TRIGGER WARNING: This article discusses miscarriage and infant death. If you find these topics distressing, please contact SANDS on 1300 308 307.
While Chris Robinson was navigating his rocky marriage to Sam Stanton on Married At First Sight, he was also carrying a heartbreak most viewers knew nothing about.
Behind the scenes, the 38-year-old farmer and gym owner was in the middle of a surrogacy journey.
And unfortunately, it wasn’t going to plan.
“I transferred one embryo halfway through filming, and it was unsuccessful, but I didn’t talk about it on the show,” he tells New Idea.
“And then I had a second transfer just before Reunion. That one was looking good, but unfortunately, the surrogate lost it.”
The second loss was a miscarriage, something Chris only found out after the Reunion had already filmed.
“At Reunion, you’ll probably hear me talking about having another kid coming,” he says.
“But then after Reunion, I found out it was unsuccessful.”
It’s a lot to carry, and Chris admits the timing of going on MAFS in the middle of it all may not have been his wisest decision.
“It might have been a little bit reckless for me to go on the show so close to being a father. But I literally thought that I could have it all. And that’s usually my style.”
There were moments during filming where the grief became too much to hold in.
Chris reveals he attended a baby shower alone during the experiment and broke down completely — a moment that never made it to air.
“I burst out in tears and cried to Rachel, and she consoled me,” he says.
“None of that was shown. That might have given people a bit of context as to why I wanted to leave.”
Chris went into the experiment already carrying an enormous amount on his plate.
He had begun a surrogacy journey through an agency in Colombia, and then a close friend asked him to donate sperm for her IVF journey.
“I jumped at the chance,” he previously told New Idea.
“We’ve been close friends for 17 years, so I knew we could make it work.”
His daughter was born at the end of 2025, after filming had wrapped. He sees her two or three times a week and is very much involved in her life.
But while that joy was coming, the surrogacy journey was unravelling — and Chris was processing it largely alone, he says, in the middle of a television experiment, with cameras rolling.
As for what comes next, he is taking some time before trying again.
“I’ve decided to put the second child on hold for a bit and try again probably later in the year,” he says.
