Indian 'mum' gifts twins to Spanish father on New Year

Juan Carlos from Alicante in Spain decided to remain unmarried due to career and other compulsions. But he could not supress his urge to be a father. After thinking over it for several years, he decided to get a child through surrogacy in India.

Now, after years of several unsuccessful attempts, he is going to be a father on January 1, 2012.

And he believes it was worth waiting because he will be a father of not one, but two children. The latest ultra-sound showed that the children are healthy weighing 2.4 and 2.9 pounds.

“It is a feeling of extra elation. No one can plan the number of kids to be born of one fertilisation. I am lucky that I will have two on the same day,” said Carlos.

With the advent of medical tourism in India which is aggressively promoted by the government too, the number of foreign nationals coming to India for surrogacy has increased by 60-70 per cent in the last eight years.

The number of successful cases ranged between 60 and 70 per cent in all the years.
Carlos also went through a difficult time. In the first one-and-a-half years in India he attempted thrice for a surrogate baby, but was unsuccessful In one instance the child had to be aborted after four months.

“I am happy that finally our collective efforts succeeded. It has been a bumpy ride for me as well,” said Dr ShivaniSachdev Kaur, Director, Isis Hospital. She will perform the C-section for Carlos’ children.

In other instances of medical tourism, cheap medical care with good facilities is quoted as the primary reason.

But in surrogacy an added reason exists.
“India is a preferred destination for surrogacy not only because of cheap facilities. Indian women usually are not into drugs and alcohol due to which the children produced of a surrogate mother here are reletively healthy,” said Dr Kaur.

The Indian Council of Medical Research issued guidelines in 2005 which allows surrogacy only in cases where no other possibility of reproduction exists.