Mother love defeats bureaucracy -- but at a cost of $200,000



This Aussie infant was born with a $200,000 price tag and three mothers -- two of them on the other side of the world. Infertility and strict Australian surrogacy laws forced her mother to visit a revolutionary baby factory in California, where she hand-picked her egg donor and the woman who would give birth to her baby. The business transaction made her dream of a second child come true.

"She is a miracle -- what price do you put on a miracle," said the commissioning mother, Nadia, who did not wish to be identified. "Her creation was approached in a very business-like manner, but she is my baby."

A handful of Los Angeles-based mothers, including two Australians, formed egg donation and surrogacy agency Miracles Inc in response to the increasing number of childless couples who turn to surrogacy for their chance at a family. They charge almost $20,000 for an egg and more than $50,000 to carry a child to full term. The commissioning parents cover all other costs, which can take the bill to $200,000.

While Australia is unlikely to commercialise surrogacy -- where donors and the surrogate can charge for their services -- the nation's attorneys-general met yesterday to discuss uniform laws across the states. The call came after Victorian Labor senator Stephen Conroy and wife Paula Benson's daughter, Isabella, was born to a surrogate mother on Monday. The couple had to go to NSW for the procedures as surrogacy is illegal in Victoria. They are now facing up to five years of paperwork to formally adopt their daughter.

For Nadia, who is in her early 40s, searching overseas for a surrogate mother was a costly but simple process that took 18 months and $200,000. She joined the swelling ranks of women advertising for egg donors, but soon realised she would be relying on the goodwill of strangers because the "archaic" Australian laws make it illegal to profit from surrogacy. "I gave it two months and then I decided I'd never get anywhere. I had cut out an article I read in the newspaper about surrogacy clinics in America so thought I would try there," she said.

Nadia and her husband, whose sperm was used in the process, sifted through 200 profiles before choosing an egg donor and then a separate surrogate. In California, where the process is legal, the egg cost them $19,500 and the price for pregnancy was $52,000. "Although the cost is enormous, the component that goes to the surrogate and donor is minuscule compared to the overall cost," Nadia said. Legal bills, insurance, travel costs, drugs, IVF bills that were not covered by Medicare and astronomical American hospital bills added up to a $200,000 figure that the couple were not expecting. "We didn't truly appreciate the cost until it started, but we were in the privileged position of being able to keep going," Nadia said. "Now, when I look at her I don't think of dollars, or what we went through to get her -- she is just my child."

Still in close contact with the surrogate mother, Nadia helped deliver her daughter and stayed in the same hospital room as the surrogate for the days after the birth. Now back in Sydney, where her child will grow up, there are times when Nadia forgets her daughter's first nine months were spent in another women's womb. "She does something which is very characteristically me and I forget I didn't actually give birth to her," Nadia said. "You are just so caught up in being a parent, and I just love her so much."

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

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