Chiang-Cruise

A wonderful story from Far North Queensland.  Two proud Dads, one beautiful son and an incredible story.  Read about it and download the MP3 below.

Becoming parents was hard work for gay couple, Pete and Mark but they’d do it all over again if they had to.

A shiny child’s bike lies on its side on the front lawn of an immaculate garden.

Around the back gay dads Pete and Mark chase their son’s pet chickens around, trying to catch them.

Drake, 5, exclaims that the little birds are too fast for him.

It’s a happy, relaxed family scene. But it wasn’t an easy road to get there. After many hurdles Drake was born by surrogacy in Russia.

"We decided that we would have a child, that it was time for us to have a family. We wanted to experience the joys of fatherhood and we started our surrogacy over in the United States back in 2002," Pete said.

At the time, Pete and Mark were living and working in the US.

"Surrogacy rules and laws are much easier in the United States," Mark said.

While not everybody was comfortable with the idea of surrogacy, Mark said the couple felt their options were limited.

"We knew that there were certainly plenty of women willing to do it so if it OK with them, then I guess it was OK with us," he said.

Mark and Pete used the internet to find prospective mothers for the child they longed to have. Apart from the woman’s health, Pete said one of the big concerns was how genuine the candidates were.

"We have heard about a lot of scams and certain people who represent themselves as so-called surrogate mothers who are really out there just to make money," he said.

Pete said the couple also wanted to make sure that any woman they employed as a surrogate fully understood the commitment she was making.

There was also the issue of whether the mother would actually give up her baby, Mark added.

After many failed attempts in the US, the cost was becoming prohibitive. The pair decided to try Russia as cheaper alternative.

That decision presented its own problems. Language was the main one. The couple took on a private Russian tutor and Pete gave up his job in Australia to oversee the process.

"We were very dedicated to making this work….we decided that at some point we didn’t have a budget. Our budget was anything that we had earned, anything that we had saved, anything that we could borrow to make this happen," Pete said.

In the end Pete said they found a woman who they ‘clicked with personality-wise’.

"She was very quiet. She didn’t have a lot of demands or conditions that some of the other woman that we had met had. She seemed like somebody we could work with," he said.

At the first attempt, Drake was conceived via artificial insemination using Mark’s sperm.

When asked why it was Mark’s sperm and not Pete’s, Mark laughed.

"A flip of the coin I think," he said.

During the pregnancy the couple stayed in limited contact with the mother via a translator. Mostly they were in touch just when there were practical things to care of such as visiting a doctor or getting an ultrasound.

"We made it clear to her that we wanted her to take vitamins, that we wanted her to eat well. We provided the money to do that and we just had to hope that she would do it," Mark said.

Neither man was at Drake’s birth because they felt it was important to protect the mother’s privacy.

When their son was five days old, Mark and Pete were handed their child. To their surprise, Drake’s mother gave them the baby and walked away.

"I think she had resigned herself to this much earlier on and was trying not to let emotions get in the way," Mark said.

In fact, it wasn’t the mother who got in the way of Drake coming back to Australia with his two Dads. What followed was two and a half years of bureaucracy before the child received permanent Australian residency and another year before he got citizenship.

On arrival in Australia customs quizzed Mark and Pete for hours. Police were also sent around to their house on a Sunday morning to investigate.

"When people see two guys together, you know it’s like, ‘Where’s his mother?’ We’ve had a lot of people ask that," Pete said.

"I think that even if one of us was a woman, we wouldn’t have had the same suspicions and problems that we went through."

Thinking back to the police visit, Pete said the police seemed to want reassurance that the situation was ‘right’.

They checked if the couple had equipment to raise a child like a bed, clothes and bottles.

Mark said he’s sure that they were under suspicion of paedophilia. But despite the difficulties, he said the couple would do it again with no hesitation.

"We’re a family just like any other family," he said with pride.

[Source: Original Article]

[Source: Original MP3]

Good news for Aussie gay guys about the new draft bill before the Indian Parliament.  It doesn’t appear that the new law would exclude gay men from using surrogacy in India.

Single men, women and even gays and lesbians could soon get the legal sanction to have children using surrogate mothers.

The draft Bill legalising surrogacy in India — the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) [Regulation] Bill 2010 — has provided for single parenthood by allowing “unmarried couples” and “single persons” from India and abroad to have children using ART procedure and surrogate mothers.
The Bill, with potential to rewrite the social landscape, may be tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament if the Union Cabinet clears it. By conferring the right to have children on unmarried couples and single persons, the Bill attempts to achieve several historic feats — legalising commercial surrogacy, single parenthood, live-in relationships and entitling even gays and lesbians to start families using surrogate mothers — at one go.
“Along with the term single persons, the path is open for gays and lesbians to use ART procedure,” said senior advocate Rajiv Dhavan, who played a crucial role in drafting the Bill along with his colleagues at Public Interest Legal Support and Research Centre. “The expression ‘unmarried couples’ generally suggests heterosexual relationships. But its interpretation has been left open.”

By conferring the right to have children on unmarried couples and single persons, the Bill attempts to achieve several historic feats — legalising commercial surrogacy, single parenthood, live-in relationships and entitling even gays and lesbians to start families using surrogate mothers — at one go.

Asked if such a legislation would conform to traditional Indian values, Dhavan said, “This Bill does not provoke a moral attack on the institution of family. Married persons will mostly use it. But the option to create family will also be available to all others.”
Renting of womb is legal in India but there is no law to regulate surrogacy.

A 2009 Law Commission report had described ART industry as “a Rs 25,000-crore pot of gold”. “Wombs in India are on rent which translates into babies for foreigners and dollars for Indian surrogate mothers,” the report had stated.

The commission had recommended legalising only altruistic surrogacy arrangements and not commercial ones. But the draft Bill legalises commercial surrogacy as well.

Clause 34(3) of the draft Bill specifically says that apart from all expenses involved, “the  surrogate mother may also receive monetary compensation from the couple or individual, as the case may be, for agreeing to act as such surrogate.”
She will have to relinquish all parental rights over the child in favour of commissioning parent/s. Only a woman in the age-group of 21-35 can become a surrogate mother but she can not bear more than five children including her own.

In view of the recent controversy involving a German couple’s child born to a surrogate mother in India, the Bill makes it mandatory for foreigners to submit certificates on their country’s policy on surrogacy and that the child born to an Indian surrogate mother will get entry into the commissioning parent/s’ country.

The Bill proposes to set up a mechanism to regulate and supervise surrogacy in India.

[Source: Original Article]

There is a growing collection of blogs out there from Australia and around the world of Gay Dads and Dads to be charting their surrogacy journey.  Each of them provide helpful information and tell a wonderful story full of love and commitment.  Below is a selection of the ones that I am aware of.

• Gay Dads Australia – Australia – This blog is run by Gay Dads Australia and provide lots of information on Surrogacy together with an extensive media archive relating to all things Australian and GLBTI parenting.
• From India With Love….  – Australia – This is a blog by Johnny and Darren “Just your happily ‘unmarried’ couple who this year celebrate 13 years together. We live in the picturesque Blue Mountains, west of Sydney in NSW Australia & have become parents via commercial surrogacy in India. This is our story…”
• Orea-Zoi – Australia – George K’s blog about his surrogacy journey and his twins Electra and Eros “Lives life to the fullest, consumed by the world around him, delights in his family and friends…….. OH! and has just became a DAD! …… TWINS!” 
• Lucas – Australia – “Single man, though not by choice, but I just have extremely high standards. Have wanted kids for nearly 13 years, so now’s the time to stop making excuses and bite the bullet. If I’m going to wait for Mr Right, then considering my past experience, I’ll always be waiting for a very long time. Will it be easy? Hell no! Fun? Mostly! Fulfilling? Always! If you wanna get to know me better, drop me a line and say hi”.
• Our Surrogacy Story – Australia – Will and Michael  “have been in a committed relationship for nine years. We are now attempting to have a child through surrogacy to complete our family”.
• Fatherhood: Life with Addison – USA – Greg and Rob’s blog on their Indian Surrogacy journey. ”We are two guys who had a precious baby girl born via Surrogacy India. This is our Story…”
• Looking for Baby… – USA – Doug and Bill’s Egg-cellent Adventure into Surrogacy. "My partner, Bill, and I live in Hawaii and have been together since February 1996. This is a blog of our journey to become parents”.
• Becoming Dads – Canada – Todd (Canadian) and Matt (Aussie) blog – “A gay couple consider expanding their non-traditional family; anyway but the olde fashioned way”.
• Stalking the Stork – USA – Jason and Adrian blog. “We’re a Spanish-American binational gay couple living in Los Angeles and exploring becoming dads via surrogacy in India”.
• Christmas Eve Boys – Terry and Steve from the US charting their journey.
• Here we go again – Europe – Robert and Fredrik’s blog on their journey to become parents through surrogacy in India.
• John and Steve are Having a Baby – John and Steve’s blog on their journey. “We’re really just two strapping, young (shut up) homosexuals who are at the stage in our relationship where having a child just seems…well right”.
• The Allton Nee Three – UK/HK – Adam and Michael blog “Well this is our blog! We have been together 11 years and just embarked upon our first surrogacy attempt. We decided to use Thailand for our surrogacy and hopefully 2010 will be our year! We live and work in Hong Kong but are from the UK. We are updating this blog regularly and hoping for good news soon!!”
• Chiang-Cruise – Australia – Jeff and Rodney Chiang-Cruise’s blog on their family and all things GLBTI parenting in Australia.
• BT JR – The Becoming Tour – Australia – Chronicles of Geoff & Naigel’s Adventure to Become Parents.
• Introspective – Australia – Michael “shares his life with a loving man, beautiful twin girls, 2 dogs and 2 rainbow lorikeets”.
• 2 Dads and a Baby – Australia – Paul and Chris “Follow us on our journey to becoming a family”.
• 2 Dad Family – Australia – Two guys in Melbourne and the “ragdoll cat Frankie” on the surrogacy journey.

If you know of any more (I am sure there are many, many others please share them.

The Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA) is holding a "Twilight" Seminar on the topic of "SURROGACY IN VICTORIA" on 8 September 2010.  It will be very useful for any single or gay couples thinking about doing Altruistic Surrogacy in Victoria. VARTA are keen to get gay men interested in surrogacy in Victoria to attend, so don’t be shy!. Details are as follows:

Twilight Seminar 2: Surrogacy in Victoria – Issues to Consider.

The next seminar in the Authority’s Twilight Seminar Series focuses on Surrogacy in Victoria – Issues to Consider and will be held on Wednesday 8 September 2010 from 5.30pm at Russell Kennedy in La Trobe Street, Melbourne.

It promises to be an interesting and informative evening. We will hear about the surrogacy journey from two different personal perspectives and an experienced family lawyer will discuss the legal implications of pursuing surrogacy in Victoria. The psychological aspects of surrogacy including essential ingredients for success and pitfalls to avoid will also be presented.

More information about the seminar including a registration form is available on the Authority’s website at www.varta.org.au.

I think the forms are not yet up on the website, but I am sure you can register if you give them a call.

A sensible and well balanced piece by Lisa Prior in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age today.  A copy of the NSW Adoption Bill is available

.

Those gays are after the children again. On Thursday Clover Moore introduced a bill into Parliament which would allow same-sex couples to adopt. Both major parties will allow their members a conscience vote on the issue after the winter break. And it is indeed a matter of conscience.

In a parliamentary inquiry conducted last year, a majority found that the Adoption Act should be amended to allow gay couples to adopt. Faith-based adoption agencies would still have the right to exclude prospective parents who are gay, so long as they refer them to an agency which will assist.

This follows the lead of Western Australia and the ACT which already give gay couples equal access to the adoption process. Even in Tasmania gay couples can adopt a child related to one of them. In every state gay couples can foster.

Reform is opposed by church adoption agencies and many church groups. Trawling through the submissions to the parliamentary inquiry yesterday, I felt awe at the special kind of faith of some of the groups standing in judgment of gay families, making accusations about promiscuity, abuse, violence and communicable disease.

These flimsy and alarmist accusations were rather ironic coming from organisations which have been implicated in well-documented systemic abuse relating specifically to adoption and foster care, such as the mistreatment of child migrants, the stolen generations and the removal of babies from young mothers without proper consent.

Stereotyping all religious people because of the sins of a few is no better than stereotyping all gay people. Instead let’s consider the facts.

Adoption is not what it used to be. The scenario of the teen mother relinquishing her newborn is pretty much a thing of the past. Here are the statistics about adoption cited in the inquiry, statistics which are scary for anyone whose baby-making fall back plan is: ”It’s OK. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just adopt.”

”In 2007-08 … 125 adoption orders were finalised in NSW. Of those adoptions, 73 were inter-country. Of the remaining 52 local adoptions, 15 were unknown and 37 were known. Known adoptions for this period [comprised] 10 step-parent, 22 foster carer, three other relatives and two special case adoptions.”

In other words, most local adoptions involve children who already have a relationship with a carer, and adoption is about making that relationship permanent and secure.

The bill introduced this week is mostly about allowing gay foster parents, and gay step-parents, to provide the children in their care with stability and protection of permanent adoption.

It is also about providing children with the benefits of having two parents. As Moore noted on Thursday: ”Currently a child can’t be adopted by their parent’s same-sex partner yet can be adopted by their parent’s heterosexual partner,” she said. ”Unlike heterosexual couples, same-sex couples can’t adopt a child together – one parent must adopt as an individual and the other has no legal standing as the co-parent, leaving their child in legal limbo.”

Interestingly, one of the agencies in favour of allowing gay adoption is Barnardos. It specialises in the difficult side of fostering and adoption, often involving older children who have been victims of abuse and neglect.

As it said in its submission to the inquiry, it facilitates fostering by gay couples: ”Barnardos currently has seven children placed with two gay and two lesbian couples, all of whom have a care plan of adoption. The carers have provided excellent parenting for these children, all of whom have made pleasing and significant progress in areas of their physical, social and emotional development and who have developed a secure and positive attachment to each of their carers.”

So much for the cliche about flippant gays wanting designer babies as fashion accessories, a cliche repeated this year when the former US presidential candidate Mike Huckabee argued against gay adoption by saying ”children are not puppies”.

When it comes to voting on this legislation, the real issue facing our elected representatives is whether it is conscionable to try to send some vague message about preferred family structure by making the lives of children living in gay families more difficult and less secure. And this truly is a matter of conscience.

[Source: Original Article]

But if the draft bill to regulate surrogacy becomes law, gay couples like them may not be allowed to hire surrogates in India. The draft legislation, Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bills and Rules, 2008, states that only couples that are living together and in a sexual relationship that is “legal” are permitted surrogacy to have children.

In July 2009, the Delhi High Court had decriminalised homosexuality by overturning a section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. But homosexual relationships are still not legally recognised in India, leaving the status of same-sex relationships ambiguous.

Several petitions filed to challenge the Delhi High Court verdict are pending before the Supreme Court. “Gay or lesbian couples will be allowed to have children through surrogacy only if the Indian law recognises homosexual relationships at the time when the bill is passed,” said Dr R.S. Sharma, deputy director general of the Indian Council for Medical Research. Considering India has emerged as preferred destination for surrogacy, the proposed law could dishearten gay couples who plan to come to India for children. Infertility clinics in Mumbai have helped many gay couples, mostly from US and Australia, have children through surrogates.

It is not clear whether homosexuals will be able to go for surrogacy as individuals. The proposed legislation allows single women to have children through surrogacy but they are silent about single men. “It will be important for the new law to address the issue about single parents and defining the role of doctors and compensation given to surrogates,” said Amit Karkhanis, a lawyer who has handled over 180 surrogacy cases.

An expert committee is revising the draft bill based on the comments by the central health ministry. “We will complete the process within a week and send the draft back to the ministry,” said Dr Sharma.

[Source: Original Article]

If the parents of newborn Noah Allen-Drury are lucky, their son will sleep through the noise as their flight from India lands in Sydney this morning.

Noah’s gay parents, however, are aware of legal turbulence that could prohibit the surrogacy arrangements that fulfilled their wish for a child.

A growing number of male couples from Australia and other Western countries are hiring surrogates in India to bear children, but that might no longer be possible if a draft bill to regulate IVF in India becomes law.

R.S. Sharma, the secretary of the committee writing a bill to govern assisted reproductive technology (ART), told the Heraldthat unless gay and lesbian relationships are legalised in India, gay couples would be excluded from hiring surrogates.

Delhi’s High Court recently overturned a 150-year-old section of the country’s penal code that outlawed ”carnal intercourse against the order of nature”.

However, gay activists warn this ruling, which in effect decriminalised sodomy, does not legalise gay relationships, leaving the status of such relationships unclear.

"If our government does not permit gay relationships, then it certainly will not be permitted for foreign gay couples to come to this country and have a [surrogacy] agreement," said Dr Sharma, who is the deputy director-general of the reproductive health and nutrition division at the India Council of Medical Research.

Read more…

Childless couples who acquire a baby using a surrogate mother abroad risk not being recognised as its parents in Britain if they flout British law by paying fees, fertility lawyers have warned.

Such payments, which can be as high as £30,000, could lead to those who have made them being refused permission by the high court to become the child’s legal parents, specialist solicitors say.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 allows couples entering into deals with a surrogate mother overseas to pay her only what is allowed here – "expenses reasonably incurred", such as compensation for time off work, medical bills and living expenses.

But lawyers handling such cases have told the Guardian a growing number of couples are embarking on international surrogacy in places such as India, the US and Ukraine, and that many of them are in effect flouting the law by paying whatever is needed to get a child. This could cause serious problems for them and the children as the high court may not grant a parental order.

"The risk couples face if they pay a disproportionate amount in expenses is that the high court may refuse to authorise those expenses. That could result in the parental order application failing and in turn they would have no status as parents under English law," said John Randle, a leading surrogacy lawyer.

Read more…

Commercial surrogacy, gay adoption – the modern brood is ever-evolving. But the rewards of family always remains the same. On the eve of Father’s Day, two same-sex couples share withSX the joys, and the challenges, of fatherhood.

RODNEY AND JEFF

Pictured: Rodney (left) with partner Jeff and son Ethan (centre).

Many Dads become fathers by accident. Not Rodney Chiang-Cruise. Chiang-Cruise, 43, planned his fatherhood to the nth degree, with his partner Jeff. The couple’s child, Ethan, was born two-and-a-half years ago via an egg donor and a commercial surrogate in the USA .

“That’s where I think there’s a significant difference between children with gay parents and kids with straight parents,” Chiang-Cruise tells SX. “It’s not unusual for a child who’s the product of a heterosexual union to be unplanned or even unwanted, but when it’s a same-sex couple it’s more difficult and challenging to have kids – so a lot of planning and expense goes into it.

“It’s not something that can happen by accident.”

Melbourne-based Chiang-Cruise feels strongly about the rights of gay men to have children – so much so that he’s a co-moderator of the Gay Dads Australia group (“400 members and rising quickly”) and co-chairs Victoria’s regular Surrogacy Forums, an event for gay men looking at surrogacy as an option to create their families.

Read more…

Well….they would…wouldn’t they! 

QUEENSLAND Labor MPs will be lobbied to vote down new laws allowing same-sex surrogacy arrangements.

Premier Anna Bligh has released a model for legal surrogacy in Queensland which is the only Australian state where altruistic surrogacy – where no money changes hands – is still illegal.

MPs will have a conscience vote on the laws, expected to go to parliament before the end of the year after public consultation.

Australian Christian Lobby Queensland director Peter Earle said same-sex surrogacy arrangements would deprive children of the complementary love and care of both a mother and a father.

Mr Earle said the Liberal National Party had given a commitment during the March state election campaign to oppose the laws.

"In the interests of children, we urge them to stick by these commitments, and we urge Labor … politicians to look to their consciences and follow suit," Mr Earle said in a statement.

"Children are not commodities and their interests should always come before the desires of adults."

But the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities said the announcement was welcome.

"We congratulate the government on bringing Queensland laws up to date with the rest of Australia," association general manager Paul Martin said.

"These changes, if implemented, will bring legal certainty to children of same-sex couples, allowing access to a share of a person’s estate or superannuation upon the death of a parent and providing both parents with the power to consent to medical treatment of the child."

But Mr Martin said the government needed to comprehensively overhaul the law, including civil partnerships and adoption for same-sex couples.

[Link: Original Article]