Simple Surrogacy sees the facts and hears the horror stories every day for Intended Fathers who have tried other routes to surrogacy and been unsuccessful. It’s hard to see so many who just want to be parents struggle through the costs, difficulties and confusion surrounding surrogacy, both domestically and internationally. When Intended parents come to Simple Surrogacy, we try to educate them about their choices and options in a non biased way, while still presenting our program in a neutral light so that Parents can make a informed decision based on all the necessary facts and figures. Not everyone is as lucky as the Parents in the story below, who had a sister willing to carry for them in a surrogacy friendly state, but we hope that every match with Simple Surrogacy will feel like family when you match through us!  We are looking forward to helping many more Intended Parents through the confusing world of Surrogacy with our family friendly approach and competitive pricing. Call us today!

Craig Parkes (right) and Matthew Hinton were able to have their son, Fitzgerald, thanks to Matt’s sister Laura agreeing to act as a surrogate. (CBC)

This Father’s Day, Craig Parkes and Matthew Hinton will have a new reason to celebrate family. Their son, Fitzgerald, was born earlier this year, and although he’s been more than a welcome addition, the road to his birth was anything but easy.

“It’s been a lengthy progress,” says Hinton. The couple originally attempted insemination with a surrogate in India, but without success. On top of that, while he was there, the country shut down surrogacy for gay parents.

The solution eventually arrived through a familiar face. Hinton’s sister Laura volunteered to be a surrogate for the couple. Although that solved the issue of who would carry the baby, they still required an egg donor, which was unavailable in Canada.

“We ended up having to go through an agency and actually compensate an egg donor, which you can’t do in Canada. So because Laura lives in South Carolina, it actually worked out for us,” says Hinton.

Since the birth of their son, Parkes and Hinton were approached by Tylenol to star in its newest commercial. Parkes says it was an opportunity to destigmatize gay couples having children. “I think the more people see regular couples with babies — whether they’re gay or straight — the more comfortable they are around it. I don’t think we set out to make a point or to change people’s minds, but looking back, it’s kind of inevitable that that’s a role we’re falling into.”

Unique challenge for gay parents

The entire process made clear to Hinton the difficulty for gay couples of trying to start a family.

He says there were few options available to them because many countries do not allow two male partners to adopt a baby. On top of that, Canadian laws add to the complication of using surrogacy.

“The issue for us is that there’s a ban in Canada on paying a surrogate. You can reimburse her, but you don’t know where that line is. You also can’t pay a woman to donate an egg to you. Realistically, for a gay couple you need have both,” he says.

The Vancouver couple refer to Laura as a hero for allowing them to start their own family. Laura says the decision came easy for her.

“Family is so important. It was a way to help a family member and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

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Simple Surrogacy had a great time at the Family Building Expo in New York. It was a pleasure to meet so many of our clients again and see how big their babies have grown. We also enjoyed meeting so many potential clients, and we look forward to helping many of you become parents soon!

ONE WOMAN’S SURROGATE JOURNEY

TIMNA RUTLEDGE | POSTED ON MONDAY, APRIL 27, 2015 AT 08:48PM

Many Intended Fathers who are matched in Texas through our agency have come across the story below and become worried and concerned about their legal rights to their children after delivery in Texas. We wanted to address their concerns.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/18/jason-hanna-and-joe-riggs_n_5506720.html

The couple in this story did not use an Agency to guide them on their journey. They went it alone, and somehow ended up with an attorney who did not practice in North Texas, but instead had a primary practice in Houston. This attorney either had a foolish political agenda and purposely filed in Tarrant county courts to gain fame and notoriety in trying to overturn the policies there, or he was simply incompetent and made uninformed decisions about where to file his client’s legal paperwork.

When you hire Simple Surrogacy, we provide you with a competent attorney who understands the Texas legal landscape.   Your attorney will work in concert with the Surrogate’s attorney, to prepare and negotiate your agreement.

Once everyone has agreed, the agreement is signed and notarized. The next step is to establish your parentage, which can be done in a number of ways depending on your particular case. One way in which your parentage can be confirmed is through the Texas statutory validation process. The validation process results in obtaining a pre-birth order from the Court that names both intended parents as the legal parents, or the single intended parent as the sole legal parent. Whether or not a same sex couple or single intended parent can obtain an order naming them as the parent(s) of the child prior to birth depends on several factors. First, a same sex couple must be married in order to obtain an order prior to the birth naming them both as the legal parents. Second, the attorney handling your case must know the views of the Judge he or she is asking to grant the order naming you as the parents of the child. Surrogacy in general involves some areas of unsettled law; however, the attorneys who frequently work with our clients have taken the time to speak with local Judges about their views and to present their legal argument as to why they believe the laws in Texas support validation of a gestational agreement for same sex married couples and single intended parents. Many local Judges have agreed with those arguments. Even if obtaining a pre-birth order is not an option or undesirable, there are other legal avenues by which your attorney can work with you to confirm your parental rights and be found the child’s legal parent.

Simple Surrogacy works with experienced attorneys such as Lauren Gaydos Duffer, and our clients have always been able to obtain parentage to their Child. Please be confident that when you choose Simple Surrogacy as your Agency, we will insure that your journey to Fatherhood through the Texas court system is a smooth one.

Surrogacy is not always a smooth journey, though we at Simple Surrogacy always strive to make the process as easy as possible for you. Once you reach the long awaited delivery day, many Intended Parents assume that it is smooth and easy from there – that now that they have their babies they can take them and go back to their lives. That is usually the case, but the time of delivery is fraught with emotional challenges that many Intended Parents do not know how to navigate. Handling things incorrectly can result in emotional strain and possible legal repercussions to your surrogate, to yourselves, and even to your babies.

Your Surrogate has carried your babies lovingly for 9 months. She has nurtured your children, fed them with her own body, and given up her time, freedom and health to make sure they grow into the wonderful babies that you now hold in your arms.

She is also emotionally invested in this journey, with you, to help you create your family. She longs to see your family complete, to see you hold your babies, and to hold the babies that she has helped to create.

Imagine making a special cake for someone. You lovingly mix it, put it into the oven, smell it as it is baking, hear the timer go off knowing it is ready, and remove it from the oven to cool. Now imagine that someone takes the cake away, you never see it again, you wonder, did it turn out OK? Will they like it? Will they enjoy it and appreciate all you did to bake it for them?

It is thousands of times worse when it is not a cake but a baby that the surrogate is never allowed to see again. Sometimes Intended Parents fear that letting the Surrogate hold the babies will cause her to bond with the baby and become attached to it. They worry that this would make it more difficult for them in turn to bond, but this is far from the reality. Your surrogate has already bonded with your children, in the 9 months she lovingly carried them for you. The Surrogate needs to hold your children following birth, to have closure on the long journey that you have undertaken together. She needs to hold your children, and then pass them to you, to see you hold them. She needs to see the final, wonderful completion of the journey you entered into together. Together, you have created and grown a life. This life would not be here without your surrogate, and to not allow her to share in the final joy of fruition is not only callous but also criminal.

Not allowing the Surrogate closure can also lead to costly emotional problems. Intended Parents are still obligated to pay for counseling after delivery, and in most cases, Surrogates who do not have the closure of saying goodbye to the children they grew typically need counseling. This can be a substantial expense on top of your new expenses for your children. It can also be argued that in not allowing your Surrogate closure that you are intentionally inflicting emotional distress on your Surrogate. She may have a legal case to pursue if you deprive her of that emotional closure out of fear or vindictiveness.

The simplest and also kindest route is to simply allow your surrogate time alone to say goodbye to the lives that she created for you. If you cannot find this compassion within yourself, to appreciate your Surrogate for the human being that she is, with emotions and feelings and love for your babies, then Simple Surrogacy is probably not the best agency for you, as we have seen the harm that can do and we want to protect our Clients and Surrogates and prevent it.

A new story on the Today show highlights a phenomenon that we’ve been aware of for a while now, that is single men turning to surrogacy when they are ready. Stephanie Scott, one of our founders, is mentioned in this story!

Dr. Conrad Cean was nearing 40 when he felt his biological clock ticking — with no special someone to help him start a family. So he did something that’s only recently become an option for single men: He turned to IVF and a surrogate halfway around the world to make a family of his own.

The 43-year-old pain specialist from New York City is now the proud, single father of 18-month-old twins, Konrad Fritz II and Kennedy-Josephine Marie. And he’s considering adding to his brood.

“I grew up in a very close family with two sisters, parents in Queens and cousins,” he told TODAY. “We’ve always been a tight family and I always wanted children.”

Cean’s surrogate family takes on special poignancy in the wake of the blowup between British singer Elton John and the fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana after the founders recently championed “traditional” families andcriticized fertility treatments in a magazine article.

Although no one keeps track, plenty of bachelors are intentionally having babies, though perhaps not “in the millions,” said Dr. Philip Werthman, director of the Center for Male Reproductive Medicine and Vasectomy Reversal in Los Angeles, who helps men optimize their sperm for IVF.

“The desire to be a parent is similar, whether you are gay, straight, in a relationship or not,” he said. “For these men, they are getting older, they have the resources and the love to give and they want to go ahead. Technology gives them the ability to have children outside traditional means.”

Cean said he planned to marry by 33 or 34, but his busy schedule interfered with finding the right woman.

“I had just finished my fellowship and was trying to get the lay of the land in the business of medicine,” said Cean. “I thought I would meet the right person, but I didn’t want to force anything.”

After two failed embryo transplantations in India in 2012, Cean went to Panama where for about two-thirds the cost of surrogacy in the United States, his twins were born on Aug. 30, 2013.

“I was ecstatic,” said Cean, who used his own sperm and is biologically related to the twins. “It’s other worldly, worth a thousand bucks, a million bucks. It’s hard to put into words.”

Stephanie Scott, executive director of Simple Surrogacy in Dallas, says she sees men like Cean “all the time.”

“Some of them have been focused on their careers for so long, they never got married,” she told TODAY. “A lot are afraid they have missed their opportunity and don’t want to wait and hope they’ll find the right woman.”

In gestational surrogacy, a woman is implanted with an embryo through in vitro fertilization using a donor egg and sperm. The baby is not genetically related to the surrogate mother.

In the United States, a man could spend up to $150,000 for all the medical costs, including $10,000 for an egg donor and $25,000 for the surrogate mother.

Scott arranged for Peter Gordon, a 48-year-old middle school teacher from Brimmer and May in Massachusetts, to have his twins with the help of a surrogate. His twins, 3-year-olds Noah and Olivia, were born in St. Louis.

“It’s funny,” he told TODAY. “I always said when I was in my 20s I would find the woman of my dreams and be married. But in my 30s I was at a junior boarding school and didn’t pay much attention to relationships. All of a sudden, I was in my 40s.”

Gordon said he made a “pact” with himself. If he reached 44 and was not married, he would look into an “alternative way” to have a family. The summer he turned 44, a relationship dissolved and he began to look into surrogacy, a lengthy project that, in the end, cost him $90,000.

“I had to qualify for loans and lines of credit,” he said. “I vetted agencies. I was meeting surrogates and getting an egg donor. It was all a blur. … Still, I was determined.”

The surrogate he chose was 23 and single, but had a child. “She made a decision she wanted to help others,” he said.

Gordon was in the delivery room at the full-term birth. The twins had a baby nurse and now a nanny, and he makes sure there are plenty of female influences in their lives.

“Oh my gosh,” he said. “It was the most unbelievable dream come true. It’s one of the hardest things I have ever done, but a lot of it is instinct. … From the minute they were born, they were in my arms and have been there ever since.”

Gordon says he still dates, when he can, but caring for twins is “tiring.”

“I still think it will happen,” he said of finding a wife. “And it would be great to share this with someone. … But that void I used to feel when I worked at boarding schools is no longer there, because my life is filled with my kids.”

As for Cean, he said that he, too, would still be open to marriage.

“I am definitely still looking,” he said. “My two biggest things are finding someone genuine and sweet with a kooky sense of humor. Someone offbeat.”

But his weekend family life is also full and rewarding: a Saturday gymboree class, naps and bottles, an afternoon walk in the park or drive out to Queens to see his parents, sister and cousins.

“My family was skeptical at first — obviously they would be,” said Cean. “But I have absolutely have no regrets.

“Hey, gay guys do it all the time. I told myself I was the straight half of a gay couple.”

Follow Jane Newman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/completingtf

As more women delay their childbearing, typically at their own expense, it is gratifying for companies to realize that offering advanced fertility options to their employees. So often in our business, we see women who have had high-powered careers wake up one day to realize that their fertile years have passed them by but that they still really want to be parents. It is encouraging to see companies help these women out and extend their productive careers while maintaining their fertility. Even if the women who are one day freezing their eggs end up needing surrogates to carry their pregnancies, we are encouraged to see that their fertility can be postponed by the foresight of these forward thinking companies.

Silicon Valley is known for offering incredible job perks, but the latest moves by Apple and Facebook could help the companies attract more female employees.

Facebook said it offers egg freezing for female employees up to $20,000. The company also offers adoption and surrogacy assistance and “a host of other fertility services for male and female employees,” the company said via e-mail.

Apple also offers egg freezing and storage, extended maternity leave, adoption assistance and infertility treatments.

In a statement, the company said “We want to empower women at Apple to do the best work of their lives as they care for loved ones and raise their families.”

The benefit is worth close to $20,000. A typical round of egg-freezing costs about $10,000, with $500 or more in fees each year for storage. Two rounds are usually necessary to harvest about 20 eggs, which is considered ideal.

The coverage by Apple and Facebook is part of a growing trend to beef up employee perks at Silicon Valley companies to recruit new hires.

However, the option won’t be one every woman will jump at, said Kellye Sheehan with Women in Technology, a professional organization for women in the tech industry.

“This is a nice perk but of course it’s a very personal decision for every working woman. When to time college, grad school, babies, starting a career, accelerating a career — all of these have huge ramifications in your life and that of your significant other,” she said.

“Is the employer trying to tell us something? Agreed, working mothers have a lot to juggle. But you can’t let your employer force you into something that doesn’t fit your values or personal choices,” Sheehan added.

The idea of freezing eggs for later use was first proposed for cancer patients. Chemotherapy damages a woman’s eggs, so removing and freezing eggs of female cancer patients gave them a chance at having children later on.

For what’s sometimes called “fertility preservation,” the idea is that by removing and fertilizing their eggs in their 20s, women will have a better chance of getting pregnant in their 30s and 40s.

Reproductively speaking, a woman’s best chance at a healthy pregnancy that results in a healthy baby is in her 20s.

This is because the viability of a woman’s eggs declines over time. Fertility gradually declines in the 30s and drastically beginning around age 35, according to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine.

The actual harvesting of the eggs is not trivial. It requires rounds of hormone injections to coax the body into producing multiple eggs at once. When the eggs mature, they are harvested via a needle inserted through the vagina.

Exactly how successful the woman will be at having a child if she froze her eggs in her 20s and then used them in her 30s or 40s isn’t yet known.

“We don’t yet have patients who’ve cryopreserved eggs in their 20s and are coming back in their 30s and 40s, because the technology is so new,” said Jennifer Eaton, medical director of assisted reproductive technology at Duke Fertility Center in Durham, N.C.

However centers that are using the new freezing techniques report “comparable pregnancy and live birth rates among women who freeze eggs and come back,” she said.

The technology used to freeze human eggs has become much better in the last 10 years and is much more likely to result in the birth of a child than in the past, said Alan Copperman, director of the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

“Five years ago, if you’d interviewed me, I would have talked about how much better a fresh egg is than a frozen egg. But in 2014, a frozen egg is almost as good as a fresh egg,” he said.

In the past, doctors used a slow freezing technique with eggs. However the egg is the largest cell in the human body and contains a great deal of water. During freezing, ice crystals sometimes form, which damage the spindle apparatus within cells that pulls chromosomes apart during cell division.

Today a quick-freeze process, called vitrification, is used that is less likely to create ice crystals and results in better-preserved eggs, Copperman said.

Egg freezing isn’t a guarantee that you’re going to have a healthy baby, but could increase the odds, said Marcelle Cedars, director of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the University of California-San Francisco.

“I always tell my patients it’s not a baby in the freezer, it’s the possibility of a baby,” she said.

No matter how old a woman is when she decides to start a family, frozen eggs are the last resort.

“Even at 40, 50% of 40-year-olds who want to get pregnant get pregnant,” Cedars said. “And it’s a lot more fun to do it the old-fashioned way.”

http://www.wfaa.com/story/tech/2014/10/14/apple-facebook-eggs/17240953/

Surrogacy 101: Medical Process Continued

When the fertilized embryos are at the proper stage, they are loaded into a special syringe with a thin flexible catheter at the end. The catheter is inserted thru the cervix into the uterine cavity (sometimes with the assistance of abdominal ultrasound to ensure EXACT placement of the embryos) where the embryos are “injected”. Most doctors will only transfer three to four 2-day old embryos or two 5-day embryos. Any unused embryos are frozen for a future attempt if a pregnancy doesn’t result from the fresh cycle.  Bed rest of anywhere from 2 hours to 3 days is usually required immediately following embryo transfer.

A Quantitative HCG in which the amount of pregnancy hormone is measured is usually done 14 days post egg retrieval. At that time they are looking for the HCG level to be about 50 or better. Anything over 200 is usually indicative of a multiple pregnancy. The Surrogate will have a second quantitative HCG test two days later to verify that the pregnancy hormone numbers are going up (they should double about every 2 days). If the quantitative HCG is negative, all external hormones are discontinued and a menstrual cycle will usually start within 5 days.

If a pregnancy has occurred (Congratulations!), an ultrasound is usually done about 6-7 weeks to check for a heartbeat and again around 12 weeks before being released to a regular OB/GYN. Usually during this time, hormone levels are checked several times to ensure that the proper levels are being maintained to ensure the pregnancy continues. Once the placenta starts taking over the hormone production, the Surrogate is weaned off the hormone replacements.

Physically, the rest of the pregnancy would be the same as any other pregnancy.

**The information provided above is for general information purposes to the Clients of Simple Surrogacy and should not be construed in any way as health or medical advice or treatment recommendations.**