Source: Times of India
NEW DELHI: The department of personnel and training (DoPT) has instructed all Central ministries and departments to implement a 2015 order of the Delhi High Court for granting maternity leave to female employees who chooses to have a child by commissioning a surrogacy. Such leave would include both the pre-natal and post-natal period.
Source: Hello Giggles
While still not often discussed, fertility issues affect so many women and families in our culture. And Kayla Jones, 29, knew conceiving would be impossible after receiving a partial hysterectomy as a teenager.
But while Kayla’s uterus was removed, her ovaries weren’t — meaning she could still potentially have a child that was biologically hers with the help of a gestational surrogate. And that’s where her mother-in-law, 50-year-old Patty Resecker, came in.
Source: New Jersey Law Journal
A committee of the New Jersey Legislature has recommended approval of a bill—identical to one previously vetoed—that would permit legally binding gestational carrier agreements.
Source: Vermont Business Magazine
The Vermont House today gave approval to H.562, a bill pertaining to parentage (link is external). In 2017, the Legislature created a study committee in response to the Vermont Supreme Court’s request to provide legislative recommendations to modernize Vermont’s parentage laws to recognize the changing nature of Vermont families. H.562 is the result of the Parentage Study Committee’s work.
Source: Glamour
On February 16, 2017, Cheryl Flynn of Fillmore, Utah, gave birth to a healthy baby boy—though the child’s parents lived across the country, in New Jersey. Flynn was their surrogate. A mother of three already, Flynn and the baby’s parents found each other through Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey—which works with 80 to 100 gestational surrogates every year—and it went so well that Flynn plans to act as a surrogate for the same couple again as soon as she is able (her doctor at RMANJ, Rita Gulati, M.D., FACOG, explains that gestational surrogates have to wait a full 12 months after delivery before attempting another pregnancy). “I am wishing Cheryl and the intended parents anther smooth and successful journey,” Dr. Gulati told Glamour. “This is definitely an exciting time.” While Flynn did not discuss her fee, being a gestational surrogate can generate anywhere from $25,000 to $240,000 and up for the woman carrying the pregnancy. Here, Flynn tells us in her own words what it’s like to be a gestational surrogate.
Source: National
Thai nationals eligible to apply for board approval for assisted pregnancies in cases related to medical conditions.
To protect children born via surrogates and prevent problems similar to those that have made recent headlines, authorities have set up strict rules for couples who wished to have a child via surrogacy due to difficulty conceiving a child naturally, and those wishing to provide that service.
Source: Hürriyet Daily News
The number of Turkish women illegally seeking surrogate mothers abroad, especially in countries where the practice is common and legal, such as in Greek Cyprus, Georgia and the United States, or women offering to become surrogates for money has been on the rise, daily Habertürk reported on Feb. 5.
Source: Bismarck Tribune
Shannon Mouser and Seth Paskin, of Austin, Texas, have desperately been trying to have a child of their own.
The couple married in 2014 and immediately tried various methods to get pregnant, including vitro fertilization, which involves combining sperm and an egg outside of the body, and artificial insemination. For years, they had no luck.
Source: Daily Mail
A couple who went through seven failed rounds of IVF treatment before finally having twins through a surrogate have said they will ‘never know how to repay’ her kindness. Elouise King and her husband Paul, from Solihull in the West Midlands, thought their dream of becoming parents was over after a miscarriage in 2013 led to complications. Mrs King had undergone a surgical procedure to remove the foetus, but afterwards she was struck down with a rare condition known as Asherman syndrome which causes scarring of the cervix and uterus.
Source: Idaho Press-Tribune
“That’s my son,” Richardson remembers thinking. “I just caught my son.” Her sister, Andrea Friesen, laid her head back on the hospital bed and sobbed with relief. “Every single nurse, doctor, everybody in there had tears in their eyes,” the sisters’ father, Don Larson, said. “And it was just that final relief of, oh my goodness, it’s finally over, and it was successful.”
Source: The Sun
Medics plan to use the method on two women who risk passing on genetic diseases to their kids. The unnamed pair have a mutation that leads to myoclonic epilepsy. The ailment hits one in 100,000 people, causing spasms that see lost muscle control, weakness, deafness, dementia and often death. In the treatment, once the mum’s egg is fertilised, the cell nucleus with the bulk of her and the dad’s genetic material is removed. The mutation is left behind, as it only occurs in the mitochondrial DNA which is not present in the nucleus.
Source: The Guardian
I had children in my teens and became a grandmother two decades ago. I’ve always thought how lucky I was to get pregnant so easily, and how heartbreaking it is for people who can’t. I liked the idea of being a surrogate, but my husband wasn’t keen. By 2012, we had divorced, and I’d taken care of my parents and older brother, who sadly passed away. I’d turned 50 and thought, if I’m going to do this, it needs to be now.
Source: Phnom Penh Post
Just half of an estimated dozen applications by parents trying to prove their DNA link to their baby born via a Cambodian surrogate have so far been approved by the Phnom Penh Municipal court, officials said yesterday.
Following an outright ban on the fraught practice of commercial surrogacy in Cambodia, where hundreds of babies are estimated to have been born to foreign couples, the Kingdom laid out guidelines in July last year, requiring intended parents to get DNA tests, have their paternity status verified by the courts and apply for exit visas through their embassies in order to legally take their babies home.
Source: HuffPost UK
A current family law case in the US has caught the media’s attention. It’s one which is difficult, emotional and demands a solution. A gay married couple is suing the US government after the birth of their twins. One twin was conceived with the sperm of one father (a US citizen) and the other was conceived with the sperm of the other father (an Israeli citizen). The birth of the twins took place in Canada (where the fathers were married), and both fathers were listed on each both certificate.
Source: Hartford Courant
Anna Howat offered to carry her sister Beth Gaudino’s baby after Gaudino and her husband, Justin, lost twins at 20 weeks. Charlotte Grace was born on Tuesday at Hartford Hospital fulfilling the Gaudino’s dream of becoming parents. Both families live in Tolland.
In a sixth-floor room at Hartford Hospital, Anna Howat cradled the niece she gave birth to Tuesday.
For the last nine months, Anna, 29, has carried the biological child of her sister and brother-in-law, who tried without success to have a child for years. And on Jan. 23, at 9:33 p.m., Charlotte Grace Gaudino came out of her aunt’s womb and screaming into the world.
Last April, Anna came to her sister, Beth Gaudino, with a proposition: Anna, who had struggled herself with fertility issues before giving birth to a daughter in 2015, was willing to carry her sister’s child.
Source My Domaine
The birth of Kim Kardashian West’s third child didn’t just prompt conversations about the choice of the baby’s name, Chicago—it also ignited new discussions about surrogacy. West’s surrogacy story is hardly indicative of the norm (sources say she was “pampered” by the couple during pregnancy), but her decision to give birth via surrogate is certainly in line with modern parenting trends. While it has been around for more than 30 years, gestational surrogacy transfers have nearly doubled since 2015.
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Source: Lexology
Surrogacy – a word recently dragged kicking and screaming into the limelight by the pop-couple Kardashian-West. What caused the outcry? Kim’s decision: the mother of two would not bear their third child herself. Worldwide the topic of surrogacy sparks debate. Leaving ethics aside for a moment, should the legal aspects of surrogacy be influenced by social, political or geographical factors?
Surrogacy is not a concept or practice foreign to South Africa. The Children’s Act of 2005 prescribes that all surrogacy arrangements are to be governed by a “surrogacy motherhood agreement” (SMA), the validity of which must be confirmed by a court. A recent decision handed down by the Johannesburg High Court highlighted a few requirements for such confirmation. The judgment arguably opens the door to social, political and or geographical discrimination.
Source: BBC
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have spoken of their happiness about having a daughter by a surrogate.
And for some surrogate mums, the experience of carrying another family’s baby is just as joyful.
Chloe is 28, a mum of three, and she gave birth to her first surrogate child in August 2017.
She’s been talking to Newsbeat about why she decided to become a surrogate after having her three children.
Source: Newshub
A mother died before she was able to meet her surrogate baby, who will now be raised by a solo father.
Bec Arena passed away in September and earlier this month, son Rixon was born – carried by her best friend Jessica Brockie.
Ms Brockie was a surrogate for Ms Arena, who suffered from cystic fibrosis, and husband Gareth.
A GoFundMe page has been started in Ms Arena’s honour, to help Mr Arena raise the child and pay for the surrogacy process.
Source: Stowe
The circumstances surrounding an application for costs in a surrogacy dispute must be considered, a Family Court Judge has ruled.
The surrogacy arrangement had been made by a former same sex couple. The resulting child, a daughter, was born in the United States and now lives in New York with her biological father, ‘Y’.
