Gay baby boom, Gay Parenting, Same Sex, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

Gay Baby Boom Part 2: A Westport couple shares their personal fertility journey

Source: News 8

NORWALK, Conn. (WTNH)–Marriage equality has given more same-sex couples the confidence to start a family, making local fertility clinics busier than ever. It’s being called a Gay Baby Boom. In Part 2 of a special series, News 8 introduces viewers to a Westport couple, sharing their personal journey to have kids.

“It was something I always did want but didn’t think it was in my realm of possibilities,” says Greg Zola. As a young, gay man, he wasn’t sure he could realize his dream of becoming a parent.

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Egg Donor, Sperm Donor, Vietnam

60-year-old woman becomes Vietnam’s oldest mother

Source: VNExpress

A 60-year-old woman delivers a healthy baby in Hanoi in mid-February, thanks to an egg donor.

She hit menopause several years ago but did not give up on her dream of motherhood.

A Vietnamese woman has given birth to a healthy child at the age of 60, making her the oldest woman in the country to become a mother.

The woman, named only as Ngan, hit menopause several years ago after struggling for a long time to have a baby. She and her husband eventually decided to resort to IVF, using donated eggs and her husband’s sperm.

The baby was born in mid-February via C-section and weighing 2.6 kilograms, and has been given extra formula milk as Ngan cannot produce enough.

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Donor Eggs, donor sperm, Japan

Japan – More children of donor sperm, eggs being told truth about birth

Source: The Arabi Shimbum

Using picture books, hand-drawn cards and simple honesty, an increasing number of parents are explaining the facts to children born through donor sperm and eggs.

While it was previously thought unadvisable to tell the children the truth, the importance of their right to know their origin of birth is spreading around Japan.

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Law, Sperm Donation, Sperm Donor

Judge Dismisses Third Sperm Bank Lawsuit Over Dodgy Donor

Source: Daily Report powered By Law.com

For the third time, a federal judge in Atlanta has tossed out claims against a Georgia sperm bank involving a donor it touted as a highly educated and multitalented but who was really a convicted felon with a history of mental illness.

The order issued Thursday by Northern District Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. closely mirrors two he issued last year, finding that Xytex Cryo International clients who bore children sired by the donor have no basis under Georgia law to sue for “wrongful birth.”

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Divorce, intended parents, Law, Same Sex, Surrogacy Law

U.S. Supreme Court rejects Tucson woman’s argument in gay marriage, child custody matter

Source: Tuscan.com

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning rejected a bid by a Tucson woman arguing that gay marriages are not legally the same as others, at least when it comes to divorce.

Without comment the justices rejected a bid by Kimberly McLaughlin to deny shared custody of her biological child with Suzan McLaughlin, who she was legally married to at the time of the child’s birth.

Keith Berkshire, Kimberly McLaughlin’s attorney, acknowledged to the justices that two prior rulings had said that all marriages are entitled to the same benefits.

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Gay Parenting, Gestational surrogacy, Hysterectomy, Infertility, intended parents, Same Sex, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

Using a Surrogate

Source: WINFertility

What You Need to Know

There are several reasons to consider using a surrogate to bear your child. Male same-sex couples who want to have a biological child often use a surrogate. Some women are unable to carry and bear a child due to cancer treatment, genetic conditions, having had a hysterectomy, or medical conditions that make it dangerous for them to get pregnant. Sometimes couples use a surrogate when other fertility treatments have not been successful for them or there are problems with the female partner’s uterus. You may have heard of celebrity couples who have used surrogates, such as Jimmy Fallon and his wife Nancy Juvonen, and Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick. Here are some facts you need to know before you start on your journey to a family with a surrogate.

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DNA Test, Donor Eggs, Donor Embryos, Egg Donor, Sperm Donation, Sperm Donor

Personal genetic testing and the implications for the donor conception community

Source: BioNews

The dramatic growth of the databases is raising ethical challenges for the donor conception community. It has been recognised for some time that donor anonymity can no longer be guaranteed but this hypothetical threat is now very much a reality.

Donor conceived individuals are using genetic genealogy databases to match with genetic relatives and identify their biological parents, and there have been many success stories. There are now also a number of cases where people have accidentally discovered that they were donor conceived after taking a commercial DNA test. Some families who have used the services of a fertility clinic have learnt through DNA testing that the clinic owner substituted his own sperm for that of the father (see BioNews 931).

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intended parents, Ireland, Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law, Surrogate Mother

Ireland – Call for legislation to treat surrogate mothers equally

Source: Connacht Tribune

A Galway City councillor has called on the Health Minister to consider introducing legislation giving surrogate mothers maternity leave so they are not treated any differently from natural or adoptive parents.

Fine Gael Cllr Padraig Conneely said he is aware of several couples in Galway who have become parents through a surrogacy arrangement abroad.

Surrogacy is a way for a childless couple or individual to have a child, with a surrogate mother carrying the child. The surrogate mother agrees to be artificially inseminated or to have an embryo transferred to her womb in order to become pregnant. She then carries the child to term with the intention of giving custody of the child to the “commissioning” person or couple.

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Sperm Donation, Sperm Donor

A fertility doctor’s secret, a special kinship decades later

Source: AP News

This photo provided by Matt White shows him with Jacoba Ballard, left, and Julie Harmon in New York before a television interview. The three one-time strangers have also reached out to 21 other men and women, all in their 30s, who’ve been linked through DNA tests as their half-siblings, which they claim is evidence that former fertility doctor Donald Cline is likely thei biological father. (Courtesy Matt White via AP)

ZIONSVILLE, Ind. (AP) — Matt White remembers that day in September 2016 when a mystery began to unravel that would change his life.

It started when White read a news report that Dr. Donald Cline, a retired Indianapolis fertility specialist, faced charges for lying when he denied he’d inseminated unwitting patients with his own sperm decades earlier. He searched out Cline’s address online, recognizing it as the location of his mother’s former doctor. Then he Googled the doctor’s name. When a photo popped up, he was stunned: He looked like Cline.

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Donor Eggs, Donor Embryos, Egg Donation, Egg Donor, Embryo, Gay Parenting, Gestational surrogacy, Same Sex, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

3 Questions Queer People Should Ask Before Growing Our Families

Source: Forbes

Traditional methods aren’t typically available for queer people to grow their families, and growing families non-traditionally can be expensive. What are the options and costs for queer couples and individuals to consider when family planning?

3 Questions Queer People Should Ask Before Growing Our Families – photo by Shutterstock

The cost to raise a child from birth to 18 years old, not including family planning or college, is estimated by the USDA to be about $245,340. For many LGBT families, this is the minimum cost. This is why lack of financial planning when family planning could put queer families at financial risk.

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Sperm Donation, Sperm Donor

Sonoma teen Tyler Sievers discovers 20 half-siblings

Source:  Sonoma Index-Tribune

Tyler and his half sister Heather. This is only the second time they’ve met. (Photo by Robbi Pengelly/Index-Tribune)

Growing up as an only child, Tyler Sievers was comfortable with solitude.

His mothers expected their son to occupy himself – and so Sievers became a creative and resourceful boy. For 18 years he lived happily as a party of one.

And then he sent his DNA to Ancestry.com, and got 20 half-siblings back.

He was conceived in March of 1999, using donated sperm banked at Pacific Reproductive Services in San Francisco. The donor was selected by his mothers from hundreds of options, using data that profiled each man’s broad particulars. Age, height, weight, eye-color. Medical history, family history, hobbies and skills. Sievers’ moms made their choice and his biological mother was inseminated. On Dec. 23 of 1999, Tyler Hammill Sievers was born.

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Gay Parenting, Law, Same Sex

For 3rd Time, ‘Presumption of Legitimacy’ for Same-Sex Couples Recognized

Source: New York Law Journal

A state appeals court in Brooklyn on Wednesday recognized the “presumption of legitimacy”—that a child born during a marriage is presumed to be the two spouses’ child—for a same-sex married couple that had been fighting to stop a male sperm donor from asserting parental rights to their daughter.

The ruling is the third time in the last five months that a state appeals court has made clear that New York’s family law presumption of legitimacy applies to same-sex couples—just as it does to heterosexual couples.

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Cancer, Embryo Freezing, Gestational surrogacy, Infertility, Surrogate Mother, UK

Selfless surrogate delivers her own niece after her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer months after dream wedding despite having no symptoms

Source: Daily Mail

Randi Fishman was 28, newly married, and ready to start a family when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2011.

The crushing news was made all the more painful when her Maryland doctors said that, even if she overcame the disease, carrying children could be a risk that could cost Randi her life.

She immediately got her eggs frozen, and along with husband Zach, then also 28, started the lengthy and expensive process to find a surrogate to carry their embryos fertilized by IVF.

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Sperm Donor

For gay parents, first comes the baby — then comes the debt

Source: NBCNews

There are more options than ever for same-sex couples looking to expand their families, but it’s not a simple — or affordable — endeavor for many.

Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and his husband, British Olympic diver Tom Daley, announced on Valentine’s Day that they’re expecting their first child. But while there are more options than ever for same-sex couples looking to expand their families, it’s not a simple — or affordable — endeavor for many.

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Donor Eggs, Egg Donation, Egg Donor

The Truth About Infertility for Women Over 40

Source: Harper’s Bazaar

One woman’s messy path to motherhood via egg donation.

Where did your son get those beautiful, inky-black eyes?” asked my new friend Janet, a mom from my son’s preschool class.

“I don’t know, actually,” I said with practiced nonchalance. “We don’t share any genes. I used an egg donor.”

Janet looked away from me, gazing at the ground as she absorbed this information, before stammering, “Oh, I didn’t realize that.”

In the awkward silence that followed, I could practically hear the questions spinning in her brain. This has happened countless times since my son’s birth four years ago. People teetering on the brink, wondering if it’s okay to ask questions or if they should pretend I hadn’t just revealed a deep personal truth: I’m infertile; I used an egg donor.

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Embryo, Gestational surrogacy, Infertility, Jewish, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

One Woman’s Body, Another Woman’s Baby

Source: Jewish Journal

A large chalkboard in the kitchen of the Sherman Oaks home of Sam and Rachel Simkin proclaims, “Please excuse the mess, we are making memories.” Those memories are being made with their children: Jonah, 9, Penina, 7, Vered, 4, and their 12-year-old golden retriever, Nagy.

Rachel, 38, is finishing pumping breast milk for the fourth baby she gave birth to in November. He was nicknamed “Baby G” while in utero. However, he is not the Simkins’ son. Rachel was a gestational surrogate, implanted with an embryo created via in vitro fertilization with Mr. and Mrs. G’s egg and sperm.

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Adoption, Gestational carrier agreements, Gestational surrogacy, intended parents, Law, Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law, Surrogate Mother

Racism, Blackmail, And Death: Iowa Supreme Court Makes Pro-Surrogacy Ruling In Tumultuous Case

Source: Above The Law

Let’s count this as an important half-victory for securing the rights of intended parents to enter into valid surrogacy agreements.

Last week, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of the intended parents in a surrogacy arrangement gone wildly wrong. The judgment finally secured the parental rights of an intended parent who was also the genetic father of the baby. The case also set a valuable precedent for enforcing surrogacy contracts in Iowa. Intended parents and gestational surrogates — as well as fertility doctors and assisted reproductive technology attorneys in the Hawkeye state — can all celebrate the new certainty and dependability of many of these arrangements. However, the decision left open the possibility that some parents may be left out in the bitter Iowa cold.

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Sperm Donation, Sperm Donor

I Found Out I Had 17 Siblings When I Was 39. Here’s What That’s Really Like

Source: Mind Body Green

The past year of my life has felt like some combination of an Oprah special and a binge-worthy Netflix series. I was born and raised as a (very proud) only child. My parents divorced when I was young, and although both remarried, neither ever had any other children of their own. My dad was married a total of five times, so I’ve had plenty of step-siblings—but not any blood relations as far as I knew.

Fast-forward to May of 2017, and in one click, my whole identity changed. After sending in DNA samples to learn more about my ancestry, I finally got results— and one click later I opened a Pandora’s box of siblings and went from an only child to a 39-year-old woman who had 17 siblings I didn’t know about.

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Egg Freezing, Frozen Eggs, Sperm Donor, UK

UK – Single Lady Victoria Hervey, 41, is planning to become a mother with a ‘friend’ who is willing to donate his sperm – as she admits ‘time is ticking’

Source: Daily Mail

Lady Victoria Hervey is planning to have a child with a male friend after admitting ‘time is ticking’.

The 41-year-old former It girl, who recently had six of her eggs frozen at a clinic in the US, revealed during an appearance on ITV’s Lorraine that a close friend had offered to donate his sperm.

‘Right now I have a friend who is willing to be the father. I am really considering I am going to do that,’ she explained on the daytime TV show.

The socialite has not hidden her desire to become a mother, opening up in a Mail on Sunday column that she hoped having a baby would ‘fill what has become rather a hole in my life’.

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Canada, Infertility

Canada – Infertility Sucks, But You Can Transcend It. Here’s How

Source: HuffPost

Infertility sucks. If you haven’t lived through it, or experienced it vicariously through a friend, it’s hard to explain why it is soul-crushingly awful.

Before I was thrust into the dark underworld of nightly hormone injections, invasive vaginal ultrasounds and regular blood tests revealing to me just how crappy my eggs are, I was able to brush it off like most people.

“Why is she so upset about her miscarriage? She can just try again. It’s not as if a real baby was in there.” And, “Why would they spend that much money on in vitro fertilization when they can just adopt?”

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