Month: March 2018

Baby M, Gestational surrogacy, intended parents, Psychological Evaluation, Surrogacy Law, Surrogate Mother

Gestational Carrier Agreements Enforceable

Intended Parents

Source: New Jersey Law Journal

embryo-centrifuge

The New Jersey Legislature is advancing a statute that would enable individuals to enter into enforceable agreements for surrogate parenthood via gestational carriers. The New Jersey Gestational Carrier Agreement Act (S-482, A-1704) awaits only final legislative approval and the signature of Gov. Phil Murphy to become law.

In gestational surrogacy, a woman agrees to be implanted with a fertilized egg that is not hers, and to carry the fetus to term. The fetus is conceived in vitro, using egg and sperm from donors who are unrelated to the woman. The act requires such agreements to be in writing; additionally, the carrier must be over age 21 and have already borne at least one child of her own; her spouse or partner must consent in writing, and the intended parents must provide financial and medical support to the woman throughout her pregnancy and delivery. All parties must also undergo psychological evaluation and be represented by independent counsel. The woman carrying the fetus must surrender custody of the baby to the intended parents immediately upon birth. The act specifies that during the pregnancy, the intended parents must initiate a proceeding for an order of parentage. After the birth, the state will issue a birth certificate listing only the intended parents as the legal parents. Records relating to the agreement will remain confidential, but the child may petition for access when he or she turns 18.

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children from egg and/or sperm donor, Egg Donor, Sperm Donor, surrogate children

My father was an anonymous sperm donor. I feel the consequences of that every day

Intended Parents

Source: Los Angeles Times

This image shows the first sign of successful in vitro fertilization. (Oregon Health & Science University)

I got the truth when I was 16: My mother hadn’t gotten pregnant by an ex-boyfriend. I was, rather, the product of a completely intentional transaction. My father was an anonymous sperm donor.

My mom conceived me on her own at a time when it wasn’t in vogue to do so, and she didn’t tell her siblings or parents what she’d done. The revelation hit me deeply. An introverted, introspective teen, I internalized her decision to hide the truth as my own shame — shame I still feel today.

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male infertility,

Male Infertility Most Common Reason For IVF Treatment, UK Audit Reveals

Intended Parents

Source: Huffington Post

LISA5201 VIA GETTY IMAGES

Male infertility is the most common reason couples in the UK have IVF treatment, official UK data has revealed.

The most common reasons for IVF treatment after male infertility (37%) were ovulatory disorder (13%), blocked fallopian tubes (12%) and endometriosis (6%), although in 32% of cases the cause of infertility was unexplained.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s (HFEA) report for 2014-2016 revealed that 40 years after the first child was born following in vitro fertilisation, IVF treatment is at the strongest it has ever been in the UK. The report showed that in 2016, more than 68,000 IVF treatments were performed (an increase of 4% from 2015), with over 20,000 babies born. Current treatments are now 85% more likely to succeed than when records began in 1991, as the average birth rate per embryo transferred for women of all ages is 21%.

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Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother, UK

UK – ‘My online surrogate is now my best friend’: Mum reveals incredible bond after birth of twins

Intended Parents

Source: Mirror

Elouise King and Jenny Robinson became best pals after talking online (Image: Sunday Mirror)

Online pals Elouise King and Jenny Robinson were nervous about their first face-to-face meeting – yet it would seal the mother of all friendships.

The pair had exchanged messages on a surrogacy forum but didn’t know if they would click in person.

That first meeting was in a pub. Fitting really, for just 18 months later they would be wetting the baby’s head not once, but twice, after Jen gave birth to Elouise and hubby Paul’s TWINS .

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Egg Donor, Gay Parenting, Same Sex, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

‘It’s such a crude and jarring process’: Gay couple reveals the REAL cost of having kids via surrogacy, detailing how they paid $171,000 to become parents to their twins

Intended Parents

Source: Daily Mail

A gay father of twins has revealed that he and his partner paid a total of $171,000 to have to have the children via a surrogate.

Speaking to The Cut as part of its How I Got This Baby series, a 36-year-old man named Brad from Indiana detailed the lengths he and his husband had to go to when they decided to have children.

Six months after they got married, the couple started the process of finding an egg donor even though Brad initially thought adoption was the only way he could even becoming a dad.

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breastfeeding, Gestational surrogacy, intended parents, New Zealand, Surrogacy

Pioneering London initiative teaches surrogate mothers to breastfeed

Intended Parents

Source: Evening Standard

Justine White received an award from the British Journal of Midwifery for her work with mothers

Women who become mothers via a surrogate are being taught how to breastfeed their baby in a pioneering London initiative.

Justine White, a breastfeeding adviser, has helped three women to feed — even though they had not given birth.

She was inspired by tribesmen in the Congo who allow babies to suck on their nipples to comfort them while the mothers hunt.

Enabling women who have not given birth to breastfeed is practised in North America but is not widely known about in this country.

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Embryo Storage Failure, Storage Tank Failure

Families Are Heartbroken After Losing Embryos in IVF Clinic’s Freezer Failure: “I Don’t Think You Can Fix This”

Intended Parents

Source: Time

Betty Jacobs first heard about the freezer problem on Thursday, March 8, when she scrolled through her Facebook news feed. That day, a local Ohio paper had published an articleabout temperature changes at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, where Jacobs underwent IVF and had her twins in 2016. Because of these temperature changes — which had occurred the previous Saturday — more than 2,000 frozen eggs and embryos were potentially damaged and unviable.

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Gestational carrier agreements, Gestational surrogacy, Infertility, intended parents, Parental rights, Singapore, Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law, surrogate children, Surrogate Mother

6 Legal Issues Singaporean Couples Should Consider Before Hiring a Surrogate

Intended Parents

Source: Yahoo Finance

According to the Ministry of Health (MOH), surrogacy refers to the arrangement where “a woman is artificially impregnated, whether for monetary compensation or not, with the intention that the child is to be the social child of some other person or couple”.

Commercial surrogacy often involves a fee paid to the surrogate mother. By hiring a surrogate mother, you are essentially hiring a woman to carry and deliver a child for you.

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cryogenic cold storage, Egg Freezing, Embryo Freezing, Frozen Eggs, intended parents

What Fertility Patients Should Know About Egg Freezing

Intended Parents

Source: The New York Times

Dr. Julie Lamb, director of fertility preservation at Pacific NW Fertility in Seattle, has been fielding calls from concerned patients after two unrelated incidents at fertility clinics in San Francisco and Cleveland raised concerns about egg storage.CreditRuth Fremson/The New York Times

The failure of systems used to store frozen eggs and embryos at two fertility clinics has rattled people who count on such clinics to help them realize their hopes of having children. But the breakdowns at clinics in Cleveland and San Francisco, each apparently involving the temperature or level of liquid nitrogen in one storage tank, have damaged at least some eggs and embryos belonging to potentially hundreds of people.

At a time when egg freezing is increasing swiftly — some Silicon Valley companies now tout it as a perk for their employees — the incidents raise questions about what to look for and ask if you are considering taking that step. Here is a basic guide:

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cryogenic cold storage

WHAT KEEPS EGG-FREEZING OPERATIONS FROM FAILING?

Intended Parents

Source: WIRED

This week, cryogenic storage at two fertility clinics malfunctioned, putting their client’s family planning in jeopardy.

ON MARCH 4, an embryologist at Pacific Fertility Center was doing a routine walk-through of the clinic’s collection of waist-high steel tanks, each one filled with thousands of liquid nitrogen-bathed vials of frozen sperm, eggs, and embryos. The San Francisco-based clinic offers cryogenic cold storage and in vitro fertilization services for patients throughout the Bay Area, many of whom work for tech companies with hefty fertility benefits packages—Apple, Google, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn. PFC charges its patients $600 a year for storage alone, which covers the personnel required to maintain the tanks, according to its website.Every day someone has to do a physical inspection of the equipment, and staff are on-call 24/7. But that Sunday, the embryologist discovered that in one tank, Tank No. 4., the liquid nitrogen levels had slipped to dangerously low levels.

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Law, Parental rights, Surrogacy, surrogate children, Surrogate Mother

‘Platonic’ couple can be joint parents

Intended Parents

Source: The Times

Sir James Munby, the leading judge, said that a sexual relationship was not necessary for a marriage to be valid

A married couple in a sexless marriage because one of them is gay have been given the go ahead to be joint parents to a surrogate baby.

Britain’s leading Family Court judge, Sir James Munby, said it did not matter that the marriage was “platonic” or that they had separate homes.

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intended parents, Parental rights, Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law, UK

UK – Surrogacy abroad: how to get started

Intended Parents

Source: Lexology

With more people facing fertility issues and couples increasingly seeking alternative routes to have children, there is a growing number of UK families created through surrogacy.

In the last three years, the number of children being born through surrogacy has almost tripled according to figures from the Ministry of Justice Family Court.

Surrogacy is no longer a taboo – along with adoption it has become an accepted alternative to traditional child birth. It has even recently featured in the Archers on Radio 4 and has been put into the headlines by Kim Kardashian and Kanye West who have recently used a surrogate to have their baby, Chicago.

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Gay Parenting, intended parents, Law, Parental rights, Same Sex, Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law, Surrogate Mother

New Uniform Parentage Act Becomes Law in Washington State

Intended Parents

Source: The Humanist

Earlier this week, Governor Jay Inslee of Washington signed into law an updated version of the state’s Uniform Parentage Act. Written to safeguard the rights of LGBTQ and non-biological parents, the new law defines a “de facto” parent as well as allows compensation beyond medical and other expenses for surrogate mothers.

According to the law’s sponsor, state Senator Jamie Pedersen, who has four children with his husband conceived through surrogacy, the bill will help parents who want to have a child through surrogacy at home in Washington State, rather than leaving the state. (Pedersen and his husband had their children in California where compensated surrogacy is already allowed.)

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intended parents, Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law, Surrogate Mother

Surrogacy laws in Western Australia set to change

Intended Parents

Source: 9 News

It’s the ultimate gift – bringing a baby into the world through surrogacy. 

However, in Western Australia, only 10 babies have been born through a surrogate in the last decade because the state’s laws are so tough. 

The process often takes up to a year and costs roughly $80,000. 

That makes Robina and her husband Ryan’s one year old son, Raphael, a rare baby. 

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Infertility, intended parents, sister surrogate mother, Surrogacy

2C Spotlight: Andrea Friesen carries twins for younger sister

Intended Parents

Source: Idaho Press-Tribune

Casey and Kim Richardson hug Kim’s sister Andrea Friesen, center, after Friesen delivered the couple’s twins on Dec. 27.

Andrea Friesen of Nampa said three of the hardest phone calls she’s ever had to make were to call her younger sister, Kim Richardson, each time she got pregnant.

Friesen had three successful pregnancies. During those years, Richardson and her husband, Casey, longed to have children but faced painful infertility hurdles and miscarriages.

“It’s hard to see these guys want that so badly and try and not get that — when it has been so easy for me,” Friesen said.

So, Friesen and her husband, Dan, made a proposal: What if Andrea carried the baby for Kim and Casey?

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No uterus, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother, UK

UK – Woman born without a womb to finally become a mum after workmate makes incredible offer to be surrogate

Intended Parents

Source: Daily Record

Proud parents-to-be Natasha and Peter with the scan of their new baby (Image: Daily Record)

Natasha Hutcheon and her childhood sweetheart will finally become parents after colleague Katie Beardal agreed to be their surrogate.

It was a dream they feared would never be realised after a series of heartbreaking setbacks.

But now a couple will finally become parents after a work colleague agreed to be a surrogate mum.

Natasha Hutcheon and childhood sweetheart Peter Walker, both 31, have dreamed of having a baby together since they met as teenagers.

They thought their hopes were dashed when Natasha discovered she was unable to have children.

Now, after 89 hospital visits and two miscarriages in eight years, Natasha’s co-worker Katie Beardal is expecting their baby in September.

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Gay Parenting, intended parents, Same Sex, surrogate children, Surrogate Mother

Unregulated Surrogacy Poses Risks for LGBT Couples, Warns Global Consultant

Intended Parents

Source: Vision PRWeb

Sensible Surrogacy Founder, Bill Houghton, with his surrogacy family

Same-sex couples who are considering gay surrogacy to conceive their families should examine the serious risks of unregulated programs overseas, said Bill Houghton, founder of the Sensible Surrogacy Guide.

As same-sex couples increasingly look for options to conceive children, many are choosing programs in countries without basic protections, according to Bill Houghton, founder of the Sensible Surrogacy Guide. Some destinations popular with gay couples have no specific legislation on surrogacy. This opens the door to unregulated programs with serious risks.

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donor sperm, intended parents, Parental rights, Same Sex, Sperm Donation

The Continuing Legal Evolution of the Concepts of ‘Parent’ and ‘Child’

Intended Parents

Source: New York Law Journal

Alton L. Abramowitz

On Jan. 25, 2018, the Appellate Division, Third Department, issued a significant decision in Matter of Christopher YY v. Jessica ZZ, 2018 NY Slip Op 00495. Underlying the court’s determination is the conundrum which it describes as follows: “Application of existing case law involving different-gender spouses, addressing whether the presumption [of legitimacy] has been rebutted, to a child born to a same-gender married couple is inherently problematic, as it is not currently scientifically possible for same-gender couples to produce a child that is biologically ‘the product of the marriage’ [citations omitted].”

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conception, intended parents, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

Infertility treatments that could help women get pregnant despite the odds

Intended Parents

Source: The Health Site

The last two decades have been revolutionary in terms of fertility management and triumphing challenges posed by infertility. To the couple experiencing difficulty in getting pregnant, there is plenty of hope today. It is not a lost battle like it was in the past. Besides, almost every hurdle can be overcome with the help of scientific and technologically advanced options. For example, a woman without a uterus can still have her own child by borrowing another’s womb! This makes experts believe that every woman how chooses to become pregnant can be blessed.

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intended parents, Surrogacy, surrogate children, Surrogate Mother

International – Children risk being “commodities” as surrogacy spreads

Intended Parents

Source: Scoop World

Children risk being “commodities” as surrogacy spreads, UN rights expert warns

GENEVA (6 March 2018) – Children face becoming commodities as surrogacy arrangements become more prevalent, and urgent action is needed to protect their rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children has warned.

“There is no right to have a child under international law,” said Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, who presented a report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. “Children are not goods or services that the State can guarantee or provide. They are human beings with rights.

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