And Surrogacy Makes 3 – In New York, a Push for Compensated Surrogacy
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS – New York Times –
A month before their baby’s due date, Brad Hoylman and David Sigal got a call from the woman they had hired to have their child.
She was having contractions; come right away.
Mr. Sigal, a filmmaker, had the more flexible schedule. So after a sleepless night, he hopped on a plane to San Diego while Mr. Hoylman stayed in New York and frantically oversaw the dusty conversion of their TV room into a nursery.
The contractions turned out to be a false alarm, but Mr. Sigal stayed. And stayed, touching up his documentary in his hotel room, going to family outings — a picnic, a cheerleading event — with the surrogate and her daughters, and calling Mr. Hoylman “every 10 minutes” with updates.
Four weeks later, the baby was induced, and Mr. Hoylman flew in for the birth.
‘The timing was perfect,” Mr. Hoylman said. “I cut the cord and David —”
“Held her,” Mr. Sigal finished the sentence.
Such is the world of gestational surrogacy, in which a woman is paid to go through the pregnancy and birth of a child who is not genetically related to her and then promises to give that child away. To anyone who has had a baby, or known someone who has, the couple’s tireless zest for reciting their daughter’s birth story will bring a knowing smile, maybe a jaded shrug. But for Mr. Sigal and Mr. Hoylman, two gay men, the birth narrative carries with it an extra frisson of the illicit that seems to them more than a little archaic and unfair in the post-marriage-equality world.
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