Afternoon:
15°c
A British couple who paid a surrogate mother in India to have their baby two years ago are flying back to collect a second child.
Bobby and Nikki Bains are going to Gujarat as soon as the woman carrying their child goes into labour, expected any day now.
The pair say abandoning Britain for India in pursuit of a family was the best thing they did.
Mr Bains, 46, from Ilford, said: “We have our bags all packed and are ready to go. We are waiting for our doctor to call us and let us know when our child is to be born.
“It is exciting but we are also very apprehensive about it all as anything can happen. We don't want to get our hopes up too soon.”
In 1995 they had the first of a series of IVF treatments in Britain, costing £4,000 to £7,000 each time.
They thought about finding a surrogate mother here but soon discovered there was a shortage and it was going to be near-impossible. In 2005 they approached the Rotunda clinic in Mumbai where doctors successfully implanted the surrogate mother with a donor egg fertilised by Mr Bains's sperm. Their daughter Daisy arrived in July 2008 and after three months they were able to bring her home.
Mr Bains, who gave up his job as an engineer to devote his time to having a baby, and his 45-year-old wife, an admin assistant, estimated they had spent a total of £125,000 in pursuit of their first child.
They are now preparing to fly out to Akshanka clinic in Anand to collect their second baby which has cost them another £23,000 excluding flights.
Surrogacy in the UK is a legal and ethical minefield but in India rules are much more lax and increasing numbers of couples are flying out to India in the hope of getting pregnant.
Among them are a “significant amount” of white couples prepared to have an Indian baby. Dr Kaushal Kadam, who helped the Bains with their first child, has set up her own practice, the Corion Fertility Clinic, dealing with vast numbers of couples from Britain desperate for her help.
Mr Bains, who runs a website www.oneinsix.com to help other couples in their quest for a child, said: “The system is far better in India. They need to relax the laws here.”
Last year a couple from East Ham who had twins by a surrogate mother spent three months in India locked in a legal battle over the nationality of the babies.
Chris and Susan Morrison were recognised by India as the parents of twins Louis and Freya, while the British authorities regarded the surrogate mother as their legal parent.
They eventually won their battle and were granted exit visas and British passports for the twins.
Legal minefield for intended' parents
In Britain it is a criminal offence to advertise you are looking for a surrogate or are willing to act as a surrogate on a commercial basis.
Surrogacy agreements are also unenforceable in UK courts; this means that the surrogate has the legal right to keep the child, even if it is not genetically related to her.
Under English law, the legal mother of a child born through surrogacy is always the surrogate mother. In surrogacy cases it means the intended mother has no recognition as a parent, even if she is her child's biological mother.
The intended parents can only be named as parents on the child's birth certificate if they obtain a parental or adoption order.
Reader views (1)
Personally I think this is sick. Exploitation of poor for the gain of something that nature decided was going to be beyond this couple....money is the only bond they have to these children.
So many kids out there need fostering or adopting, the laws should in fact be strengthened IMHO
- Andy G, Bahrain, 05/08/2010 06:32
Report abuse
