LIVE 24-SEVEN “ 14
WE SPENT TWO ENTIRE YEARS RESEARCHING OUR
OPTIONS, EVEN TRAVELLING ABROAD TO CHECK OUT THE SERVICES OF SOME ORGANISATIONS.
IPs (Intended Parents) due to a shortage of surrogates in the UK. We took advice from Surrogacy UK (which is one of the three), and whilst we never registered with them for our journey, we still built up a level of respect for what they do and even today we partner with them for particular awareness projects, so we applied elements of their advice to our own fertility journey.
Your support isn't just for two dad families, but also women on the same journey; do you feel it might have been an easier journey if you had both been female, as there is still strong bias towards women and fertility isn't there? Absolutely it would have! Much easier and more than likely cheaper! Firstly same sex women (and other heterosexual couples) are entitled to IVF on the NHS, depending on your geographical location and fertility history, however gay men in England don’t qualify for treatment on the NHS. This is something we’re campaigning to change as it's simply unequal and unfair. Men deserve to be fathers just as much as women deserve to be mothers. For two men exploring surrogacy it’s obviously more costly as we simply don’t have all the equipment. We need a surrogate, and in our case we wanted an egg donor too, as we wanted what’s known as a Gestational Surrogate. This simply means our surrogate isn’t biologically linked to our child.
Michael, Wes, it's a big decision for any couple to decide to start a family, but for same sex couples that's an even bigger decision for several reasons, one of which is the options available to them and the associated costs; how did that impact on your decision to have children? Before we started our IVF and the search for a UK surrogate we took our time researching the options available to couples when it came to surrogacy. We spent two entire years researching our options, even travelling abroad to check out the services of some organisations. Michael meticulously researched clinics and the international agency options in countries such as Thailand, Nepal, India, the US and Mexico. We both always knew we’d have a family, we just weren’t sure at the time how this would materialise, but once all our research was completed, it was a no-brainer that the UK was the best route to create out family via surrogacy.
What do you feel were the biggest challenges that you faced throughout the process? The biggest challenge was literally the unknown, not fully knowing where to start. Which clinics even had gay surrogacy programmes and were they successful? What would it cost us? How did we find a surrogate and where did we even start with finding an egg donor? There are three Not-for-Profit organisations that operate with UK Surrogacy and at the time (winter 2014/15) all had stopped registering
For many same sex couples, particularly gay men, the option of creating a family often involves going to the USA, where despite the costs being much higher, it can appear to be an easier journey – that's changing though isn't it? The perception that the USA is the only option is part of the problem and that’s why we decided to set up TwoDads.U.K and to blog about our fertility journey. Commercial Surrogacy in the UK is illegal, but Altruistic Surrogacy (where the surrogate is reimbursed reasonable expenses) is not. Hundreds of children are born each year here in the UK, yet little is known about the process and the whole experience – it’s actually so simple and straightforward once you know where to go and who to speak to. The journey in the USA is very expensive and for some couples they sell everything to achieve their dreams of a family. Typically, a surrogacy journey in in the States costs anything from £90K to £200K if you have multiple births or a need for Paediatric Intensive Care. Our surrogacy journey in the UK, with our treatment, eggs, legal advice and surrogates expenses was around £35K.
Tell us about your own surrogacy experience? M: Our journey began back at the beginning of 2015, when we began networking with surrogates and other IPs. It was actually our surrogate who approached us in the first instance and she wanted to find out more about why we wanted children. As Wes already had a daughter by his ex-wife, we discussed children very early in our relationship. I expressed I wanted children and I needed to understand if he did too.
W: Thankfully we both want more children! We explained this to the surrogate, who was doing this for the first time.
LIVE24-SEVEN.COM
INTERVI EW TWO DADS
“
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148
