I was thinking today about possibilities for hetero couples who want children but the woman is infertile. What if the couple wanted a surrogate who was close to them rather than a stranger, and the husband’s sister was willing to help them out – which means that the husband won’t want to be the biological father. So what if the sister’s husband offered to volunteer as well? It would be one married couple having a baby and then giving it to the biological mother’s brother and his wife. Has this ever happened? Could it?
I had some friends, a married couple, James and Karen. Due to medical problems, Karen was unable to have children, though they both wanted children.
Karen’s sister Lisa (also married) agreed to produce a child for them. James provided semen that was used via artificial insemination to impregnate Lisa. After the birth, Lisa & her husband gave the child to James & Karen. In fact, they took the child home from the hospital, even though the formal adoption wasn’t complete until several weeks later.
So the child is James’ son, but to Karen only a nephew, biologically.
They all seem quite happy with the arrangement.
P.S. James & Karen have not explained this to their son. (He’s just starting 1st grade – age 6). They are going to wait until he is older before telling him, though they are still considering not telling him at all. Or not till he is in his 20’s or so.
Good story: There was a case where the wife was infertile, and the husband’s sister was willing to carry the child. Since she obviously couldn’t be the egg donor for her brother’s sperm, the wife’s siser offered to donate the egg. She didn’t want to carry the child, because she didn’t know if she could give it up after being pregnant for nine months. Everything worked out fine.
Bad story: Bad husband and wife were infertile. Rather than have a surrogate use her own egg and risk having her fight for the child, the couple used an egg donor, a sperm donor, and a gestational surrogate. When they spilt up before the child was born, the husband refused to be recognized as the father of the child. However, the wife still wanted the child. The court wouldn’t let her have it.
I worked in a fertility practice many years ago.We used to refer these kinds of considered family situations to a specialist counselor who would help the families involved sort out the details prior to the procedure.
The counseling goal was to explore and cover all the possibilities and make sure everyone was on the same page.
There have been unusual cases such as one where a family contracted with a carrier who became pregnant with twins, but the family would only take one child. There was also a case where the child had some kind of handicap and the family declined to accept the child from the surrogate. Also a case where the sperm donor decided he didn’t like the way the new parents handled the new baby and made a claim for the child.
I’ve been out of the field for a while, but I recall that inter-family contracts were generally frowned upon as being too emotionally complicated. That could have change- I don’t know.