Now, grandma to the rescue of childless couples
Published: June 6, 2005
And you thought surrogate motherhood was rare? After a grandmother in Anand bore her grandchild, doctors in Gujarat are surprised by families choosing this option to bring a smile on the faces of childless couples.
In what could be a lesson for squabbling women of prime time soaps, the state has come up with several instances of a jethani bearing her devrani’s child and an aunt bearing that of a niece.
Infertility experts say the state is witness to a changed social scenario where women in the family are willingly coming forward to help childless couples by undergoing the complex In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) and bearing babies through surrogacy.
“Those days of childless couples suffering in isolation, desperately looking for hired surrogate mothers are almost over. Ninety per cent of the surrogacy cases now happen within the family,”says IVF expert Himanshu Bavishi, who treated at least five women who have relatives as surrogates.
So, if a grandmother in Anand brought joy in her family by bearing her daughter’s child, a 56-year-old woman in Ahmedabad has just delivered her niece’s son. “She is like god to me. She just wanted to see me happy,”says Ankita Shah, whose son is six months old now. Doctors had advised her surrogacy after all infertility cure medicines failed for 11 years. Her aunt was only too willing to help.
Surrogacy is an advanced form of infertility treatment where the egg and sperm of the childless couple is artificially fertilised in the laboratory. The embryo is transferred into the womb of a surrogate mother who then carries it for nine months and delivers the child. Experts say with the waiting list for professional surrogate mothers running up to almost five years despite childless couples willing to pay anything between Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh, family members’ readiness to bear children for their kin has come as a boon.
It has indeed been a boon for Rakshita Soni, a resident of Vasna, whose sister-in-law, Preeti, volunteered to bear her child. And, Preeti has not had her own child yet.
“I have got a host of problems like ovarian cyst and endometriosis and have not been able to conceive. I underwent IVF four times and even suffered a miscarriage. My desperation moved my sister-in-law who agreed to help,”says Rakshita.
Preeti is now four months pregnant with Rakshita’s child. “Families have come a long way in accepting and dealing with infertility. Earlier, couples would hide their condition from family members. Today, we treat so many cases where family members are going out of their way to help these couples,”says Naina Patel, IVF expert in Anand who oversaw the now famous ‘grandmother-delivering-grandchild’ case. Patel says even friends are volunteering to help childless pals. (Names of patients changed to protect identity)
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