J. Marie Photography

Jessica Brown, at left, with her sister, Melissa, brother-in-law, Steve Mohler, and niece and nephew, Gabriella and Brendan twins whom Jessica carried for her sister, after Melissa survived breast cancer.

This is a Mothers Day story, but it is really about sisters, about how it took two of them to make one of them a mother. It is a story about cancer and the shadow it cast over the lives of these women, since Melissa Brown was 2 and her sister, Jessica, was a baby. Its a story, in part, about death. But ultimately, its about life two new lives, to be exact and the unexpected roads that women sometimes travel to motherhood.

Melissa, an attorney, and Jessica, a jeweler, grew up in Cape May, N.J., sharing clothes and secrets. Theyre best friends who talk on the phone every day. When Melissa got engaged, Jessica was the first to know. Melissa had just finished law school; her fiance, Steve Mohler, was working as a software engineer for Lockheed Martin. It had been five years since they met at the Lobster House in Cape May she had waited tables, hed bused them and they were planning a June 15, 2008, wedding, one year from the day Steve popped the question.

(MORE: Baby-Selling Scam Focuses Attention on Surrogacy)

There were other things Melissa, now 30, and Jessica, 27, shared: the specter of cancer, for one. Their mother, Gail, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1984 at the age of 30, when the girls were too young to understand what it must have been like for her to undergo treatment, including a bilateral mastectomy, as the parent of a baby and a toddler. Her treatment from her initial Stage 3 diagnosis until scans showed no signs of disease lasted three years. Melissa, who was 5 by that time, remembers going to doctors appointments with her mother. After the doctor finished injecting saline into her mothers breast-tissue expanders, readying them for implants, shed use the syringe to squirt water at Melissa and Jessica.

Gail was always open with her girls about the need to do breast self-exams; after all, shed found her cancer herself in the months after Jessicas birth. As soon as her daughters developed breasts it may have been around age 12 but certainly by age 13 Gail taught them how to creep their fingers in spiraling circles around their breasts, searching for anything that didnt belong.

In early 2006, Gail discovered another lump. In a very rare occurrence after both breasts had been removed, the cancer had returned. Chemo cleared it up. But in Nov. 2007, it resurfaced. It would be Gails third time fighting the disease, but she wasnt feeling defeated. I did not let cancer prevent me from seeing my girls grow up, she told Melissa and Jessica. I will not let it prevent me from watching you both get married. I want to see grandchildren.

Then one month later, another setback: this time, it would be Melissa who found a lump five months after getting engaged and more than a decade after shed begun examining her own breasts. The lump was small and hard, about the size of a pea. In a journal shed kept since she was a teenager, she wrote:

Jan. 16, 2008

See more here:
My Sister, My Surrogate: After Battling Cancer, One Woman Receives the Ultimate Mother's Day Gift

See the original post here:
What's the Difference Between a Gestational Carrier and a Surrogate?

Link:
Celebrity Couples Opt For Surrogacy

Giuliana and Bill Rancic needed to see it to believe it.

In a sneak preview from Tuesday’s all-new episode of Giuliana & Bill, the couple visited their gestational carrier and Dr. William Schoolcraft at the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine in Denver to attend their very first ultrasound.

“It’s a little bit nerve-wracking because with IVF and with this type of a procedure, there’s always a chance that there was a false positive,” Bill, 40, explains.

PHOTOS: Stars who welcomed kids through surrogates

With their eyes glued to the monitor, Dr. Schoolcraft explains that what they’re seeing is “the flickering of the cardiac activity of the heartbeat starting. That is just about the earliest gestational age where we can ever detect this.”

VIDEO: Giuliana and Bill Rancic cry when they learn their gestational surrogate is pregnant

Giuliana, 37, and her husband begin to tear up when they think about the long journey that preceded this happy moment. “Looking at these first images, all these emotions from the past start rushing back,” E! News co-anchor Giuliana says. “All the struggles, the shots, all the doctors visits, the tears — just everything.”

Credit: Andrew Eccles/The Style Network

She adds: “Seeing that image on the screen is everything we had prayed for and wished for. We just couldn’t ask for anything more right now.”

Elated to become a first-time father, Bill admits that “it’s hard to believe we’re going to be called parents one day.”

Follow this link:
Giuliana and Bill Rancic Tear Up During First Ultrasound

The ultimate dream came true Giuliana and Bill Rancic: A baby-to-be!

“We are so thrilled that our prayers have been answered,” reality star and TV host Guiliana, 37, told E! News Monday. The couple’s first child is due in late summer via gestational surrogate.

Gushed her hubby of five years Bill, 40: “We are absolutely ecstatic to be sharing this with everyone who has been following our journey.”

PHOTOS: Couples who have struggled to conceive

It’s been a long journey indeed. The pair were frank with fans and on their reality show Giuliana and Bill about their years-long struggle to conceive, which included failed IVF treatments and a miscarriage; late last summer, Giuliana was set for another round of IVF when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She eventually opted to undergo a double mastectomy, and is currently cancer free.

PHOTOS: Couples who have welcomed kids through surrogates

“We received an incredible amount of love and prayers from viewers around the world,” Giuliana told E! “and we want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of them for their love.”

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Giuliana and Bill Rancic Having a Baby!

Read more:
Giuliana and Bill Rancic Having a Baby!

After a particularly trying year, Giuliana and Bill Rancic needed some good news.

In an upcoming episode from their Style Network reality show Giuliana & Bill, the couple receives just that in the form of a phone call from their fertility doctor Dr. Schoolcraft.

“Well. . . we’ve got the pregnancy test,” Schoolcraft tells the anxious couple. “It’s completely 100 percent positive. She’s carrying a baby! Everything went as well as I could have dreamed.”

PHOTOS: Stars who welcomed kids through surrogates

Overwhelmed by their good fortune, Giuliana, 37, and Bill, 40, break down into tears. After several failed IVF attempts and a miscarriage, the spouses of nearly five years will welcome their first child via gestational surrogate later this summer.

Giuliana Rancic

When Giuliana was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011, “we had the embryos frozen,” Bill explains to Us Weekly. “Everything happens for a reason, and we believe this is meant to be and the way it was supposed to work out.” (His E! News co-host wife is now cancer-free.)

PHOTOS: Celebrity couples who struggled to conceive

Bill adds: “The last year and a half we’d been having people come up to us and shed tears and cry. It’s so nice now to be crying tears of joy. It couldn’t be better.”

Giuliana & Bill airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. EST on Style.

Go here to see the original:
Giuliana and Bill Rancic Cry When They Learn They're Going to Be Parents

Giuliana and Bill Rancic are finally getting their happily ever after.

After three rounds of in vitro fertilization treatments and a miscarriage, the spouses of nearly five years announced they will be welcoming a baby via a gestational carrier on Today Monday. Giuliana, 37, and Bill, 40, will explain what led them to this decision in a 30-minute Style Network special, Giuliana & Bill: Baby Dreams, airing Tuesday at 9 p.m. EST.

PHOTOS: Stars who welcomed kids through surrogates

“Over the years we have opened our lives to Style viewers,” the Rancics tell Us Weekly in a statement. “We are thrilled to be able to share this happy news with our fans and to help inform others who may also be struggling with fertility. This Style special will answer many questions we also had during this process.”

PHOTOS: Celebrity couples who struggled to conceive

E! News host Giuliana — who underwent a double mastectomy in November and is currently cancer free — said she and her husband “are so thrilled” to become first-time parents later this summer.

“This was our last stop,” Bill explained on Today. “This was it. We had those two embryos that we had banked prior to learning about the breast cancer, and with the medicine she was on, this was our last effort. The prayers were answered.”

VIDEO: Giuliana and Bill open up to Us about their new plan for kids

Giuliana & Bill: Baby Dreams will air immediately after a new episode of Giuliana & Bill, which is currently in its fifth season on The Style Network.

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Giuliana and Bill Rancic to Discuss Surrogacy in Style Network Special

Excerpt from:
Giuliana and Bill Rancic to Discuss Surrogacy in Style Network Special

Giuliana and Bill Rancic are expecting a baby! After going through some very tough times, the happy news is certainly a bright spot in the couple’s five year marriage. The 37-year-old reality star and television host told E! News on Monday, “We are so thrilled that our prayers have been answered.”

40-year-old hubby Bill echoed his wife’s excitement remarking, “We are absolutely ecstatic to be sharing this with everyone who has been following our journey.”

The pair’s first child is due this summer via gestational surrogate. They suffered a long struggle attempting to conceive naturally, finally turning to IVF treatments that were followed by miscarriage. Then the bad news became even worse when Giuliana was diagnosed with breast cancer just before she was about to go through yet another set of IVF treatments.

The “Fashion Police” co-host eventually opted to undergo a double mastectomy, and is now cancer free. We hope that this good turn-of-events is the end of the string of bad luck and they are able to enjoy parenthood without any further road blocks in their way!

Of course the adorable couple are not the only Hollywood celebs to have welcomed a baby into the world through a surrogate mother.

Another very likable star, Elizabeth Banks , surprised her fans with the news that she and her husband, Max Handelman , became parents to a son in March of 2011 via a surrogate after they struggled for years to conceive naturally. Baby Felix was a very welcome addition to their family, and the “Hunger Games” actress said, ” We make a baby cake and bake it in another woman’s oven.” She called both meeting the woman who became her carrier as well as the birth of her child, “two miracles.”

In 2009, Sarah Jessica Parker’s surrogate gave birth to twins! The “Sex and the City” star and hubby actor Matthew Broderick became parents to Marion Loretta Elwell Broderick and Tabitha Hodge Broderick on June 23, 2009.

The actress told Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush shortly before they were born that she and her husband had faced a series of disappointments and remarked, “Well, you know, we’ve been trying to expand our family for a number of years and we actually have explored a variety of ways of doing so. This was one of the things we discussed with seriousness that had real possibilities for us.”

Note: This was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Join the Yahoo! Contributor Network here to start publishing your own articles.

Link:
Giuliana Rancic Pregnant Through Surrogate! Plus Other Celeb Moms Who Used Surrogates

Giuliana and Bill Rancic always knew they’d be parents — they just didn’t know how.

After several failed IVF attempts and a miscarriage, the couple will welcome their first child later this summer via gestational surrogate. “The baby is 100 percent genetically ours,” Bill, 40, tells Us Weekly. “It’s our embryo.”

When Giuliana was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011, “we had the embryos frozen,” Bill explains. “Everything happens for a reason, and we believe this is meant to be and the way it was supposed to work out.”

PHOTOS: Stars who welcomed kids through surrogates

He adds: “If she’d gotten pregnant, it probably wouldn’t have been a very good outcome because of all the hormones — it would have made the cancer surge. So this was the best option.”

Though she’s now cancer-free, doctors warned E! News host Giuliana, 37, that they would likely have to wait “three to five years” before trying to conceive a child on their own. “As soon as we heard that we moved forward with this plan,” she tells Us.

VIDEO: Giuliana and Bill open up to Us about their new plan for kids

“We go to this great clinic called CCRM and it was through our doctor, Dr. Schoolcraft, who referred us to the agency,” Giuliana explains. “That’s how we found [our surrogate].”

Though they’ve chosen to keep their surrogate’s identity private, Bill says she’s “a really nice girl who comes from a good family. Knock on wood, but I think we hit the gestational carrier lottery!”

The couple had “thought about” adoption, too, “but we hadn’t started the process,” Giuliana says. “One baby at a time!”

View post:
Giuliana and Bill Rancic: Why We Chose to Use a Gestational Surrogate

Guiliana Rancic, the E! News host, says she and husband, Bill Rancic, are expecting their first child, via gestational surrogate, this summer.

Guiliana Rancic, the host of E! News, and her businessman husband Bill Rancic, announced yesterday that they are having a baby. And the internet is going crazy.

Correspondent

Stephanie Hanes is the lead writer for Modern Parenthood and a longtime Monitor correspondent. She lives in Andover, Mass. with her husband, Christopher, her daughter, Madeline Thuli, a South Africa Labrador retriever, Karoo, and an imperialist cat named Kipling.

See, Ms. Rancics isnt just another celebrity pregnancy. In fact, Guiliana isnt really, technically, traditionally, pregnant at all.

After years of struggling to conceive the emotions around which they shared on their Style Network reality series Guiliana & Bill” (strange world, no?) the couple said yesterday that a gestational surrogate would be giving birth to their child this summer.

We are so thrilled that our prayers have been answered, they wrote in a statement. We are absolutely ecstatic to be sharing this with everyone who has been following our journey.

Surrogacy where another woman carries a couples child, either with her own or an implanted embryo is one of the more controversial methods of infertility treatment in the US. And if you go by celebrity news, it seems to be increasingly common:

Over the past couple of years, Nicole Kidman and husband Keith Urban had a baby daughter via surrogate (January); Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick had twins (June 2009); and Elton John and partner David Furnish had a baby boy (Christmas Day).

The statistics for gestational surrogacy in the US show a wider increase, as well. The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology and the Centers for Disease Control report the number of infants born to gestational surrogates increased to 1,400 in 2008 from 738 in 2004. (Some groups involved in surrogacy both pro and con say they believe these numbers are low.)

See more here:
Guiliana Rancic expecting, joins celeb surrogate trend

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Giuliana and Bill Rancic are having a baby.

The child will be born later this summer via a gestational surrogate, meaning the baby will be genetically theirs but carried by another woman.

E! News first reported the news that they are expecting.

Last fall, 37-year-old Giuliana announced she had breast cancer and later underwent a double mastectomy. She did not need chemotherapy.

Giuliana is the host of E! News. Bill is a 40-year-old entrepreneur and motivational speaker who won the first season of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice.”

Together, they co-star in a reality show on the Style Network called “Giuliana & Bill.” Much of the show has been devoted to their fertility issues.

Online: mystyle.com/mystyle/shows/giulianaandbill

Related Stories:

Video: FOX 10′s Diane Ryan talked to fertility expert Dr. Burt Webb about the surrogacy program and how it’s illegal in Arizona.

Scottsdale Center for Women’s Care Dr. Burt Webb 8752 E. Via de Commercio, Suite 2 Scottsdale, AZ 85258 480-425-8700 www.scottsdaleobgyns.com

Read the original:
Expert: Surrogates are Illegal in AZ

For years, Giuliana and Bill Rancic have made their struggle to conceive publicly known, which is why their Monday announcement that they are expecting their first child via a gestational carrier comes as a huge and happy surprise to their supportive fans.

The Giuliana and Bill stars, who have been through failed IVF treatments and a miscarriage, plan to open up more about their decision in a 30-minute Style Network special, Giuliana & Bill: Baby Dreams, airing Tuesday at 9 p.m. EST. But they’re not the first Hollywood parents to have a child through a surrogate.

PHOTOS: Celebs who have used surrogates

On December 28, 2010, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban had daughter Faith Margaret via surrogate in Nashville. “No words can adequately convey the incredible gratitude that we feel for everyone who was so supportive,” the duo, who also have daughter Sunday, 3, told Us in a statement.

PHOTOS: Couples who have struggled to conceive

Seven years after having son James Wilkie, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick welcomed twins Marion and Tabitha in June 2009. “Meeting your children rather than giving birth to them, it’s as if it’s — suspended animation,” Parker told Vogue. “It’s as if everything disappears for a moment, and the world goes silent.”

Long before Kelsey Grammer and Camille Grammer’s bitter divorce battle, the former Frasier star and his wife of 13 years had two kids via surrogate: daughter Mason and son Jude.

VIDEO: Giuliana and Bill open up to Us about their challenging 2011

“This was our last stop,” Bill, 40, explained on Today about his and Giuliana’s efforts to conceive. “This was it. We had those two embryos that we had banked prior to learning about the breast cancer, and with the medicine she was on, this was our last effort. The prayers were answered.”

Click here to see more celeb families who have used surrogates to conceive.

Read more:
Giuliana and Bill Rancic and Other Celebs Who've Used Surrogates

Original post:
Dr. Doyle to Speak in Stockholm about ‘A New Look at Ethical and Affordable Surrogacy Choices’

Adrienne Arieff and her surrogate, Vaina, who carried and gave birth to Arieff’s twin daughters in India in 2008.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) — Adrienne Arieff went through three miscarriages before she learned she was unable to carry a child. Her search for a solution brought her to India, where she found a woman willing to carry her and her husband’s embryo in a controversial practice known as foreign gestational surrogacy.

After considerable soul-searching, Arieff traveled in 2008 to Anand, a city in western India that has earned a reputation in recent years as the capital of India’s so-called “rent-a-womb” industry. The 36-year-old marketing specialist from San Francisco met Vaina, the 26-year-old married mother who would be her surrogate, and began fertility treatment at the Akanksha Infertility Clinic. Weeks later, Arieff’s husband arrived in India for the final stage of IVF, setting the stage for the emotional journey at the heart of her new book, “The Sacred Thread: A True Story of Becoming a Mother and Finding a FamilyHalf a World Away.”

“Surrogacy advocates in the United States will tell you not to get involved with poor surrogates under any circumstances because it can lead to exploitation,” she wrote in the book.

“I initially disagreed with this line of thinking. Charges of “renting a womb” and exploitation have long tarnished the practice of surrogacy. But in my mind, a woman going through the risks of labor for another family clearly deserves to be paid. To me, this was not exploitation. This was a win-win, allowing the surrogate to have a brighter future and the couple to have a child. If my money was going to benet an Indian woman nancially for a service she willingly provided, I preferred that it be a poor woman who really needed help because the money that a surrogate earns in India is, to be blunt, life- changing.”

The book chronicles her struggle to cope with having a surrogate halfway across the world while fielding criticism from others over the decision to spend about $30,000 on the process, less than half of what IVF costs in the United States. She returns to India for the last six weeks of the pregnancy before the birth of her twin daughters, Emma and India, now 2 years old.

Arieff spoke with CNN about the highs and lows of surrogacy and the unique bond that formed between her and Vaina. The following is a transcript of the conversation edited for length and clarity.

CNN: How did you end up choosing a surrogate in India?

Adrienne Arieff: After three miscarriages a doctor in San Francisco told me to consider surrogacy or adoption. My husband and I looked into domestic and international options and learned about Indian surrogacy from an article in the New York Times in 2008. We thought it was particularly interesting because I had a big connection to India from having spent time there and I loved the country.

Original post:
The highs and lows of foreign surrogacy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9jGT25HuJ4

Continue reading here:
Experiencing the joy of parenthood for gay/lesbian couples ! – Video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=De21hBoEIaU

Originally posted here:
Surrogacy Clinic in India-Affordable Surrogacy, Ethical, No – Video

Los Angeles —

Americans have long gone to China to adopt babies. In a twist, Chinese couples are now coming here to become parents – through surrogacy.

China does not permit surrogate parenting, but that country’s rising affluence has given many couples the option of coming to U.S. surrogacy clinics. California, with its large Chinese American community and its courts’ liberal attitude toward surrogacy, is a prime destination.

Jerry Zhu and Grace Sun of Beijing have so far saved $60,000 toward the expected $100,000 cost of surrogate birth. They hope to come to Los Angeles later this year for the procedure.

“It’s going to be expensive,” said Zhu, who manages a furniture factory. “But if we have a child it will complete the family. We are hoping for a son.”

U.S. and Chinese authorities say they do not track the numbers of Chinese couples coming here for surrogacy services, but surrogacy experts and clinic operators say there has been a sharp upswing.

“In the last year, it went from nonexistent to being tremendous,” said Parham Zar, managing director of the Egg Donor & Surrogacy Institute in Los Angeles. He estimates that about half of his company’s business comes from Chinese couples.

Surrogate Alternatives Inc. of San Diego has three agents in China who recruit couples. Last year about 40 percent of Surrogate Alternatives’ 140 client couples were from China, Chief Executive Diana Van De Voort-Perez said.

Zhu, 42, and Sun, 35, said they haven’t chosen a clinic yet, but know they want to have the procedure performed in Southern California because of the many clinics here that specialize in surrogate births. The couple, who requested that their English nicknames be used because surrogacy is frowned upon by many people in China, said they came to their decision after several miscarriages.

“Of course we would rather have our own child naturally, but we realized that that might be impossible,” Zhu said.

Follow this link:
China / Affluent evade law with U.S. surrogates

TRENTON Infertile women who adopt newborns conceived with their husbands sperm but carried by a surrogate mother could be identified on the birth certificate almost immediately under a bill approved by an Assembly panel Thursday.

The measure (A2646) addresses years of legislative silence on the advancements in assisted reproductive technology, which have left the state and intended parents to battle over the issue in court.

“It reflects a recurring theme that we often deal with as legislators updating the law to meet the challenges and opportunities posed by new technology,” Assemblywoman Valerie Vanieri Huttle (D-Bergen), a sponsor of the bill, said.

The bill was approved 5-1 by the Assembly Human Services Committee along party lines, with Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini (R-Monmouth) casting the only vote against it. A companion measure is currently before the Senate Health Committee.

Under the current law, a child conceived with an anonymous donor egg and a husbands sperm but carried by a surrogate is considered the child of the husband, but not of the wife. The law requires the wife to adopt the child after birth, which is costly and can take at least six months.

Lawyers have contended if the mother dies during that time, the child would be subject to inheritance taxes or get shut out of important financial benefits. If the husband dies during the waiting period, the intended mother would have no legal claim to the child, who could then be raised by her in-laws.

In the absence of a law clarifying adoptions in these instances, courts have devised their own remedies, which vary among counties. One solution is a contract between the surrogate and the intended parents to place the couples names on a birth certificate up to 72 hours after the childs birth, allowing the surrogate time to change her mind about giving up the baby.

But sometimes judges accept those contracts and sometimes they dont.

“The problem is, theres no certainty in New Jersey,” said Donald Cofsky, an adoption attorney and advocate who represents a couple seeking the legislation.

The bill would codify some of the current solutions such as allowing the intended parents to be identified on the birth certificate immediately after the 72-hour waiting period.

Link:
N.J. Assembly panel approves bill allowing women using surrogates to be named mother on birth certificate

This new website is the first of its kind in the state of Colorado and only one of a handful of fertility practice websites in the United States designed for the LGBT community.

Denver, CO (PRWEB) March 07, 2012

The website, spearheaded by reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Diane Woodford, was started to fill a need in the treatment of gay and lesbian couples who want to start their own biological family.

This is an extraordinary addition to the infertility treatment services we already offer the LGBT community, Woodford said. We have looked closely at the special family-building needs of the gay community and created a program specifically tailored towards them. This is part of our commitment to helping all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, have their own biological children.”

This new website is the first of its kind in the state of Colorado and only one of a handful of fertility practice websites in the United States designed for the LGBT community.

CRE agrees with the American Society for Reproductive Medicines ethics committee whose statement on LGBT families states that there is an ethical duty to treat single persons and gay and lesbian couples equally with married couples, adding that we find no sound ethical basis for licensed professionals to deny reproductive services to unmarried or homosexual persons.

Over the past 10 years, Dr. Woodford, along CRE reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Susan Trout, have helped hundreds of LGBT couples successfully fulfill their dream of having their own biological family.

CRE pledges to support LGBT patients throughout the family-building process including providing referrals to the best agencies for surrogates and gestational carriers and egg and sperm donors, along with needed legal and psychological support. CRE works closely with agencies that adhere to the highest screening standards for sperm donors, egg donation, and gestational carriers. These standards ensure the highest safety and protect patients from potential medical or legal complications.

CRE is committed to breaking barriers and considers procreation to be the most natural of human desires.

We have looked closely at the special family building needs of the LGBT community and created a program specially designed to maximize their success, Dr. Trout said. Everyone deserves to have a family, it is inherent in who we are as human beings regardless of our sexual orientation.

More:
Colorado Reproductive Endocrinology Expands LGBT Family-Building Program, Adds Colorado’s First Gay and Lesbian …

Monica and Michael Sweet / Flickr / Getty Images

Pregnancy taxes a womans body, so you really have to wonder about the motivation behind Jill Hawkins desire to keep signing up for surrogate duty.

Hawkins, 47, is pregnant with her ninth and tenth surrogate babies, twins shes expected to deliver shortly before she turns 48. The British resident is that countrys most prolific surrogate. Whats just as notable is that the legal secretary is single and has no children of her own. Im a naturally giving person and to be able to give babies away is what I do, she told the Daily Mail.

Beyond that questionable statement, its pretty clear that Hawkins could benefit from some psychological assessment. She spent much of her previous pregnancy on sick leave, plagued by nausea and headaches. The headaches which she describes as a permanent pain in her head have returned, but she doesnt take medication out of concern for the developing babies in her womb. She has also been diagnosed with depression and attempted suicide at least once.

MORE:Baby-Selling Scam Focuses Attention on Surrogacy

No doubt, the many couples Hawkins has helped are extremely grateful for her sacrifices. Yet something feels awry here. According to the Daily Mail, Hawkins carefully considers whether each additional pregnancy is a good idea. After all, it can be really hard to nurture a baby make that 10 then give her away. But Hawkins appears to have suppressed her emotions:

I never want to keep them. I am not maternal and very selfish. Not many woman can give babies away. Its very emotional giving birth.

The one thing you are screaming to do is to hold that baby.It is an overwhelming feeling and you have to be strong to counter that.

People think Im mad, butmy friends are not surprised any more.

In the U.S., different states have different laws governing surrogacy. In some states, the person who delivers the baby is considered the mother and the baby must officially be adopted by the intended mother, even if its actually her biological child conceived with her egg.

Originally posted here:
Surrogacy Gone Wild: British Woman Keeps Giving Babies Away

Cuties Down Under!

Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban, and their adorable daughters–Sunday Rose, 3, and Faith Margaret, 14 months–caught a flight to L.A. from Kidman’s hometown of Sydney, Australia Wednesday afternoon. While her mom held tight to little sister Faith, the pink-clad Sunday held both parents’ hands as the family strolled through Sydney Airport.

PHOTOS: See Nicole and Keith’s sweetest moments

In the past, the Rabbit Hole actress, 44 has spoken about the issues she faced starting a family later in life with Urban, also 44. Kidman–who has admitted to struggling with infertility–gave birth to Sunday in 2008, and welcomed Faith via a gestational carrier in December 2010. (The Moulin Rouge star also helped raise Connor and Bella Cruise, whom she adopted with ex-husband Tom Cruise).

PHOTOS: Stars who welcomed children via surrogates

“I’m in a state of absolute wonder, having all this in my life,” Kidman has said of her experience with motherhood. “I never thought this was going to be me in my forties.”

Read the original here:
Aww! See How Big Nicole Kidman's Daughters Have Become!

Jill Hawkins, a single, childless 47-year-old who lives with two cats, has has given birth to eight babies and given them up to infertile couples. Now, she is expecting twins, her ninth and 10th children.

And even though the legal secretary from Brighton, England, had complications with her last pregnancy and has been treated for depression and once threatened suicide, she wants to give birth twice more before she turns 50.

Medical experts say that Hawkins would have been rejected by any surrogacy clinic in the United States because of her age, multiple pregnancies and the fact that she has never had a child of her own.

They say they are shocked that any doctor would permit her to continue.

“Three is a lot,” said Karen Synesiou, director of the Center for Surrogate Parenting, the largest such organization in the United States, which helped David Furnish and Elton John become parents.

“I cannot imagine in my wildest dreams why anyone has a psychological reason for doing this eight, nine, 10 times,” she said.

“We begin to ask significant questions. Is she a healthy person psychologically?”

In the United States, laws on surrogacy vary from state to state in an industry whose guidelines are set by reproductive endocrinologists and fertility clinics.

No exact data exist on how many babies are born via surrogacy each year, but estimates range from about 750 to 1,400 births. About twice as many surrogacies are attempted and fail, according to a 2009 report in the New York Times.

Couples in Britain, with its national health care system, have fewer choices when it comes to gestational surrogacy, according to Synesiou.

Surrogates are paid less, and if they change their minds and decide to keep the baby, archaic laws do not favor the couple, even if they are the biological parents.

Hawkins is being paid about $18,000 for her pregnancy. In the U.S., she might receive as much as $100,000.

For an infertile couple for whom IVF has not worked, “they either work with this lady or never have a child,” she said.

“Couples are forced to make really bad decisions because the system is flawed,” Synesiou said. “But these couples make a decision with a risk.”

The risks increase as a woman ages, and with the number of pregnancies and Caesarean sections.

Hawkins will give birth to twins in mid-August, three weeks before her 48th birthday. So far, ultrasound scans show everything is normal, but she has said she had been confined to bed rest for nausea and headaches during her eighth pregnancy.

ABCNews.com could not reach Hawkins for comment, but she told the U.K.’s Daily Mail that she had “forgotten about the terrible bits.

“I just decided to go for it again,” she said. “I find being pregnant very fulfilling. … I’m a naturally giving person, and to be able to give babies away is what I do.”

In the first of her seven pregnancies as a surrogate, Hawkins used her own eggs and sperm from the fathers. But for this one, she had in vitro fertilization.

The couple, a 42-year-old teacher and his 40-year-old wife, has a 9-year-old daughter but have not been able to conceive another child through IVF.

Today in the U.S. all such arrangements usually involve donor egg and donor sperm, rather than using a surrogate’s own eggs.

Hawkins told the Daily Mail she agreed to help this couple because he looked like actor Kevin Costner. Hawkins invented a boyfriend and then told her bosses the baby died, encouraging her co-workers to send sympathy cards and flowers, according to the Daily Mail.

“There is something wrong with this woman, and she needs intense therapy,” said Synesiou.

Hawkins said her depression was caused by battles with her weight and not the pregnancies. Instead of dating, she has said she chooses to get pregnant and is paid about $18,000 for each surrogacy agreement.

“Sometimes pregnancy comes out of depression and with hormone balances, some women use pregnancy as a way to get high,” said Synesiou. “It’s not a health thing for her, and sooner or later, she will be forced to stop.”

Another British woman, Carole Horlock, has given birth to more babies through surrogacy than Hawkins. She has delivered 12 children and now lives in France, according to the BBC.

Several medical and psychological issues would disqualify both Hawkins and Horlock from being surrogate mothers in the United States, because they have already carried too many children.

Continue reading here:
UK's Biggest Surrogate Mom: 10 Babies and Counting

LOS ANGELES – Americans have long gone to China to adopt babies. In a twist, Chinese couples are now coming here to become parents – through surrogacy.

China does not permit surrogate parenting, but that country’s rising affluence has given many couples the option of coming to U.S. surrogacy clinics. California, with its large Chinese-American community and its courts’ liberal attitude toward surrogacy, is a prime destination.

Jerry Zhu and Grace Sun of Beijing have so far saved $60,000 toward the expected $100,000 cost of surrogate birth. They hope to come to Los Angeles later this year for the procedure.

“It’s going to be expensive,” said Zhu, who manages a furniture factory. “But if we have a child it will complete the family. We are hoping for a son.”

U.S. and Chinese authorities say they do not track the numbers of Chinese couples coming here for surrogacy services, but surrogacy experts and clinic operators say there has been a sharp upswing.

“In the last year, it went from nonexistent to being tremendous,” said Parham Zar, managing director of the Egg Donor & Surrogacy Institute in Los Angeles. He estimates that about half of his company’s business comes from Chinese couples.

Surrogate Alternatives Inc. of San Diego has three agents in China who recruit couples. Last year about 40 percent of Surrogate Alternatives’ 140 client couples were from China, Chief Executive Diana Van De Voort-Perez said.

Zhu, 42, and Sun, 35, said they haven’t chosen a clinic yet, but know they want to have the procedure performed in Southern California because of the many clinics here that specialize in surrogate births. The couple, who requested that their English nicknames be used because surrogacy is frowned upon by many people in China, said they came to their decision after several miscarriages.

“Of course we would rather have our own child naturally, but we realized that that might be impossible,” Zhu said.

Like most couples, Zhu and Sun hope for a so-called gestational surrogacy, in which an embryo created by the woman’s egg and the man’s sperm is implanted in a surrogate mother who will bear the child.

Clinic directors say a gestational surrogacy typically costs $80,000 to $120,000, with higher costs if there are complications or if repeated implants are needed.

The price rises about $30,000 if the mother’s eggs are not viable. In these cases, the clinics typically obtain eggs from donor clinics.

Most Chinese couples insist on eggs from ethnic Chinese women, which has led to inflated prices, said Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg of the Fertility Institutes in Encino.

A Caucasian woman normally gets about $5,000 to $8,000 for 10 to 14 eggs, Steinberg said, with the money technically being paid for the energy, time and pain associated with the “donation.” An ethnic Chinese woman can command $15,000 and up for her eggs, according to Steinberg and other surrogacy specialists.

“It’s supply and demand,” Steinberg said. “Chinese are the premiums.”

Shelley Smith, owner of the Egg Donor Program in Studio City, said she does not usually pay Chinese women more for their eggs, but acknowledged that she is planning to pay an ethnic Chinese woman who lives in New York $15,000, which is higher than her normal fee.

Much of that premium is because the woman is a repeat donor whose eggs have proved to be fertile, Smith said, but other factors are also at play.

“This Chinese egg donor is in great demand,” Smith said. “She has perfect 1600 (SAT scores), she is very, very pretty, and she went to an Ivy League school.”

Chinese clients have become so important that California surrogacy clinics hire agents based in China to drum up business.

Li Dong Ming works in Beijing for the Agency for Surrogacy Solutions and its sister company, Global IVF in Encino. She gets a “finder’s fee” for every client who opts for that firm’s service, but declined to specify how much that fee is.

Li said it’s not a hard sell.

“They want to go to America because they think the science is better,” Li said in Mandarin. “They want a precious treasure, and if finances allow, the dream is to have a baby in America.”

A baby born in the U.S. is automatically granted U.S. citizenship, which remains valid even when the couple returns to China with the newborn.

Robert Walmsley, an attorney who specializes in surrogacy cases, said American citizenship is an “extra perk” for his Chinese clientele, which he says has grown 20 percent over the last three years.

Like others, he says the trend is being driven by the robust Chinese economy. Clinic directors say many of their Chinese clients are middle-aged couples who can now afford the cost of raising a second child _ and also can afford to pay the hefty financial penalty for violating China’s “one-child” policy.

“In the last year we have had several Chinese couples already with a child between 16 and 25 years old,” said Juli Dean, director of Coastal Surrogacy in Newport Beach. “They are literally starting over again and having a second family.”

The process isn’t always easy. Dean notes that some Chinese couples see the procedure as strictly a business transaction, viewing the surrogate mother as a hireling. American surrogate mothers, she said, tend to want to have a relationship with the couple whose child they are bearing.

“We have to educate (Chinese couples) that the surrogate is not an employee, that it’s more than a business transaction,” Dean said. “We have to say it’s very disrespectful to the surrogate mother, and a lot of Chinese culture is about respect and not being disrespectful, so they can understand that part and relate to it.”

Cultural differences aside, the procedure is also time-consuming _ and doesn’t always go according to plan.

Amy Lee, 42, and her husband Harry Lee, 48, of Hong Kong first flew to Los Angeles in 2010 to begin surrogacy procedures. The couple, who used their American nicknames, had always wanted a child but their careers _ she as a film professor, he as the manager of a tech company _ had gotten in the way.

Their surrogate became pregnant but miscarried two months later. Later that year Amy went to Beijing to an underground surrogacy clinic. Her surrogate there miscarried too, and Amy decided not to try again in China.

So last year Amy came back to California three times to work with two surrogates. The first attempt did not result in a pregnancy, and the second attempt ended in a miscarriage.

The couple tried again in December with a different surrogate. That resulted in a pregnancy, and they are hoping it goes full term.

“There is a great demand for this in China, but it’s illegal in China,” Lee said. “So what are couples supposed to do?”

Tags: news, family, updates

Original post:
Chinese couples come to US to have children through surrogacy

SAN DIEGO (CNS) – Two women who orchestrated a scheme to sell babies for $100,000 each but failed to find parents for all of them were sentenced Friday to five months each in federal prison.

Theresa Erickson, a former Poway attorney who specialized in reproductive law, was also placed on nine months of home confinement and three years probation and fined $70,000 by U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Battaglia.

The 44-year-old pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud.

A Las Vegas nurse, Carla Chambers, will have to spend seven months at home after she gets out of prison and will serve three years probation.

Hilary Neiman, a Maryland lawyer, was sentenced in December to the same term as Chambers.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Merriman said the defendants arranged for women who needed money to become surrogate mothers and sent them to the

Ukraine to be implanted with embryos, then tried to match them up with couples desperate to have children.

The law requires for “gestational carriers” and prospective parents to be matched up before conception, Merriman said. He said parents had not been found for all the babies the defendants produced.

“The defendants took advantage of the victims when they were most vulnerable,” Merriman said.

The surrogate mothers needed money, the couples wanted children and now the babies don't have families, he said.

The judge told Erickson that he was “offended” that she would engage in such activity.

“You put in motion a parade of tragedy,” Battaglia said.

The lawyer apologized to the victims and acknowledged that she disgraced her family, friends and profession.

“I know I have done horribly wrong,” Erickson said. “For many years I let my judgment be clouded, by ego or otherwise.”

Chambers also apologized.

The baby-selling scheme operated from 2005 to last year and involved at least 11 infants, according to court records.

THIS IS A STORY UPDATE. For an earlier version, read below.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Theresa Erickson's reputation as a leading reproductive law specialist eased the concerns of surrogate mothers and intended parents.

But prosecutors say being a trusted source also allowed her to lure them into unwittingly helping her build a baby manufacturing business spanning two continents that netted millions.

The 44-year-old attorney is expected to be sentenced Friday at a hearing in federal court in San Diego. She faces up to five years in prison.

Erickson, who authored books and spoke on TV about fertility issues, used California's thriving surrogacy business to find clients that she could convince to pay up to $150,000 for each baby, federal prosecutors say. The parents believed they were adopting legally by entering into an arrangement with a surrogate mother before the pregnancy.

In fact, Erickson working with a surrogate, Carla Chambers, and another respected Maryland attorney, Hilary Neiman, lined up parents for babies they had already created by sending U.S. surrogates to Ukraine to be implanted with sperm and embryos from anonymous donors, prosecutors say.

“These were criminals that were creating human life for sale,” said surrogacy attorney Andrew Vorzimer, who represented the surrogates that helped blow the whistle on the scam. “Many people consider this to be a surrogacy arrangement gone awry. But this was not surrogacy in any shape or form.”

Vorzimer said no one knows how many babies in total were created, and important genetic information for the infants may have been lost forever. The surrogates were also unaware of the scam, federal prosecutors say.

“They attempted to create the most marketable baby available, which was blond hair, blue-eyed baby, while simultaneously pulling on the heart strings of intended parents,” Vorzimer said. “It defies description the immorality that was involved in this ongoing operation that went on for years.”

Erickson has pleaded guilty to fraud and admitted to filing false applications for the surrogates to California's state insurance program to subsidize the medical costs of the deliveries of the babies. Chambers pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in monetary transactions derived from unlawful activity and also will be sentenced Friday. She faces up to five years as well. Neither woman nor their attorneys could be reached for comment.

Neiman was sentenced in December to one year in custody that included five months in prison and the rest under home confinement.

The case has prompted greater scrutiny by judges in California, the industry's hub because of its progressive laws regulating the industry. Other states ban surrogacy outright.

Heather Albaugh, a surrogate from the Dallas area, said she was among those who were duped by the trio.

Albaugh said she was contacted by Chambers after posting an ad on a surrogacy website. She said she was new to the business and nervous about agreeing to be sent to Ukraine for an embryo transfer but then Chambers told her the agency was represented by Erickson and Neiman.

“These two attorneys were huge, they were on the up-and-up and considered to be household names in the surrogacy industry, so once she said that I let down my guard,” Albaugh said.

Albaugh returned from Ukraine and was in her 18th week of pregnancy when she started calling other attorneys, alarmed that there still were no parents set up to adopt the child she was carrying. Chambers had told her twice that the clients they lined up had backed out at the last minute.

Albaugh discovered from one of the outside attorneys she called that Erickson and the others were under investigation by the FBI.

“My jaw hit the ground,” she said. “But I immediately kicked into what I needed to do. I immediately got angry.”

Albaugh called the FBI agent and helped with the investigation. She will be asking the judge Friday to require Erickson and Chambers pay her compensation.

She was promised $38,000 for carrying the child but received nothing, and feels she can never work again as a surrogate because her name has been tied to the scandal, although she was one of the victims, Albaugh said.

She gave birth in 2010 and a couple she had befriended has since legally adopted her.

Albaugh remains close to the family, visiting them regularly. She said that is the bright spot in all this, but she fears the day the girl asks questions about her birth.

“If she ever asks me any questions, I'll answer,” Albaugh said. “But I'm sure there will be a time when she'll feel angry.”

This is a story update. A previous story is below.

SAN DIEGO (CNS) – An attorney who was part of a group that orchestrated what prosecutors said was a baby-selling scheme is scheduled to be sentenced Friday at the federal courthouse in downtown San Diego.

Theresa Erickson, 44, who maintained a practice in Poway, was part of a small number of attorneys who specialized in reproductive law. She pleaded guilty last year to a conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Prosecutors said Erickson and others sold a dozen unborn babies to prospective parents for $100,000 each.

Hilary Neiman, a Maryland attorney, and Carla Chambers, a nurse from Las Vegas, also pleaded guilty in the case.

Neiman was sentenced in December to five months in federal prison and seven months in home confinement.

Prosecutors said the defendants recruited women to become impregnated in the Ukraine, then, as the pregnancies progressed, looked for potential parents.

Those potential parents were told that previous surrogate arrangements with other parents had fallen through and the new parents could step in for $100,000 or more, prosecutors said.

According to prosecutors, no parents had been lined up to take in the babies that the defendants were producing.

The baby-selling scheme operated from 2005 to last year and involved at least 11 babies, according to court records.

Visit link:
Women in baby-selling scheme to serve prison time

A prominent San Diego, Calif., reproductive rights attorney was sentenced to prison today for her role in an international baby-selling scheme that fraudulently placed a dozen babies in homes.

Theresa Erickson, 43, was sentenced to five months in prison, followed by nine more to be spent in home confinement. She was also fined $70,000. Her two partners in the scheme, Hilary Neiman, 32, a Maryland attorney, and Carla Chambers, 51, of Las Vegas, were given one year sentences. The women will spend five months in prison and the remainder in home confinement. Neiman was sentenced in December.

Erickson, who has written a book on surogacy, was able to handle the ruse thanks to her high-profile work and the help of her two accomplices.

Chambers and Neiman were tasked with recruiting women to act as surrogates. The surrogates would travel to Ukraine, where they were implanted with donated sperm and eggs.

American doctors are required to check for documentation of a surrogacy agreement before implanting any embryos. The standards are lax in Ukraine, so Erickson sent her recruits there to complete the process.

Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Role in Baby-Selling Ring Watch Video

Once the women hit the second trimester of pregnancy, Erickson would put the babies up for adoption under the false pretense that the original surrogate parents had backed out of the agreement.

She even filed fraudulent paperwork in court to back up her story.

Couples were charged between $100,000 and $150,000 for each baby. Surrogates who completed the pregnancy were paid between $38,000 and $40,000.

“This case serves as a reminder to people who are desperate to have a child that you must be cautious,” FBI Special Agent Darrell Foxworth told ABCNews.com in August of last year when Erickson pleaded guilty.

The FBI became involved after it received complaints from gestational carriers, Foxworth said.

Erickson's baby-selling ring placed a dozen babies in homes. The babies will remain with those families.

In total, Erickson profited $70,000. It is unclear how much Chambers and Neiman received.

Erickson has appeared on national television and wrote a book called “Assisted Reproduction: The Complete Guide to Having a Baby with the Help of a Third Party.”

According to her web site, she was drawn to family formation law because of her own experience.

“She initially discovered this area of family planning by choosing to become an egg donor for several couples who desperately wanted a child,” her biography said. It also mentioned her sister's struggles with infertility.

Read more here:
Baby Selling Scheme Leader Sentenced