Source CBC
A family from Cape Breton is soon to grow in a unique way.
Matt and Ryan Currie are identical twin brothers.
Ryan is married to Lauren. They live in Westmount, Cape Breton.
Matt lives in Halifax with his husband, Michael.
Lauren is seven months into a pregnancy as the surrogate for Matt and Michael’s child.
“I don’t think that there’s a day that goes by that we don’t pinch ourselves with disbelief and excitement,” said Matt.
Source Handelsblatt Global
German cultures of conception and birth are undergoing a quiet evolution. In the last 15 years, the number of children conceived by artificial insemination and other forms of assisted reproduction has almost doubled, with 21,000 children born in 2015.
But growing demand for assisted reproduction is bumping up against Germany’s laws on conception, which are much stricter than many of its European neighbors. Only couples may use donated sperm to conceive, and they can only do so if someone is prepared to accept paternity of the child. And donating sperm anonymously is illegal.
Source Inews
I discovered surrogacy when I was looking into donating my eggs. My interest in carrying someone else’s baby came from a place of feeling quite sorry for myself. I was a young single mum and alone. Then I had this realisation that someone would swap places with me in a heartbeat. All these couples that couldn’t have children – I could help them.
What I didn’t like about egg donation was that it was completely anonymous. I was attracted to Surrogacy UK (SUK) because of their “friendship first” ethos. It meant I could have a relationship with the couple, their friends, and possibly have one after I gave birth, too.
Source The Guardian
Ella Rasmussen’s doctors started to prod her about children when she turned 30. She was single, suffered from endometriosis, and contemplated a hysterectomy. After several years, the nudges took hold. Because she wasn’t a good candidate to freeze only her eggs, she was advised to undergo IVF and freeze fertilized embryos.
In 2016 Rasmussen, then living in Queensland in Australia, decided to take the plunge. A friend offered his services, but she worried that if she knew the father, but he wasn’t involved, she or her child could feel hurt. If she wanted sperm, she’d have to buy it.
For Rasmussen, a striking brunette of multi-ethnic background, looks or an attraction to the donor weren’t a factor. Neither was race; it would be difficult to match what she knew of her own ethnic background anyway. She wanted someone who might fit her family personality-wise. That included a love of music and a sense of humor.
Read more
Source Deccan Chronicle
Hyderabad: Compensatory surrogacy, and not altruistic surrogacy, was recommended by the Telangana infertility specialists in their discussion and debate at the conference of Indian Fertility Society’s Telangana Chapter on Sunday.
The central government, in its amendment of Surrogacy Regulation Bill 2016, has stated that commercial surrogacy is prohibited and there must be a 16-month insurance coverage provided by the commissioning parents to the surrogate to deal with medical complications. The Founder of IFS, Dr Kuldeep Jain, explained, “Altruistic surrogacy is not possible as, with nuclear families and with near and dear ones not being in the same city, it is not found to be possible. There is only 1 per cent chance for this type of surrogacy as only someone who is really very concerned, free and can do it selflessly for the couple will come forward.”
Source Pink News
The Italian deputy prime minister has called same-sex parents ‘unnatural’ and vowed to keep all families heterosexual.
Matteo Salvini, the far-right leader of the Northern League party, has risen to popularity on the back of rhetoric against migrants, Islam and the European Union.
Soon after becoming deputy prime minister in June alongside Five Star Movement leader Luigi di Maio, the two nationalist politicians tried to appoint anti-LGBT+ journalist Marcello Foa as the head of public broadcaster Rai.
Source Express
Research shows collecting more than 15 eggs in a single cycle significantly increases the risk of hospitalisation and side effects.
The data, released in response to a series of questions submitted by Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh, will form part of a new parliamentary campaign to protect the health of women and unborn babies.
Between 2014 and 2017, there were 7,497 donors, of whom 975 donated more than the “safe” number of eggs.
Research shows that 144 women donated more than 40 eggs in a year, 56 gave more than 50 and 23 donated more than 60.
Source Daily Mail
When Rita Ora announced she was freezing her eggs at the age of 26, saying: ‘Why not put them away and then you never have to worry about it again?’, many were shocked by her brutally matter-of-fact approach to motherhood.
But she was merely taking advantage of modern reproductive techniques. Indeed, this week, fertility experts confirmed the practical wisdom of the singer’s actions.
Research shows that women who wait to freeze their eggs in their late-30s — the vast majority who undergo the procedure — have very little chance of success. These findings contradict the impression given by fertility clinics which don’t necessarily tell older women about the low chances of conceiving.
Source Above The Law
Donor reveal parties may be the new gender reveal parties. The days of the Delivery Man are upon us. The fictional comedy where a humble delivery driver discovers he is the genetic father of over a hundred children, thanks to donating sperm in his youth to make a little cash, is looking less fictional by the day. While promises of anonymity once made sperm and egg donations appealing to many, those promises are becoming impossible to keep. Aside from the practical and shockingly easy ways donor-conceived children are finding their donors — like commercial DNA tests, or the trusty ol’ internet — some jurisdictions are changing their laws, and banishing anonymity altogether.
Source Huffington Post
After nearly 48 hours of grueling labor, my first-born child slipped from my body and was placed into her father’s arms.
As I listened to the sound of her first cries, my heart both soared and shattered. At just 22 years old, I gave birth as a traditional surrogate mother, meaning I used my egg to conceive with the intention of having a baby for someone else to raise. Traditional surrogacy is less common than gestational surrogacy, which involves the surrogate carrying a child who is not genetically related to her. This is primarily because of the legal and emotional complexities involved in traditional surrogacy.
Source Sky News
Women who freeze their eggs to extend their fertility run the risk of spending a lot of money for a treatment with a small chance of success.
So-called social egg freezing (SEF) can be used to put off childbearing or because a woman has not yet found a partner.
But the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCog) has warned that egg freezing does not guarantee future live births and there are storage limits for how long eggs can be kept frozen, currently 10 years in the UK.
Egg freezing is not available on the NHS apart from in certain circumstances, for example a woman undergoing medical treatment that may affect fertility.
Source Israel National News
The demand to expand surrogacy for male couples has been described by some in recent weeks to be a humanitarian cause, but the issue is a lot more complex underneath the surface.
A study conducted by Dr. Etty Samma revealed certain aspects on the phenomenon of surrogacy that are generally ignored by the Israeli media.
“With some of the women who agreed to this, and with the approval of the Ethics Committee, I conducted in-depth interviews and talked about the process they underwent,” explained Dr. Samma.
“The interviews dealt with more than 100 surrogacy procedures, both parents and surrogates.”
Dr. Samma discovered that in fact a good number perhaps most don’t finish the surrogacy until birth.
Source National Magazine
Though surrogacy is legal in Canada, surrogacy contracts are mostly deemed unenforceable throughout the country. In Quebec, they are qualified as “absolutely null” under the Civil Code’s article 541. That means that in Quebec a woman who agrees to carry a child for another individual or intended parents is deemed a threat to public order. So the contract, whether verbal or in written form, may not be enforced. But in an article recently published in the Canadian Bar Review, McGill University’s Stefanie Carsley notes that lawmakers have largely failed at dissuading people from taking the risk of entering surrogacy arrangements. Intended parents in the province have sought ways around the unenforceability issue by applying to the courts for legal status through adoption – more specifically through special adoption. This allows one birth parent to maintain their bond of filiation while their spouse adopts the child. Carsley reviews recent Quebec case law addressing article 541 and concludes that the province’s legal framework is failing all parties.
Source benzinga
Becoming a surrogate can be one of the most rewarding decisions a person can make. After all, a surrogate helps a couple or individual create the family for which they have longed.
“However, many women who want to become a surrogate and couples and individuals wanting to create a new life are scared off due to myths about surrogacy,” said Dr. Kyle Kramer, co-founder of Omega Family Global, which exists to make new family creation straightforward and as easy as possible, while being legally protected.
To educate women contemplating becoming a surrogate and couples and individuals that want to start a family, Dr. Kramer dispels the following three surrogacy misconceptions:
Source Huffington Post
Surrogacy had never even crossed my mind. The urge however to be pregnant and give birth again was strong and real. A kind of primal urge. But I knew my family was complete, with a husband, a daughter and a son. We were done. My body had other ideas though.
I knew it was probably a bad idea to have a third child just for a birth experience! So when my friend Stacey asked me what I knew about surrogacy it was like a light bulb actually went off in my head. Here was a bone fide way to scratch my pregnancy and birthing itch but without adding to my family. With the added bonus of helping another couple to start or complete their family. What a head spin.
Source National
Four years ago, Kenya first confronted the issue of surrogacy and the legal gaps that surround a science that has been around for ages. It came in the form of a landmark case that began in hospital.
After giving birth at a private hospital in Nairobi, a surrogate mother declined to put her name on the birth notification, saying that the intended parents for whom she had carried the pregnancy would sign it.
Source Daily Mail
Lauren Hooper, 31, and her husband Michael, 36, of Okehampton, Devon, met their little girl Rae when she was born last month on July 24, after nine months inside Lauren’s sister Ebony Hutt’s womb.
In 2014 Lauren was devastated to be told that, because she’d been born with a hole in her heart, a malformation of the pulmonary artery and collateral arteries to the lungs, carrying a child could prove fatal – to both her and a baby.
As she was about to give up hope of starting a family, Lauren’s sister, Ebony, 35, herself a mother of two, offered to act as the couple’s surrogate.
After three failed implantation attempts, Ebony fell pregnant at the end of 2017, and, last month, gave birth to her niece, Rae Ebony Ann Hooper.
Source ECNS.com
The easing of China’s family planning policy was a boon for Zhang Yinhe and his wife Xu Mengsha, who had decided to freeze an embryo for use during in vitro fertilization in the hope of having a second child someday.
However, in China most IVF procedures are restricted to infertile couples, and reproductive clinics have been overwhelmed with hopeful couples since the family planning policy was scrapped two years ago, which meant Zhang and Xu faced a long wait before they could have the procedure.
Source Momtastic
Women who freeze their eggs to extend their fertility run the risk of spending a lot of money for a treatment with a small chance of success.
So-called social egg freezing (SEF) can be used to put off childbearing or because a woman has not yet found a partner.
But the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCog) has warned that egg freezing does not guarantee future live births and there are storage limits for how long eggs can be kept frozen, currently 10 years in the UK.
Egg freezing is not available on the NHS apart from in certain circumstances, for example a woman undergoing medical treatment that may affect fertility.
Source APNews
In this Thursday, May 17, 2018, photo, Peter Peacock, 68, left, and Gypsy Diamond, 36, pose for a portrait after an interview with The Associated Press, in Melbourne, Australia. Peacock, who donated sperm anonymously around 1980, was recently contacted by Diamond, his biological daughter, after a new law in Australia retroactively removed the anonymity granted to sperm donors decades ago. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E), The Associated Press
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — For Peter Peacock, fate arrived in the form of a registered letter.
The letter, at least initially, looked to be a bit of a letdown. Peacock had gone to the post office expecting the delivery of a big, furry aviator jacket he’d ordered online. And so it was with little fanfare that the Australian grandfather and retired cop tore the envelope open as he walked back to his car — at which point he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Dear Mr Peacock,” the letter began. “The Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA) has received an enquiry of a personal nature which may or may not relate to you. The matter concerns a record held in relation to a project you may have assisted with at Prince Henry’s Institute.”
