DESPITE being in the middle of shearing season, it will be an extra special Father's Day for the McClure household at Konongwootong this year.

First-time dad, Owen McClure, will be doting over five-month-old baby Rupert Ellis Bell McClure who was born via surrogacy earlier this year.

Owen said he and partner, Meg, knew she couldn’t carry babies, so surrogacy was the only viable option for them.

“Generally, if you get to the point where you need a surrogate, there’s no other option,” he said.

“Surrogacy was an option that we knew that we could explore and decided to go for it.

“We knew we couldn’t carry, so we knew we couldn’t do IVF.

“We still had to harvest the eggs.”

Meg said Rupert was their genetics “but we just needed an ‘oven’”.

“We were really lucky - my sister-in-law, Paris, she volunteered,” she said.

“Because Paris was a family member, she knew we couldn’t carry children, so it just sort of happened naturally.

“It’s often the case with surrogates - it will be a family member that will step in.

“There’s only about 200 surrogacy births in Australia every year.”

Baby Rupert has his father’s brown eyes and was all agog with the fast pace of the shearing shed happening all around him.

He was a healthy 4.25kg when he was born.

“(Father’s Day) will definitely be extra special,” Owen said.

“We’re very excited.

“We’re very lucky.

“Surrogacy is pretty rare - so we think he’s (Rupert) is extra special but everyone else probably thinks their own child is extra special too.”

Despite it being a day to celebrate, the McClure’s don’t have any particular plans to mark Father’s Day.

“For Father’s Day we’ll be working on the house,” Owen said.

“There’s always lots of jobs to do.”