Category: UK

Surrogacy, UK

UK – Single mother, 23, who’s a surrogate for a gay couple says handing over her biological daughter didn’t feel like giving up ‘something personal’ because she doesn’t feel maternally bonded

Intended Parents

SourceThe Daily Mail

A single mother has claimed being a surrogate for a gay couple gave her life a ‘new meaning’ when she felt so low she ‘didn’t really want to continue’ living.

Emma, 23, met husbands Kevin, 35, and Aki, 40, from Berkshire, on a fertility app which she likened to Tinder and agreed to carry their child as well as let them use one of her eggs.

The trio share their story as part of a new BBC Three documentary, The Surrogates, which explores the emotional highs and lows of the surrogacy in the UK, told by five women and the would-be parents. 

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Egg Donor, Surrogacy, UK

UK – Teacher becomes a single dad by choice through surrogacy and egg donation

Intended Parents

Source Metro

42-year-old man has become a solo parent after finding a surrogate and egg donor.

Tired to waiting to find a man who also dreamt of becoming a dad, David Watkins, a teacher from Southampton, decided to become a solo parent.

In January 2019 a law passed that gave him the ability as a single person to become the legal parent of his own child conceived through surrogacy.

He is now one of the first men in Britain to become a solo parent through Surrogacy UK, thanks to a selfless surrogate and anonymous egg donor.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – Mother-of-two preparing to welcome her SEVENTH surrogate child after 13 rounds of IVF vows this is her last – but admits she ‘loves being pregnant and giving birth’

Intended Parents


Source Daily Mirror

A mother-of-two who is currently expecting her seventh surrogate child has vowed this is the final pregnancy.

Ria Pawlow, 40, from Portsmouth, has helped three couples start a family and undergone a total of 13 rounds of IVF.

The care worker, who has two children from a previous relationship and shares two sons with her partner Stacey, whom she married in September 2017, is due on March 26 but admitted she expects the baby to come early because she has gestational diabetes.

It’s the second time she’s developed the condition – and she nearly died during her fifth surrogate birth when she retained her placenta, leaving her in intensive care and needing a blood transfusion. 

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Surrogacy, UK

Selfless woman pregnant with her own niece after stepping in as sister’s surrogate

Intended Parents

Source Mirror

A selfless sibling is five months pregnant with her niece after her sister made the devastating decision to have her cervix removed.

Michela Nuno was left heartbroken when she discovered she had an adenocarcinoma, a type of cancerous tumour, on her cervix.

The 37-year-old made the tough decision to have the organ removed after giving birth.

After one year of trying for a third baby with husband, Alex, 38, Michela felt the risk of the cancer spreading was too great.

So she gave up on her dream of having a child naturally and began looking into surrogacy.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – NHS hospital must pay for woman to have surrogate baby in America after doctors failed to spot her cervical cancer for more than four years as Supreme Court awards her £1.14m damages in landmark ruling

Intended Parents

Source Daily Mail

A hospital must pay for the cost of a young woman’s surrogacy in America after she was left infertile because her cervical cancer was not spotted for more than four years by doctors, the Supreme Court has ruled. 

Whittington Hospital NHS Trust in London, UK, admits negligently failing to detect signs of cancer for over four years.

This negligence led to the woman, known only as XX, developing highly invasive cancer that required chemo-radiotherapy treatment, leaving her infertile at the age of 29.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – Women left infertile due to clinical negligence could claim for surrogacy abroad following landmark ruling

Intended Parents

Source The Telegraph

Family lawyers claim the Supreme Court ruling could pave the way for other hopeful mothers in the UK.

Women left infertile as a result of clinical negligence could be able to claim for surrogacy costs abroad following a landmark Supreme Court ruling.

A woman, who can only be legally identified as XX, has been awarded the costs of having surrogate children in America following a new ruling which family lawyers claim could pave the way for other hopeful mothers in the UK.

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Scotland, Surrogacy, UK

Scotland – Coronavirus lockdown could keep St Andrews mum from baby’s birth

Intended Parents

Olivia Rowlands came through cancer treatment but as a result she went into the menopause

Source BBC News

A St Andrews mother-to-be could be prevented from being at the birth of her first child.

Olivia Rowlands and her husband Sam are expecting a baby girl in July.

The baby is being carried by her cousin, Ellie Hutchinson, after treatment for bowel cancer left Olivia unable to go through pregnancy.

But lockdown means many of the precious moments of the pregnancy have been experienced by video and the new parents may not be at the birth.

Olivia, 31, a primary school teacher, was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2017, when she was 29 years old.

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Donor Eggs, UK

Uk – Mothers ‘are less responsive’ to donor egg babies

Intended Parents

Source The Times

Women who use donor eggs to conceive are less responsive to their babies, according to research.

Scientists from Cambridge University reported “subtle yet meaningful” differences between mothers whose children came from donor eggs and mothers whose IVF babies came from their own eggs. The mothers made slightly less eye contact with their babies and responded less to their games, researchers said, although all the parents in the study had a strong and loving bond with the children. Susan Imrie from the Centre for Family Research at Cambridge, who co-authored the research, said: “We do know from other research that genetic relationships hold different significance to different people.”

In 2016 about 1,400 babies born in Britain were from donor eggs. The number has tripled since 1996.

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Surrogacy, UK

Grandmother, 55, Gives Birth to Her Own Granddaughter

Intended Parents

Source The Epoch Times

A British woman gave birth to her own grand-daughter at the age of 55, after acting as a surrogate for her daughter who was born without a womb.

Emma Miles is legally the mother of her own granddaughter Evie, who was conceived by IVF.

Her daughter, Tracey Smith, 31, had known since the age of 15 that if she wanted her own child, she would need a surrogate. She had no womb, but still had ovaries and fallopian tubes.

Over the years, her mother had mentioned the possibility that she could act as a surrogate, but it wasn’t until Smith got married in 2016 that it became a serious prospect.

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Canada, Surrogacy, UK

This English same-sex couple fathered twins who are half-siblings — and a Canadian surrogate helped them Social Sharing

Intended Parents

Source CBC

With two kids under two, the Berney-Edwards household in southeast England is a busy one. There are toddlers running all over the place. One pokes his dad in the eye and laughs before accidentally hitting his sister with a toy vacuum cleaner, causing her to wail. It can be a bit chaotic.  

But Graeme and Simon Berney-Edwards wouldn’t have it any other way. As gay men, there was a time when they thought they could never have any of that.

Now, however, they have their twins, the result of an arrangement involving a Canadian surrogate and Canadian surrogacy laws they feel are more progressive than those on the books in the United Kingdom.

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Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother, UK

UK – ‘It’s been the greatest honor of my life’: Selfless mom becomes a surrogate for strangers MONTHS after giving birth to her own twins – having seen a friend go through a devastating miscarriage

Intended Parents

Source Daily Mail

A selfless mother decided to become a surrogate after she witnessed the pain of her friend’s miscarriage whilst she was expecting twins herself so she can enable couples the ultimate joy of becoming parents – something she calls the ‘greatest honor’ of her life.

Tierra Nelson, 23, from Saint Cloud, Minnesota, and fiance, Marty, always knew that they wanted to be parents when the time was right and after six months of trying to conceive were delighted to find out they were expecting twins, Isabella and Claire, who were born in October 2016, weighing 6lb 11oz and 6lb 12oz at 37 weeks.

Soon after discovering she was pregnant, Tierra found out that one of her closest friends was also expecting and they were both delighted. But this delight soon turned into heartbreak as Tierra’s friend sadly suffered a miscarriage. 

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Gay Parenting, Surrogacy, UK

UK – Miracle Twins Each Have Different Fathers & Their Dads Wouldn’t Want It Any Other Way

Intended Parents

Source Cafe mom

Typically, when we think of in vitro fertilization, we imagine one sperm sample that gets implanted into an egg, but for two dads from London, they are thanking modern medicine for allowing them both the opportunity to be the genetic parents of their babies — at the same time. Fathers Simon and Graeme Berney-Edwards were stunned when doctors told them that they didn’t have to choose between the two of them as to who would get to become a father first and helped them to conceive miracle twins. Both men were able to fertilize donor embryos and implant them into the same surrogate’s womb at the same time. Now, they’re sharing their story with the world to show how advancements in fertility medicine have changed their lives.
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Gay Parenting, IVF, UK

Gay male couple to be offered IVF on NHS for ‘first time in Britain’

Intended Parents

Source Pink News

A gay couple in Scotland have been offered IVF treatment by the NHS for what is believed to be the first time in the UK.

The married couple plan to have a baby via IVF, using the sperm of one of the men and a surrogate mother to carry the child, reportsThe Mail on Sunday. The newspaper has chosen to keep the identity of the gay couple, who are married, anonymous.

The NHS will fund the IVF fertilisation process and the embryo being implanted into the surrogate mother.

The NHS has previously refused to give gay male couples the treatment because of a “blanket ban” on funding treatment that involves use of a surrogate, reports the Mail on Sunday.

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Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother, UK

UK – Most surrogates want to give up their parental rights from BIRTH, reveals survey

Intended Parents

Source Daily Mail

Surrogates remain the baby’s legal mother until a parental order is granted, which can take months.

But a survey has now revealed 69 per cent of surrogate mothers feel the law – which has existed since 1990 – should be changed.

Surrogacy UK, a support network, has described the law as being ‘outdated and in dire need of reform’.

The current laws are under review by the Law Commission, which is to publish its updated proposals in the coming weeks.

The survey by Surrogacy UK was conducted on 102 surrogate mothers, The Times reports.   

Only two of the women who were polled revealed they thought they should be the legal parents at birth. 

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Surrogacy, UK

Court Awards Damages To Go Do Something Illegal — To Pursue Compensated Surrogacy In A Country Where It Is Permitted

Intended Parents

Source Above The Law

A court in England awarded a woman damages so that she could undergo surrogacy in the United States up to four times! The 35-year-old British woman, known only as “XX” in court filings in order to preserve her anonymity — possibly because she works for MI-5, we’ll never know — permanently lost her ability to conceive after the National Health Services (NHS) failed to detect her early signs of cancer. What was a “benign, treatable pre-cancerous condition” developed into malignant cancer, which spread in her body and caused permanent damage to her uterus and ovaries, among other organs.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – Commercial surrogacy: lifting legal restrictions is the moral thing to do to help people trying to have babies

Intended Parents

Source The Conversation

When it comes to the controversial issue of surrogate motherhood – and, in particular, payment for such services – the law in the UK needs to be reviewed. So says Sir James Munby, the most senior judge in the Family Division in England and Wales until his retirement in 2017.

Many others including myself have been arguing this for years. It is a commonly held view – often repeated in the media – that commercial surrogate motherhood is illegal and that payment to a surrogate mother is a criminal offence. This is not the case.

Under the Surrogacy Arrangements Act (1985), it is not illegal for a couple to pay a surrogate to carry a baby for them and it is not illegal for the mother to accept payment. However, it is illegal for any other person to take or offer money in relation to surrogate motherhood.

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IVF costs, UK

UK – Two-thirds of fertility patients feel ripped off by IVF clinics

Intended Parents

Source Bio News

Sixty-two percent of private IVF patients paid ‘more than they expected’ for treatment, according to the first national patient survey by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

The UK fertility regulator released annual statistics showing that 60 percent of IVF cycles are now privately funded and that 74 percent of patients over the past two years paid for one or more ‘add-on’ treatments, up from 66 percent in the previous two years.

‘Patients often feel pressure to opt for add-ons and many are understandably keen to explore every option to improve their chances of having a baby, but such treatments should only be offered where there is proof they work’ said the HFEA’s Chair, Sally Cheshire.

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IVF, UK

UK – You shouldn’t have to move to Scotland to get the IVF you need to have a baby

Intended Parents

Source Metro UK

Mark* has known since he was a teenager that becoming a father would not be straightforward.

At 16, he was diagnosed with leukaemia and treatment for this left him infertile. Luckily though, he was able to store sperm before he began his cancer treatment – giving him the hope of fatherhood in the future. However, despite his clinical need, Mark is being denied access to NHS fertility treatment because the body that plans and controls health care services where he lives – West Sussex – sets its own arbitrary criteria for who can and can’t access it.

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Surrogacy, UK

UK – I’m trying for sweet 16! Surrogate mother, 52, vows baby number 15 will not be her last 

Intended Parents

Source Daily Mail

Carole Horlock had said baby number 15 would be her last.

But at 52, Britain’s most prolific surrogate mother is hoping to have her 16th.

She is currently looking for couples or single mothers and aims to become pregnant early in the new year.

If successful, Miss Horlock will give birth just before her 53rd birthday – making her the world’s oldest commercial surrogate.

She said: ‘I’m determined to get pregnant one last time with a surrogate baby and I’m actively searching for a couple or single mother to help.

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