>> Gay couple to have 3 babies by 3 mums
Daryl Lee, 41 ans, et Like Harris, 50 ans, habitants du Surrey (Grande-Bretagne), sont en couple depuis leur rencontre sur un site web en 1999 et ont signé un partenariat civil (l’équivalent du PACS) en 2002.
Après avoir longtemps souhaité adopter des enfants, ils se sont tournés vers la solution des mères porteuses en 2010, inspirés par la naissance de Zachary, l’enfant issu d’une GPA voulu par Elton John et son compagnon David Furnish.
De nombreuses consultations de forums et de sites spécialisés leur ont permis d’entrer en relation avec une jeune femme nommée Becky Harris, mais celle-ci était déjà en train de mener une GPA (sa troisième) pour un autre couple.
Becky Harris a alors orienté le couple vers sa propre ex-belle-soeur Bex Harris. Cette dernière, pour plus de sécurité, l’a également mis en relation avec une troisième femme, Viktoria Ellis.
Bex et Victoria sont rapidement tombées enceintes, puis ce fut le tour de Becky, juste après sa dernière grossesse, qui avait décidé de réaliser une quatrième GPA pour ce couple.
« C’est formidable de pouvoir aider des couples à devenir parents »
Les deux hommes s’apprêtent aujourd’hui a accueillir trois enfants entre janvier et juillet 2015, même s’ils conviennent que la situation n’est pas « orthodoxe ». Daryl Lee sera le père biologique de deux d’entre eux tandis que Luke Harris a donné son sperme pour le troisième, rapporte la presse britannique.
>> A gay couple are to become parents to three children by three women they met via surrogacy websites.
For the past 15 years, Daryl Lee, 41, and Luke Harris, 50, had longed to have children and joined a number of online forums in an attempt to find a suitable surrogate.
They made contact with one of the women, Becky Harris, 27, and through her met Bex Harris, 32, and Viktoria Ellis, 32.
The couple had always dreamed of having a large family, but were shocked to find that this would happen sooner then they expected when all three women, who live in Suffolk, became pregnant.
Mr Lee, 41, is the biological father of two of the children, while Mr Harris, 50, gave his sperm for the third. All three babies will be born within seven months of each other, between January and July next year.
‘We love each other very much, but despite that it has felt like something was missing from our lives – our home felt empty without children,’ Mr Harris told The Sun’s Sarah Arnold.
‘We never imagined in our wildest dreams we would have three all at once.’
Mr Lee and Mr Harris, who live in Surrey, had met online in 1999, and entered into a civil partnership in 2012.
They had considered adopting a child, but decided to try surrogacy after learning that singer Elton John and his partner David Furnish had a child, Zachary, by a surrogate mother in December 2010. Their second son, Elijah, was born via the same woman in January 2013.
Gay couples using a surrogate to have a child have only been able to apply for a parental order, giving them the legal rights over the child and relinquishing those of the surrogate since April 2010.
Mr Harris and Mr Lee met Becky Harris, but she was already helping another couple and was pregnant with her third surrogate child, so put them in touch with her former sister-in-law, Bex.
She in turn introduced them to her friend Miss Ellis, and both became pregnant, before Becky, having given birth to the other couple’s baby, decided she would help them too.
‘I absolutely love being pregnant,’ Becky said. ‘And that inspiration from Bex, wanting to help somebody – it’s so strong.’
Speaking about how her body reacted when having to hand the child over to its intended parents, she added: ‘Your body does wake up thinking it’s used to being pregnant and so it thinks there is a baby coming soon so your body does tell you to get up in the night.’
Bex said it was seeing the joy on the faces of the intended parents when she hands over the babies that makes her want to be a surrogate, and that the feeling was addictive.
She had wanted to become a surrogate since she was just 11 years old, after a friend of the family struggled to conceive.
She said: ‘It was just always there [the need to help], growing up seeing that it was really hard to watch even as a kid. You just really wanted to help in some way.’
She added: Your body recovers a bit quicker because your not getting up in the night or to feed, you can recover a lot quicker so within a week I didn’t look like I’d had a child.’
Surrogacy UK, a not for profit organisation which introduces surrogate mothers with intended parents said it was highly unusual for a couple to use more than one surrogate.
Trustee Sarah Jones told MailOnline:’I think this is a really extreme case and it’s not something that would normally happen.’
Ms Jones said intended parents would be recommended to use just one surrogate by Surrogacy UK, because of the trust needed between all parties, and the shortage of surrogates within the UK caused by the fact it is illegal to pay women to carry a child.
‘There is a waiting list for couples who are waiting for them,’ she said. ‘The surrogate chooses the couple, not the other way around. They go on our waiting list and they wait to be chosen.
‘They come off the waiting list while they are waiting to become pregnant, they get to know the surrogate in depth.
‘If someone wanted to work with more than one surrogate they would have to do that independently.’
Ms Jones said the number of gay couples turning to surrogacy had increased since 2010.
‘The laws changed so gay couple could apply for parental orders,’ she said.
‘Because of that law change we have seen an increase in gay couples coming to us.’
Mr Lee said: ‘While it is unorthodox to have three surrogates at the same time, we couldn’t turn down what could be our only chance to have the big family we’d always dreamed of.’
The couple say their families are happy for them, and are extending their three-bedroom home to add extra bedrooms and bathrooms to fit their brood, who they have dubbed the ‘twiplets’.
Both Mr Harris and Mr Lee plan to work part time, with one parent at home to care for the children, and Mr Lee’s parents will also move in to help them.
The mothers say they had all wanted to help Mr Harris and Mr Lee become parents.
‘None of us can think of two people more deserving of the joy of fatherhood,’ said Becky.
The women appeared on ITV’s This Morning in June to speak about surrogacy, along with their neighbour Jemma King, and Bex’s mother Karen, who has the nickname ‘Mother Stork’ and takes care of the women.
At the time of the programme, Bex, who with her mother introduced Becky to surrogacy, was already pregnant after using Mr Lee’s sperm, while Becky was pregnant with the other couple’s child, and just one week away from giving birth.
Miss Ellis was waiting to try to become pregnant.
http://www.directmatin.fr/monde/2014-11-10/un-couple-gay-va-avoir-3-enfants-de-3-gpa-en-6-mois-694448
