The Florissant, Missouri, couple, after years of struggling to start a family, were finally on their way. The surrogate they had found to carry their baby was pregnant. And they had deposited tens of thousands of dollars with a Houston firm to safeguard the money that would be paid to her.The Oyirifis called, but the phones were off. Social media was shut down. And payments, the couple realized, weren't being made.
For families like the Oyirifis, who were finally emerging from the physical and emotional turmoil of infertility, it feels like the ground is giving way, again.Their baby, due in November, will come home from the hospital with them. That, they know.Millions could be held upGestational surrogacy, when a woman carries a baby that she has no biological link to, is a rare but growing path to parenthood. In 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S.
SEAM is one of only about a half-dozen such “third-party reproduction” escrow firms in the United States. It draws clients from across the country and overseas. No one knows how many people are affected or when a resolution will come. Posts in the Facebook group suggest the total amount the escrow firm held could be in the millions, said Beck Wilkinson.'Ready to give up'Surrogacy is almost never a Plan A. The decision to turn to a gestational carrier often comes after years of heartache: failed fertility treatments, miscarriages, stillbirths.
The first trimester was rough on Doan, whose morning sickness stretched into the night. Every day, she had to give herself multiple shots of estrogen and progesterone. Doan will need to take off work after she delivers the baby, due on Christmas Eve, and now she is unsure of whether she will have a financial cushion to cover that. She’s picking up extra shifts at the restaurant when she can.“It is heartbreaking,” said Doan. “Someone has basically robbed us.”
They found their first potential surrogate through a Facebook group called Surrogates and IPs Match, but she ended up backing out.