Surrogacy, UK

UK – There’s now a Tinder-style app that will help people find a suitable surrogate

Source The Mirror

The Tinder-style app aims to bring people together based on their desire to make a baby – and was created by a family that struggled with fertility and felt they had no one to help them on their journey

Swipe right on….a person who could carry your baby? An egg donor? A fellow community member looking for a co-parent.

One new app takes Tinder to a new level as it aims to bring people together based on their desire to have a child.

Surrogacy app Rainbow will use artificial intelligence – similar to romance apps such as Bumble – to match people up looking to have a child.

Rainbow will ask users to set the criteria most important – such as location, age range, eye and hair colour, the Daily Mail reports.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – Mother in same-sex relationship will not have to adopt child to be recognised as parent

Source The Guardian

High court quashes adoption, which couple were forced into after registrar wrongly permitted only one mother’s name on child’s birth certificate

A woman in a same-sex relationship who was forced to adopt her child because officials refused to register her as her child’s mother has secured a high court ruling quashing the adoption.

Sarah Osborne, 48, and Helen Arnold, 48, had a baby with the help of IVF in 2014 but Osborne was forced to go through the “painful and humiliating” process of formally adopting her child – including being interviewed by social workers about her suitability as a parent and undergoing criminal records checks.

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Surrogacy, UK, Ukraine, War

UK – ‘We took in our twins’ surrogate mum after she fled Ukraine. We couldn’t look our kids in the eye if we hadn’t’

Source My London

Maryna and her family arrived in London on April 24 (Image: Celia Niven)

She says this is the bare minimum she could do after her surrogate gave her the “greatest achievement” of her life.

A woman has taken in her twins’ surrogate and her family after they fled the war in Ukraine. For many, the relationship between a surrogate and the family is simply a financial transaction, but for Celia Niven, 41, and her husband Rob the bond they’ve created with their twins’ carrier is lifelong, and now they have been able to give back to her in an unimaginable way.

In 2017, after eight rounds of IVF and suffering many losses throughout the journey, the couple turned to a surrogacy clinic in Kyiv, Ukraine. Heartbreakingly, seven rounds of surrogacy, with different surrogate mothers, were either unsuccessful or ended in tragedy.

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Surrogacy, UK, Ukraine, War

UK – My Ukrainian surrogate saved my life by giving me a baby – now it was my turn to save hers: The extraordinary story of one mother’s 2,300-mile mission to rescue the woman who’d made her dream of a family come true

Source Daily Mail

It is a bond that has united two families, spanned 2,300 miles and defied the most terrifying war machine the world has seen in generations. And this week, it culminated in a moving reunion.

For little Sophie was carried by Nazar’s mother Vita Lysenko, a surrogate from Ukraine, who two months ago gave Heather and Mark Easton the ‘mir

When the two women last saw each other, they thought it could be their final meeting. Using patchy Google Translate, they had promised to keep in touch.

Heather, 32, and HGV driver Mark, 39, were to return to Rugby, Warwickshire, with the child they had spent eight excruciating years and £80,000 to get. acle baby’ they had always longed for.

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sister surrogate mother, Surrogacy, UK

UK – New mum’s powerful message of hope to infertile women after sister’s surrogacy

Source Birmingham Mail

A new mum who celebrated her first Mother’s Day thanks to her incredible surrogate sister has a powerful message for infertile women: ‘Never give up hope’. Born without a womb, Laura Knight never thought she would become a mother.

But she was able to share touching photos from a ‘very special’ Mothering Sunday after older sibling Hayley Burton gave birth to her ‘miracle’ baby Noah. The adorable little boy was seen smiling in matching outfits, which read ‘I made a wish’ and ‘it came true’ following the couple’s fertility struggles.

“Lifelong infertility, never knowing and always wanting, yet I celebrated my first Mother’s Day. It was amazing, honestly it was so emotional,” the Rowley Regis mum-of-one told BirminghamLive.

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Born Through Surrogacy, Surrogacy, UK

UK – ‘We were born through surrogacy and couldn’t be happier. If it’s done openly and honestly, it’s wonderful’

Source INEWS

Whenever Georgina Roberts thinks about her surrogate, she feels gratitude for the selflessness of the woman who gave birth to her,

“I know my surrogate did what she did from a place of kindness and compassion for another human being,” says Georgina. “That is very important to me and it is lovely to know I am genetically linked to someone who has done the most amazing thing for someone else.”

Georgina, now 23, was brought up in the Midlands and had a very happy childhood with her mum and dad Jerry and Jennie. But she has always known she was born through surrogacy to Suzanne who her parents affectionately referred to as her “tum mum” when she was younger.

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Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law, UK

UK – Surrogacy: the current law and proposals for reform

Source Family Law

The number of people choosing surrogacy as a way to parenthood is increasing. Whilst it is difficult to know exactly how many surrogacy cases there have been in recent years, the number of applications for parental orders, which is the order required to recognise intended parents as a child’s legal parents, is growing. With this growth have come calls for reform to surrogacy laws, which many say are outdated and do not reflect current attitudes and lifestyles.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – Aunt gives birth to niece’s baby after volunteering to be her surrogate

Source Mirror

Bethan Williams (left) who was a surrogate for niece Shelley Badea (right) with baby Joanie ( Image: Lynne Casey/WALES NEWS SERVICE

An aunt is mum to her own niece’s baby…after volunteering to be her surrogate.

Loving aunt Bethan Williams stepped in when niece Shelley Badea, 33, was desperate to become a mum but could not carry her own child.

And Bethan, 38, helped make her dreams of a baby come true – by giving birth to her own great-niece.

Mum-of-two Bethan has now given birth to little Joanie Alina Badea after seven years of IVF treatment.

Proud grandmother Lynne Casey, of Caernarfon, North Wales, has now thanked her sister Bethan for her “selfless” act.

She said: “I can’t thank my sister enough for what she has done.

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Surrogacy, UK, Ukraine, War

British couple’s ‘absolute nightmare’ stranded in Ukraine while collecting newborn surrogate twins

Source Independent

A British couple are stuck in a “living nightmare” after they travelled to Kyiv to collect their surrogate-born twins and found themselves stranded in the middle of a war.

Manisha and Metaish Parmar arrived in Ukraine three weeks ago as the surrogate mother gave birth to the babies they had been waiting for for 13 years.

They are now stranded in an apartment in Kyiv with their newborns and Mr Parmar’s parents amid Russia’s invasion, and run for shelter together in a bunker when the air raid sirens go off.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – Woman born with no uterus finds joy as surrogate sister gives birth to her baby

Source ITV.com

A woman from the Black Country has made her sister’s dream come true – by giving birth to her son.

Laura Knight, 29, was 16 when she was told she had MRKH syndrome, meaning she was born without a uterus and would need to find a surrogate to be able to have a child.

However she didn’t have to look very far, because her sister Hayley Burton, 33, offered to help.

Mrs Burton gave birth to Mrs Knight’s son Noah on January 10th 2022.

The two sisters, who are nurses at Sandwell Hospital, said they describe baby Noah as the bun and his aunty as the oven.

Mrs Burton says: “You’d do anything for your family, wouldn’t you, and I had something she didn’t have.

“I’d had no problems conceiving my own two children and I just wanted to make a family and give something back.”

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – Tears of joy as surrogate nurse gives birth to ‘miracle’ baby for sister with no womb

Source Express

Hayley Burton, 33, offered to be a surrogate for her sister Laura Knight and her husband, David, as her sibling has Mayer Tokitansky Küster Hauser syndrome and was born without a uterus. The condition affects around one in 5,000 women. But Laura has become a mother through her sister’s selfless act and was baby Noah’s first ‘skin to skin’ contact when he was born on January 10 at Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – Family enjoys first Christmas with little Lumi after friend’s surrogacy

Source East Anglian Daily Times

Sarelle Payne (left) carried baby Lumi as a surrogate for her friend Coral Putus. – Credit: Sarelle Payne

It started as a conversation on a girls’ holiday four years ago but a powerful act of friendship has seen a Suffolk family spend their first Christmas with the little girl they thought they would never have.

Sarelle Payne and Coral Putus have been friends since meeting at the Douglas Bader pub in Martlesham Heath as teenagers.

The pair have been brought closer after Sarelle offered to carry her friend’s baby. .

Coral, from East Bergholt, was told she would not be able to carry a baby as a teenager and advised surrogacy and adoption would be possible options.

In July 2017, while on holiday the friends were talking when Sarelle learned about Coral’s situation, offering to research and act as a surrogate.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – When I became a surrogate for strangers, my seven-year-old daughter was with me every step of the way

Source Metro UK

Right from the beginning, this pregnancy felt so different from the first time.

For one, now I was a surrogate for a couple that desperately wanted a baby. And instead of feeling embarrassment and discomfort, as was common during my first pregnancy, this time I was determined to embrace it and enjoy every second.

When I was 21, I accidentally fell pregnant after a casual fling. I felt lonely, ashamed and frightened.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – Venturing into the realms of world surrogacyVenturing into the realms of world surrogacy

Source Legal Futures

With surrogacy statistics now showing that Parental Orders have increased four-fold in the last ten years in England and Wales, it is an encouraging sign that England and Wales are beginning to identify itself as a preferred choice of venue for surrogacy on an altruistic basis. In addition to that with the expected changes in 2022 it does leave most professionals and academics in this field feeling positive about the future ahead in the field of surrogacy and fertility law.  The Law Commission is currently undertaking an independent review of surrogacy in England and Wales, and this is expected to conclude in 2022.

Parental Orders, which transfer legal parentage from the surrogate in England and Wales rose from 117 in 2011 to 413 in 2020, as identified by a report from Kent University.  Statistics suggest that at least two-third of applicants are now mixed-sex couples. In 2020 it was recorded that 413 parental orders were issued to Intended Parents.  With the increase in Parental Orders and that including same-sex couples it can be said that ‘there is a need for a uniformed structure’ to asset all Intended Parents.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – Surrogacy, Covid-19 and Travel – What if I’m separated From My Baby?

Source Lexology

In the coronavirus pandemic, we have seen numerous cases of Intended Parents sadly separated from their children born via surrogacy, because of travel and quarantine restrictions, in some cases for many weeks and months.

Restrictions on entry and exit for non-nationals, alongside significant backlogs in immigration and passport processing, have all contributed.

For many there is no easy answer, and it is a waiting game until reunions become possible.

Hopefully, as global restrictions ease, these instances will reduce, but the unexpected impact of Covid-19 shows the importance of planning ahead as much as possible.

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Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law, UK

UK – Surrogacy: The pathway for future familiesSurrogacy: The pathway for future families

Source Legal Futures

This week is an important time for surrogacy as it marks ‘National Surrogacy Week’ and Anne-Marie Hamer at Spencer West LLP; Member of IDR  focuses on how the area of Surrogacy law is there to shape the future, and what ‘the future holds for surrogacy around the world’.

The future of family law will most certainly see changes in the coming years, to bring it in line with the various changes in society and around the world, but to also ensure that it recognises the needs of people in the 21st century.  Within the ambit of family law is the area of Surrogacy and Fertility Law, and this is a specialist area which is recognised around the world, to assist families/couples and intended single parents fulfil their dream of having a family.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – Camilla Franks, 45, reveals she’s considering surrogacy to have another child… one month after undergoing lifesaving ovarian removal surgery

Source Daily Mail

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She recently underwent surgery to have her ovaries removed as she continues to battle breast cancer. 

And a month later, Camilla Franks, who is a mother to three-year-old daughter Luna, has revealed she’s given up on conceiving a baby naturally and is hoping to have another baby via surrogacy. 

Eventually I had to come to accept that wasn’t going to be in my future,’ she told  The Daily Telegraph on Saturday about conceiving naturally. 

sister surrogate mother, Surrogacy, UK

UK – The surrogate sister act: Rachael provides the eggs, her sister Leanne carries the baby. As they prepare to hand over a second child to the same couple, they tell what led them to such an unusual arrangement The surrogate sister act: Rachael provides the eggs, her sister Leanne carries the baby. As they prepare to hand over a second child to the same couple, they tell what led them to such an unusual arrangement 

Source Daily Mail

Twenty-nine weeks pregnant, surrogate mum Leanne Davis, 37, can’t wait to meet the IVF baby girl she’s expecting.

Nor can her excited younger sister Rachael, 34, whose fertilised embryo Leanne is carrying.

Delivering this newborn will be very special. A labour of love. ‘We’re so looking forward to saying hello and giving her a little cuddle,’ says Leanne, 37, a single mum to three sons aged 17, 14 and nine. ‘We’re already joking about whose nose she will have.’

Rachael, who — as Leanne’s birthing partner — will hold her sibling’s hand and give words of encouragement, agrees: ‘It couldn’t be more emotional.’

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COVID-19, Surrogacy, UK

Surrogacy and COVID-19 vaccine – a UK perspective

Source BioNews

It is reported that surrogacy agencies in the USA have been so overwhelmed by requests for unvaccinated surrogates that it has now become a new matching criterion that the agencies use when placing surrogates to work with intended parents. 

The anxiety around the potential harm the vaccine can do to a baby in the womb has led to surrogacy contracts being amended to ensure that intended parents can make medical decisions for the surrogate, and in some cases has led to the breakdown of surrogacy teams who cannot agree on whether to vaccinate or not.

Read moreis reported that surrogacy agencies in the USA have been so overwhelmed by requests for unvaccinated surrogates that it has now become a new matching criterion that the agencies use when placing surrogates to work with intended parents. 

The anxiety around the potential harm the vaccine can do to a baby in the womb has led to surrogacy contracts being amended to ensure that intended parents can make medical decisions for the surrogate, and in some cases has led to the breakdown of surrogacy teams who cannot agree on whether to vaccinate or not.

Surrogacy, UK

UK – Mother realizes her ‘dream’ of becoming surrogate by carrying her brother’s baby after his wife was told carrying a fifth child could be fatal

A mother-of-three has fulfilled her ‘dream’ of becoming a surrogate by carrying her brother’s baby after his wife was told she couldn’t have a fifth child.  

Hilde Perringer, 27, from Seattle, Washington, welcomed her niece Eloise into the world on January 25, 2021 after carrying the child for her brother Evan Shelley, 35, and his wife Kelsey, 33. 

The couple already had children Agnes 10, Emmerich, eight, Edith, five, and Otto, two, but felt their family wasn’t ‘complete’. 

They were devastated after being told another baby could be fatal to Kelsey, after her uterus ruptured during labour with Otto, which could lead to severe fluid loss and death if she had another baby. 

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