No Mom, No Problem

Thanks to surrogate technology, men who want to have kids can skip the whole relationship part, so long as they can afford it. But why do they want to?

By Sanjiv Bhattacharya
Published: Dec 01, 2007

Time and again, on his morning commute, David found himself scowling about the night before – yet another dead-end date. There he was, a successful 39 year-old, with a flourishing ophthalmology business and a decent income. All he wanted was to fall in love and start a family – unlike so many men, he actually wanted to commit. But he never was lucky in love.

“I had a few relationships, but nothing ever lasted more than a year,” he shrugs. “I don’t know why. Maybe I’m too focused on my work. Maybe it’s because I live in Flint, Michigan – I’m sure it’s easier in New York. Also, you know, I started off looking for a Jewish girl. Out here we call them JAPs – Jewish American Princesses. I wasn’t so picky after a while.”

Every day, he would pass a billboard on his drive to work: “Dream of having a family but can’t? Consider in-vitro fertilization.” The face on the poster was a patient of his, a fellow physician who ran a local IVF clinic. So, one morning, after “the date that broke the camel’s back,” he decided to pay him a visit.

“I asked him whether the chances of birth defects were greater with IVF. I honestly didn’t know. But he said, ‘no’. And that got me thinking – I’m not going to wait for a wife, I’m going to do this myself.”

That was in 2002. Now he is the father of twin boys, 15 months old – Philip and Benjamin.
David – who wants to conceal his surname – is one of a small but growing minority of single men who are choosing to bypass relationships altogether and pursue fatherhood through surrogacy. Not traditional surrogacy but ‘host’ or ‘gestational’ surrogacy – there’s a big difference. While a traditional surrogate becomes pregnant by artificial insemination – her own eggs are fertilized so she is genetically the child’s mother – a host surrogacy is more complex. The prospective father first buys eggs from a donor – they can range from $2000 to $100,000 a batch depending on the donor’s looks, brains, health and so on. He has them fertilized in-vitro with his own sperm or that of another cherry-picked donor – IVF costs up to $23,000. And then the embryos are implanted in the uterus of a surrogate who brings the baby to term for about $25,000. Not to mention legal fees.

Though traditional surrogacy is considerably cheaper – in addition to the surrogate’s fees, artificial insemination can cost as little as $600 – most prospective parents opt for host surrogacy because the surrogate, lacking a genetic bond, is far less likely to become attached to the baby. And while there are no hard numbers – surrogacy is a largely unregulated industry – anecdotal evidence indicates that host surrogacy is a booming business. Where it was once the preserve of infertile straight couples, now demand has extended to gay couples and singles (for whom traditional procreation is not an option) and a handful of perfectly fertile, straight men like David (for whom it is).

No doubt there are ethical questions raised by this phenomenon – in which the rich hand-pick their children’s genes for brains, beauty, athleticism and longevity, and then lease out the uterus of a lower income woman to carry the baby.

“I worry that it becomes just another consumer choice,” says Professor Mary Shanley of Vassar College, New York, the author of Making Babies, Making Families (Beacon Press). “There are alternatives for people who wish to become parents, such as adoption. Why is the genetic factor so important here? By choosing the characteristics you want your child to have, you misunderstand the attitude that you need to be a good parent, which is ultimately about acceptance.”

Shanley is encouraged, however, that men should be actively seeking a parenting role – a welcome change in traditional gender roles. But the question remains – why are eligible, wealthy, straight men who don’t have the urgency of a biological clock nevertheless opting to have children without women?

“Believe me, it’s not because it’s easy,” says David. Unassuming and soft-spoken, he seems an unlikely candidate for such a bold step. But behind his modest demeanour lies a grim determination. “I had to try 5 times over 3 years before my surrogate got pregnant. I must have spent something like $300,000. And I’m not what you call rich – at one point I maxed out all three of my credit cards.”

The first time around, his greatest challenge was finding an egg donor. Having contacted several agencies and browsed the profiles online, he found Rachel through an agency called Fertility Alternatives in southern California. “She was a college student, about 20,” says David. “Dark hair, dark eyes, very pretty. She had a healthy family history. I talked to her on the phone and she seemed nice.” But it didn’t work, the surrogate didn’t get pregnant. So he tried again, keeping Rachel but changing the surrogate. Still no joy.

“It was very stressful,” he says. “But every time it didn’t work, I just grew more determined. So the third time I changed egg donor and doctor, but I kept the same surrogate. And the fourth time I changed the egg donor again. Then the agency told me there were studies that showed that where you had Caucasian sperm and eggs, the best surrogates were Latina or African-American women.”

So on his fifth attempt, David finally found his winning combination. The egg donor was a former Swedish model living in Beverly Hills, a tall, well-educated blonde who had 3 grandparents living in their 90s. And his surrogate was Lilia Chavez, a 28 year-old mother of three from Riverside, California. “Actually I had two 2 surrogates at the same time,” he says, “Sheila and Lilia. I was so exasperated I just used a scattershot approach. When I got the call from my lawyer, I was playing golf in Florida. He said both surrogates were carrying twins, so for a few days I thought I’d have four children. But Sheila’s embryos didn’t take.”

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