by Katie DeRosa – Vancouver Sun
Port Moody couple Aaron and Kyle Demes have been talking about being dads since their first date. They just need someone to help carry their child.
by Andréane Williams – Radio Canada
Ukraine is one of the only countries in the world that allows commercial surrogacy for foreigners. Every year, thousands of couples from all over the world travel there to obtain the services of a surrogate mother. But since the war began, it has been a race against time to save the genetic material of prospective parents, who are increasingly turning to Canada, a country more stable than Ukraine and more affordable than the United States.
by Jen Taplin | Published: January 22, 2020 | The Chronicle Herald This is a birth story, but it’s also one of determination in the face of back-to-back heartbreaking failures. And it’s a story of a selfless gift from a Cole Harbour couple to complete strangers from Cincinnati, Ohio. Happily dozing while cuddled in her…
by David Willberg – Estevan Mercury Publications
Lisa Beaulieu says that everyone does something big in their lives.
Some people get degrees or travel the world or build homes in other countries.
Cathleen MacKenzie expects to give birth to a baby boy in mid-October.
But she won’t be choosing his name, finding the perfect crib or holding a baby shower. She also won’t take him home once he’s born.
by Galen Simmons – The Beacon Herald
A surrogate mother from Milverton gave birth to a baby boy for a Nova Scotia couple at the Stratford General Hospital after they were connected through an online surrogacy service started in 2001 by a former Stratford resident.
BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN – The Citizen
Working out of her home at RR1, Londesborough, Sally Rhoads-Heinrich and her company Surrogacy in Canada Online have helped hundreds of families to grow since 2001.
Helping infertile couples have a family…
The Huron Expositor By Susan Hundertmark
Raised in a large family with close ties, Sally Rhoads-Heinrich was a first-time mother for only three months when she started to worry about the heartache suffered by infertile couples.
She had supported her daughter through years of trying, helping her through the anguish of failed pregnancies and rounds and rounds of in vitro fertilization.
When nothing worked, 61-year-old Kristine Casey offered the very last thing she could: her healthy, post-menopausal uterus.
Last week, the Virginia woman gave birth to Finnean Lee Connell via cesarean section at a hospital in Chicago, where her daughter Sara Connell lives.
When a B.C. couple discovered that the fetus their surrogate mother was carrying was likely to be born with Down syndrome, they wanted an abortion. The surrogate, however, was determined to take the pregnancy to term, sparking a disagreement that has raised thorny questions about the increasingly common arrangements.
Under the agreement the trio signed, the surrogate’s choice would mean absolving the couple of any responsibility for raising the child, the treating doctor told a recent fertility-medicine conference.
Sally Rhoads is passionate about surrogacy. The 32-year-old mother of three (ages 12, seven and 10 months) lives near Stratford, Ontario. She has been a successful surrogate once and an unsuccessful one nine times. Although her commitment to surrogacy almost killed her, she remains an advocate for a practice that is highly restricted in Canada and banned in some U.S. states.
This: When did you first become interested in surrogacy?
Rhoads: After my first child in 1999. I had really enjoyed being pregnant…
Mac and Ella Comber were delivered by C-section on Sept. 23, 2006, weighing 5 lb. 10 oz. and 5 lb. 11 oz. respectively. Both were strong and healthy, though Mac spent a short time in an incubator to help clear some fluid from his lungs. Ella, with her olive skin and dark hair, had her mother’s complexion, while Mac, with his fairer skin, looked more like his father.
A week after their birth, Mac and Ella’s mother nursed them for the last time in the hospital, bid their father and the twins farewell, and returned home to her husband and two daughters aged 7 and 5.
The heartbreak of infertility is driving thousands of Canadian women to the costly science of assisted reproduction. This is the story of the boom in a rapidly advancing medical field, the agony of hope it offers, and the strangers willing to give the ultimate gift: a baby.
Last summer, Donders began a month-long series of blood tests and then vaginal ultrasound before the frostie was placed in her uterus. The embryo didn’t implant, however, and Donders was just coming to terms with the end of that particular dream when she realized in September that she was pregnant again without any medical assistance. Although everything seemed fine….
Everyone’s eyes were on the cart as it was pushed into the hospital room.
The two tightly-wrapped babies gurgled slightly as everyone oohhed and aahhed. The word “miracle” escaped the mother’s mouth as she gazed fondly at the boy and girl twins she did not give birth to.
The twins, Victoria Elizabeth and Peter Alexander, are a “gift” from gestational surrogate mother Sally Rhoads of Stratford to Heather and Sergey, a couple from Maryland, who can’t conceive.
For many Canadians, surrogacy is a controversial issue. Should a woman be expected to relinquish the child to which she has just given birth? Is it fair to the infant to be taken from the only mother he or she knows? Should women be paid to carry another women’s child?
Some call it “baby selling.” Others see it as the rich renting the wombs of the poor. But Sally and her husband of Stratford call it a gift.
“It’s nine months of my life to give two people a family,” said Ms.Rhoads.