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MEDFORD Southern Oregon Surrogacy Center opens in Medford Comment By Teresa Thomas Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Teresa Thomas Mail Tribune Posted Dec. 26, 2014 at 2:00 AM Updated Dec 26, 2014 at 3:06 AM By Teresa Thomas Mail Tribune Posted Dec. 26, 2014 at 2:00 AM Updated Dec 26, 2014 at 3:06 AM » Social News While pregnant with twins, Erica Sanders would respond to people’s congratulatory remarks with “Oh, they’re not mine.” Sanders, 31, has two children of her own — a 12-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son — and wanted to help others have biological children, so, four years ago, she registered with a Portland agency to be a gestational surrogate, specifying that she wanted to carry for a same-sex, male couple. Last year, she was put in contact with a gay couple from Indiana who hired her to carry their embryos, one from each man. And in August, she gave birth to two healthy, 6½-pound, half-brothers. Both fathers were present for the birth and, three days later, returned to Indiana with their children. “I’ll miss telling people that I’m pregnant with two different men’s babies,” Sanders joked. This fall, Sanders opened the Southern Oregon Surrogacy Center in the Medical Arts Building across from Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center. Already, she has a list of eight local women, ages 25 to 38, who want to be gestational surrogates and have completed an initial screening process. “A lot of women enjoy being pregnant and really want to help people who can’t have babies, have babies,” Sanders said. “Our slogan is ‘Turning dreams into babies,’ ” she added, holding up the genie lamp that sits on her desk at the center. The surrogates must live in Oregon, have children of their own and be committed to the process, which includes weeks of injections at Oregon Reproductive Medicine in Portland prior to the transfer, also known as in vitro fertilization (IVF). But the surrogates are compensated for the toll it takes on their bodies, as well as for maternity clothes, travel expenses, legal fees, and all their related medical fees, including health insurance if they don’t already have it. At the Surrogacy Center, the biological or intended parents could pay anywhere between $80,000 and $100,000 to take home their baby or babies, including about $16,500 in agency fees, between $27,000 and $33,000 in surrogate compensation and the cost of the IVF process. But to some couples who have tried to conceive and failed, to women who have had hysterectomies or an illness that prevents them from carrying or to same-sex couples, it's an adoption alternative, Sanders said. While SOSC is the first of its kind in Southern Oregon, there are at least six other agencies in Oregon that will facilitate the gestational surrogacy process, said Robin Pope, a Beaverton attorney and member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys and American Academy of Assisted Reproductive Technology Attorneys. However, IVF is available only through Oregon Reproductive Medicine, Oregon Health and Science University and the Northwest Fertility Center in Portland and the Women's Fertility Center of Oregon in Eugene. “My practice used to be about 75 percent adoptions and 25 percent surrogacy, and now it’s flipped,” Pope said. In fact, a decade ago, 2,300 children were adopted — not including Oregon Department of Human Services adoptions — in the state of Oregon. But last year, there were only about 780 children adopted, not including DHS adoptions, in the state of Oregon, Pope said. Meanwhile, there’s been a boom in the surrogacy business, which Pope feels is partially due to medical advancements leading to a higher surrogacy success rates, fewer children to adopt because of lower teen pregnancy rates, and more gay couples coming forward and wanting to be parents. John Chally, co-director of the Northwest Surrogacy Center, LLC, located in Portland and San Francisco, said more than 50 percent of his agency’s clients are gay couples. “There are a lot of people (interested in surrogacy),” he said. “We get contacted by over 100 women every month asking to be surrogates, and we’re working with over 100 families right now, most of those are international, including many from Israel, France, Spain and China.” Chally said that more than half of the states in the U.S. allow surrogacy in one form or another. Some states, such as Washington, only allow uncompensated surrogacy contracts, in which the parents pay the expenses but not the surrogate, explained Pope. Oregon, on the other hand, has no laws regulating surrogacy. For many years, intended parents had to adopt their biological baby from the surrogate, but about seven years ago, Pope developed a new process for establishing parentage with a declaratory judgment (Oregon Revised Statutes 28.010) instead, Pope said. Sanders said the Surrogacy Center will refer its clients and surrogates to attorneys who will draft the surrogacy contract — which, according to one local lawyer, can be about 40 pages long. The whole process from match to birth can last about a year and a half, according to Sanders. But at the end of it all, there's a new, genetically related family, she said. Reach education reporter Teresa Thomas at 541-776-4497 or [email protected] . Follow her at www.twitter.com/teresathomas_mt . By Teresa Thomas Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Teresa Thomas Mail Tribune Posted Dec. 26, 2014 at 2:00 AM Updated Dec 26, 2014 at 3:06 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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