fertility Crisis No One Talks About

08:45 How Funding Cuts Hurt Real Patients

12:30 IVF, Oncology, and the Fight for Future Families

18:00 What the Medical System Is Getting Wrong

24:15 What Needs to Change Now

Listening in a browser? Open this in the Spotify app and hit follow. That is the only way Spotify tells you when new episodes land. No clinic deals. No referral fees. No false hope. IVF Daddies is the independent reference system for IVF, surrogacy and egg donation.

In 2025, LGBTQ+ families across Europe are boarding planes to have children because their own governments have made it legally impossible to do it at home.

This is not a hypothetical. It is the daily reality for intended parents navigating a continent where surrogacy law changes at every border, parentage rights disappear when you land at the wrong airport, and the family you built legally in one country can become legally contested in another.

Richard Westoby and Julio Gaggia have lived this. They break it down without the policy language that makes it sound abstract and without the false reassurance that makes it sound manageable.

What this episode covers:

Why surrogacy law across EU member states is not just inconsistent. It is actively contradictory in ways that create real legal jeopardy for families mid-journey.

Why same-sex couples face unequal access to IVF and parentage rights inside the EU in 2025 and why the gap between the most progressive and most restrictive member states is widening not closing.

What cross-border surrogacy in Europe actually risks legally and why families who do not understand those risks before they start are the ones who end up in court afterwards.

Why thousands of European intended parents are flying to the US, Canada, and Georgia every year because the EU has failed to create a legal framework that reflects how modern families are actually built.

What the cost, medication, and logistical reality of international surrogacy looks like for a European family with no local legal pathway.

Why community support becomes a survival system when legal systems fail you and why that support is currently doing the work that European institutions should be doing.

What reform would actually need to look like for Europe to stop exporting its own families.

The law has not kept up with the families living inside it.

This episode exists because someone has to say that out loud.

CHAPTERS

00:00 New Beginnings and Why Europe Is Complicated

02:47 Surrogacy and IVF Challenges Across the EU

05:24 Legal Limbo and Real Family Stories

07:54 Costs, Medication, and Practical Barriers

10:51 International Surrogacy and Parentage Risk

13:34 Why Families Leave the EU to Have Children

16:26 Women, Health, and Changing Power Dynamics

18:59 Community as a Survival System

Learn more: https://ivfdaddies.com

Listening in a browser? Open this in the Spotify app and hit follow. That is the only way Spotify tells you when new episodes land. No clinic deals. No referral fees. No false hope. IVF Daddies is the independent reference system for IVF, surrogacy and egg donation.

You got your results. You Googled at 2am. You are still not sure what any of it actually means for your chances of having a child.

You are not alone. And it is not your fault.

Dr. Linnea Goodman joins IVF Daddies to do the thing most fertility consultations do not have time for: explain what your numbers actually mean, what they do not mean, and why the gap between those two things is where most people's anxiety lives permanently.

What this episode covers:

AMH and FSH are not the same measurement and conflating them is one of the most common sources of unnecessary panic and false reassurance in fertility medicine. Here is the actual difference.

Why egg quantity is what your tests measure and egg quality is what determines your outcome and why no blood test currently tells you the thing you most need to know.

Why semen analysis is still treated as an afterthought in fertility workups when male factor is involved in roughly half of all cases. The test that should happen first is usually the one that happens last.

What the HSG test actually involves physically and why the version your clinic described and the version you experienced may have felt like completely different procedures.

How PCOS, hormonal fluctuations, and chronic stress interact with your fertility markers in ways that single snapshot bloodwork cannot capture.

Why the same AMH number means something completely different depending on your age, your clinic's reference range, and the lab that processed your sample.

What questions to ask at your next appointment that will get you more useful information than the appointment itself typically provides.

Your results are data points. Not a verdict.

This episode is the translation layer your doctor did not have time to be.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Understanding Fertility Testing Acronyms

10:21 The Menstrual Cycle and Hormonal Interactions

15:18 Male Fertility Testing: Semen Analysis

20:09 Evaluating the Uterus and Fallopian Tubes

Listening in a browser? Open this in the Spotify app and hit follow. That is the only way Spotify tells you when new episodes land. No clinic deals. No referral fees. No false hope. IVF Daddies is the independent reference system for IVF, surrogacy and egg donation.

The wedding was perfect. The journey to parenthood was not.

Guy and Milan got married in Ibiza and came home to a country with no clear legal pathway for gay men who want to become fathers through surrogacy. What followed was years of navigating egg donation, genetic testing, surrogacy logistics, and a Belgian legal framework that was not built with their family in mind.

Now they have written a book about it. And they are using their story to push for the legislation reform that would mean the next couple does not have to fight as hard as they did.

What this episode covers:

Why Belgium's surrogacy landscape forces LGBTQ+ intended parents into legal grey zones that straight couples never have to navigate and what that asymmetry costs families emotionally and financially.

How Guy and Milan approached choosing an egg donor and why genetic testing became a central part of a decision that is far more complex than any clinic checklist prepares you for.

Why they made the deliberate decision to allow their children the option to contact their donor in the future and what that choice reveals about how they think about identity, transparency, and their children's future.

How positive media coverage of LGBTQ+ family stories is actively changing public perception in Belgium in ways that legal advocacy alone has never managed.

Why writing a book about your surrogacy journey is an act of advocacy as much as it is an act of memory and why Guy believes visibility is the most powerful tool available to families like theirs right now.

What specific legislative change Belgium needs and why the conversation in Brussels is finally starting to catch up with the families who have been living without protection for years.

Their story is nine minutes long on this episode.

The fight it represents has been going on for years.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Journey to Parenthood: A Love Story

02:43 Navigating the Surrogacy Process

05:11 The Impact of Their Story on Society

07:38 Advocacy for Change in Belgium

Listening in a browser? Open this in the Spotify app and hit follow. That is the only way Spotify tells you when new episodes land. No clinic deals. No referral fees. No false hope. IVF Daddies is the independent reference system for IVF, surrogacy and egg donation.

There is a moment in almost every surrogacy journey where something arrives that nobody warned you about. A result. A number. A conversation with a doctor that reframes everything you thought you understood about what comes next.

For Julio and Richard, that moment came from genetic testing.

Dr. Lauren Garrett joins IVF Daddies to explain what that moment actually means medically, what your options are when it arrives, and why the families who understand genetic testing before they need it are the ones who make clearer decisions when the stakes are highest.

What this episode covers:

Why preconception genetic testing is one of the most underutilized tools in IVF and surrogacy and what it costs emotionally and financially when families skip it and find out later.

What expanded carrier screening actually looks for and why a result that sounds alarming is frequently not the verdict it appears to be without context.

How pre-implantation genetic testing works, what it can tell you about an embryo before transfer, and what it genuinely cannot tell you that some clinics imply it can.

The truth about mosaic embryos. Why a mosaic result is not automatically a reason to discard an embryo and why the conversation around them inside fertility medicine is more nuanced than most patients are told.

Why the same genetic result can mean completely different things depending on which gene is involved, which condition it relates to, and what the actual transmission risk is.

What non-invasive genetic testing looks like and why the next five years in this field are going to change how embryo selection decisions are made.

The question every IVF patient should ask before transfer that most never think to ask.

One result almost stopped everything.

Understanding it changed everything instead.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction to Genetics in Fertility

02:55 Understanding Preconception Genetic Testing

05:45 Embryo Testing: Techniques and Implications

08:45 Pre-implantation Genetic Testing Explained

11:26 The Future of Genetic Testing in Fertility

Listening in a browser? Open this in the Spotify app and hit follow. That is the only way Spotify tells you when new episodes land. No clinic deals. No referral fees. No false hope. IVF Daddies is the independent reference system for IVF, surrogacy and egg donation.

The fertility industry generates billions of dollars annually. Some of what it sells you is medicine. Some of it is marketing. A double board-certified specialist who has practiced internationally is here to help you tell the difference.

Dr. Nurit Winkler has seen what happens when patients follow a protocol designed for a different patient's diagnosis. She has also seen what happens when someone is handed IVF as a first option when a simpler intervention would have worked. She is done watching the gap between what clinics offer and what patients actually need go unaddressed.

This episode is the conversation that closes that gap.

What this episode covers:

Why the treatment protocol your clinic recommends and the treatment protocol that is right for your specific diagnosis are sometimes two completely different things and why patients rarely know to ask which one they are receiving.

Why IVF is not always the right first step even when a clinic presents it as the obvious next move and what questions to ask before you agree to it.

Why Clomid is still being prescribed to patients for whom it is medically ineffective and why understanding why changes how you evaluate every recommendation you receive.

What holistic approaches to stress management during fertility treatment actually do physiologically versus what the wellness industry claims they do and why the distinction matters when you are making decisions under pressure.

Why patients who understand their own diagnosis navigate fertility treatment better, spend less money, and experience fewer unnecessary interventions.

Why early diagnostics change everything and why the window between when most people start asking questions and when they should have started asking them is costing families time they cannot recover.

Why guilt has no place in a fertility conversation and what a genuinely collaborative doctor-patient relationship looks like versus the one most people are actually having.

There is no podcast in the world covering IVF and surrogacy with access to specialists at this level.

This is what that access sounds like when it is used honestly.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction to Fertility Treatment Options

01:21 Understanding Patient Needs and Treatment Preferences

04:23 The Role of Holistic Approaches in Fertility

08:47 Navigating Fertility Diagnostics and Early Intervention

11:40 Exploring Treatment Options Based on Diagnosis

IN COLLABORATION WITH

Ivy Fertility: https://www.ivyfertility.com

Reproductive Partners: https://www.reproductivepartners.com

Listening in a browser? Open this in the Spotify app and hit follow. That is the only way Spotify tells you when new episodes land. No clinic deals. No referral fees. No false hope. IVF Daddies is the independent reference system for IVF, surrogacy and egg donation.

At 15 years old he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The medical system gave him a protocol. He went looking for something the protocol was missing.

What Dr. Connor Curley found in the intersection of nutrition science and chronic disease eventually led him to one of the most underdiscussed questions in fertility medicine: if what you eat can change the course of a neurological condition, what is it doing to your eggs, your sperm, and your embryos right now?

This is the episode the supplement industry does not want you to have. Because it distinguishes between what the science actually supports and what the wellness marketing machine is selling you in its place.

What this episode covers:

Why one in six couples globally faces fertility challenges and why nutrition is the variable that conventional fertility medicine consistently underweights in its treatment protocols.

What the actual peer-reviewed science says about specific nutrients and their measurable impact on sperm quality, egg quality, and embryo development.

Why endometriosis is one of the most underfunded and underresearched conditions in reproductive medicine despite affecting millions of women currently navigating fertility treatment.

How Dr. Curley went from managing his own MS through nutritional intervention to developing Fertility Fix, a science-based product designed specifically for people going through IVF.

What nutrients have evidence behind them for reducing miscarriage risk and why most people going through IVF are not taking them because nobody in the clinic mentioned them.

Why the conversation about nutrition in fertility is not about replacing medical treatment. It is about giving your medical treatment the biological environment it needs to work.

What success looks like when nutrition is treated as part of the protocol rather than an afterthought.

One doctor's diagnosis at 15 years old eventually became a resource for families trying to have children.

That is the kind of origin story that makes you pay attention to the science.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction to Dr. Connor Curley and Phytofix

02:25 The Journey from MS to Nutrition Science

05:07 Exploring Endometriosis and Its Impact on Fertility

07:35 The Development of Fertility Fix

09:33 The Importance of Nutrition in IVF and Pregnancy

10:39 Conclusion and Future Directions

Listening in a browser? Open this in the Spotify app and hit follow. That is the only way Spotify tells you when new episodes land. No clinic deals. No referral fees. No false hope. IVF Daddies is the independent reference system for IVF, surrogacy and egg donation.

Every fertility clinic publishes success rates. Almost none of them are comparing the same thing. And the number that actually predicts whether you will go home with a baby is rarely the one they put on the homepage.

Dr. Deirdre Conway from Utah Fertility Center has spent her career inside the data that patients are trying to interpret from the outside. This episode is the guide to reading that data honestly.

What this episode covers:

Why comparing success rates between fertility clinics without understanding how each clinic defines success is like comparing two restaurants by looking at their menus without knowing what country you are in.

Why the embryology lab is the single most variable and least visible factor in IVF outcomes and why two clinics with identical protocols can produce dramatically different results based solely on what happens in that room.

What age-stratified success rates are, why they are the only comparison that means anything, and why most clinics do not make them easy to find.

Why success in fertility medicine should be defined as a baby in your arms and why any metric that stops short of that number is telling you something incomplete.

Why patient experience is not a soft metric. It is a clinical one. Because patients who feel supported communicate better, comply with protocols more consistently, and make clearer decisions at the moments that matter most.

The specific questions to ask a fertility clinic before you sign anything that will tell you more about their actual outcomes than any statistic on their website.

Why the support staff, coordinators, and nurses at a fertility clinic are as important to your outcome as the doctor whose name is on the door.

You are about to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a treatment with variable success rates at different facilities.

This episode is how you stop comparing apples to oranges before you write the cheque.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Choosing the Right Fertility Clinic

02:55 Understanding Success in Fertility Treatments

05:49 The Role of Embryology in IVF Success

09:07 Interpreting Success Rates in Fertility Treatments

11:48 Defining Success Metrics in IVF

Listening in a browser? Open this in the Spotify app and hit follow. That is the only way Spotify tells you when new episodes land. No clinic deals. No referral fees. No false hope. IVF Daddies is the independent reference system for IVF, surrogacy and egg donation.