Recently, we put out the call to you, our listeners, seeking conversations around youth crime.

Today's guest answered that call.

She's the foster mother of a young woman who's been both offender and victim.

We won't be naming our guest or her daughter for various legal and personal reasons.

This is Australian True Crime.

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created,

the Wurundri Woi Warang people of the Koolan Nation.

And a warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.

I did four years of IVF with no luck and was given the opportunity to go to Greece, South

Africa or Spain to buy an embryo.

And I thought if the baby is not going to be biologically connected to me at all, I didn't

need to actually give birth to be a mother.

So I got a ready-made one.

As in a foster child?

A foster child.

That's the sort of conundrum in Australia, isn't it?

That there's no, it's very, very difficult to adopt a child.

They say there are no children up for adoption in Australia.

I'm sure that there are some,

but it feels like there are none, and yet we're desperately crying out for foster parents.

Desperate need for foster parents. But my plan was always foster to adopt, and the foster system

doesn't always support that because it depends on who the head of the foster agency

...