MAKING A BABY
One surrogate, two fertility clinics, tens of thousands of dollars and some heartache.
“I’m just borrowing the baby. I’m growing it for them and then I’m giving it back to them.
ANGELA PEETERS
SURROGATE
This is the first part of the Michelle Lang Fellowship series, which this year takes a look at the issues facing would- be Canadian parents who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer. Natalie Stechyson is the third recipient of the Michelle Lang Fellowship, which was established after the Calgary Herald reporter was killed in December 2009, while reporting on Canadian troops in Afghanistan. Lang was the only Canadian journalist to die during the military’s eight years in that country. The fellowship trust each year provides a unique opportunity for an intern to tackle a project of interest to all Canadians. Stechyson split her time this past year working as a reporter at Postmedia News in Ottawa and the Calgary Herald. The complete series can be found at vancouversun. com/ prideandjoy
TORONTO — The cosy pub on Bloor Street West seems a fine place to raise a glass to Angela Peeters’ uterus.
So Frank Emanuele and Norm Furtado clink drinks with Peeters’ glass of water as they celebrate their first embryo transfer and — hopefully — a baby.
“I’m craving everything. Is that a good sign?” Peeters asks.
Laughing and joking, the trio seem like old friends. In reality, they are a gay couple and the surrogate who agreed to carry their baby. They found her on the Internet.
They’ve just come from a fertility clinic where an embryo was inserted into Peeters’ womb.
To make the baby Furtado and Emanuele desperately want will involve four bodies, two fertility clinics, a lawyer, tens of thousands of dollars, heartache and some legal manoeuvring.
Using reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization and insemination, surrogates and semen donors has become increasingly common for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer ( LGBTQ) Canadians. But many of the corresponding laws and support systems haven’t caught up with the times.
There are no official statistics, but some Canadian fertility lawyers estimate that up to 50 per cent of their clients are LGBTQ while fertility doctors in large cities like Toronto say a quarter of their patients are LGBTQ.
“Canada has clearly and unequivocally accepted gay and lesbian rights to marry, and I think that it naturally follows from that that we must do whatever we can to permit them — as we do opposite- sex couples — the ability to have children through reproductive technology,” says Nicholas Bala, a family law expert at Queen’s University.
But the rules governing assisted reproduction are confusing. Legislation on critical issues — such as how to get included on a child’s birth certificate and the role of a donor — varies across the country.
As well, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act prohibits paying a fee to surrogates, semen donors or egg donors. As a result, Canada has a shortage of all three.
On top of that, to reduce the transmission risk of diseases such as HIV, gay men are banned from donating sperm. If they want to use their own sperm to conceive through surrogacy they must apply to the minister of health, be tested for infectious diseases, have their sperm quarantined for six months, and be retested.
“Most respectable fertility specialists would like to help everybody. But sometimes our hands are tied by very specific regulations,” says Dr. Mathias Gysler, head of the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society.
In light of these difficulties, some people choose to look outside Canada to start their families, whether importing sperm or eggs, or going abroad to use an international surrogate.
Furtado and Emanuele got eggs from a friend and they each contributed sperm to make embryos, of which one was inserted into Peeters.
Furtado and Emanuele have been together for almost nine years and were married this summer. They live in London, Ont., where Furtado, 37, is a family physician. Emanuele, 38, is a teacher.
Telling this story has been difficult for Furtado, a private man. But realizing that, for gay couples, having a baby isn’t as simple as strolling into a fertility clinic made him want to speak out.
“We are both high- functioning, contributing members of society who are just regular people who happen to be both men, who love each other, who are in a committed relationship and why shouldn’t we have the right to have the same type of experience as anyone else?” Furtado says.
It was the men’s aching desire for a family that led Peeters to agree to be their surrogate.
“What really hit home for me is the idea that I’m just borrowing the baby. I’m growing it for them and then I’m giving it back to them.”
The 34- year- old lives with her husband Rene and their children on a farm in Zurich, in southwest Ontario. She’s a country girl, with a can- do attitude.
She’s also a self- proclaimed pregnancy pro with four children under the age of five.
“It kind of works for me so why not share it? Why not share that ability with someone who can’t do it?” Peeters says.
Unlike other parts of the world, surrogacy in Canada must be altruistic. A woman’s out- of- pocket expenses related to pregnancy can be reimbursed, but she can’t be paid a fee.
The average stipend ranges between $ 18,000 and $ 25,000, and the average total cost of surrogacy including the stipend and all medical and legal fees is between $ 45,000 and $ 60,000.
Peeters’ first embryo transfer was on a cold December day at ReproMed: The Toronto Institute for Reproductive Medicine. Emanuele and Furtado stood at the head of the bed, where they watched on a monitor the embryo being placed into Peeters’ uterus.
Furtado, with his medical background, had been trying to stay objective. But everything changed when he saw the transfer, he says.
“Then I realized, oh my god, this is my child ... my life is forever changed,” he says, his eyes brimming with tears.
A few weeks later, the trio gathered for a pregnancy test. It was negative.
They tried again the next month. Emanuele told the Calgary Herald the news in an email typed almost entirely in capital letters. “WE’RE PREGNANT!!!” They had their first ultrasound in February. In late March, they heard the heartbeat for the first time.
Baby Luca is due in October.