Baby Mama (2008)
New York Times Reviewed- http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/movies/25baby.html
In the new comedy “Baby Mama” Tina Fey plays a 37-year-old single career woman who, desperate for a baby, hires a womb of her own in the dizzy, slap-happy form of Amy Poehler. The film never comes fully to term, as it were: the visual style is sitcom functional, and even the zippiest jokes fall flat because of poor timing. But, much like the prickly, talented Ms. Fey, it pulls you in with a provocative and, at least in current American movies, unusual mix of female intelligence, awkwardness and chilled-to-the-bone mean.
Ms. Fey is of course best known for working in television, on “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock.” Until now her biggest movie role was the uncomfortable but earnest high school math teacher Ms. Norbury in the comedy “Mean Girls,” which she also wrote. (“You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores,” Ms. Norbury warns the mean girls and their female prey. “It just makes it O.K. for guys to call you sluts and whores.”) Like a lot of comedies “Mean Girls” has its devilish cake and eats it too, wagging an unpersuasive finger at the very cruelty it skillfully deploys. Ms. Fey may not want girls to call one another sluts, but she’s all too happy to call them that herself.
There’s often a degree of sadism in this kind of comic one-two punch, and while some performers appear to direct the cruelty inward — think of Jerry Lewis and Ben Stiller wringing squirmy, uneasy laughs out of the humiliations rained down on their characters — that doesn’t seem to be Ms. Fey’s style. Certainly it isn’t what she’s called on to do in “Baby Mama,” in which she plays a snappy, sardonic individualist who, much like Ms. Fey herself, works in a male-dominated industry (here, as an executive in an organic grocery chain similar to Whole Foods) and favors the kind of sexy librarian look (high-heeled shoes, low-cut blouses and dark-frame glasses) that signals there’s a hot body to go along with that feverishly smart brain.
“Baby Mama,” which was written and directed by the newcomer Michael McCullers, yet another “Saturday Night Live” alumnus, opens with Ms. Fey’s character, Kate Holbrook, eyeballing babies like a hungry wolf. Everyone has a pitter-pattering Tater Tot but Kate, who lives alone in her generically appointed Philadelphia apartment (the film was also shot in New York) and has few contacts outside her job, extended family and wisecracking doorman, Oscar (Romany Malco). Basically she’s Rhoda with thinner thighs, which I guess means that she’s Mary Richards. But this being 2008 and not the women’s-liberated 1970s, it isn’t enough for Kate to be a swinging single: she wants a baby and she wants it now. Enter Angie Ostrowiski (Ms. Poehler).
At 36 Ms. Poehler is at least 10 years too old for the role, as the softly focused close-ups suggest, but she’s a pip. She’s the ball that bounces against Ms. Fey’s formidable wall, a nonstop, joyfully watchable whirligig. Drawn in broad, often crude strokes, Angie is dumber than the usual dumb blonde so beloved of the movies largely because she’s also coded as white trash, a kind of urban Daisy Mae, complete with short shorts, wads of chewing gum and a tag-along buffoon, Carl (Dax Shepard). If Angie works at all, it’s because Ms. Poehler puts a sweet spin on her character’s gaffes, whether she’s yelping in horror at the unfamiliar taste of water or squatting in a sink when nature makes an untimely call.
There’s more, though not much, mostly some amusing nonsense from Steve Martin as Kate’s boss, a belligerently New Agey entrepreneur with an unkind ponytail. Greg Kinnear also shows up now and again as Kate’s inevitable love interest, perhaps so things don’t overheat when Angie moves in. Not that anyone need worry about this female odd couple, given that Ms. Fey, who doesn’t have the acting chops that might invest her character with some personality, has been forced to play it straight and narrow. The close-up medium of television is more forgiving of those comics who tend to stand in the middle of the frame as if they had just been planted. But unlike Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, Ms. Fey doesn’t even have a funny voice.
That’s too bad, because she is genuinely funny. And if there’s anything the movies could use it is funny women, especially those who earn laughs by keeping their clothes on and their dignity (more or less) intact. Under the old Hollywood system, the studio boss might have ordered up a dance coach for Ms. Fey, maybe a few lessons on how to walk across a set or move her upper body once in a while. She might not have been able to rip loose as a writer-performer, which makes the idea of her developing a simultaneous on-and-off-screen presence all the more tantalizing. Real funny women — Mae West, Elaine May — come along every few decades, so the timing seems right. But the clock is ticking.
“Baby Mama” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Some gentle raunch.
Monday, April 28, 2008
The Life of Surrogates
The Curious Lives of Surrogates
Thousands of largely invisible American women have given birth to other people's babies. Many are married to men in the military.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129594
Jennifer Cantor, a 34-year-old surgical nurse from Huntsville, Ala., loves being pregnant. Not having children, necessarily—she has one, an 8-year-old daughter named Dahlia, and has no plans for another—but just the experience of growing a human being beneath her heart. She was fascinated with the idea of it when she was a child, spending an entire two-week vacation, at the age of 11, with a pillow stuffed under her shirt. She's built perfectly for it: six feet tall, fit and slender but broad-hipped. Which is why she found herself two weeks ago in a birthing room in a hospital in Huntsville, swollen with two six-pound boys she had been carrying for eight months. Also in the room was Kerry Smith and his wife, Lisa, running her hands over the little lumps beneath the taut skin of Cantor's belly. "That's an elbow," said Cantor, who knew how the babies were lying in her womb. "Here's a foot." Lisa smiled proudly at her husband. She is, after all, the twins' mother.
It is an act of love, but also a financial transaction, that brings people together like this. For Kerry and for Lisa—who had a hysterectomy at the age of 20 and could never bear her own children—the benefits are obvious: Ethan and Jonathan, healthy six-pound, 12-ounce boys born by C-section on March 20. But what about Cantor? She was paid, of course; the Smiths declined to discuss the exact amount, but typically, surrogacy agreements in the United States involve payments of $20,000 to $25,000 to the woman who bears the child. She enjoyed the somewhat naughty pleasure of telling strangers who asked about her pregnancy, "Oh, they aren't mine," which invariably invoked the question, "Did you have sex with the father?" (In case anyone is wondering, Lisa's eggs were fertilized in vitro with Kerry's sperm before they were implanted on about day five.)
But what kind of woman would carry a child to term, only to hand him over moments after birth? Surrogates challenge our most basic ideas about motherhood, and call into question what we've always thought of as an unbreakable bond between mother and child. It's no wonder many conservative Christians decry the practice as tampering with the miracle of life, while far-left feminists liken gestational carriers to prostitutes who degrade themselves by renting out their bodies. Some medical ethicists describe the process of arranging surrogacy as "baby brokering," while rumors circulate that self-obsessed, shallow New Yorkers have their babies by surrogate to avoid stretch marks. Much of Europe bans the practice, and 12 states, including New York, New Jersey and Michigan, refuse to recognize surrogacy contracts. But in the past five years, four states—Texas, Illinois, Utah and Florida—have passed laws legalizing surrogacy, and Minnesota is considering doing the same. More than a dozen states, including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and, most notably, California, specifically legalize and regulate the practice.
Today, a greater acceptance of the practice, and advances in science, find more women than ever before having babies for those who cannot. In the course of reporting this story, we discovered that many of these women are military wives who have taken on surrogacy to supplement the family income, some while their husbands are serving overseas. Several agencies reported a significant increase in the number of wives of soldiers and naval personnel applying to be surrogates since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. At the high end, industry experts estimate there were about 1,000 surrogate births in the United States last year, while the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART)—the only organization that makes an effort to track surrogate births—counted about 260 in 2006, a 30 percent increase over three years. But the number is surely much higher than this—in just five of the agencies NEWSWEEK spoke to, there were 400 surrogate births in 2007. The numbers vary because at least 15 percent of clinics—and there are dozens of them across the United States—don't report numbers to SART. Private agreements made outside an agency aren't counted, and the figures do not factor in pregnancies in which one of the intended parents does not provide the egg—for example, where the baby will be raised by a gay male couple. Even though the cost to the intended parents, including medical and legal bills, runs from $40,000 to $120,000, the demand for qualified surrogates is well ahead of supply.
Another reason for the rise in surrogacies is that technology has made them safer and more likely to succeed. Clinics such as Genetics & IVF Institute in Virginia, where Cantor and the Smiths underwent their IVF cycles, now boast a 70 to 90 percent pregnancy success rate—up 40 percent in the past decade. Rather than just putting an egg into a petri dish with thousands of sperm and hoping for a match, embryologists can inject a single sperm directly into the egg. The great majority of clinics can now test embryos for genetic diseases before implantation. It's revolutionizing the way clinics treat patients. Ric Ross, lab director at La Jolla IVF in San Diego, says these advances have helped "drop IVF miscarriage rates by 85 percent."
IVF has been around only since the 1970s, but the idea of one woman bearing a baby for another is as old as civilization. Surrogacy was regulated in the Code of Hammurabi, dating from 1800 B.C., and appears several times in the Hebrew Bible. In the 16th chapter of Genesis, the infertile Sarah gives her servant, Hagar, to her husband, Abraham, to bear a child for them. Later, Jacob fathers children by the maids of his wives Leah and Rachel, who raise them as their own. It is also possible to view the story of Jesus' birth as a case of surrogacy, mediated not by a lawyer but an angel, though in that instance the birth mother did raise the baby.
Thousands of largely invisible American women have given birth to other people's babies. Many are married to men in the military.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129594
Jennifer Cantor, a 34-year-old surgical nurse from Huntsville, Ala., loves being pregnant. Not having children, necessarily—she has one, an 8-year-old daughter named Dahlia, and has no plans for another—but just the experience of growing a human being beneath her heart. She was fascinated with the idea of it when she was a child, spending an entire two-week vacation, at the age of 11, with a pillow stuffed under her shirt. She's built perfectly for it: six feet tall, fit and slender but broad-hipped. Which is why she found herself two weeks ago in a birthing room in a hospital in Huntsville, swollen with two six-pound boys she had been carrying for eight months. Also in the room was Kerry Smith and his wife, Lisa, running her hands over the little lumps beneath the taut skin of Cantor's belly. "That's an elbow," said Cantor, who knew how the babies were lying in her womb. "Here's a foot." Lisa smiled proudly at her husband. She is, after all, the twins' mother.
It is an act of love, but also a financial transaction, that brings people together like this. For Kerry and for Lisa—who had a hysterectomy at the age of 20 and could never bear her own children—the benefits are obvious: Ethan and Jonathan, healthy six-pound, 12-ounce boys born by C-section on March 20. But what about Cantor? She was paid, of course; the Smiths declined to discuss the exact amount, but typically, surrogacy agreements in the United States involve payments of $20,000 to $25,000 to the woman who bears the child. She enjoyed the somewhat naughty pleasure of telling strangers who asked about her pregnancy, "Oh, they aren't mine," which invariably invoked the question, "Did you have sex with the father?" (In case anyone is wondering, Lisa's eggs were fertilized in vitro with Kerry's sperm before they were implanted on about day five.)
But what kind of woman would carry a child to term, only to hand him over moments after birth? Surrogates challenge our most basic ideas about motherhood, and call into question what we've always thought of as an unbreakable bond between mother and child. It's no wonder many conservative Christians decry the practice as tampering with the miracle of life, while far-left feminists liken gestational carriers to prostitutes who degrade themselves by renting out their bodies. Some medical ethicists describe the process of arranging surrogacy as "baby brokering," while rumors circulate that self-obsessed, shallow New Yorkers have their babies by surrogate to avoid stretch marks. Much of Europe bans the practice, and 12 states, including New York, New Jersey and Michigan, refuse to recognize surrogacy contracts. But in the past five years, four states—Texas, Illinois, Utah and Florida—have passed laws legalizing surrogacy, and Minnesota is considering doing the same. More than a dozen states, including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and, most notably, California, specifically legalize and regulate the practice.
Today, a greater acceptance of the practice, and advances in science, find more women than ever before having babies for those who cannot. In the course of reporting this story, we discovered that many of these women are military wives who have taken on surrogacy to supplement the family income, some while their husbands are serving overseas. Several agencies reported a significant increase in the number of wives of soldiers and naval personnel applying to be surrogates since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. At the high end, industry experts estimate there were about 1,000 surrogate births in the United States last year, while the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART)—the only organization that makes an effort to track surrogate births—counted about 260 in 2006, a 30 percent increase over three years. But the number is surely much higher than this—in just five of the agencies NEWSWEEK spoke to, there were 400 surrogate births in 2007. The numbers vary because at least 15 percent of clinics—and there are dozens of them across the United States—don't report numbers to SART. Private agreements made outside an agency aren't counted, and the figures do not factor in pregnancies in which one of the intended parents does not provide the egg—for example, where the baby will be raised by a gay male couple. Even though the cost to the intended parents, including medical and legal bills, runs from $40,000 to $120,000, the demand for qualified surrogates is well ahead of supply.
Another reason for the rise in surrogacies is that technology has made them safer and more likely to succeed. Clinics such as Genetics & IVF Institute in Virginia, where Cantor and the Smiths underwent their IVF cycles, now boast a 70 to 90 percent pregnancy success rate—up 40 percent in the past decade. Rather than just putting an egg into a petri dish with thousands of sperm and hoping for a match, embryologists can inject a single sperm directly into the egg. The great majority of clinics can now test embryos for genetic diseases before implantation. It's revolutionizing the way clinics treat patients. Ric Ross, lab director at La Jolla IVF in San Diego, says these advances have helped "drop IVF miscarriage rates by 85 percent."
IVF has been around only since the 1970s, but the idea of one woman bearing a baby for another is as old as civilization. Surrogacy was regulated in the Code of Hammurabi, dating from 1800 B.C., and appears several times in the Hebrew Bible. In the 16th chapter of Genesis, the infertile Sarah gives her servant, Hagar, to her husband, Abraham, to bear a child for them. Later, Jacob fathers children by the maids of his wives Leah and Rachel, who raise them as their own. It is also possible to view the story of Jesus' birth as a case of surrogacy, mediated not by a lawyer but an angel, though in that instance the birth mother did raise the baby.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Surrogacy in Japan
Japan doctor says helped births through surrogacy
Sun, Feb 3 02:33 PM
A Japanese obstetrician said on Sunday he had helped two couples have babies through surrogate mothers over the past two years, criticising moves by academics to make the practice illegal.
Japan's obstetricians' association is opposed to births by surrogate mothers and academics recently drafted a proposal for the government to ban such births by law. A final report is due at the end of March, according to media.
Yahiro Netsu, one of a handful of doctors to have helped couples have children through surrogate mothers, said it was unfair to deny infertile couples the chance to have children.
"It's ridiculous to force values on people, to not allow something that has been agreed upon by two parties," Netsu, who runs a maternity clinic in Nagano, central Japan, said by telephone.
"Couples should be given the freedom to choose."
Surrogate motherhood has amassed wide media attention in Japan in recent years, in part due to a celebrity couple who had twin boys through an American surrogate mother in 2003.
The family made headlines last year when it lost a case in Japan's Supreme Court to have the boys registered in Japan. The children have only U.S. citizenship and are required to carry alien-registration cards.
Netsu, long known for defying the obstetrics' association and urging the medical community to review its opposition to surrogate motherhood, said he was currently helping another couple give birth through surrogacy.
He declined to give details on his patients, but said that prior to 2006, he helped five couples have babies through surrogate mothers.
A government survey last year showed 54 percent of respondents were in favour of allowing surrogate births, but academics have questioned the health risks for both the surrogate mother and child, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said.
Netsu said he also helped an unmarried 60-year-old woman give birth to a boy in December after she had gotten pregnant with an embryo created from donated egg and sperm.
Netsu, whose clinic cared for her after other medical institutions in Japan refused to see her, said the case showed that older woman were able to have children as long as they were in healthy condition.
Late childbearing, defined by the World Health Organisation as involving women over age 35, has been increasing in Japan as more women work and marry at a later age.
Sun, Feb 3 02:33 PM
A Japanese obstetrician said on Sunday he had helped two couples have babies through surrogate mothers over the past two years, criticising moves by academics to make the practice illegal.
Japan's obstetricians' association is opposed to births by surrogate mothers and academics recently drafted a proposal for the government to ban such births by law. A final report is due at the end of March, according to media.
Yahiro Netsu, one of a handful of doctors to have helped couples have children through surrogate mothers, said it was unfair to deny infertile couples the chance to have children.
"It's ridiculous to force values on people, to not allow something that has been agreed upon by two parties," Netsu, who runs a maternity clinic in Nagano, central Japan, said by telephone.
"Couples should be given the freedom to choose."
Surrogate motherhood has amassed wide media attention in Japan in recent years, in part due to a celebrity couple who had twin boys through an American surrogate mother in 2003.
The family made headlines last year when it lost a case in Japan's Supreme Court to have the boys registered in Japan. The children have only U.S. citizenship and are required to carry alien-registration cards.
Netsu, long known for defying the obstetrics' association and urging the medical community to review its opposition to surrogate motherhood, said he was currently helping another couple give birth through surrogacy.
He declined to give details on his patients, but said that prior to 2006, he helped five couples have babies through surrogate mothers.
A government survey last year showed 54 percent of respondents were in favour of allowing surrogate births, but academics have questioned the health risks for both the surrogate mother and child, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said.
Netsu said he also helped an unmarried 60-year-old woman give birth to a boy in December after she had gotten pregnant with an embryo created from donated egg and sperm.
Netsu, whose clinic cared for her after other medical institutions in Japan refused to see her, said the case showed that older woman were able to have children as long as they were in healthy condition.
Late childbearing, defined by the World Health Organisation as involving women over age 35, has been increasing in Japan as more women work and marry at a later age.
Surrogate Mother to Eight babies!
Anita Brush is happy in her role as a surrogate mum to eight babies
By Rita de Brun
Monday February 04 2008
Six years ago, Dublin couple, John Mc-Mahon and Gerard Whelan became the proud fathers of triplets. The event came about with the help of Anita Brush, a surrogate mother from California.
Fiercely protective of their family unit, John talks about their experience only to help others considering surrogacy. The closeness and affection between John, Gerard and Anita is obvious and they all agree that they knew instinctively when they met, that they would have kids together.
They had a good feeling about Anita when they met. "We liked each other instantly," says John. "We all knew that our meeting was meant to be.
"Of course, when we discovered that we were having not one or two but three children, we were totally blown away but quite overjoyed, and we trusted Anita to do whatever she could to keep our babies safe.
"We knew she wouldn't drink, smoke or take drugs, as she simply wasn't the type. She's a genuinely caring person, so we knew she would take it easy and try to hold on to the babies until term;,and she did," John adds.
"Anita is a close friend of our family and often comes to stay with us. She and the children get on really well together. We have a very deep and special bond with her and we know that without her, we wouldn't have our kids, so we'll always be grateful."
At 41, Anita Brush has a figure that most women in their early twenties would be glad of. On looks alone, nobody would ever believe that she is a mother of 11.
"Ten years ago, my then husband was training to be a teacher, so I needed to go back to work," says Anita. "I wanted a job that would allow me to be around for our children, and something that would have a positive impact on others.
"I had previously worked in childcare and always loved children. Also, I enjoyed being pregnant and wanted to help childless couples."
Anita had three children of her own, the youngest being two, when she first became a surrogate mother.
"My first pregnancy was for a heterosexual Japanese couple," she recalls. "Then the following year I had a baby for a heterosexual American couple. The triplets arrived in 2001. Then, two years later, I had twins for a gay couple in the Midwest, and in October of the following year, I had a third child for that same couple. In all, I had eight babies in seven years for four couples."
Then, she laughs: "Well I didn't set out to have that many, you know."
Anita says that for her, the highs were in not having to worry about the practicalities of raising a child.
"I get immense enjoyment out of being pregnant, but I have no difficulty handing the baby over to the parents at the birth," she adds. "They take over the responsibilities, and I go home to my family.
"Of course, my body isn't aware of that arrangement, so I have to get used to the hormonal changes that happen after giving birth," she concedes.
"And there have been times, following the births, when I've felt the need to hold a baby close. When that happens, I just hold my friend's babies for a while and that does the trick."
As to her own children, and the impact of her surrogacy on them, Anita believes that their experience was positive.
"Their lives have been enriched by the wonderful people we've met along the way. We keep in touch with all the families, and this has been very positive for my kids. Also, they had me at home with them all the time, and that was a big plus for all of us."
Two years ago, Anita, as a guest on Good Morning America, cautioned women never to become a surrogate mother for financial gain. "Do not do this for the money," she said. "If you want to classify this as a job, it's 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
For five pregnancies, she earned a total of $130,000, and it couldn't have been easy.
"I drank a gallon of whole-milk every day for the benefit of the triplets and I gained 80lbs," says Anita laughing. I used to feel a little queasy, but never sick and it was worth it."
Describing herself as very accepting of varying points of view, Anita says that her life experience has shown that there is no such thing as an ideal family type.
"What counts is the love between the members of that family, and that's what makes Gerard, John, and their children a beautiful family."
Surrogacy in Ireland
MOST of us are familiar with Cork woman Maureen O'Connor who, with her partner Justin Pearlman (right), offered €5,000 in their search for a surrogate mother
While their story attracted substantial media coverage, there are no doubt far more Irish families who have children with the help of surrogate mothers than we know.
Most Irish couples considering the surrogacy option head overseas because there is no specific law or protections governing the process here, should complications arise.
Fiona Duffy, partner at Patrick F O'Reilly & Co Solicitors, explains that there is no specific legislation in place governing the law on surrogacy in Ireland.
But the topic was considered by the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction. Although their report, which was produced in April 2005, made many recommendations, none have yet been implemented.
At present, the surrogate mother will be registered as mother on the birth certificate. If she is married, her husband will be named as father. If she is single, the commissioning father can apply to be registered as father.
If she is not married, she alone is the guardian of the infant. This may be so even though there is no genetic link between her and the child.
The commission recommended that a child born through surrogacy should be presumed to be the child of the commissioning couple.
As to whether the identity of the donors should be withheld, their view was that this information should in the long-term be made available to any child who results from the procedure.
Of 43 surrogate families in a British study, nearly two-fifths involved full surrogacy, where the embryo is provided by the commissioning couple and therefore the carrier of the child does not have any genetic link to the child. Just over three-fifths involved partial surrogacy, where the male partner has donated his sperm through a process of insemination or IVF. The egg is provided by the host herself.
Two-thirds of the surrogate mothers were unknown to the commissioning couple prior to the surrogacy arrangement, while the remaining third of surrogate mothers were either a sister or a friend of the commissioning mother.
Researcher Fiona MacCallum said: "It is often assumed that surrogate mothers will have difficulties handing the child over following the birth.
"In fact, we found only one instance of the surrogate having slight doubts at this time."
- Rita de Brun
By Rita de Brun
Monday February 04 2008
Six years ago, Dublin couple, John Mc-Mahon and Gerard Whelan became the proud fathers of triplets. The event came about with the help of Anita Brush, a surrogate mother from California.
Fiercely protective of their family unit, John talks about their experience only to help others considering surrogacy. The closeness and affection between John, Gerard and Anita is obvious and they all agree that they knew instinctively when they met, that they would have kids together.
They had a good feeling about Anita when they met. "We liked each other instantly," says John. "We all knew that our meeting was meant to be.
"Of course, when we discovered that we were having not one or two but three children, we were totally blown away but quite overjoyed, and we trusted Anita to do whatever she could to keep our babies safe.
"We knew she wouldn't drink, smoke or take drugs, as she simply wasn't the type. She's a genuinely caring person, so we knew she would take it easy and try to hold on to the babies until term;,and she did," John adds.
"Anita is a close friend of our family and often comes to stay with us. She and the children get on really well together. We have a very deep and special bond with her and we know that without her, we wouldn't have our kids, so we'll always be grateful."
At 41, Anita Brush has a figure that most women in their early twenties would be glad of. On looks alone, nobody would ever believe that she is a mother of 11.
"Ten years ago, my then husband was training to be a teacher, so I needed to go back to work," says Anita. "I wanted a job that would allow me to be around for our children, and something that would have a positive impact on others.
"I had previously worked in childcare and always loved children. Also, I enjoyed being pregnant and wanted to help childless couples."
Anita had three children of her own, the youngest being two, when she first became a surrogate mother.
"My first pregnancy was for a heterosexual Japanese couple," she recalls. "Then the following year I had a baby for a heterosexual American couple. The triplets arrived in 2001. Then, two years later, I had twins for a gay couple in the Midwest, and in October of the following year, I had a third child for that same couple. In all, I had eight babies in seven years for four couples."
Then, she laughs: "Well I didn't set out to have that many, you know."
Anita says that for her, the highs were in not having to worry about the practicalities of raising a child.
"I get immense enjoyment out of being pregnant, but I have no difficulty handing the baby over to the parents at the birth," she adds. "They take over the responsibilities, and I go home to my family.
"Of course, my body isn't aware of that arrangement, so I have to get used to the hormonal changes that happen after giving birth," she concedes.
"And there have been times, following the births, when I've felt the need to hold a baby close. When that happens, I just hold my friend's babies for a while and that does the trick."
As to her own children, and the impact of her surrogacy on them, Anita believes that their experience was positive.
"Their lives have been enriched by the wonderful people we've met along the way. We keep in touch with all the families, and this has been very positive for my kids. Also, they had me at home with them all the time, and that was a big plus for all of us."
Two years ago, Anita, as a guest on Good Morning America, cautioned women never to become a surrogate mother for financial gain. "Do not do this for the money," she said. "If you want to classify this as a job, it's 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
For five pregnancies, she earned a total of $130,000, and it couldn't have been easy.
"I drank a gallon of whole-milk every day for the benefit of the triplets and I gained 80lbs," says Anita laughing. I used to feel a little queasy, but never sick and it was worth it."
Describing herself as very accepting of varying points of view, Anita says that her life experience has shown that there is no such thing as an ideal family type.
"What counts is the love between the members of that family, and that's what makes Gerard, John, and their children a beautiful family."
Surrogacy in Ireland
MOST of us are familiar with Cork woman Maureen O'Connor who, with her partner Justin Pearlman (right), offered €5,000 in their search for a surrogate mother
While their story attracted substantial media coverage, there are no doubt far more Irish families who have children with the help of surrogate mothers than we know.
Most Irish couples considering the surrogacy option head overseas because there is no specific law or protections governing the process here, should complications arise.
Fiona Duffy, partner at Patrick F O'Reilly & Co Solicitors, explains that there is no specific legislation in place governing the law on surrogacy in Ireland.
But the topic was considered by the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction. Although their report, which was produced in April 2005, made many recommendations, none have yet been implemented.
At present, the surrogate mother will be registered as mother on the birth certificate. If she is married, her husband will be named as father. If she is single, the commissioning father can apply to be registered as father.
If she is not married, she alone is the guardian of the infant. This may be so even though there is no genetic link between her and the child.
The commission recommended that a child born through surrogacy should be presumed to be the child of the commissioning couple.
As to whether the identity of the donors should be withheld, their view was that this information should in the long-term be made available to any child who results from the procedure.
Of 43 surrogate families in a British study, nearly two-fifths involved full surrogacy, where the embryo is provided by the commissioning couple and therefore the carrier of the child does not have any genetic link to the child. Just over three-fifths involved partial surrogacy, where the male partner has donated his sperm through a process of insemination or IVF. The egg is provided by the host herself.
Two-thirds of the surrogate mothers were unknown to the commissioning couple prior to the surrogacy arrangement, while the remaining third of surrogate mothers were either a sister or a friend of the commissioning mother.
Researcher Fiona MacCallum said: "It is often assumed that surrogate mothers will have difficulties handing the child over following the birth.
"In fact, we found only one instance of the surrogate having slight doubts at this time."
- Rita de Brun
Embryos Created from 3 people!
Embryos created with DNA from 3 people By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer
LONDON - British scientists say they have created human embryos containing DNA from two women and a man in a procedure that researchers hope might be used one day to produce embryos free of inherited diseases.
Though the preliminary research has raised concerns about the possibility of genetically modified babies, the scientists say that the embryos are still only primarily the product of one man and one woman.
"We are not trying to alter genes, we're just trying to swap a small proportion of the bad ones for some good ones," said Patrick Chinnery, a professor of neurogenetics at Newcastle University involved in the research.
The research was presented at a scientific conference recently, but has not been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal.
The process aims to create healthy embryos for couples to avoid passing on genes carrying diseases.
The genes being replaced are the mitochondria, a cell's energy source, which are contained outside the nucleus in a normal female egg. Mistakes in the mitochondria's genetic code can result in serious diseases like muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, strokes and mental retardation.
In their research, Chinnery and colleagues used normal embryos created from one man and one woman that had defective mitochondria in the woman's egg. They then transplanted that embryo into an emptied egg donated from a second woman who had healthy mitochondria.
The research is being funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, a British charity.
Only trace amounts of a person's genes come from the mitochondria, and experts said it would be incorrect to say that the embryos have three parents.
"Most of the genes that make you who you are are inside the nucleus," Chinnery said. "We're not going anywhere near that."
So far, 10 such embryos have been created, though they have not been allowed to develop for more than five days. Chinnery hoped that after further experiments in the next few years the process might be available to parents undergoing in-vitro fertilization.
"If successful, this research could give families who might otherwise have a bleak future a chance to avoid some very grave diseases," said Francoise Shenfield, a fertility expert with the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. Shenfield was not connected to the Newcastle University research.
Similar experiments have been conducted in animals in Japan, and has already led to the birth of healthy mice who had their mitochondria genes corrected.
Shenfield said that further tests to assess the safety and efficacy of the process were necessary before it could be offered as a potential treatment.
A bill to allow the procedure to be regulated as a therapy for couples — once it is proven to work — is expected to be discussed in Britain's House of Commons in March
LONDON - British scientists say they have created human embryos containing DNA from two women and a man in a procedure that researchers hope might be used one day to produce embryos free of inherited diseases.
Though the preliminary research has raised concerns about the possibility of genetically modified babies, the scientists say that the embryos are still only primarily the product of one man and one woman.
"We are not trying to alter genes, we're just trying to swap a small proportion of the bad ones for some good ones," said Patrick Chinnery, a professor of neurogenetics at Newcastle University involved in the research.
The research was presented at a scientific conference recently, but has not been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal.
The process aims to create healthy embryos for couples to avoid passing on genes carrying diseases.
The genes being replaced are the mitochondria, a cell's energy source, which are contained outside the nucleus in a normal female egg. Mistakes in the mitochondria's genetic code can result in serious diseases like muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, strokes and mental retardation.
In their research, Chinnery and colleagues used normal embryos created from one man and one woman that had defective mitochondria in the woman's egg. They then transplanted that embryo into an emptied egg donated from a second woman who had healthy mitochondria.
The research is being funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, a British charity.
Only trace amounts of a person's genes come from the mitochondria, and experts said it would be incorrect to say that the embryos have three parents.
"Most of the genes that make you who you are are inside the nucleus," Chinnery said. "We're not going anywhere near that."
So far, 10 such embryos have been created, though they have not been allowed to develop for more than five days. Chinnery hoped that after further experiments in the next few years the process might be available to parents undergoing in-vitro fertilization.
"If successful, this research could give families who might otherwise have a bleak future a chance to avoid some very grave diseases," said Francoise Shenfield, a fertility expert with the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. Shenfield was not connected to the Newcastle University research.
Similar experiments have been conducted in animals in Japan, and has already led to the birth of healthy mice who had their mitochondria genes corrected.
Shenfield said that further tests to assess the safety and efficacy of the process were necessary before it could be offered as a potential treatment.
A bill to allow the procedure to be regulated as a therapy for couples — once it is proven to work — is expected to be discussed in Britain's House of Commons in March
Monday, December 3, 2007
Foreign Adoptions in the US are dropping
Foreign Adoptions in U.S.
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer
NEW YORK — The number of foreign children adopted by Americans has dropped for the third year in a row, a consequence of tougher policies in the two countries _ China and Russia _ that over the past decade have supplied the most children to U.S. families.
Figures for the 2007 fiscal year, provided by the State Department on Friday, showed that adoptions from abroad have fallen to 19,411, down about 15 percent in just the past two years.
It's a dramatic change. The number of foreign adoptions had more than tripled since the early 1990s, reaching a peak of 22,884 in 2004 before dipping slightly in 2005, then falling to 20,679 in 2006.
"A drop in international adoptions is sad for children," said Thomas Atwood, president of the National Council for Adoption. "National boundaries and national pride shouldn't get in the way of children having families."
Adoptions from China, the No. 1 source country since 2000, fell to 5,453. That's down by 1,040 from last year and well off the peak of 7,906 in 2005. Two main factors lie behind this: an increase in domestic adoptions as China prospers and tighter restrictions on foreign adoptions that give priority to stable married couples between 30 and 50 and exclude single people, the obese and others with financial or health problems.
One consequence, adoption agencies say, is that the waiting time to complete an adoption from China has more than doubled to 24 months or more.
Adoptions from Russia also dropped sharply over the past year _ from 3,706 to 2,310. Russian authorities suspended the operations of all foreign adoption agencies for several months earlier this year and have been reaccrediting them only gradually. Like China, Russia has been trying to boost the number of domestic adoptions.
U.S. adoptions from South Korea and Haiti also declined significantly, although the overall drop was partially offset by large increases in adoptions from Guatemala (up from 4,135 to 4,728), Ethiopia (732 to 1,255) and Vietnam (163 to 626).
Tom DeFilipo, president of the Joint Council on International Children's Services, said adoptions from Guatemala could decline over the coming year as its government _ under intense international pressure _ tries to impose tough new regulations on an adoption industry that was widely viewed as susceptible to fraud and extortion.
The State Department has advised Americans not to initiate adoption applications for Guatemala while that overhaul is under way. The proposed reforms are required under an international adoption treaty, the Hague Convention, which both Guatemala and the United States have agreed to adhere to starting next year.
Overall, DeFilipo _ whose council represents many international adoption agencies _ found reason for optimism in the new statistics.
"What you're seeing is fewer countries sending very large numbers of children and a broader range of countries participating," he said. "Over the long term, I think this is a healthy trend."
He mentioned Kenya, Peru and Brazil as countries not now among the major sources of children, but which might increase international adoptions in coming years.
Michele Bond, deputy assistant secretary of state for overseas citizen services, also viewed the new figures positively.
"Interest in intercountry adoption remains very strong," she said in a telephone interview. "People are increasingly well-informed. They're more likely to look at new countries instead of always looking at the same small number of countries."
By contrast, another adoption expert, Harvard law professor Elizabeth Bartholet, depicted the new numbers as "totally depressing."
She said China and Russia reflected a trend in which countries opened themselves up to international adoption, then scaled back. She attributed this in part to UNICEF and other international organizations encouraging countries to care for children within their homeland, even when domestic programs such as foster care might be inadequate.
"UNICEF is a major force," Bartholet said. "They've played a major role in jumping on any country sending large number of kids abroad, identifying it as a problem rather than a good thing."
UNICEF's child protection spokesman, Geoffrey Keele, said the U.N. agency does believe it is preferable to care for orphaned or abandoned children in their own countries if good homes could be found for them.
"The best interests of the child must be the guiding principle," he said. "We don't go about discouraging international adoption. We just want to be sure it's done properly."
Thomas Atwood, of the National Council for Adoption, said there should be no competition between domestic and international adoption. With an estimated 143 million orphans worldwide, he said, there was enough need to go around.
For U.S.-based adoption agencies, the biggest impact has been on those specializing in placing children from China.
The president of one of the largest such groups, Joshua Zhong of Colorado-based Chinese Children Adoption International, said the agency had placed about 620 children this year, down from about 1,200 in 2005, while average waiting times had increased from nine months to two years.
Some clients are so committed to adopting a Chinese child that they are willing to wait, Zhong said. "Others say forget about it."
For the second straight year, no Romanian children were adopted by Americans. The Eastern European country, which provided 1,119 children to U.S. families in 2000, has banned adoptions by foreigners, except for relatives.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer
NEW YORK — The number of foreign children adopted by Americans has dropped for the third year in a row, a consequence of tougher policies in the two countries _ China and Russia _ that over the past decade have supplied the most children to U.S. families.
Figures for the 2007 fiscal year, provided by the State Department on Friday, showed that adoptions from abroad have fallen to 19,411, down about 15 percent in just the past two years.
It's a dramatic change. The number of foreign adoptions had more than tripled since the early 1990s, reaching a peak of 22,884 in 2004 before dipping slightly in 2005, then falling to 20,679 in 2006.
"A drop in international adoptions is sad for children," said Thomas Atwood, president of the National Council for Adoption. "National boundaries and national pride shouldn't get in the way of children having families."
Adoptions from China, the No. 1 source country since 2000, fell to 5,453. That's down by 1,040 from last year and well off the peak of 7,906 in 2005. Two main factors lie behind this: an increase in domestic adoptions as China prospers and tighter restrictions on foreign adoptions that give priority to stable married couples between 30 and 50 and exclude single people, the obese and others with financial or health problems.
One consequence, adoption agencies say, is that the waiting time to complete an adoption from China has more than doubled to 24 months or more.
Adoptions from Russia also dropped sharply over the past year _ from 3,706 to 2,310. Russian authorities suspended the operations of all foreign adoption agencies for several months earlier this year and have been reaccrediting them only gradually. Like China, Russia has been trying to boost the number of domestic adoptions.
U.S. adoptions from South Korea and Haiti also declined significantly, although the overall drop was partially offset by large increases in adoptions from Guatemala (up from 4,135 to 4,728), Ethiopia (732 to 1,255) and Vietnam (163 to 626).
Tom DeFilipo, president of the Joint Council on International Children's Services, said adoptions from Guatemala could decline over the coming year as its government _ under intense international pressure _ tries to impose tough new regulations on an adoption industry that was widely viewed as susceptible to fraud and extortion.
The State Department has advised Americans not to initiate adoption applications for Guatemala while that overhaul is under way. The proposed reforms are required under an international adoption treaty, the Hague Convention, which both Guatemala and the United States have agreed to adhere to starting next year.
Overall, DeFilipo _ whose council represents many international adoption agencies _ found reason for optimism in the new statistics.
"What you're seeing is fewer countries sending very large numbers of children and a broader range of countries participating," he said. "Over the long term, I think this is a healthy trend."
He mentioned Kenya, Peru and Brazil as countries not now among the major sources of children, but which might increase international adoptions in coming years.
Michele Bond, deputy assistant secretary of state for overseas citizen services, also viewed the new figures positively.
"Interest in intercountry adoption remains very strong," she said in a telephone interview. "People are increasingly well-informed. They're more likely to look at new countries instead of always looking at the same small number of countries."
By contrast, another adoption expert, Harvard law professor Elizabeth Bartholet, depicted the new numbers as "totally depressing."
She said China and Russia reflected a trend in which countries opened themselves up to international adoption, then scaled back. She attributed this in part to UNICEF and other international organizations encouraging countries to care for children within their homeland, even when domestic programs such as foster care might be inadequate.
"UNICEF is a major force," Bartholet said. "They've played a major role in jumping on any country sending large number of kids abroad, identifying it as a problem rather than a good thing."
UNICEF's child protection spokesman, Geoffrey Keele, said the U.N. agency does believe it is preferable to care for orphaned or abandoned children in their own countries if good homes could be found for them.
"The best interests of the child must be the guiding principle," he said. "We don't go about discouraging international adoption. We just want to be sure it's done properly."
Thomas Atwood, of the National Council for Adoption, said there should be no competition between domestic and international adoption. With an estimated 143 million orphans worldwide, he said, there was enough need to go around.
For U.S.-based adoption agencies, the biggest impact has been on those specializing in placing children from China.
The president of one of the largest such groups, Joshua Zhong of Colorado-based Chinese Children Adoption International, said the agency had placed about 620 children this year, down from about 1,200 in 2005, while average waiting times had increased from nine months to two years.
Some clients are so committed to adopting a Chinese child that they are willing to wait, Zhong said. "Others say forget about it."
For the second straight year, no Romanian children were adopted by Americans. The Eastern European country, which provided 1,119 children to U.S. families in 2000, has banned adoptions by foreigners, except for relatives.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Shortage of Donors in Scotland
Donor crisis means IVF couples face 3-year wait
FRANK URQUHART
CHILDLESS couples are having to wait up to three years for a chance to conceive because of an unprecedented shortage of sperm and egg donors in Scotland, it was revealed yesterday.
Fertility experts say the crisis has been caused by new legislation, which ended the donors' right to anonymity, enabling children born after IVF treatment to make contact with their biological parents.
Dr David Farquharson, the clinical director, Women and Reproductive Services, at NHS Lothian, said: "We are looking at ways of reorganising the service so that we can offer first appointments for people more swiftly.
"An extra investment of £170,000 was made into the service and this resulted in a reduction of waiting times at one stage to 19 months. However, rather than have to disappoint patients, at present, we are saying to potential recipients of IVF treatment that there could be a wait of up to three years."
Launching a fresh appeal for donors, Dr Mark Hamilton, the lead consultant at the Aberdeen Fertility Clinic, said that before the right to anonymity was abolished, the clinic had never had a waiting list for sperm donations. But two years ago, after the regulations came into force, only two men came forward as volunteer donors for an area covering the whole of the north and North-east, as well as the Western and Northern Isles.
There is now a nine-month waiting list for sperm donations. Meanwhile, the number of egg donors has fallen from 17 to nine since 1998, with a waiting list of up to two years.
There are currently 29 couples waiting for an egg donor and 17 couples waiting for sperm donations in the area.
Dr Hamilton explained that every year about 20 couples were referred to the centre in Aberdeen for egg donation and 45 for sperm donation.
He said: "It doesn't sound like a lot of numbers, but if you are the ones who can't have a child it's a pretty ghastly situation."
The shortage of donors was, he said, a national problem and not unique to the Aberdeen clinic. He said: "It was always difficult to tempt people to be egg and sperm donors - and that is for understandable reasons.
"But the rules and regulations around egg and sperm donation have changed in recent years - principally around anonymity issues, and nowadays the legal situation is that donors have to be identified potentially by children conceived in this way.
"That identification will not happen until the offspring reach the age of 18, unless they get married before that time.
"Naturally, that might put some people off and so nationally there has been a trend in recent years of fewer donors coming forward. That has led to a bit of a shortage nationally and in the local situation it has been more of a struggle.
"We are leading a kind of hand-to-mouth existence in terms of getting sufficient donors to meet the need."
Dr Hamilton revealed: "The waiting times now for egg donation are approaching a couple of years. Previously, we didn't have a waiting list for sperm donation and now the waiting time is something like nine months."
The cut-off age for treatment is 45, which could mean that some couples are too old to undergo IVF by the time donor eggs or sperm become available.
'Sophie has made us complete'
MARIE and Gus MacRae, both 32 from Inverness, are among the lucky ones. Their daughter, Sophie, conceived after IVF treatment, will be six months old this week.
Mrs MacRae explained that she was 19 when she discovered she was incapable of producing eggs and that her only chance of becoming a mother would be through a volunteer egg donor.
"We were devastated, but we weren't thinking along the lines of a family at that stage," she said. "We decided to put things on hold until we were a bit more settled and I went to the clinic for the first time when I was 26."
The first two attempts at implanting a fertilised egg failed. But at the third she conceived.
Mrs MacRae, whose husband works as an offshore scaffolder, said: "You can't put into words what we feel about these people [the donors]. They are amazing.
"Gus and I have been together since we were 17, so we were quite happy the two of us, but there was always something missing. Sophie has made us complete.
"We had two failed attempts and the third one worked.
"In between we had treatments and tests and we were then on the waiting list for donors.
"We had to wait a year and a half to two years for our first treatment to start."
She added: "The first two attempts we had were under the old laws and we had waiting lists then. When we heard about the new laws we were concerned because we thought it was going to take longer to get a donor.
"We were told the waiting list was going to be two to three years at worst. We did an anonymous TV interview to help recruit donors so we were lucky - we got moved up the list quite quickly because of the recruitment drive."
FRANK URQUHART
CHILDLESS couples are having to wait up to three years for a chance to conceive because of an unprecedented shortage of sperm and egg donors in Scotland, it was revealed yesterday.
Fertility experts say the crisis has been caused by new legislation, which ended the donors' right to anonymity, enabling children born after IVF treatment to make contact with their biological parents.
Dr David Farquharson, the clinical director, Women and Reproductive Services, at NHS Lothian, said: "We are looking at ways of reorganising the service so that we can offer first appointments for people more swiftly.
"An extra investment of £170,000 was made into the service and this resulted in a reduction of waiting times at one stage to 19 months. However, rather than have to disappoint patients, at present, we are saying to potential recipients of IVF treatment that there could be a wait of up to three years."
Launching a fresh appeal for donors, Dr Mark Hamilton, the lead consultant at the Aberdeen Fertility Clinic, said that before the right to anonymity was abolished, the clinic had never had a waiting list for sperm donations. But two years ago, after the regulations came into force, only two men came forward as volunteer donors for an area covering the whole of the north and North-east, as well as the Western and Northern Isles.
There is now a nine-month waiting list for sperm donations. Meanwhile, the number of egg donors has fallen from 17 to nine since 1998, with a waiting list of up to two years.
There are currently 29 couples waiting for an egg donor and 17 couples waiting for sperm donations in the area.
Dr Hamilton explained that every year about 20 couples were referred to the centre in Aberdeen for egg donation and 45 for sperm donation.
He said: "It doesn't sound like a lot of numbers, but if you are the ones who can't have a child it's a pretty ghastly situation."
The shortage of donors was, he said, a national problem and not unique to the Aberdeen clinic. He said: "It was always difficult to tempt people to be egg and sperm donors - and that is for understandable reasons.
"But the rules and regulations around egg and sperm donation have changed in recent years - principally around anonymity issues, and nowadays the legal situation is that donors have to be identified potentially by children conceived in this way.
"That identification will not happen until the offspring reach the age of 18, unless they get married before that time.
"Naturally, that might put some people off and so nationally there has been a trend in recent years of fewer donors coming forward. That has led to a bit of a shortage nationally and in the local situation it has been more of a struggle.
"We are leading a kind of hand-to-mouth existence in terms of getting sufficient donors to meet the need."
Dr Hamilton revealed: "The waiting times now for egg donation are approaching a couple of years. Previously, we didn't have a waiting list for sperm donation and now the waiting time is something like nine months."
The cut-off age for treatment is 45, which could mean that some couples are too old to undergo IVF by the time donor eggs or sperm become available.
'Sophie has made us complete'
MARIE and Gus MacRae, both 32 from Inverness, are among the lucky ones. Their daughter, Sophie, conceived after IVF treatment, will be six months old this week.
Mrs MacRae explained that she was 19 when she discovered she was incapable of producing eggs and that her only chance of becoming a mother would be through a volunteer egg donor.
"We were devastated, but we weren't thinking along the lines of a family at that stage," she said. "We decided to put things on hold until we were a bit more settled and I went to the clinic for the first time when I was 26."
The first two attempts at implanting a fertilised egg failed. But at the third she conceived.
Mrs MacRae, whose husband works as an offshore scaffolder, said: "You can't put into words what we feel about these people [the donors]. They are amazing.
"Gus and I have been together since we were 17, so we were quite happy the two of us, but there was always something missing. Sophie has made us complete.
"We had two failed attempts and the third one worked.
"In between we had treatments and tests and we were then on the waiting list for donors.
"We had to wait a year and a half to two years for our first treatment to start."
She added: "The first two attempts we had were under the old laws and we had waiting lists then. When we heard about the new laws we were concerned because we thought it was going to take longer to get a donor.
"We were told the waiting list was going to be two to three years at worst. We did an anonymous TV interview to help recruit donors so we were lucky - we got moved up the list quite quickly because of the recruitment drive."
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