If your surrogate is due to give birth prior to 30 July in a country with travel restrictions, please contact your surrogacy agency for advice. The following ‘source’ countries have set up channels of communication with governments in respect to emergency travel and fast-tracked document processing. If you are from one of these countries, email […]

Due to the Covid-19 crisis, Australian citizens and permanent residents were restricted from travelling overseas from 25 March 2020 at 12:00hrs AEDST. The Commissioner of the Australian Border Force will consider an exemption in relation to a surrogacy birth as this falls under ‘a compelling or compassionate reason’.  Please complete the online form here https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/help-support/departmental-forms/online-forms/covid19-enquiry-form

Many intended parents need to travel abroad in the coming weeks and months for the birth of their child(ren) via cross-border surrogacy. Chinese healthcare authorities now have the best understanding of Co-Vid-19, how it spreads and how to prevent this. Note that animals cannot spread the virus. If you are travelling to a high risk […]

The following summary is based on a US industry roundtable held on Wed evening 18 March 2020 (US time) with a range of US experts’ Expert Panellists: Alison Wilson (Psychologist); Rich Vaughn IFLG; Dr Eve Feinberg, Northwestern Fertility and Reproductive Medicine; Sarah Paige ART RISK; Steve Snyder, IARC; Said Daneshmand SDFC; Jennifer White, Colorado Surrogacy; […]

In this difficult time, Growing Families is providing an update on current travel restrictions which will impact intended parents travelling internationally for embryo creation or the birth of children. OVERSEAS TRAVEL FOR BIRTHS (updated as at 2.05pm 28 March AEDST) You need to consider Whether your local authorities will allow you to leave your home […]

For many couples who have experienced medical complications in pregnancy, including the heartbreak of late miscarriage or still-birth, working with a surrogate to create their family becomes the best way forward. However surrogacy arrangements can be complicated emotionally and logistically. Our information days profile surrogates, egg donors and parents who have gone down this route. […]

Gay dad Rodney Cruise is something of an expert on setting expectations in co-parenting arrangements. Over the last 14 years Rodney and his Taiwanese partner Jeff have between them fathered a child via surrogacy, four via co-parenting with two lesbian couples and five further children via ‘identity-release’ sperm donation. For many busy professionals, co-parenting seems […]

Planned single parenting used to be a trend only seen amongst single women using donor sperm. But in recent years, with the increasing popularity of surrogacy in Australia and abroad, more and more gay males are opting to bring up children on their own. Surrogacy programs in countries without any surrogacy law have emerged recently […]

As 2019 comes to a close, it is worth looking back over the year at some of the trends as well as learnings in regard to surrogacy and or egg donation globally. Over the year, we ran 10 seminars in Australia, 8 in Europe, 1 in New Zealand, our National Australian conference and for the […]

While many countries without access to surrogacy, many seeking to create biological family are venturing offshore. It has left some resorting to ‘unofficial’ traditional surrogacy, using the surrogates eggs and home insemination. Others have had a local friend offer to carry for them, and taken her overseas for the embryo transfer. For the majority, the […]

Three Australian jurisdictions – NSW, ACT & Queensland – have laws criminalising overseas surrogacy. However like the long outdated provisions criminalising abortion in NSW, these are laws which have never been prosecuted. In fact even when the rare case has been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions, they have declined to take action. There […]

Each October scores of attendees come together in six different Australian capital cities – singles, couples, gay and heterosexual, some in their twenties, some in their fifties. They share a common goal – to create family with the help of yet unknown angels – donors and surrogates. It is these more complex journeys to parenthood […]

Inspiring StoriesTotally inspiring stories abound in the Australian surrogacy & donor communities about the journeys taken by intended parents and the surrogates who assist them. For me, there is huge joy in being able to help hopeful singles and couples to create family. Some of them had given up hope before attending an event with […]

While Hong Kong, Bangkok and Sydney are popular destinations for good quality IVF, increasing numbers need a surrogate and such services are harder to access. Yet a global audit of surrogacy agencies in 2018 showed China to be in the top three user nations of cross-border surrogacy globally. In the Hong Kong context, while legislation […]

In my capacity as an expert on cross-border surrogacy globally, I was invited to an International Forum In Cambridge, UK on 29-30 June this year. Experts were weighted towards lawyers and non-profits from the UK, US & Australia, with reasonable representation from Switzerland,  China, Hong Kong, South Africa & New Zealand and much smaller representation of […]