Mothers stay with their babies at a ward in Jose Fabella maternity hospital in Manilla September 12, 2012
Surrogate pregnancies: destination USA Reuters

Being parent is such a dream driven by which many of us effortlessly cross countless boundaries, social, racial, amongst many others. Surrogate pregnancy has brought back smile on thousand of sad faces.

“Surrogacy began in the United States more than 30 years ago, soon after the first baby was born through in vitro fertilization in England. At the time, most surrogates were also the genetic mothers, becoming pregnant through artificial insemination with the sperm of the intended father. But that changed after the Baby M case in 1986, in which the surrogate, Mary Beth Whitehead, refused to give the baby to the biological father and his wife. In the wake of the spectacle of two families fighting over a baby who belonged to both of them, traditional surrogacy gave way to gestational surrogacy, in which an embryo is created in the laboratory — sometimes using eggs and sperm from the parents, sometimes from donors — and transferred to a surrogate who has no genetic link to the baby.”

Apart from United States, India, Thailand, Ukraine and Mexico allowed surrogacy. In countries like Portugal, Germany surrogacy is strictly forbidden.

“As a result, there is an increasing flow in the opposite direction, with the United States drawing affluent couples from Europe, Asia and Australia. Indeed, many large surrogacy agencies in the United States say international clients — gay, straight, married or single — provide the bulk of their business. But while many states, including New York, ban surrogacy, others, like California, welcome it as a legitimate business. Together, domestic and international couples will have more than 2,000 babies through gestational surrogacy in the United States this year, almost three times as many as a decade ago.”

In Canada, like Britain, this option is quite limited.

The restrictions in many countries turned into a blessing for the U.S.

“We chose the United States because of the certainty of the legal process. Surrogacy is very secretive in Portugal. People don’t talk about surrogacy, and it’s hard to get any information. In the United States it is all clear,” one soon-to-be dad confirmed.

Cost wise, the entire process is never cheap, international would-be parents often pay $150,000 or more. But everything including the joy and happiness of being a doting parent comes with a price in today’s world.