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The priority of most nations in response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been to close their borders to foreigners while getting their own citizens ‘back home’. Many countries have shut down government departments, closed visa applications – some have introduced night-time curfews. This repatriation focus on nationality over need has had a terrible impact on […]

The Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed it will be possible to provide permission for foreign citizens to enter Georgia during travel ban provided that their embassy contacts MFA Georgia with the following information: Intended Parents full name, Passport Number and copies of their passports. Name and registration number of the IVF clinic (for New Life […]

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 […]

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 […]

______________________________________________________________________________ Preliminary studies from China show no evidence that if a surrogate was infected with Co-Vid-19 she would pass it on to the child she births. Additional Time Off Work for Your Surrogate Some intended parents may want their surrogate to take additional time off work or work from home. The former may incur significant […]

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 4.30pm 22 July AEST) 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 Single Men or Gay Males are opting to bring up children on their own. Surrogacy programs in countries without any surrogacy law […]

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 Family building thru 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 […]

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 in the Aussie October Seminar series may sell out. For me, there is huge joy in being able to help hopeful singles and couples to create family. Some of them […]

While Hong Kong, Bangkok and Sydney are popular destinations for Family Building and for a 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 […]

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 […]

There are thousands with health or fertility issues or a lack of the necessary anatomy that might once have prevented them raising a genetically connected child. Not anymore. When Film-maker and activist Lance Black and Tom Daley announced they were going to be dads via surrogacy in the UK press, there had been mixed reactions. […]

Australia’s eighth annual surrogacy & donor conference for intended parents for the first time had a whole day devoted to domestic surrogacy. A record crowd of 180 intended parents attended from around the country, to network,  and hear from experts, panels of surrogates, parents, egg donors, and donor-conceived children. The success of the event would […]