Surrogacy and Egg Donation in Ukraine

By choosing Ukraine as destination country for your egg donation or surrogacy program you take an important step and you need to be sure you are making the right decision. Ukraine is a European country. This is true not only when you think of geographical position and comfortable travel options and local navigation, but what is most important the mentality of people is very similar and easily understandable for most of European and American patients, let alone the couples coming from CIS countries. You will be given clear answers to your questions, fast feedback on all your enquiries and very transparent payments schedule with no hidden costs. Above all, you will have access to all the medical documents related to your program.

Entering Ukraine does not require visa for EU countries, Americas and Canada, most of CIS and Scandinavian countries. Ukrainian legislation concerning reproductive medicine is extremely favorable. Ukrainian legislation is loyal to gestational surrogacy and egg donation, both are legally allowed which is consolidated in the number of legislative acts.

Intended parents are legal parents of their baby born by the surrogate mother. Only names of intended parents are written in the baby birth certificate. Surrogate mother has no right to keep the baby after delivery according to the contract concluded between intended parents and her.

Gender selection is allowed by the law in Ukraine.

Due to the limitations of most of European countries it is very difficult to find European type egg donor who will meet all your requirements and expectations. Ukraine is the country where you can find your type of egg donor, as about 95% of population is European light-skinned type.

Slavic ladies are famous for beautifully regular features and slim complexion, and you will be able to find your dream egg donor with our help. Generally patients prefer to choose good-looking and intelligent egg donor with strong and healthy family roots to ensure good genes for their future babies.

All medical tests, check-ups, preparation and medical procedures are carried out based on private clinics only. Ukraine is the best choice in order to fulfill IVF program, egg donation or surrogacy. You will find here good prices which are chipper than the European ones. Good price, high level of services, professional doctors with solid experience of work and of course beautiful country with welcoming friendly people. Welcome to Ukraine and Ukrainian centers of reproductive medicine.   

((BioTexCom, successful-parents))

Children - the best can be in our life

UK couple tell success surrogacy story

http://mother-surrogate.info/uk-couple-tell-success-surrogacy-story/
Happy UK couple share experience about surrogacy process and show passport for the child, which was issued 6 weeks after application.
The passport was issued a day before this video was recorded and the next day after this the couple has departured home all together, they will have a nice and happy New Year in their country with a new mammer of their family.
We are glad to give such a joy to people that are looking for parentship so much! Enjoy watching!

What’s a baby worth to you?

Here’s a startling fact: Since 2009, adult diapers have outsold baby diapers, by as much as 28 percent. Longevity is outpacing fertility, now at a record low at about 62.9 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age. The bare numbers only tell us how many women had babies and how many did not; we don’t know who couldn’t and who wouldn’t. But both demographics are rising: more women embracing the supposed joys of childlessness and more couples who would like to have a baby but can’t.

Last July a story in The Washington Post profiled a St. Louis couple who married in 2008, immediately lost their jobs, and waited a year to get back on their feet before trying to conceive—only to discover conception wouldn’t be easy. Both are approaching their mid-30s, struggling with whether they can afford the $15,000 or so it would take for medical intervention. Meanwhile she dreams of a blond, blue-eyed girl and boy who look a lot like her.

The economy has taken blame for low birthrates, especially when infertile couples need expensive help to conceive. But even a child naturally born doesn’t come cheap—or so they say.  “Average estimates” of raising a child to the age of 18 range from $200,000 to $241,000 (not including college), depending on where you live and what your expectations are. While couples watch their paychecks and calculate on the backs of envelopes whether they can afford a kid, the months slip by, little by little nibbling away their chances.

Others have the money but not the biology, and desperation takes them to extremes. Theresa Erickson, a pricey San Diego lawyer, went to jail for a scam that involved sending surrogates to Ukraine to be implanted with embryos likely to fit the high-demand blond-and-blue-eyed stereotype. She and her partners would then find adoptive parents willing to pay up to $150,000 for the babies, on the pretense that they were benefiting from a previous surrogacy agreement gone bad. After her sentencing, a tearful Erickson told reporters that the surrogacy industry was the “Wild Wild West,” desperately in need of regulation.

It’s an ironic age, in so many ways, but strikingly in this: The higher we price children, the less we value them. Value them as themselves, that is. They may have high value to the parents—the sum total of music lessons, ballet costumes, personal trainers, exclusive schools, tutoring, sports camps, and the pride taken in achievement. Or they may have wildly fluctuating value to a single mom who feels a confused affection toward her toddler but can’t get out of herself enough to understand what the little one really needs from her.

How did childbearing and raising get so complicated? Partly for the same reason marriage is so complicated: We’ve made it all about us. Certainly, parents devalued their children before Roe v. Wade. The real damage from that decision was making subjective value official.

Children need very little, materially. If I estimated what it cost to raise our girl and boy to the age of eighteen, it would be well below the national average. They ate what we ate, lived where we lived, made do with a single income and a single running vehicle as we did. When they were old enough for outside activities, we limited them to one each. My husband’s decision, long before they were born, never to allow a TV in the house probably helped, because they weren’t exposed to purposeful consumerism and didn’t ask for a lot of stuff. We were not exceptional or praiseworthy in this—many of our friends followed a similar path, and the kids generally turned out OK.

By contrast, millions of unborn babies are discarded because somebody wasn’t “ready.” The lack of readiness doesn’t cancel the worth of a human life. Besides, who is fully ready? The kids we get are not the ones we dreamed of or wished for: God’s way of showing that they are not our extensions or justifications. He owns our children—and, if it comes to that, our childlessness.

By janie b.cheaney

www.worldmag.com/

Black market surrogacy heightens illegal pregnancies in China

Surrogate pregnancies are illegal in China, but many women have been finding ways around the ban. There’s a whole new market for surrogacy clinics, and it’s thriving thanks to online resources. 

For one million yuan, you can get a baby boy of your own, or at least that’s what’s being advertised by China’s booming surrogacy clinics and agencies for childless families.

There’s a huge demand, with more than 20 people making inquiries every day. The Baby Plan Agency helps its clients buy eggs, implants embryos and offers follow-up treatment. They link up couples desperate for children with women desperate for money.

The surrogate mothers bear most of the risks. These women are strictly confined to a three-bedroom flat due to the illegality of surrogacy.

A recent relaxation of the one-child policy and rising infertility have resulted in a surge in demand. There’s a debate now on whether the law should be more flexible.

“There are always some infertile patients who need surrogacy to have a child,” Liu Ping of Peking University’s 3rd Hospital said. “They should have the chance. Otherwise it its a great pity for them.”

Ping also said the ban on surrogacy in hospitals is driving people into the murky world of online brokers.

http://www.cctv-america.com/

by Jie Bai

Friendly Ukrainian Law

Ukraine is a surrogacy friendly state unlike most European countries where surrogacy and egg donation are banned according to the law. In Ukraine, medical programs with the use of assisted methods or reproductive medicine are conducted legally and regulated by the Family code of Ukraine, Law of Ukraine “Basis of legislation of Ukraine about health care” and Civil Code of Ukraine. No adoption of your own child is required, no procedures to obtain court order. Ukrainian law allows couples who used surrogacy to receive birth certificate with the names of intended parents. Surrogate mothers and donors have no any parental rights and duties concerning children born with their help. Conducting gestational surrogate motherhood doctors create embryos using gametes of intended parents or donated ones and through the IVF procedure transfer them to surrogate mother’s womb. In the reproductive medicine sphere Ukrainian legislators have proven to be more progressive than the main part of their European colleagues.

Legal aspects of surrogacy in Ukraine are regulated by:

Article 48 of the Law of Ukraine “Basis of legislation of Ukraine about health care”:

Artificial fertilization and embryo implantation are performed according to conditions and order, prescribed by the Ministry of Health Care of Ukraine, for medical grounds of women of age, which undergoes this procedure upon written consent of spouses, anonymity of donor and medical secrecy.

Article 123 of The Family code of Ukraine (as amended from December 22, 2006 No. 524-V) regulates affiliation of the child, born in case of assisted reproductive technologies (ART):

Item 1. If the wife is fertilized by artificial procreation techniques upon written consent of her husband, the latter is registered as the father of the child born by his wife.

Item 2. If an ovum conceived by the spouses (man and woman) is implanted to another woman, the spouses shall be the parents of the child.

Item 3. Whenever an ovum conceived by the husband with another woman is implanted to his wife, the child is considered to be affiliated to the spouses.

Order of child registration is regulated by the Decree of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine No. 140/5 from November 18, 2003 “About amendments and additions to Rules of civil registration in Ukraine:

Item 2.2. In case of child birth by the woman who was implanted by fetus, conceived by the spouses, the child is registered upon the declaration of spouses, who gave their consent for implantation. In this case together with the document, confirming the fact of child birth, the woman has to provide notarized written consent for registration spouse as legal parents of the child. Thereby, there is a certain note in column “For notes”: “The citizen (surname, name, patronymic) is the mother of the child according to medical birth certificate of 103/о-95(z0266-95) form.”

Civil Code of Ukraine (as amended from January 21, 2010 No. 1822-VI) regulates who has the right to participate in assisted reproductive program:

Article 281. Women or men of full age are entitled to have been cured with assisted reproductive technologies in accordance with their medical indications in order, prescribed by the law.

Order of the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine from December 23, 2008 No 771 “Approval of order manual of appliance of assisted reproductive technologies” establishes order of ART appliance.

Subparagraph 3 of item1. Certified medical institutions are entitled to perform artificial fertilization.

Subparagraph.4 of item 1. Patients are entitled to freely choose a medical institution for ART treatment.

Subparagraph 6 of item 1. ART are applied according to medical indications upon written free consent of patients and Statement of a patient/patients of ART appliance.

Subparagraph 7 of item. 1. Woman and/or man of full age upon their medical indications are entitled to apply to ART treatment according to article 281 of Civil Code of Ukraine.

Subparagraph 5.1. Donation of gametes is a procedure, during which, according to written voluntary consent, donors grant their germinal cells – gametes (sperm, oocytes), or embryos for use in infertility treatment by other persons.

Implantation of an embryo is conducted according to medical indications of a full-aged woman, who undergoes such procedure, provided written consent of the patients, ensuring of a donor’s anonymity and maintenance of medical secrecy.

Subparagraph 5.2. Donors of gametes cannot undertake parental rights towards a future child.

Subparagraph 5.5. Oocyte donors can be:

 -female acquaintances and relatives;

 -anonymous voluntary donors;

-patients of ART programs, who according to written voluntary consent give part of their oocytes to recipient.

Subparagraph 5.6. Requirements for oocyte donors:

 -woman in age from 20 to 32;

 -presence of a born healthy child;

 -absence of negative phenotypic manifestations;

 -satisfactory somatic health;

 -absence of medical contra-indications for oocyte donation;

 -absence of hereditary diseases;

 -absence of harmful habits: drug addiction, alcoholism, toxic substances abuse.

Subparagraph 5.10. List of necessary documents for oocyte donation:

 -agreement with the oocyte donor, voluntary written informed consent for participation in donation, controlled stimulation of ovulation and oocyte retrieval;

 -statement of a written consent of husband.

Subparagraph 7.4. A healthy woman of full age, who gave birth to a healthy child upon her written free consent and absence of medical contra-indications, is entitled to perform surrogacy.

Subparagraph 7.10. If parents of a child born by a Surrogate are foreign citizens they shall inform the address of their residence before processing of documents and departure from country for patronage by specialists-pediatrics and for supervision.

Subparagraph 7.11. Registration of a child born through ART by means of surrogacy is conducted according to the order set by the current legislation of Ukraine at the presence of a certificate of genetic relationship of parents (mother or father) with a child.

Evolving employment rights and surrogacy

Employment rights for parents in a surrogacy arrangement are currently limited - it is the birth mother who is regarded as the child's mother for the purpose of taking maternity leave and not the intended parent. Changes are however afoot from April.

Surrogacy is increasingly becoming commonplace as a way for couples to become parents, with a surrogate mother carrying their child. The couple who are to become parents in this situation are commonly known as 'intended' or 'commissioning' parents. The surrogate will however be the legal mother of the child unless or until parenthood is formally transferred to the intended mother through a parental order or an adoption order following the birth of the child (and transferred to the intended father at the same time). This is because, in law, the woman who gives birth is always treated as the 'mother'.

In respect of maternity leave, it is the birth mother who is entitled to take full maternity leave, not the intended mother in the surrogacy arrangement. This is regardless of the fact that the surrogate may not continue to have any contact with the child after birth and will certainly not be the primary carer. The same leave position applies to mothers who give their child up for adoption following birth; the fact that a birth mother does not care for the child once it is born has no impact on her right to maternity leave.

This position has been challenged on both a national and European level. As a result, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) was required to consider whether an intended mother under a surrogacy arrangement must be entitled to a period of maternity leave under the Pregnant Workers Directive so as to allow her to bond with her baby, establish breastfeeding and maintain and develop a family life. Whilst two Advocate Generals had differing views, the ECJ in two separate cases, held that intended mothers do not have a right to maternity leave. In CD v ST, the ECJ stated that the purpose of maternity leave is to protect the health of the mother of the child 'in the especially vulnerable situation arising from her pregnancy' and that although the purpose of maternity leave is intended to ensure that the special relationship between a woman and her child is protected, the objective concerns only the period after 'pregnancy and childbirth'.

As a result, the current position is that the intended mother is left in a situation where she is not entitled to the benefit of maternity or adoption leave. The only option available to the intended mother is unpaid parental leave (provided she has the necessary qualifying service) or some sort of flexible working arrangement (if accepted). Any further leave arrangements will be dependant upon her own contractual terms or her employer's discretion.

From 5 April 2015 intended parents in a surrogacy arrangement will become entitled to adoption leave and pay for children due on or after 5 April 2015. The new right for an expectant father, spouse, civil partner or partner to have unpaid time off to attend antenatal appointments will also apply to intended parents in a surrogacy arrangement which means they can attend up to two antenatal appointments with the surrogate.

In addition, statutory adoption leave will also become a 'day 1 right' for employees when the qualifying period for employment is removed which therefore brings it into line with statutory maternity leave. Statutory adoption pay will also be enhanced to 90% of the adopter's salary for the first 6 weeks of leave, again bringing it into line with statutory maternity pay.

Also, from 5 April 2015, eligible employees will be entitled to a maximum of 52 weeks' leave and 39 weeks' pay upon the birth or adoption of a child, which can be shared between the parents. Therefore, not only will adoptive parents be able to take advantage of these new leave rules, but the intended parents in a surrogacy arrangement will also be able to do so.

Whilst the intended mother still does not have the right to 'maternity' leave and pay as such she will have the equivalent benefit of adoption leave and pay.

Whilst this article has referred to the intended mother throughout in terms of maternity or adoption leave, the extended rights will be available to same-sex couples, who can both be included on the child's birth certificate and are referred to as the first and second parents rather than mother and father.

Author: Michael Briggs

(http://www.shoosmiths.co.uk/)