Australia, Surrogacy

Surrogacy likely to be legalised in the Northern Territory, bringing it into line with the rest of Australia

Source ABC Australia

Kelsey and Aaron Rouse have been trying to have to a baby since mid-2015.(Supplied: Kelsey and Aaron Rouse)

Kelsey and Aaron Rouse describe their six-and-a-half-year struggle with infertility as an “ongoing nightmare”.

Key points:

  • The NT is the only jurisdiction in Australia with no surrogacy laws
  • A surrogacy bill was introduced in March and was likely to be debated in the May sittings
  • If it passes, eligible territory families may be able to surrogacy legally by the end of 2022

The Darwin couple has spent more than $70,000 trying to have a baby: visiting two separate IVF clinics and having 13 embryo transfers.

Ten of those transfers failed, and three ended in miscarriage.

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Australia, Embryo, Singapore, Sperm Donation, Surrogacy

Asia Pacific Initiative on Reproduction (ASPIRE) 2022 Congress: Frozen embryos, sperm and eggs will be big travellers in post COVID-19 cross border reproductive care

Yahoo!

SINGAPORE, May 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have major impacts on the nature of cross border reproductive care where infertile couples and individuals in the past travelled extensively abroad to access medically assisted conception.

The 2022 Congress of the Asia Pacific Initiative on Reproduction (ASPIRE) heard that as the pandemic unfolded, access to fertility care in other countries was severely curtailed because of border closures, the adverse effects of COVID-19 during pregnancy, and vaccine hesitancy issues.

Australian fertility specialist, Dr Clare Boothroyd, said today restrictions on commercial surrogacy emerged as coronavirus and its variants spread throughout the world and there was a sudden shortage of donated sperm, eggs and embryos.

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Australia, Egg Donor, Gay Parenting, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

Australia – A single gay man just made history with the birth of his son via surrogacy

Source Upworthy

A single gay man from Melbourne, Australia, is finally living his lifelong dream of fatherhood with the birth of his son via surrogacy. Despite a long and challenging journey, Shaun Resnik made history as the first single man in the Australian state of Victoria to become a father via surrogacy, following the arrival of his baby boy Eli Michael on March 22 this year. The process took three and a half years, but he could not be more thankful for his newborn son. He hoped that his story of fatherhood would open doors for other single folks who wish to become parents, The Daily Mail reports.

‘My heart is so full’: Surrogate baby Eli makes Victorian history
birth.

Eli is the first biological child born to a single man in Victoria through local #surrogacy. His father, Shaun Resnik, was the first such man

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Australia, Surrogacy

Australia – How surrogacy allowed a single man to keep hold of his fatherhood dream

Source The Age

When Shaun Resnik found himself single at 40, with a lot of love to give and deep yearning for a child of his own, he had an epiphany.

He could fall victim to not having met ‘Mr Right’ and relinquish his lifelong dream of becoming a dad, or he could take matters into his own hands and embark on fatherhood alone.

Mr Resnik chose the latter. Earlier this year, he is understood to have become the first single man in Victoria to be given official approval by the state government to have a biological child on his own under the state’s surrogacy laws. His baby boy is due in mid-April.

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Australia, Grandmother as surrogate, Surrogacy

‘Australia’s oldest surrogate’ is carrying a baby for her daughter who was born without a uterus

Source Metro

‘There is nobody else I’d rather be going through this with’ (Picture: Meagan White / Caters)

At the age of 17, Meagan White was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome (MRKH) – a condition that meant she was born without a uterus and could never carry a child.

So as an adult, Meagan decided to opt for a surrogate to start a family – but was left heartbroken when the baby passed away at 21 weeks and Covid travel restrictions prevented another attempt.

However there was still hope, as Meagan’s mum Maree Arnold soon discovered she could carry a child for her daughter.

Now the 54-year-old is 30 weeks pregnant with her own grandchild.

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Australia, COVID-19, Surrogacy

Australia – Travel exemptions granted for IVF tourism and surrogacy

Source Brisbane Times

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The federal government is granting travel exemptions for Australian women to travel overseas for IVF treatment or surrogacy arrangements not available under Australian law.

Growing Families, a charity that provides education and support on surrogacy and egg and sperm donation, claims to have helped dozens of women organise travel exemptions based on compassionate grounds.

Global director Sam Everingham said the charity had helped 100 women get travel exemptions to complete surrogacy arrangements and a further 23 for IVF treatment with donor eggs in Greece, Cyprus, the United States, South Africa and Russia.

Australia, Surrogacy

Where New Zealand’s surrogacy laws could be headed

Craig and Mark Catley and their son, Flynn, who was born in December 2018. The couple are currently expecting their second child from a US surrogate.

Source Stuff

When Cameron and David* found out their daughter had died from cot death, they were angry and frustrated.

Until this happened, they didn’t know she existed.

The same-sex couple always wanted children, but the difficulties accessing surrogacy in New Zealand led them to go off-the-books, to try a more DIY approach

The pair made an arrangement to create, and co-parent the child with a lesbian couple. But after three attempts, they gave up. The women moved to Australia.

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Australia, Surrogacy

Call for commercial surrogacy to be legalized in Australia

Source Bio Edge

An Australian surrogacy lobby has called for commercial surrogacy to be legalised in Australia. It is currently banned in all of the country’s states.

However, in 2019-20 275 babies born overseas to surrogate mothers were granted Australian citizenship, the highest number on record. Thailand and India, formerly popular destinations, no longer allow foreigners to employ surrogate mothers, so Australians have been going elsewhere.

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Australia, Surrogacy

Australia – The NT Government will introduce surrogacy laws in 2021 — but it’s ‘too late’ for some

Source ABC Australia

After 11 years and dozens of failed IVF attempts, Tara and Luke Kaspar are about to become parents.(ABC News: Al Dowler)

Tara and Luke Kaspar have been trying to have a baby for the past decade.

They’ve spent nearly $100,000, raided their superannuation accounts and been through 28 rounds of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) — falling pregnant twice and miscarrying both times.

Luke, who comes from a big family, says as tough as it’s been financially, it’s been tougher still on their mental health.

“It was tough mentally and on the hip pocket, but more mentally,” he says.

After years in limbo, Tara and Luke are just months away from becoming parents using Tara’s sister as a surrogate and egg donor.

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Australia, Surrogacy, Ukraine

Inside Ukraine’s surrogacy industry where Australians are travelling to have a family

Source ABC.net.au

Sorry, Nash is cranky right now,” apologises Bec Kalpakoff, from Perth, while she calmly tends to a fussy infant in a busy café.

She is not flustered by being a first-time mother, but ordering a coffee is proving a frustration — Bec cannot speak the language in the city where her son was born.

She called the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv home for five months after a surrogate mother gave birth to her twins, Nash and Indi.

Bec is one of thousands of hopeful parents using Ukraine’s liberal surrogacy laws each year.

Conceiving a child through surrogacy in Ukraine with a donor egg costs between 30,000 to 40,000 euros, not including travel or legal costs.

Business is booming after other countries — including Thailand, Nepal and India — have cracked down on foreigners using local services.

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Australia, Surrogacy

Australia – After a decade, WA’s surrogacy laws are still sparking controversy

Source Brisbane Times

For some WA women, surrogacy is a last chance for having a family and even though the practice has been legal in WA for almost a decade, it remains controversial.

An Australian surrogacy organisation has drawn fire from Christian groups for bringing international speakers associated with commercial surrogacy to Perth; a practice illegal in WA.

The state’s surrogacy laws, which have been in place for a few weeks short of a decade, restrict surrogacy to altruistic agreements aimed at helping women who cannot conceive or carry a child for medical reasons.

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Australia, children from egg and/or sperm donor

Australia – Government toughens IVF laws to protect embryo donors and kids

Source The Sydney Morning Herald

The NSW government has moved to close a legislative loophole in a bid to allow children born through Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) to access details about their biological heritage.

The amendment bill was sparked by the case of Natalie Parker, who donated embryos to a Sydney woman and was led to believe the transfer had failed. Later, she found photos online of a baby boy she believes is her genetic son.

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Australia, Surrogate Mother

Australia – Meet the Aussie mum who’s ‘renting’ out her womb

Source Lifestyle Yahoo

An Aussie mum who advertised her womb for ‘rent’ is now expecting for the first time as a surrogate, telling her kids the baby “is not ours to keep”.

Michelle Griffin, 26, shares Leilani, four, and Isaac, three, with her hubby Trent, but is now 13 weeks along with a bub for a couple who have struggled with fertility problems.

The professional birthing coach from Perth told Yahoo Lifestyle she has always been ‘honest’ with her kids, who are just as excited as she is about helping another family.

Australia, Infertility

Australia – Why I’ve decided not to fix my infertility’

Source Body and Soul

On paper, Ally Hensley had everything she needed to have a baby. But did she want to…

On January 8 this year, I walked into an IVF clinic with my pregnant best friend. She had already conceived naturally twice, so we weren’t there for her. I had an appointment to explore egg retrieval for the purpose of egg freezing.

I kept telling myself, I was ‘creating options.’ However, it was much deeper than that – I was trying to explore how I really felt about motherhood.

It’s a strange situation when, for your entire adult life, you’ve known that you’re infertile but you’re also not sure if you’re even maternal. When, from the age of 16 you’ve been saving money for a surrogate but you’re not entirely sure if you’d want children, even if you can have them.

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Australia, Infertility

Australia – What not to say when someone is struggling to conceive

Source The West Australian

In this day and age you are sure to know someone that has struggled with fertility, perhaps a friend or family member, or you yourself have either been on — or are on — the harrowing journey yourself.

For those experiencing infertility, it can be an extremely isolating time says Genea Hollywood fertility specialist Dr Julia Barton.

“They’re often surrounded by friends starting their own families and asking why they aren’t pregnant and they can find themselves feeling resentful and even jealous. They don’t feel comfortable talking about what’s happening to them and in some cases patients tell me they avoid social events because they don’t want to be exposed to the questioning and have to watch others having happy family moments,” says Dr Barton.

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AMH Test, Anti-Mullerian Hormone, Australia

Australia – ‘Egg timer test’ for fertility: What is it and does it work?

Source ABC.NET.AU

Originally developed as a tool for IVF, in the US the test is being increasingly marketed to the general population of women as a way of finding out how long they have left to have children, a recent social studies of science conference in Sydney was told.

Conference presenter Moira Kyweluk, who is completing a PhD at Northwestern University, said internet activity suggests the test is also being used in the same way in Australia, despite controversy over its effectiveness.

“I looked at blogs online where women were talking about getting an AMH test done as a way to get a baseline measure of their fertility. This is the same rhetoric as being used in the US,” Ms Kyweluk said.

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Australia, Reproductive Law

Woman can use donor sperm in IVF without estranged husband’s consent, court rules

Source The Guardian

Federal court finds Victorian law discriminated against the woman on the basis of her marital status.

A Victorian woman will not need her estranged husband’s permission to undergo IVF using donor sperm following a ruling by the federal court in Melbourne.

The court heard that the woman, who cannot be named, has been separated and living apart from her husband since late 2017. The woman wanted to try to conceive through IVF using donor sperm, but was told by a Melbourne reproductive clinic that under Victoria’s Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act she first needed her husband’s consent.

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Australia, IVF, Law

Australia – Woman challenges laws that require estranged husband’s IVF consent

Source The Age

A woman who wants to conceive a child using donor sperm has launched a court challenge to existing laws that bar her from accessing IVF without her estranged husband’s consent.

The Victorian woman, known to the court as “LR”, says she is being discriminated against on the basis of her marital status.

The woman is still legally married, but separated and estranged from her husband, the Federal Court in Melbourne heard on Thursday.

She intends to divorce him when the 12-month waiting period is over, and wants to undergo in-vitro fertilisation to become pregnant, using her own eggs and donor sperm.

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Australia, IVF costs

Australia – The cost of IVF

Source The West

Making babies can be an expensive business when you need a helping hand.

With one in six couples likely to experience difficulties, many want-to-be parents are turning to fertility treatment to help them conceive.

The financial impost, though, can be considerable depending on the provider and the extent of help required.

While many fertility treatments attract a rebate from Medicare, there can be significant out-of-pocket costs. For example, one IVF cycle can set patients back from $1000-$7000.

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Australia, Children from sperm donor, Sperm Donor

Australia – ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ Sperm donor discovers he’s fathered ELEVEN children – and now he’s tracking them all down

Source Daily Mail

An Australian man who discovered he was a father to 11 children he never knew he had is now on a mission to track them down.

Ken Allen donated sperm many years ago and didn’t look back.
He was shocked when he received a phone call telling him he had 11 kids living across Australia.
‘Eleven, eleven, eleven, you’ve got to be kidding me,’ Mr Allen told Channel 7’s Sunday Night program.

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