Tag: surrogacy

Surrogacy

Colorado Passes Pro-Surrogacy Legislation

Intended Parents

Source Above The Law

Colorado’s Gov. Jared Polis is poised, any day now, to sign into law new legislation passed by Colorado’s State Assembly codifying best practices when it comes to surrogacy.

A Major Victory

Colorado’s House and Senate Committees heard emotional and compelling testimony over the past few months, in favor of the passage of surrogacy-supportive legislation. One witness testified to turning to surrogacy to have a child after ten (10!) failed adoptions. She explained that the reality of surrogacy is not the stories of celebrities hoping to preserve their figures but those of regular people who very much want to be parents. (And, by the way, please don’t tell people struggling to have children to “just adopt”!)

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Grandmother as surrogate, Surrogacy

A 61-year-old woman gave birth to her granddaughter after volunteering to be her son’s surrogate

Intended Parents
Cecile Eledge gave birth to her granddaughter at the age of 61 after volunteering to be her son’s surrogate. Ariel Panowicz

Loving and her daughter, Breanna Lockwood, opened up to Insider about the pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum depression — as well as the joy that baby Briar brings them every day. 

When Loving first volunteered to be Lockwood’s surrogate, her daughter didn’t even entertain the idea. 

“I thought she was crazy,” Lockwood told Insider. “I didn’t think it was even possible. I just read it and put my phone away. I didn’t want to get my hopes up and get my heart set on something.”

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Source Insider

COVID-19, Surrogacy

One year later, surrogate mum is still taking care of couple’s baby

Intended Parents

Source The Citizen

Emily Chrislip, 25, has been looking after a Chinese couple’s baby for almost a year due to Covid-19. Picture: Instagram @emilychrislip

Emily Chrislip, a 25-year old US citizen is still taking care of a baby she carried for a couple in China as a surrogate mother a year ago.

Two months before Chrislip gave birth to the child, the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. Travel restrictions made it impossible for the Chinese couple to travel to the US for birth or for Chrislip to hand over the child. 

In September 2020, Chrislip was interviewed People magazine about her decision to be a surrogate and her experience thus far. 

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Canada, sister surrogate mother, Surrogacy

Canada – ‘Only feeling love’: How a Nova Scotia woman became a mom thanks to sister’s surrogacy’Only feeling love’: How a Nova Scotia woman became a mom thanks to sister’s surrogacy

Intended Parents

Source Saltwire

Sylvia Berrey and her late husband, Wallace, are pictured with their daughter, Lily, and son, Will, shortly after Will’s birth. Berrey’s sister carried Will through a surrogate pregnancy. – Contributed

Sylvia Berrey dreamed of being a mother, but for her, getting there was a harder journey than most women travel.

Berrey struggled with infertility, and medications did not work for her.

The thought of not being able to have her own children nearly broke the Kentville, N.S. woman. It led to suicidal thoughts, Berrey says.

“I felt like I failed my husband. I felt like I failed myself,” she says of that dark period in her life.

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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

Intended Parents

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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Ireland, Surrogacy

Surrogacy – What is the law in Ireland? Here’s all you need to know with John Lynch

Intended Parents

Source Tipperary Live

What is surrogacy?
Surrogacy is where a woman becomes pregnant with the intention of handing over the child to someone else after giving birth. Surrogacy is a way for a childless couple or individual to have a child, with a surrogate mother carrying the child. She then carries the child to term, intending to give custody of the child to the person/couple (known as the commissioning person/couple) with whom she has made the agreement.

How does surrogacy actually work?
Traditional surrogacy is where the surrogate carries a child conceived using her own egg and sperm from the intended father. Artificial insemination is used, and the surrogate is genetically related to the child. Gestational surrogacy is when the surrogate carries a child conceived using the intended mother’s egg or egg donor and sperm from the intended father. In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) is used, and the surrogate is not genetically related to the child.

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Africa, Same Sex, Surrogacy

Namibian Gay Couple Fight Government’s Refusal to Recognize Their Daughters, Born through Surrogacy

Intended Parents

Source Edge Media Network

The Namibian government refuses to recognize the daughters of a same-sex couple, effectively stranding one of the fathers in South Africa with the twin infants while the other father fights his own battle to remain in the country, Mamba Online reports.

The girls were born last month in South Africa to a surrogate mother. One of the two men listed as the parents on their infants’ birth certificate, Phillip Lühl, a Namibian citizen, “planned to take them home,” Mamba Online recounts, “to meet their other father, his Mexican-born husband Guillermo Delgado,” as well as the men’s “two-year-old son, Yona.”

“Namibia’s Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety and Security,” the article adds, “is refusing to issue travel documents for the twins to allow them into the country.” The ministry has said it wants “genetic proof” of Lühl’s paternal relationship to the girls.

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LGBTQ, Surrogacy

Court tried to erase lesbian mom from her own children’s birth certificates

Intended Parents

Source LGBTQ NATION

The Michigan Court of Appeals just overturned a lower court ruling that threatened to remove a mother from the birth certificates of the children that she physically gave birth to, partly because she wasn’t able to marry her partner before marriage equality was legalized in her state.

The case involved the Michigan couple Lanesha Matthews and Kyresha LeFever, who were together from 2011 to 2014. While they were together, they decided to start a family using LeFever’s eggs and donor sperm. Matthews carried and delivered their twins, and both women were named on their birth certificates.

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COVID-19, Ireland, Surrogacy, Ukraine

Ireland – FAMILY DILEMMA Irish couple face mandatory hotel quarantine with newborn baby born by surrogate in Ukraine

Intended Parents

Source Sunday World

They have expressed their shock and upset after finding out that the country has been added to the mandatory hotel quarantine list by the Department of Health.

An Irish couple who are trying to get home after pursuing surrogacy abroad are facing mandatory hotel quarantine with their new born baby when they arrive at Dublin Airport on Saturday. 

Sinead Gallagher-Hedderman and her husband Mark are currently in the Ukraine following the birth of their baby boy Theo to a surrogate eight days ago.

They have expressed their shock and upset after finding out that the country has been added to the mandatory hotel quarantine list by the Department of Health.

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Canada, Surrogacy

Canada – Saskatchewan women sharing surrogacy story to inspire others to consider the option 

Intended Parents

Source CBC.CA

Amber Peters (left) and Marie Schultz became quick friends after becoming co-workers. After Schutz struggled with infertility for seven years, Peters offered to become a surrogate so Schultz could have a child. (Submitted by Marie Schultz)

Two Regina women are sharing their surrogacy story in hopes other struggling couples will consider the option. 

Amber Peters and Marie Schultz met at work in 2019 while Schultz was in the middle of fertility treatments. Schultz and her husband, Taylor, had been trying since 2013 to conceive without any luck. Schultz started sharing her struggles with her new friend. 

“After just a few weeks of getting to know each other, like we really clicked,” Schultz said. “She just kind of asked like ‘Have you ever thought about surrogacy? Could you think about not having that pregnant experience?’ But I was like honestly … I just want a child.” 

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Gay Parenting, Surrogacy

Gay man fights to get Namibia to recognise his twins

Intended Parents

Source Joy Online

A Namibian high court is to decide whether a gay man can return home with his twin daughters, who were born to a surrogate mother in neighbouring South Africa.

Phillip Lühl says his daughters are stateless after Namibia’s Ministry of Home Affairs refused to issue emergency travel authorisation papers for them last week.

Under South Africa’s surrogacy laws, a child born to a surrogate mother takes the citizenship of its parents.

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China, COVID-19, Surrogacy

Surrogate cares for family’s baby for 1 year due to coronavirus pandemic

Intended Parents

Source GMA

Emily Chrislip, a 25-year-old mom from Idaho, thought her experience as a surrogate for a family in China would end after she gave birth.

Instead, Chrislip and her husband, Brandon, remain the temporary caregivers for the baby Chrislip gave birth to last May.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the baby, whose name and face the family are not revealing publicly due to privacy concerns, has remained with the Chrislips in Idaho for nearly one year instead of returning to her biological parents in China.

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COVID-19, Surrogacy

Commissioning parents panicking over surrogate mothers’ vaccinations

Intended Parents

Source BioEdge

The intersection of the Covid-19 pandemic and surrogacy has not been a happy one. After international border lockdowns, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of couples found that they were separated from babies gestating in women in countries like Ukraine.

The rollout of vaccines is proving to be another stumbling block. A fascinating feature in Vice says that many commissioning parents do not want their surrogate to be vaccinated before or during the pregnancy. “Surrogacy agencies have been fielding so many requests for unvaccinated women that several have started specifically matching vaccine-averse prospective parents with surrogates who are willing to stay unvaccinated,” Vice says.

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Israel, Surrogacy

Israel – High Court pushes deadline to fix surrogacy law after electionsHigh Court pushes deadline to fix surrogacy law after elections

Intended Parents

Source The jerusalem Post

The High Court of Justice gave the Israeli government an extra four months on Wednesday to fix the surrogacy law that it deemed unconstitutional due to its failure to include single men and same-sex couples in the legislation, meaning that the deadline will now be after the March 23 elections.

The state will now have until July 1 to fix the legislation to include single men and same-sex couples. The new government, or the interim government if a new government is not formed, will be responsible for meeting the deadline. After the government files an update on the status of the law by July 1, the petitioners will have until July 5 to respond.

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Celebrity, Surrogacy

6 Hollywood Celebrities That Are Normalizing Surrogacy

Intended Parents

Source Showbiz Chest

Having a family is a joyous thing that many couples look forward to and celebrate. There are many ways to create a family, and with the growing popularity of surrogacy, many pop culture fans are looking to the examples set by those in the public eye who have opened up about their experiences with surrogacy. The process of surrogacy traditionally describes a process where a gestational carrier carries a pregnancy for either an individual or a couple after undergoing IVF treatments.

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COVID-19, Surrogacy

Anti-vax parents are demanding surrogates avoid the COVID vaccine

Intended Parents

Source New York Post

Getty Images/Photononstop RF

These parents don’t want their baby vaccinated — so they’re asking their surrogate not to get the coronavirus vaccine. 

As the COVID-19 vaccine becomes more widely available in the US, surrogacy agencies have been inundated with parents specifically requesting unvaccinated women to carry their babies, Vice reported.

In one extreme case, according to the report, a woman even asked if it was within her rights to have her surrogate abort the baby should the surrogate choose to get vaccinated against the woman’s will.

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Australia, Surrogacy

Where New Zealand’s surrogacy laws could be headed

Intended Parents
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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Surrogacy

Rosanna Davison: Having our daughter by surrogacy in Kiev was a huge challenge

Intended Parents
Rosanna will be spending Mother’s Day with her daughter Sophia and twin babies Oscar and Hugo

Source Irish Examiner

I have two younger brothers, Hubie and Michael, and we had a magical childhood. We were great friends growing up and are still close, despite living in different countries now. We’re all close with our parents too and love spending time together. We were all sporty children, so the focus was always very much on spending as much time as possible outdoors in the garden running around and then playing football and badminton when we got a bit older.

It was a very happy time and much simpler without social media. I still remember getting dial-up internet, although I never spent much time on it. I only joined social media after I graduated from college, and I’m incredibly grateful for that.

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Australia, Surrogacy

Call for commercial surrogacy to be legalized in Australia

Intended Parents

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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Employee Benefits, India, Surrogacy

India – ‘Can’t Deny Maternity Leave To Surrogate Mothers, To Distinguish Is Insulting Womanhood’: Himachal Pradesh HC

Intended Parents

Source The Logical Indian

The Himachal Pradesh High Court on Thursday, March 4, ruled that a woman employee cannot be refused maternity leave even if she becomes a mother through surrogacy.

Image Credits: The Times of India

The Himachal Pradesh High Court on Thursday, March 4, ruled that a woman employee cannot be refused maternity leave even if she becomes a mother through surrogacy.

A division bench consisting of justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan and justice Sandeep Sharma issued the order on the petition filed by a woman language teacher employed on contract in Kullu district.

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