SHEILA VIJEYARASA PLAN C IS WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS

THE BIG MIRACLES STAR OPENS UP ABOUT HER JOURNEY TO MOTHERHOOD AND FINDING FORTUNE IN LIFE'S 'FAILURES'

- 

Awkwardly squatting over the toilet seat to take a pregnancy test, a large TV production camera watching on, Sheila Vijeyarasa couldn't help but realise that her journey to motherhood hadn't exactly gone to plan. In fact, meeting her now husband, Tyson, at 45, going through seven unsuccessful rounds of IVF and filming it all for the Nine Network's documentary series Big Miracles wasn't exactly her Plan B, either.

However, after falling pregnant on her eighth attempt - her first using donor eggs - it quickly dawned on Sheila that this was exactly how it had to happen all along. “What I realised was when I became a donor mum, and I really speak to this, becoming a donor mum or adopting or fostering or surrogacy, this is not a second choice or option,” she tells WHO. “This is not a consolation prize. Having a child that's not genetically mine is not second best. This was always the way [son] Phoenix and I were going to meet in this world, and I became a donor mother to learn how to love in a different way.”

It was this realisation that sparked the idea for Sheila's second book,