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The Surrogacy Search
Starting Out
Part One
By Michele St. Martin
Of all of the alternatives to traditional biological parenting, surrogacy is the one most often sensationalized and misunderstood. Perhaps the most famous case is that of "Baby M," in which Mary Beth Whitehead was hired as a surrogate for William and Elizabeth Stern. Whitehead was inseminated with Stern's sperm, but her own eggs were used, and she was the child's biological mother. After the child was born, Whitehead refused to give up rights to the child. Custody of the baby was awarded to William Stern, but Whitehead was allowed visitation rights.
Rare but highly publicized stories like this hurt the image of surrogacy and give hopeful parents an imbalanced view of a process that creates countless happy families each year.
According to Len Brooks, director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Surrogacy and a surrogate parent himself, there are three types of surrogates:
- Gestational surrogates become pregnant when embryos generated from the eggs and sperm of the intended parents are placed in the surrogate's uterus.
- Gestational surrogates with egg donors use donor-contributed eggs, which are fertilized with the intended father's sperm and transferred to the uterus of the surrogate.
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