Kids met gay dad’s partner on Father’s Day

By The Associated Press
06.22.2009 10:12am EDT

(Atlanta) Eric Mongerson’s kids couldn’t meet his partner of two years, much less join the couple for ice cream. His friends couldn’t cheer on the children at concerts or Little League games.

The divorced dad spent thousands of dollars fighting an unusual ban imposed by a county judge in 2007 that kept the three minors from having any contact with his gay friends or partners. 

He felt unfairly scrutinized every moment he spent with the kids, though he never was looking to make a statement. He just wanted to spend a day with his kids and his partner, Jose Sanchez – together.

This Father’s Day, he finally did.

“It’s a fairy tale ending,” he told The Associated Press after the Georgia Supreme Court overturned the ban.

The ban stemmed from the bitter divorce between Mongerson and his ex-wife, Sandy, who were married for almost 20 years and had four children. Mongerson said the marriage ended when his wife discovered he was gay in November 2005, but he would not elaborate.

The dispute played out the next few years in court, as Sandy’s attorney claimed he had several affairs with other men and subjected the kids to an array of “wholly inappropriate conduct” during a trip to Arkansas.

The arguments helped sway Fayette County Superior Court Judge Christopher Edwards to award Sandy Kay Ehlers Mongerson custody of the children. The judge also issued a blanket order banning Eric Mongerson from “exposing the children to his homosexual partners and friends.” A fourth child is an adult over 18 and had no restrictions on contact with Mongerson or his gay friends.

Edwards said in his ruling that the decision was meant to reflect “the trauma inflicted upon the children” during the Arkansas trip.

Mongerson, though, said it only made him feel like he was being targeted for coming out of the closet. For almost two years, Mongerson said he feared losing more time with his kids and walked on egg shells during their weekly four-hour visits.

He didn’t hide the fact he was gay from the kids, but they couldn’t be around his partner, Sanchez. He was afraid to invite straight friends who might be accused of being gay. And he wouldn’t dare bring his children to his place in downtown Atlanta, even though his wife once brought a boyfriend to his daughter’s concert.

“I was always afraid of the ‘What if?’” Mongerson said. “I felt isolated, alone. She could go get friends, have them watch the kids, but I could never because I was gay.”

Sanchez, fearful of somehow violating the order, would run through all sorts of scenarios.

“What if you and I are on a plane, and your kids happen to be on the plane?” he would ask incredulously. “Do I jump out?”

Mongerson, a restaurant manager who routinely works 13-hour shifts into the night, said he scrounged together more than $10,000 to challenge the judge’s decree, partly by wracking up debt on his credit cards.

In court arguments in January, attorneys Hannibal Heredia and Kimberli Reagin contended the judge had no evidence that exposing the children to Mongerson’s gay friends would damage them.

Last Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously agreed. Justice Robert Benham wrote in the scathing 10-page ruling that the trial court abused its discretion without evidence of harm to the children. He concluded it “flies in the face of our public policy that encourages divorced parents to participate in the raising of their children.”

The decision was quickly applauded by gay rights advocates who say the judge’s order was rooted in decades-old misconceptions about gays and lesbians. Jeff Graham of Georgia Equality called the top court’s decision a dose of “common sense and fair mindedness.”

Sandy Mongerson’s attorney, Lance McMillian, said the mother does not plan to appeal.

“My client is interested in putting it behind her,” he said. “Other than that, we don’t have anything to say about it.”

As news of the court’s ruling filtered down to Mongerson on Monday morning, he picked up the phone and called his partner. It didn’t take long to work out their schedule for Father’s Day, when they’d finally go out for that ice cream.

“I cry at commercials – he cries before commercials come on,” Sanchez said. “He’s very emotional. He said, ‘Happy Father’s Day. You get to meet my children.’”

in In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Couple back home with twins after months of legal battles

Shekhar Bhatia
08.06.09

A couple from London who spent £25,000 in a deal with an Indian surrogate mother are back home in East Ham with their three-month-old twins after a lengthy legal fight.

Chris and Susan Morrison saw their children, Louis and Freya, born seven weeks early on 1 March and spend their first weeks in intensive care while a dispute between Britain and India blew up over their nationality.

The family were forced to sit it out in hotels in the intense summer heat until the Indian government granted them exit visas.

Mr Morrison, 40, a marketing analyst, said: “It is so wonderful to be at home with our children. We have waited years for this.”

Mrs Morrison, 37, said: “I sometimes have to pinch myself to believe that I am holding my own children in my arms. We have been to hell and back, but it has been well worth it.”

The couple were forced into using surrogacy because Mrs Morrison, a former teacher, suffers from a rare blood disorder which caused her to miscarry. Britain does not allow commercial surrogacy and there is a shortage of volunteers.

Louis and Freya were born to Vimla, a 24-year-old Gujarati housewife who was paid £8,000 by the Morrisons in a deal arranged by a clinic in the city of Anand.

They spent another £17,000 in their efforts, including hospital fees. But the UK regarded the twins as Vimla’s children, while India recognised them as the Morrisons’.

The couple had to apply for British passports then Indian exit visas and it took weeks to sort out details while they were stuck in Jaipur and Mumbai.

Mrs Morrison said: “I am just so glad we are home in London as a family. Our prayers have been answered. The twins have caused a great deal of excitement among family and friends.”

The Morrisons are advising childless couples on what can be and emotional and legal rollercoaster.

Mr Morrison said: “We are happy to help because we know how terrible it is to not have any real prospects of becoming parents. There are many people desperate for a baby of their own.”

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Georgia Passes Nation’s First Embryo Adoption Law


TheVoiceMagazine.com, June By Daniel Becker

ATLANTA — By a vote of 108 to 61, the Georgia House sent the nation’s first ever embryo adoption bill, HB 388, to the desk of Governor Sonny Perdue for him to sign into law.

“We are pleased that we are making headway in our goal of establishing personhood for the pre-born” says Daniel Becker, President of Georgia Right to Life. “Gone are the terms designating the human child at an embryonic stage as property … devoid of rights.” says Becker.

The language of the bill stops short of declaring full personhood for the child but does introduce new terms that acknowledge for the first time that an embryo has “rights and responsibilities” that are owed to it under Georgia law. “Legal embryo custodian” replaces “embryo donor” throughout Georgia’s new code sections dealing with embryo adoption. No longer is an embryo described as being “donated” by its genetic parent.

“Gametes, cars, old clothes and other property are ‘donated'” says the bill’s author, House Rep. James Mills, “not children … they are adopted.”

It also clarifies that an embryo’s life begins “at a single-celled” stage. “This is an important distinction as we see the medical community attempt to lessen the personhood of an embryo by re-defining a zygote to be a ‘pre-embryo'” says Becker.

“Estimates are that over 40,000 cryo-preserved human embryos are abiding in concentration cans in our state,” says Becker, “this will allow them an opportunity to have a birthday.”

It is also possible that a Federal Adoption Tax Credit will now be available to parents to offset the legal costs of adoption. The limit under IRS guidelines is $11,500.

“We look forward next year to the passage of a companion bill, SB169, the Ethical Treatment of Human Embryos. This would effectively ban therapeutic and reproductive cloning, destructive embryonic stem cell research and human/animal hybrids.” says Becker. The Georgia Senate had passed SB 169 by a vote of 34 to 22.

Other pro-life initiatives passed this session include Senate Resolution 328, “that the members of this body recognize that the right to life is paramount and the need for protection of the lives of the innocent at every stage.”

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Colorado gay couples OK’d to adopt. New legislation allows joint adoption of children by unmarried couples.

Tue, 05/15/2007 – 9:36am by Community Editor @ ProudParenting.com

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter recently signed legislation that allows same-sex couples to adopt.

The Colorado Springs Gazette.com reports that House Bill 1330 by Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, allows the joint adoption of children by unmarried couples, including gays and lesbians, unmarried heterosexual partners and relatives seeking to help single mothers.

Colorado becomes the 10th state in the country to allow such second-parent adoption.

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Raising Kids in a Same-Sex Marriage

Washington Post Blogs – June 2009

Lisa Miller

First comes love, then comes marriage. Then come all the thorny issues that arise with raising kids in a religious tradition when that religious tradition doesn’t see you as married.

When another state legalizes gay marriage, as New Hampshire did recently, civil-rights activists cheer. But practicalities are another matter, and same-sex couples–especially those who want to raise their children with religion–may find that the laws intended to protect them may also create new domestic challenges previously unforeseen. That two men or two women would want to marry and raise children in a church that views their love as sinful would be, in the eyes of some, puzzling at best. (I’m focusing on the Roman Catholic tradition here, but any orthodox religion presents similar trials.) Many people feel that religion is essential to them, however, and that family life would be emptier without it. Gregory Macguire, author of the novel Wicked, has had all three of his children baptized in the Catholic Church. He recently watched proudly as his youngest child had her first holy communion. “As the daughter of two dads, she sat in the first pew in her beautiful, white, borrowed gown,” Macguire told me. “And then she sang, ‘I’ve got that joy, joy, joy, down in my heart’.”

Macguire lives in Concord, Mass., and is legally married now–but wasn’t when he and his partner started adoption proceedings for each of their three children (from Southeast Asia and Latin America) more than 14 years ago. In an ironic twist, gay-marriage laws now make foreign adoption more difficult for gay couples. Adoption agencies and lawyers say no foreign countries knowingly give babies to gay couples for adoption. Same-sex couples who want to adopt internationally have traditionally circumvented this prohibition with the following fudge: one half of the couple adopts as a single person. Once back home, the couple goes to court and establishes co-parenthood in states that will allow it. A legally married gay couple doesn’t have the option of a fudge: truthful responses to questions about marital status on adoption documents crush the couple’s chances of ever adopting abroad. That’s why Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders advises couples to wait to get married. “If international adoption is important … then they need to postpone forming a legal relationship,” says Bruce Bell, who runs GLAD’s help line.

And then there’s the question of adoption agencies with traditional religious affiliations. In Britain, Catholic-run adoption agencies are in an uproar for having to comply with a 2007 law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual preference. Because the Catholic Church stands so firmly against gay marriage–and reaffirmed this opposition in a 2003 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith–any Catholic agency that helps same-sex couples adopt children is, in a sense, helping to foster a lifestyle that it believes is fundamentally immoral. (The 2003 document was explicit: allowing same-sex couples to adopt children “would actually mean doing violence to these children.”) Now, with the 20-month transition period over, the British agencies are having to choose between retaining their Catholic affiliation or their function as adoption agencies.

Lest one think this couldn’t happen here, it already has. In 2006, Catholic Charities of Boston agonized about whether it could submit to the state’s nondiscrimination policies. “What the Catholic Church has tried to say,” explains the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government who, at the time, headed Catholic Charities, “is that gay men and women ought to have their civil rights protected. I think on the whole we’ve pretty much stood for that in terms of wages, jobs, access to living accommodations … Where you meet the neuralgic point is the definition of marriage.” Hehir says that he and Boston’s Archbishop Seán O’Malley understood that the church’s teaching left no wiggle room. They shut the adoption agency down.

But there are many ways of procuring children, and once procured, the Catholic Church–on a pastoral level, at least–has had only occasional problems baptizing and educating them in the tradition. “Church law always favors the salvation of the person and is very biased in favor of the person asking for the sacrament,” says John Baldovin, a sacramental theologian at Boston College. What canon law actually says is this: any baby can be baptized if the parents agree, and if the infant has a reasonable hope of being raised in a Catholic home. The experts disagree, obviously, about whether two mommies or two daddies are able to do this. Macguire firmly believes he is, and he can imagine severing his relationship with his church over the enforcement of any hard line. What he can’t imagine is being anything but Catholic.

With Jessica Ramirez

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Long Island Pride Parade now more ‘family oriented’

Newsday.com

BY LAURA RIVERA

laura.rivera@newsday.com

10:33 PM EDT, June 14, 2009

Some grooved to the beat of pulsating house music, tossing beaded necklaces to giddy children on the sidewalk.

Others advocated for same-sex marriage, chanting, “Equality now!” and carrying banners promoting their cause.

Hundreds of marchers wound down Main Street in Huntington Sunday for the 19th annual Long Island Pride Parade, a celebration that drew more families and faith groups than divas in drag.

“We like that it’s more family-oriented,” said Lauren Malin, 26, of East Islip, who came with her partner, Angela Reteguiz, 26, and Malin’s niece Jade, 2, who is their goddaughter. “We can bring our niece and show her tolerance at an early age.”

Some 32 organizations represented diverse constituencies in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities – from churches and youth groups to service providers and gay law enforcement officers.

Five grand marshals led the parade, including the Long Island Community Fellowship, an interdenominational congregation that ministers to gays, and Outlook of Long Island, a gay publication.

Among the three individuals who also served as grand marshals were Juli Owens, who as chairwoman of the Long Island Transgender Advocacy Coalition is pushing for the passage of legislation to make transgender men and women a protected class under the law; and Bill Hahn, a board member of the Long Island Gay and Lesbian Film Festival who is active in other groups.

Like many participants and attendees, Hahn spoke of same-sex marriage as the civil rights issue of this generation. “There’s over 1,000 rights that married people get that gay union couples do not get,” he said. “It’s not a religious thing, it’s a civil thing.”

Eva Sanchez, a former parade director and longtime partner of the fifth grand marshal, who was named posthumously, has lived through that scenario.

When Rosie Sanchez was struck by a car near their Lindenhurst home last year, Eva ran to her aid and held her until she died.

When she tried to claim Rosie’s purse at the hospital, or make arrangements for her funeral, Sanchez found her word came second to Rosie’s mother’s, because the couple had not legally married.

“I went from loving partner of 22 years to stranger who needed permission every step of the way,” said Sanchez, 51. “That’s when it really hits home.”

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Homecoming

“Goodnight Jim Bob.”
“Goodnight Mary Ellen.”

“Goodnight John Boy.”
I was 10 years old when I first heard this famous TV sign-off. The television show I’m referring to, “The Waltons,” premiered in 1972 and told the sappy-sweet story of a dirt-poor family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I couldn’t help but wonder why my family wasn’t more like theirs. I didn’t have six siblings or live-in grandparents like the Waltons, but that wasn’t it. I had shoes to wear and food to eat when I was hungry, unlike the Waltons, but that wasn’t it.
Oh yeah, there weren’t any gay children on “The Waltons,” or at least none that was out.
While my understanding of my own sexuality was a layered and often painful evolution, my understanding of family was always present for me, even as a confused gay kid. I knew that my family loved me and I knew that it was the one place where I could find solace in a turbulent world. The normal fears of coming to terms with same-sex attraction certainly existed but the trepidation of losing my family’s love somehow didn’t torment me when I was young.
I know… I am the exception to the rule.
Not only have I grown into a “family awareness,” but also my husband Gary and I have helped our families to learn about love through sharing our relationship with them. The culmination was their participation in our wedding last summer in Montreal. Until recently, I thought that was as good as our families’ participation in our lives could get. I was wrong.
About four years ago, Gary started talking to our lesbian friends about helping them create their families through the gift of sperm donation. It wasn’t until we met Alicia and Leslie three years ago that our willingness to make this offer became a reality. After long discussion and really careful consideration, we decided to take the leap of faith. Now, I’m a donor dad and I couldn’t be prouder.
Our daughter Piper is now 10 months old and this past weekend, Alicia, Leslie, Gary, Piper, and I went to West Virginia to introduce Gary’s parents and my whole family to our baby. I was nervous, Xanax-nervous, about the weekend. Seventeen relatives were all converging on my mom’s house to experience something that they had never encountered before, a nontraditional family in every sense of the word.
As each member of our family met Piper, they couldn’t help but fall in love. Children have that uncanny ability to disarm people’s misconceptions or suppositions about a situation. They had all heard about what Alicia, Leslie, Gary, and I had done, but it didn’t mean anything to them until they met Piper. Holding her in their arms and seeing how much her two moms and her two dads loved her changed everything.
The initial questions like, “Who is the real mom?” and “Do you and Gary have any rights?,” turned into, “When are we going to see her again?” and “Can I feed her now?” While Gary’s family and mine have grown to respect our love for one another, they instantly loved Piper, and her moms.
Having children is something that the LGBT community hasn’t always considered an option. Establishing safety for the children and for the parents legally has been a real obstacle. Two decades ago, lesbian mothers seeking reproductive assistance to have families without fathers were forced to undergo psychiatric evaluations. The anti-equality opposition has long used children in their campaign against us, saying that gay people recruit or, worse, are uncontrollable pedophiles. As we prove them wrong, and the world gets to meet our children, those ugly false claims reveal themselves for what they are—desperate attempts to mislead.
Sitting on the porch with my brother-in-law discussing the world, I realized just how important it was to bring Piper home to meet the families. Every parent can relate to the joys, trials, heartaches, and transformations inherent in raising a child. While we will inevitably hear from our detractors that we are exploiting our children for political purposes, I now understood why sharing our families with the world is so important.
When I was 10, I thought that the Waltons were the perfect family. While sitting on my mom’s porch in the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia this past weekend, my concept of perfection changed radically. Whether your family has children or not or whether someone’s partnered or not, if love is present, it’s still family.
“Goodnight Alicia.”
“Goodnight Gary.”
“Goodnight Leslie.”
“Goodnight Piper.”

By Anthony M. Brown, Published 6.14.06, Gay City News

Anthony M. Brown served as research assistant to Nan Hunter, founder of the Gay and Lesbian Project at the ACLU and helped prepare the brief for the Lawrence v. Texas sodomy case while interning at Lambda Legal in 2002. Brown heads up Nontraditional Family and Estates Law at the law firm of McKenna, Siracusano & Chianese and is on The Wedding Party’s board. He can be reached at: Brown@msclaw.net.

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Surrogacy and Medi-Cal Insurance

Submitted by stephaniec on Thu, 06/11/2009 – ProudParenting.com

This past week I received a telephone call from a surrogate who wanted to know if it was legal for her to use her insurance for her surrogacy. She and the Intended Parent were using a contract that he found on the Internet. The surrogate seemed to think this was okay because he is attending law school so he is an attorney. I explained to her that until he passed the Bar and obtains his license, he is not an attorney. “Oh” and then “well” was her response.

She then told me that her husband is in construction so they are on Medi-Cal (the state of California’s low-income insurance plan) so they are going to have two contracts. One that states that the Surrogate is not receiving a fee, which they will send to Medi-Cal as proof that she is doing the surrogacy for no fee and then an amendment that states the fees she will be receiving. She then asked “Is that legal?”

“No. That is insurance fraud and if the insurance company that administers your plan finds out you and your family will lose your insurance, at the very least.” I then told her to hire an attorney to protect herself and that if she wants to hire me I would charge more than my going rate because a contract found off the Internet is going to require a lot of work. I also told her to not use her Medi-Cal insurance and that the Intended Parent needs to purchase her insurance to cover the surrogate pregnancy. Frankly, I think she somehow expected me to say something different.

Insurance companies are very, very serious about insurance fraud, especially regarding surrogacy. Medi-Cal insurance does not usually have a surrogacy exclusion so as long as the surrogacy is truly altruistic and there is no compensation paid to the surrogate and the insurance does not exclude a surrogate pregnancy, it is appropriate to use it. But, absolutely not in this surrogate’s case. I wish her the best of luck as I’m afraid she’s going to need it.

in Issue Forum / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Birth certificates to reflect New York state gay-marriage move

Sat, 12/13/2008 – 12:29pm by Jeff of ProudParenting.com

The AP reports that New York state officials will now let married same-sex couples list both their names on their children’s birth certificates.

The decision, which echoes similar provisions in states that allow gay marriages or civil unions, is one of many changes since Gov. David Paterson ordered state agencies in May to respect out-of-state gay marriages.

The state Health Department said Friday it had agreed to the change, which came after a lesbian couple who are expecting a baby filed a lawsuit. The change would apply statewide except in New York City, which is considering revamping its own birth certificate forms to accommodate same-sex couples.

Under state law, a woman’s husband is automatically deemed a parent of a child the pair conceives through artificial insemination, whether or not he is the genetic father. Gay couples have complained about having to jump through legal hoops to secure equivalent parental rights.

Carolyn Trzeciak and Nina Sheldon Trzeciak of Ulster County, who got married in Canada in 2006, sued last month. Nina Sheldon Trzeciak is carrying their first child, conceived through in vitro fertilization.

The couple argued they both should be designated as parents under Paterson’s directive. The governor told state agencies to make sure policies and regulations treat married same-sex couples equally, saying a recent court ruling suggests they would otherwise risk discrimination claims.

Gay couples may be able to secure a second parent’s rights through adoption. But having their names on a child’s birth certificate immediately gives both spouses such rights as nursery visits and information on the child’s medical condition, the lawsuit said.

“That gives them equal treatment,” said the Trzeciaks’ lawyer, Melissa B. Brisman of Park Ridge, N.J.

The Health Department said in a statement that it had been exploring how to apply Paterson’s directive to birth certificates for some time but arranged a quick resolution for the couple because the baby was due Friday.

Massachusetts is now the only U.S. state that allows gay marriages; California briefly did until voters banned it last month. Some other states let same-sex couples enter into civil unions that offer some of marriage’s legal advantages.

States that allow gay marriage or civil unions have made provisions for birth certificates to list both partners’ names, said Susan Sommer, senior counsel for the gay rights advocacy group Lambda Legal. It was not involved in the Trzeciak case.

While the group urges couples to cement both parents’ rights through an adoption or other court order, Sommer said getting the names of both parents on the birth certificate is a great help to the children.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal organization based in Scottsdale, Ariz., is challenging various attempts to extend spousal rights to gay couples in New York. In September, a Bronx judge threw out the group’s challenge to Paterson’s directive; the organization is appealing.

The alliance argues that only the Legislature, not the governor, has authority to recognize out-of-state gay marriages.

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Recession spurs egg and sperm donations

Giving provides extra income

By Bella English, Boston Globe Staff  |  April 7, 2009

Charitable donations may be down because of the recession, but another type of donation is up for the very same reason: egg and sperm.

More women are trying to make money by offering their eggs to infertile couples, and men are doing the same with their sperm. Egg donor agencies in the Boston area report that their applications are up from between 25 and 100 percent over this time a year ago, and New England sperm banks have seen a similiar trend in the past six months.

“What we’ve seen is that the economy seems to have inspired more people to look at alternative ways to earning money,” said Sanford M. Benardo, president of Northeast Assisted Fertility Group, a company that recruits, screens, and matches women who want to become egg donors or surrogate mothers. “We’re seeing people who might not otherwise do this but for their economic condition.”

At Benardo’s agency, which has offices in Boston and New York, applications from women who want to offer their eggs have doubled in the past year, with the bulk coming in the past six months. If a woman meets the agency’s criteria, she earns $10,000 every time she donates. (Technically, the women are compensated for their time and inconvenience; it is illegal to sell one’s eggs.)

But there’s a paradox: At the same time donor applications are up, demand for donors is down.

“Fewer folks are in a financial position to access this family-building option,” said Amy Demma, founder of Prospective Families, an egg donation agency in Wellesley. “So while there are certainly more women [donors] lined up outside the clinic door with application in hand, there aren’t more getting through the door.”

Said Benardo: “It’s almost like an employment agency flooded with resumes but people aren’t hiring so much.”

Couples, and some single women, pay $20,000 to $30,000 for an egg donation, in vitro fertilization, and transfer to the recipient. Donors generally must be healthy nonsmokers between ages 21 and 32 with a good family health history, “reasonably educated and reasonably attractive,” Benardo said. Screening involves physical, psychological, and genetic testing. If accepted, the woman undergoes hormone injections, then a surgical procedure to remove her eggs. Fees paid to the donor generally range from $5,000 to $10,000. Recipients choose prescreened donors.

“This is not easy money,” said Kathy Benardo, the egg donor program manager for the company she runs with her husband. “You can’t make a living doing this, but it helps supplement your income if you’re doing part-time work or in graduate school.”

Hollyn Robinson did three donations last year and has another coming up in May. Her first was done through an agency in Springfield, which paid her $5,000. Her second and third were through a New York agency, which paid her $5,500 and $6,000, respectively. For her next one, she is going through Prospective Families in Wellesley, which will pay her $6,000. The money, she said, will go toward car payments and bedroom furniture for her children.

Robinson, who lives in Binghamton, N.Y., but plans to relocate to Westborough with her family, has three sons, ages 12, 6, and 3. For her, money was a motivator but not the only one. “This last year it definitely took a toll on my body,” said Robinson, 32. “I’m the kind of person who really doesn’t want to say no.”

Demma’s agency has seen a 30 percent increase in donor applications in the past year. Some are stay-at-home mothers, some are young women who want to help finance graduate school. But she said there’s also an altruistic motive, with fertile women wanting to enter into “collaborative reproduction” with those who have been unable to have a baby.

Ellen Sarasohn Glazer, a Newton social worker and author of “Having Your Baby Through Egg Donation,” cautions donors against doing it solely for the money.

“There’s a much greater risk of looking back with regret,” she said. “They should really pause at the starting point and say, ‘How might I feel 10 or 15 years from now? How will my parents feel, because this is their grandchild?’ ”

Still, Glazer says she understands that in a recession, a mother with children to feed may be more motivated to donate: “She might say it’s worth it to feed my children and help a family at the same time.”

The Donor Source, which is based in Irvine, Calif., and has a Boston office, has experienced a 25 percent increase in applications in the past year, with most coming in the past six months. The local office recently held a seminar for prospective donors.

“I usually do seminars at the office, but we’ve had so many applications that I actually rented a big space in a hotel,” said Sheryl Steinberg, the Massachusetts case manager.

In Charlestown, NEEDS (National Exchange for Egg Donation and Surrogacy) also reports a 25 percent increase. “Very few of them will say just straight out it’s for the money,” said NEEDS manager Jan Lee. “They don’t want to sound like a money-grabber. We ask them if they’re applying because they need the money or out of the goodness of their heart, and they say both.”

At Tufts Medical Center, Dr. John Buster, chief of reproductive endocrinology, said the donor agencies that his department uses for infertile couples have reported a doubling and even tripling of phone calls from potential donors.

Dr. Vito Cardone, founder of Cardone Reproductive Medicine & Infertility, a fertility clinic in Stoneham, said the weak economy undoubtedly has broadened the pool of egg donors. One prospective recipient, who has advertised for donors, told him that a few months ago she had few replies but now has many.

Cardone cautions against women seeing this as a gold mine.

“The money that’s given is limited; it’s not going to be something to create a yearly revenue to get them through life,” he said.

He believes in compensating women for their time and trouble but said there needs to be “some ethics to it” – both an altruistic motive and a monetary limit.

“When I see people who want to ‘sell’ their eggs for $20,000 or more it makes no sense, because then it becomes commercial, like selling any other thing,” he said. “There has to be a little bit of kindness, because these couples have had a lot of hardship and desire a child very strongly.”

But economic reality remains a major motivator. One single, 24-year-old woman who lives in New York and works in advertising recently applied to be an egg donor, after a friend did so. The woman, who asked not to be identified because she doesn’t want friends and relatives to know her plans, said she is amazed at the money to be made.

“It made me sit up and take notice,” she said. “I’m looking to go to graduate school and hoping to use this to help finance that.”

Sperm donations are also on the increase, although they pay much less – an average of $85 to $100 per donation. Such “banks” generally require that the donor be at least 5-foot-8, a college student or graduate between the ages of 18 and 38, and in good health.

California Cryobank, which has offices in Cambridge, recruits largely on college campuses and asks each donor for a year’s commitment, with the average donor contributing 2-3 times a week.

In the past six months, applications are up 20 percent, said Scott Brown, communications manager. “I think the recession has certainly opened up interest,” he said. But less than 1 percent of applicants are chosen, based on family history, a physical exam, and analyses of blood, urine, and semen. “It’s tougher to get into the Cryobank than into Harvard,” Brown said.

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