Month: May 2018

Baby born to gay couple through surrogacy

UK – Landmark for RD&E as first surrogate born to gay couple

Intended Parents

“It’s an amazing thing to do and it doesn’t cost anything apart from nine months of being pregnant”

Source Devon Live

The surrogate ‘team’

The first surrogate baby believed to have been born for a gay couple at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital is now beginning its new life in London

Sarah Burns, who is currently recovering at her home in Hemyock after giving birth to a baby girl last Friday, has praised the hospital for changing its policies so that the two dads could watch their baby arriving into the world in the operating theatre.

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Surrogacy after miscarriage

Ireland – ‘Life with her is so great’ – woman (38) who suffered three miscarriages finally experiences the joy of motherhood

Intended Parents

Source Life

Karen Smyth and her baby Cleo, who used a baby box for the first few months of her life.

For one in six couples in Ireland, the possibility of conceiving a baby may not be as easy as they’d hoped.

For Karen Smyth and her partner Marian Riordan, the road that would eventually lead them to their beautiful little baby Cleo, was long.

Karen (38) suffered three miscarriages before Cleo was born.

And even after she passed 14 weeks in her pregnancy with Cleo, serious complications arose. So serious that, under doctors’ orders, she had to spend four months confined to bed.

Even trips to the toilet or shower were out of the question.

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Surrogate Mother
Intended Parents

Source Charlotte Five

Melissa Teeter has given birth four times – three of which were for strangers. Teeter, 35, is a surrogate or more accurately a gestational carrier (GC).

“I loved doing it for the other people,” she said. “I liked to see how happy and excited they are when they get their baby. I don’t feel the attachment to the baby. I don’t feel sad or heartbroken.”

Teeter first heard about surrogacy when she was 22 years old, while watching a television program. She thought, “I could do that.”

She didn’t act on that thought for a few years. She gave birth to her daughters, twins, when she was 26 years old. When they were two years old, she began researching surrogacy. She filled out three or four online applications and by the end of the week, there were two women interested in her services.

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Egg Donor, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

Australia – Single mother who was surrogate and egg donor for 11 children

Intended Parents

Source 7 News

While it is a special day for mothers everywhere, one mum has been giving some extraordinary gifts of her own.

Schoolteacher Carla Pincombe has now helped bring 11 children into the world through egg donation and surrogacy – and she is planning even more.

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Mother serves as surrogate for daughter

Mother serves as surrogate for daughter’s twins after rare cancer diagnosis

Intended Parents

Source xxx

Micaela Johnson says she and her mother, Sheila Gump, already function more like best friends than mother and daughter, but the two will soon share an even stronger bond.

Gump is set to deliver Johnson’s twins — her grandchildren — as her surrogate this summer. It’s a gift Johnson says no one else could give her.

“She’s my best friend, who else would do it?” Johnson, 26, said in an interview with ABC News’ “Good Morning America.” “She knows that I always wanted more kids. We wanted a family and my son, Aden, wants to be a big brother so bad, so she just knew. She would do anything for me.

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IVF, UK

Scotland – With IVF rates rising, we found out more about Scotland’s stretched facility services

Intended Parents

Source The Press and Journal

Donor co-ordinator Hazel McBain taking blood from a patient

As the NHS approaches its 70th anniversary, this year marks the milestone of another significant UK medical achievement: the 40th birthday of the world’s first IVF baby.

Born in Manchester in 1978, Louise Brown was the first ever “test-tube baby” whose very existence made headlines around the world.

Four decades later and today IVF is much more common.

In the UK alone, most recent statistics show that more than 68,000 such treatments were provided in 2016, and the picture that emerges is a largely positive one.

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politics of assisted reproduction

The politics of assisted reproduction, explained

Intended Parents

Source Washington Post

This Mother’s Day, many women (and men) around the globe are struggling to have children, turning to a variety of approaches to overcome infertility. Meanwhile, lawmakers, medical professionals and activists have been in a heated public debate about the complex morals and politics of abortion and assisted reproductive technologies, also called ART.

Here are five things to know about the politics of such technologies, including how they are viewed and regulated.

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Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother, Twins

BFF Goals! Virginia Woman Serves as Surrogate for Best Friend — and Gives Birth to Twins!

Intended Parents

Share People

Erica Huston-Elem and Katelin Buchanan have been best friends since birth.

“Our mom’s were best friends! Her mom is my godmother … we grew up very much like family,” Huston-Elem, 34, tells PEOPLE. “We just grew up together like siblings. Our friendship has been more than a friendship, it’s a sisterhood. We’ve been there through all our life’s experiences.”

As the best friends grew older, they celebrated milestones and major life events together, like graduations and even marriage. Huston-Elem welcomed two children — now ages 7 and 4 — but for Buchanan, the road to motherhood proved to be difficult. She’s suffered several miscarriages and has gone through many unsuccessful rounds of in vitro fertilization (IVF).

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Motherhood

A Mum Is A Mum, Whether Via Adoption, Foster Care Or Surrogacy

Intended Parents

Source HuffPost.co.za

“Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.”

As we celebrate Mother’s Day on Sunday, we honour all forms motherhood comes in, because as Oprah Winfrey once said, “biology is the least of what makes someone a mother”. And there are countless women who never give birth, but who’ve made amazing mothers and/or mother figures.

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Surrogate Keeps Baby

UK – BABY BATTLE  Gay dad sues surrogate mum after she kept baby after the birth

Intended Parents

Source The Sun

The mother agreed to implant sperm thought to be from the younger man but when his partner died during the pregnancy she decided to keep the tot

The gay dad claimed the surrogate had ‘stolen’ his baby – picture posed by models

The dad and his partner, in his 70s, met her through a surrogacy agency.

She agreed to implant sperm thought to be from the younger man but when his partner died during the pregnancy she decided to keep the tot.

The surrogate told medics not to let the biological father near her when she went into labour.

A source said: “This is a pretty shocking situation. It’s extremely rare for a surrogate mother to refuse to hand over the child after birth. She took the view the child was no longer going to a loving couple.

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Birth Certificate, Three Parent

Canada – Quebec judge invites province to recognize reality of multi-parent families

Intended Parents

Source Ottawa Citizen

MONTREAL — A Quebec judge is inviting provincial lawmakers to consider the possibility of multi-parent families after a complex legal fight involving a little girl and three adults.

The three-year-old’s biological father asked to have his name put on the child’s birth certificate to replace that of a woman who was considered the toddler’s second mother but who is currently transitioning to a male.

He also asked the judge to change the child’s last name to his own.

In Quebec, the law recognizes only two parents for a child, and only their names are recorded on the birth certificate.

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male infertility,

Age Related Infertility (ARI) Part 2

Intended Parents

Source This Day

The Facts: Men, Age and Fertility

Last week, we talked about age related infertility in female, today we shall be addressing issues relating to men’s age as it causes decline in fertility.

The quality of a man’s sperm decreases with age. As a man ages, it takes longer for his partner to get pregnant. There is also an increased risk of not conceiving at all. Whatever the age of the mother, the risk of miscarriage is higher if the father is over 45. The children of older fathers are at greater risk of autism, mental health problems and learning difficulties.

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Same Sex, Surrogacy

Unsung Heroes: Surrogate Mothers to Same-Sex Couples

Intended Parents

Source Advocate

Let’s give a nod to the women who simultaneously help queer people start families and move the needle on tolerance.

I loved my small-town upbringing, but even in that somewhat sheltered environment I always had a curiosity about other places, other people, and other experiences. Now as a gay fertility doctor often working with LGBT people to build their families, it’s rewarding to see the effect this LGBT family-building is having on changing the perspective about our community in small towns across the country.

Much of that change comes from an unlikely place.

What I have learned in my work is that everyone involved in gay family-building becomes an ambassador for change. The gay parents, their family, and their child all open hearts and minds simply by living their lives.

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Custody of Embryos

Widow claims a failure to safeguard her late husband’s sperm by lawyer who allegedly advised him

Intended Parents

Source ABA Journal

The widow of a software company CEO claims a lawyer breached a fiduciary duty by failing to safeguard the frozen sperm of the widow’s late husband.

Widow Katherine Pesic is suing lawyer Shelley Tarnoff along with the alleged former mistress of her late husband, Joyce Chin, who gave birth to twins in July 2013 using the frozen sperm, Law360reports. Other defendants in the California lawsuit are a fertility center and one of its doctors.

Pesic is suing as an individual and as the representative for the estate of her husband, who died in October 2012. Judge Theodore Zayner of Santa Clara Superior Court heard arguments in the case on Tuesday.

Pesic’s late husband is Ivan Pesic, the founder and CEO of Silvaco, according to Law360. Ivan Pesic donated his sperm after a cancer diagnosis in 2010, and the health issue was allegedly known to the fertility clinic. Chin became pregnant after Ivan Pesic’s death; Katherine Pesic says she should have inherited the sperm. Katherine Pesic is seeking $27 million, three times the amount Chin is seeking in child support in a separate suit.

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India, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother
Intended Parents

Source MamaMia

Barry Du Bois knew his children were his the precise moment they were created. He saw it, felt it. It was a hot morning in Mumbai, India, when the former builder was permitted into the hospital laboratory to watch his sperm being implanted into a donor egg.

As he writes in his new book Life Force, “I was there, watching, when I saw the cell, the single cell of one of my children go… blip… into two cells. I saw that happen with my own eyes. I was there for the creation of life.

“I knew this was the time. I knew they were my children, right there and then.”

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Forged IVF Signature

Germany – Ex-husband must pay child support after forged IVF signature

Intended Parents

Source BioNews

A German man has been told that he must pay child support for his son, who was born after his ex-wife forged his signature to become pregnant using their frozen embryos.

The former couple, known only as Karl and Inge for privacy reasons, created frozen embryos by IVFduring their relationship. After their separation, Inge used the embryos to become pregnant without Karl’s knowledge, forging Karl’s signature twice on the clinic’s consent forms.

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Surrogate Mother

A Two-Time Surrogate Talks Carrying Someone Else’s Child (and Getting Paid for It) 

Intended Parents

Source Parade

It takes a village to raise a child, and sometimes it takes a small village to make one too. Fertility agencies such as Extraordinary Conceptionsspecialize in helping families grow in less conventional ways, connecting surrogates and egg donors with “intended parents” who may need a little help to expand their family.

Parade talked with Breana, a two-time surrogate and three-time egg donor, about her own experiences and her work as part of the admissions team at Extraordinary Conceptions.

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Sperm Donor Lies on Application

Sperm donor lies on profile leaving Georgia families with few options

Intended Parents

Source WSB-TV 2 Atlanta

PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. – The rage started early. Collapsing on the floor in Kindergarten. Not responding to anyone, and screaming in the first grade.

There were signs of bipolar disorder.

Then he disappeared in the third grade.

As he grew into his teenage years, Wendy Norman’s son took a deeper dive into troubling behavior.

“Then we found on his phone that he was searching how to kill myself and how to kill my perfect step brother,” the Peachtree City mother said.

Norman is one of several mothers across the United States, Canada and U.K. who have filed claims against Atlanta-based sperm bank, Xytex, amid the discovery their sperm donor’s profile was a lie. 

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Sperm Donor Children

UK – 17 British sperm donors have fathered more than 500 children between them, figures show

Intended Parents

Source The Telegraph

Charities have warned that dozens of babies could be left with genetic mutations because sperm donors are not screened CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES CONTRIBUTOR

Seventeen British sperm donors have fathered more than 500 children between them, new figures show.

The startling numbers have led to fears that men could be unknowingly passing defective DNA to dozens of youngsters, because currently donors are not screened for faulty genes such as BRCA1/2 which increase the risk of ovarian and breast cancer.

It also raises the risk that siblings could unexpectedly meet and form relationships without realising they are related.

Although more than 18,000 children have been born who have at least nine other half-brothers or sisters, just 163 have registered on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) Donor Sibling Link, which attempts to reunite them.

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sister surrogate mother, UK

UK – SISTER ACT  Selfless mum-of-two carries surrogate baby for her sister whose heart defect means pregnancy would kill her

Intended Parents

Source The Sun
EBONY Hutt is carrying her young sister Lauren’s baby after a rare heart condition would make pregnancy fatal for both her and her unborn child.

TAKING sisterly love and devotion to an entirely new level, one mother-of-two is currently six months pregnant… with her younger sister’s baby.

The baby’s biological mother Lauren Hooper, 31, received the heart-breaking news that her rare heart condition would make her too weak to survive a pregnancy after she married husband Michael in 2014.

Born with a hole in her heart, a malformation of the pulmonary artery and collateral arteries to the lungs, Lauren was never expected to survive beyond her first birthday.

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