The Single Man and Simple Surrogacy

By SimpleSurrogacy.com

Single men who want to have a family are now becoming fathers on their own through surrogacy. As an alternative to adoption, surrogacy and egg donation allows individuals to pass on their genetics using their sperm and a donor egg. With assisted reproduction, they are able to achieve biological parenthood and start a family.

Those unfamiliar with this subject may think it is an impulsive decision, selfish want, and impossibly unrealistic for a single man to have a baby. In actuality, the male desire to have offspring and be a father is quite simple and natural; and surrogacy makes it very possible! The types of single males who opt to become a dad through surrogacy do plenty of topical and clinical research, meanwhile consulting with their friends, relatives, and doctors. They make this decision as their biological clocks tick and their wishes to be a father continue to grow. For them, a major factor is being able to realize a dream of raising a family and wanting to have the time and energy to be an active male role model for their child. For many, surrogacy provides a life changing opportunity at just the right time.

The single-father surrogacy process involves a great deal of physical, mental and legal preparation. To ensure surrogacy success, he must make his own health, vitals, and fertility an extreme priority since a lot of efforts go into achieving results. The female egg-donor, who can be found and screened through a trusted surrogacy and egg donation agency, must also be an ideal candidate to assist in reproduction and be the carrier of the baby. Due to the legalities of this arrangement, and lawyers must be involved in every step to ensure that the surrogate mother understands whom the rightful parent after birth is. Usually, surrogate mothers are compensated for bearing the child; in some cases, the biological mother can still have some involvement after birth.

A major concern single surrogate dads face is that the child may not have two parents in their life, primarily a mother. However, a single parent can successfully raise a child. Some single surrogate fathers do find a spouse who becomes a part of their family; and homosexual surrogate dads may have a gay male partner involved in raising the child depending on the current laws of their state. Single surrogate fathers are now able to live their life as a loving father, and it is no longer uncommon for those to move on to having more than one child by means of surrogacy.

Simple Surrogacy, LLC.
4925 Greenville Avenue, Second Floor
Dallas, TX 75206

1-866-4178776

www.simplesurrogacy.com

Another Country is closing its doors to commercial Surrogacy in the wake of disturbing cases and reports of mistreatment of surrogates in their country. Hopefully more Parents will see that turning to the United States, with our well managed Surrogates who are educated, informed and ready to fully commit to the process is a better option. Surrogacy in the United States is a much better option for contentious couples, who can expect to find a legal, well managed process and no surprising legal challenges.

Thailand’s interim parliament has given initial approval to a bill banning commercial surrogacy, the practice of hiring a woman to carry a fetus to term.

Thailand was rocked by several surrogacy scandals earlier this year. One involved an Australian couple who took home a healthy baby girl born from a Thai surrogate mother but left behind her twin brother who had Down’s syndrome.

The other case involved a Japanese man who fathered at least 16 babies via Thai surrogates.

National Legislative Assembly member Chet Siratharanon said the bill passed its first reading on Thursday, and a finalised version was expected to be ready for consideration within 30 days. The interim government installed after a military coup in May vowed to outlaw commercial surrogacy and punish offenders with up to 10 years in prison.

Thailand is one of the few countries in Asia where commercial surrogacy is not specifically banned by law. The medical council of Thailand has a regulation stating that doctors risk losing their licence if they perform surrogacy for pay. But that penalty has rarely been enforced and there are no rules covering surrogacy agencies or surrogate mothers, leaving room for commercial surrogacy to occur without oversight.

Thailand has become a go-to destination for couples from Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan and a low-cost alternative to the United States. The cost of a baby by surrogate in Thailand is less than $50,000, compared to about $150,000 in the US.

We had so much fun at the Men having babies conference in New York! We want to extend a very special thank you to our previous client, Michael Barbaro, and his surrogate, Danielle Pawlak, who were on the Men Having Babies panel. Please watch their amazing part of the conference below.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Iby95OH30y4&index=5&list=UU5uyL6Tco1DyW8PMjLSgyDg

In another unfortunate case this week ireland again refused to recognize that the genetic mother of a child is the baby’s mother. This is so unfortunate to the many Irish couples who are using Surrogacy to create their families. It is high time that the Irish courts get together and legislate a solution to the families that they put in legal jeopardy by ignoring the fact that surrogacy exists.

‘Real hope but another reality’: Surrogacy and same-sex parenting in Ireland

Surrogacy is happening – but Ireland’s laws need to play catch up.

Image: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire

A LANDMARK CASE in the Supreme Court this week saw the status quo remain in place – that the genetic mother of a child born to a surrogate could not appear on its birth certificate.

According to Ireland’s current laws, genetics only counts when it comes to fatherhood, not motherhood.

To be a legal mother, the child must be born out of your body.

It seems like an unbelievable position for the court to take but the Chief Justice underlined that she had no other option. It was not the job of the courts to create a “golden rule” for motherhood. It was up to the lawmakers of the country. She basically told the big wigs in Leinster House to pull the finger out on this one and come up with some legislation on surrogacy.

As a solicitor for one of the sisters involved in the case said outside the court, “Surrogacy is happening… These aren’t the only family involved in this particular kind of case.”

And there are potentially hundreds more who will need legal clarity in the near future.

As a visiting fertility specialist told an audience at a same-sex parenting seminar held in Dublin’s city centre this week, “there is a global revolution happening and Ireland is just entering it”.

Dr Brandon Bankowski of Oregon Reproductive Medicine was one of a number of experts to speak to more than 50 same-sex couples on Wednesday evening in the Westbury Hotel.

He was addressing those couples as ones who had “made the first step… to dream of becoming parents”.

In an earlier interview with TheJournal.ie, he said there are options available to gay and lesbian couples, such as co-parenting and adoption but he believes, “The desire to have a genetic offspring is really powerful for a lot of people.”

“There is a time for everything. We’re excited to be here at the start of it in Ireland – it takes a while to introduce this option. A lot of couples may have given up on the dream, which they don’t have to.”

That was the message too of Conor Pendergrast, the adult son of a lesbian couple who grew up in Ireland.

He told the room of prospective parents:

I am the human face on the product of what could be a very long process. And to say, heh, look it’s great at the end of it. You get a son.

How does it work?

Oregon Reproductive Medicine (ORM) and North West Surrogacy Centre (NWSC) have been providing third-party reproductive services for over two decades.

In their areas in Oregon and California, it is no longer a remarkable trade.

“It’s not even interesting to us anymore, in the sense that it’s so well accepted,” John Chally of NWSC tells TheJournal.ie. “That is driven by the acceptance of same-sex marriage around the world.

There is that children’s saying: First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby….

“At this point in the process, they’ve been in love for a long time. Then they have a culture that is accepting of their marriages. It’s then a very natural development that those couples would be looking to complete their families with children.”

Chally, along with co-founder Sandra Hodgson, began processing same-sex adoptions in 1989.

“What we realised first off, they actually are fairly easy to do. We thought the individual birth mothers would never choose a gay or lesbian family. The experience was extraordinarily different to that. The genius of the programme was asking the birth parents if they would be comfortable placing their child with a gay or lesbian family. To our pleasant surprise, 40% said yes. Interestingly, that percentage hasn’t changed very much since 1989.”

Surrogacy options for same-sex couples were just as easy, according to Chally, as establishing legal parentage in the courts for both parents was a straight-forward process.

Oregon also allows for compensated surrogacy – meaning the woman who carries the child is allowed to be paid for her work.

And it is a job for many of them.

“They take it very seriously,” says Chally, when asked about what motivates a woman to carry a stranger’s child.

It’s always complex. What we know is that the money does play a role. There are other things as well. The surrogates that come to us – almost all, have had good pregnancies. That’s why some women look at it and they think she’s crazy.

“Some women liked their pregnancies, liked how it feels, love the idea of providing for another family. They talk about it in that context. Each one of our surrogates has to have had a child and be raising that child. They look at couples unable to have children, and they feel really good about that.”

There are other rules that NWSC and ORM have put in place for potential surrogates: they must be between 21 and 40 years old; they have their criminal, medical and financial records examined; they cannot have had more than five pregnancies; their homes have to pass a social worker’s inspection.

The money they receive is described by most as “not life changing” with women using the average $30,000 payment for deposits for a house, college funds for their children or, sometimes, a first holiday for their family.

Hogdson says the motivation is often about bringing more children into the world.

“My husband and I were watching a TV show one day where a woman was a surrogate. I thought, I could do that! I could give someone a baby! We talked about being a surrogate for six to seven months before starting the process,” says Brandi, who gave birth to Landan for Adam and Sharon.

The couple had been trying for pregnancy for four years but could not conceive. Today, they have become close friends with their surrogate, although this isn’t the case 100% of the time, according to Chally.

“When you enter into a surrogacy relationship, you don’t know what it’s going to be like. It starts out as a business relationship but you hope that it will be more,” Sharon says. “I’ve never met this person before and all of a sudden you’re signing a contract and she’s going to carry a child for you.

You want to be involved, but she has her own life too, so it’s a little challenging to know how to interact socially. I was surprised by how close we became with Brandi—we have become really good friends.

The cost

Dr Bankowsk shows the room a slideshow picture of his ‘embryos clean room’ in Oregon. It is state of the art, built by Intel engineers. It is the reason that he boasts a 90% live birth rate in his clinic, he says.

To those sitting in the audience, it must scream dollar bills.

Indeed, one of first questions asked after the presentations was the cost of the whole process. Including the $30,000 surrogacy fees, intending parents should expect to spend about $100,000 (€80,000).

*** Unless of course they choose Simple Surrogacy, which is thousands cheaper******

It will be a barrier for a lot of couples, admits Chally.

“But often, it becomes a family affair. Parents of gay children sometimes feel a sense of loss because they think they will not have grandchildren. This process is transforming for them and they are often very involved – from a financial point of view, but also coming to the initial meetings and appointments.”

Acceptance

The barriers to parenting were the subject of the majority of the audience’s questions following the presentations. The length of time its takes? The cost? Is a civil partnership or marriage is required? What if one of the parents has HIV? Who appears on the birth cert? What nationality is the child?

What didn’t come up was whether there were any parenting difficulties once the child came along. It seems the American experts were correct in their assumptions that people are comfortable with couples in love becoming parents.

Conor was not asked about whether he was bullied. Or whether his life was harder because he had two mothers instead of two fathers.

One former teacher said that he has seen from Ireland’s schools that co-parenting just “isn’t an issue”.

The barriers to parenthood for Ireland’s gay and lesbian couples are exactly where the Chief Justice said they were. In Leinster House.

One of the men in the audience, Ben Murray, said he was at the very earliest stages of contemplating the idea of becoming a father.

He came, he said, more out of intrigue and to see whether it would all “be too much” – being the test cases before there is legal certainty.

His conclusion at the end of the night? He said it was easy to be excited and in awe at the wonderful stories told by new parents and giving surrogates but he was hit hardest by the “hard reality” of the dubious legal situation.

“There is real hope,” he say, “But another reality.”

Health Minister Leo Varadkar said this week that he will be bring a memorandum for a Assisted Reproduction Bill to his colleagues before the end of the year so that surrogacy, gamete donation and other third-party reproduction issues can be legislated for.

Twenty years on, maybe the global revolution has landed in Ireland.

Many of our wonderful surrogates attended our first ever Surrogate Cruise this past week in the western Caribbean. We hope to have another amazing getaway next year!

In another example of why it is important to have an Agency guide your surrogacy, we bring to light these sad cases where the Intended Parents were not well informed about the nature of the surrogacy laws in the state in which they were matched. Surrogacy laws are a patchwork across the country, ranging from strong, well founded laws in states like Texas and Nevada, to other states where the process is assumed, like California, all the way to states where you are at the mercy of a judge to determine parentage, like Arizona and Tennessee. An experienced Agency could have prevented the heartache here by explaining to the Parents exactly what their rights and limitations were in terms of the laws of the state where their baby would be born.

Article from USA Today

NASHVILLE — A week after giving birth, a Tennessee woman who agreed to be a surrogate for an Italian couple changed her mind. She wanted to keep the baby girl.

After years of legal wrangling, the state Supreme Court earlier this month ruled partially in her favor, sending the case back to a Nashville juvenile judge to decide on custody of the girl.

The girl is now 3, lives in Italy, speaks no English and has been raised since infancy by the Italian couple after the surrogate’s legal fight to keep her was dismissed by lower courts.

It’s a wrenching custody battle that surrogacy law experts say might have been avoided if Tennessee laws didn’t lag woefully behind new reproductive technologies, including the common use of surrogates by couples experiencing fertility problems.

Tennessee’s surrogacy law “lacks a clear process for persons to create, carry out, and enforce traditional surrogacy agreements,” the Supreme Court noted in its opinion. That “leaves parties to surrogacy contracts and courts ill-equipped to deal with the complex questions that inevitably arise in this area of law.”

The lack of legal guidelines has led to heartbreak.

“Certainly, it’s complicated to try at this point to establish a visitation schedule if you have a child who doesn’t speak English, has never met the surrogate but does have a biological mother whose rights have never been terminated,” said Benjamin Papa, an attorney for the Italian couple, whose identities — like the surrogate’s — remain confidential in the court’s order.

“The battle has been very hard,” Papa said. “They went through the whole surrogacy process in good faith. From their perspective, the surrogate decided she wasn’t going to live up to the bargain at the last minute. They have been very frustrated with her trying to back out of the deal everyone agreed to.”

The case is one of two recent court decisions illuminating a void in state laws guiding surrogacy contracts.

Tennessee’s lack of legal guidelines extends to gestational surrogacy, a more common surrogacy arrangement. Unlike the case of the Italian couple, gestational surrogacy involves implanting a fertilized egg into a surrogate that has no biological relationship with the woman pregnant with the baby.

In one Rutherford County case, the surrogacy arrangement went smoothly. There was no conflict between the surrogate and the intended parents. And then the Tennessee Department of Health intervened.

The surrogate was implanted with an anonymously donated egg fertilized by the intended father’s sperm. When the couple went to court to establish parentage, just before the birth of their child, state attorneys argued against them, saying that the surrogate must be listed as the child’s mother on the birth certificate. The court sided with state health officials.

Tennessee is one of four states that require an intended mother who uses an egg donor to wait until after the child’s birth to become the legal parent. The mother has to adopt the child — a practice that also affects the surrogate, who remains “on the hook as the legal parent until that adoption proceeding is completed,” said Diane Hinson, a Fellow of the American Association of Assisted Reproductive Attorneys.

Julia Tate, an attorney in the Rutherford County case, said she intends to appeal the ruling by the Court of Appeals.

“There are women using donated eggs every day in Tennessee,” Tate said. “All these surrogates — they don’t want to be named as the mother of the child. All the intended parents want to be named as the parents. We’re out of step with the nation. Our department of health is out of step with the nation.”

Because of Tennessee’s vague laws, Tate said, parents have been unable to add their child to their health insurance plans and obtain Social Security cards. Also, they bear the added legal expense of going through a “stepparent adoption” to legalize the mother’s relationship with the child.

“After all the indignities (parents) have been through to have this child,” said Tate, pointing to years of unsuccessful fertility treatments and the process of finding a surrogate, “they have to go through the final indignity of having to have a stepparent adoption for their child.”

Wadhwani also writes for The Tennessean in Nashville.

Deciding to be a surrogate mother or egg donor requires a great amount of thought, emotion, and energy.  An egg donor essentially gives her biological egg and DNA. The surrogate mother who receives the transfer of a fertilized egg (in vitro fertilization) is the gestational carrier. This surrogate mother commits to going through with the actual pregnancy for the intended parents, in doing so commits to a long process of testing, appointments and responsibility for the life she is carrying within her.

In most cases, the intended parents may not be able to conceive naturally or carry a child. Common reasons why intended parents may choose to undertake surrogacy as a means to create their family may be infertility, complications and risks for the intended mother’s health. Gay and lesbian parents who wish to raise a child are also welcome to join our program as intended parents.  In fact, Gay and Lesbian parents make up at least 50% of our current surrogacy program. Today, surrogate mothers have the opportunity to choose the parents they would like to carry for, and we endeavor to match the surrogates in our program with the best possible match in their intended parent partners.

The role of a surrogate mother is vital for intended parents to being able to achieve parenthood. Surrogate mothers share a unique and special relationship with the intended parents during the surrogacy journey. For many, this relationship will continue after the surrogate baby is born. Beyond their superior reasons of creating a family for intended parents who are unable to do so. In addition to compensation for carrying and delivery, intended parents will pay all of the surrogate’s associated surrogacy expenses. Upon birth, or upon filling of post birth legal documents, the child rightfully belongs to the intended parents as agreed upon in their surrogacy agreement. The surrogacy agreement is carefully drafted before the transfer of embryos by reproductive rights attorneys, and reviewed by the intended parents and their attorney, and the surrogate and her attorney.

Those who are volunteering as a surrogate mother must be healthy and able to carry a child; they must pass screening tests along with medical and psychological evaluations before the process can begin. There are many legal, financial and medical steps that need to be taken, so proper research and discussion is recommended. A good first step is to set up a consultation with a reputable surrogacy agency, and have your questions addressed. The help from the appropriate surrogate agency, like Simple Surrogacy, will help to ensure a successful surrogacy journey and the ultimate birth of your child.

Author: Simple Surrogacy

4925 Greenville Avenue,
Dallas, TX 75206.

www.simplesurrogacy.com

As Great Strides are made in the United States toward equal marriage rights for all, it is saddening to see so many speak out in France against Same Sex surrogacy rights and marriage rights. Clients of ours from France, just returned home with their twin babies from the United States, born into our surrogacy program. How sad for them that they now have to witness this protest against the very lives they have just welcomed. As always, we welcome same sex couples, and every kind of person seeking to become a parent. We do hope France will reconsider.

Tens of thousands rally in France against IVF, surrogacy for same-sex families

Published time: October 05, 2014 16:36
Edited time: October 06, 2014 10:53

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People wave flags and hold signs with messages as tens of thousands of demonstrators take part in the “Manif Pour Tous” (Demonstration For All) to protest against PMA (Procreation Medicalement Assistee or Medically Assisted Reproduction) and GPA (Grosesse pour Autrui or Gestation for Others) during a march in Paris October 5, 2014 (Reuters / Gonzalo Fuentes)

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Over 500,000 opponents of same-sex marriage have flooded the streets of Paris and Bordeaux to protest against medically-assisted reproduction for gay couples, rally organizers said. A previous protest for “traditional family values” gathered 100,000.

Streets of Paris and Bordeaux have been smothered in pink, blue and white as scores of demonstrators have been waving flags of the “Manif pour Tous” (Protest for Everyone) group that organized the two rallies.

The group said that “at least 500,000 attended the demonstration” in Paris alone. This is five times higher than the previous rally for “family values” back in February.

In Bordeaux, at least 7,500 people attended the rally, police said. However, organizers estimated that no fewer than 30,000 activists came.

Manif pour Tous expected a higher turnout, as a petition calling for a mandatory ban on surrogacy by French citizens had been signed by 200,000 people by Sunday morning, four days after it was put online, according to local Libération newspaper.

Generally opposing same-sex relations, the group’s Sunday march was to protest surrogacy and medically-assisted reproduction (ART) for gay couples.

“Because the exploitation of women is intolerable; because the child is not an object; because all children need a father and a mother,” the group’s announcement said as it called for people to come out and support “traditional family values.”

The group said it has been out on the streets of France “for two years with the same message” and it “continues on October 5.”

The call has been supported by tens of thousands of people in both Paris and Bordeaux, where the rallies started an hour apart – at 1pm and 2pm respectively.

In Paris the demonstrators gathered at Porte Dauphine and marched to Montparnasse, which are about 7km apart.

The president of Manif pour Tous, Ludovine de la Rochere, said that “traditional family values” must be “fought for at all costs.”

According to an exclusive research by Ifop poll for the local Atlantico website, 31 percent of French people support the “values and ideas” of Manif pour Tous.

Speaking to Catholic daily La Croix on Friday, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls assured anti-LGBT supporters that surrogacy “is and will remain banned in France.”

In September, the highest French appeals court ruled that lesbian couples in France may adopt children born via assisted reproductive technology (ART).

But while homosexual couples in France are allowed to adopt, they are barred from using in vitro fertilization.

President Francois Hollande signed the controversial marriage bill into law in May last year, making France the 14th country in the world to allow gay marriage.

The legislation was opposed by many people in France, although opinion polls at the time showed that 55-60 percent of French people supported gay marriage.

People walk behind a banner as tens of thousands of demonstrators take part in the “Manif Pour Tous” (Demonstration For All) to protest against PMA (Procreation Medicalement Assistee or Medically Assisted Reproduction) and GPA (Grosesse pour Autrui or Gestation for Others) during a march in Paris October 5, 2014 (Reuters / Gonzalo Fuentes)

Simple Surrogacy Announces Partnership with American HealthCare Lending for Fertility Financing

To ensure all soon-to-be parents are able to bridge the affordability gap on all fertility and reproductive treatments and the costs of the surrogacy process, Simple Surrogacy has partnered with American HealthCare Lending.  Simple Surrogacy is thrilled to offer an affordable financing solution to help their patients obtain the family of their dreams.

Individuals can face many challenges throughout the fertility and reproductive medicine process; adding affordability to those same challenges can make the process of having children even more stressful.   American HealthCare Lending VP of Marketing, Graham Anderson explains, “Our mission as a company is to make healthcare affordable. We entered this partnership with Simple Surrogacy to ensure that all of their patients have access to the industry leading service they provide.”

Patients will receive many benefits by using American HealthCare Lending, including, fertility financing of up to $100,000, longer term options for lower monthly payments, and a loan product that charges no retroactive interest or pre-payment penalties. In addition, patients can receive immediate decisions for loans under $35,000 coupled with a loan inquiry process that is quick, easy and can be completed from anywhere on any device.

Stephanie Scott from Simple Surrogacy said the following about the partnership, “Simple Surrogacy is highly regarded in the surrogacy community for helping clients achieve success at an affordable price.  We have partnered with American HealthCare Lending to help more of our clients afford surrogacy.”

About Simple Surrogacy.  Based in Dallas, Texas, Simple Surrogacy is a full-service Surrogacy Agency.  They were founded in 2002 to assist couples and individuals with the desire to achieve a family through third party assisted reproduction.  Simple Surrogacy was founded on one simple principle: to provide clients with the highest standard of care in the surrogacy industry at an affordable price. Creating families through Surrogacy and Egg Donation since 2002, Simple Surrogacy offers a fully rounded knowledge of the experience. Simple Surrogacy does not discriminate based on sexual preference, marital status, race, religion, age, or gender.

About American Healthcare Lending. Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, American Healthcare Lending is the premier fertility and reproductive medicine financing company in the nation. American HealthCare Lending has pioneered the Financing as a Service™ (FaaS™) model, and offers both patients and providers an easy-to-use online financing solution that can be accessed from the provider’s office, at home, or on any mobile device. As one of the true innovators in fertility financing, American HealthCare Lending’s revolutionary financing platform charges the patient no retroactive interest or pre-payment penalties, offers instant decisions, upfront funding, loan amounts up to $100,000, and a team of knowledgeable lending consultants to assist the patient and provider throughout the entire loan process.

CONTACT: Graham Anderson 888-602-6066 x 111

graham(at)americanhcl(dot)com