Surrogacy families headed by gay men: relationships with surrogates and egg donors, fathers’ decisions over disclosure and children’s views on their surrogacy origins

Carone, Nicola; Baiocco, Roberto; Manzi, Demetria; Antoniucci, Chiara; Caricato, Victoria; Pagliarulo, Eugenio; Lingiardi, Vittorio

doi:10.1093/humrep/dex362

Cited by 54 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…9,10 In general, the participants had not been met with hostility or questioning that had affected their experiences of parenthood. This is in line with previous results indicating that heterosexual parents 17 Overall, the present findings are in line with previous results of both heterosexual parent 7 and gay father families, 20,21 where almost all parents had started telling the child about the surrogacy or planned to do so when the child was older. 17 However, parents following surrogacy have been found to be less open about the use of donor gametes 7 or about which of the fathers contributed his sperm, which supports the notion that there are layers of disclosure among donorconceiving families.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 94%

Cross‐border surrogacy: Experiences of heterosexual and gay parents in Sweden

Sydsjö

Svanberg

Lampic

2018

Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 94%

Cross‐border surrogacy: Experiences of heterosexual and gay parents in Sweden

Sydsjö

Svanberg

Lampic

2018

Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand

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“…Careaga (2011) claimed that in Mexico the majority of LG individuals with children, became parents in the context of a previous heterosexual relationship which is consistent with the existing international research (e.g., Patterson and Tornello, 2010 ; Tornello and Patterson, 2015 ). However, “a generational change in timing and pathways to parenthood is taking place” ( Tornello and Patterson, 2015 , p. 44), because younger LG individuals are having children after coming out, through sperm donation ( Lingiardi et al, 2016 ), surrogacy ( Blake et al, 2017 ; Carone et al, 2017 , 2018 ), adoption ( Goldberg, 2012 ), informal adoptions ( Amazonas et al, 2013 ), step parenting and co-parenting ( Tornello and Patterson, 2015 ; Carneiro et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Children Have Ordinary Expectable Caregiving Environments in Unconventional Contexts? Quality of Care Organization in Three Mexican Same-Sex Planned Families

et al. 2018

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The aim of this research was to explore the elements that configure the quality of care among three Mexican same-sex planned families: two female-parented families (through donor insemination) and a male-parented one (through adoption). The first family consisted of two mothers and a 3-year-old daughter; the second one had two mothers and a 1.5-year-old set of boy twins and the third family consisted of two fathers and a 2-year-old girl. It was assumed that Ainsworth’s notions of quality of care organization are useful in order to understand caregiver–child attachment relationships, regardless of the parents’ sexual orientation. A collective case study was selected due to the fact that these families shared their “unconventionality” (i.e., parents were not heterosexual) and the fact that they were planned, but each one constituted a particular case with a unique configuration. Four trained independent observers used the q-sort methodology (Maternal Behavior Q-Sort and Attachment Q-Sort) to describe parents’ and children’s behavior, respectively. The findings showed that parents were highly sensitive and all children used them as a secure base. To provide an in-depth examination of which elements configure the quality of care, a semi-structured interview with each parent was carried out. Through a thematic analysis, an over-arching theme named Affections and Emotions was identified, together with six subthemes: (1) Creating an affective environment; (2) Being available; (3) Acknowledging and expressing emotions; (4) Perceiving, interpreting and responding adequately to the child’s real self; (5) Taking the child’s perspective into account; and (6) Agreeing on roles and dividing the tasks. In order to showcase the particular configuration of gay parenting, the male-headed family narrative is reported in detail, because gay parents have been perceived as violating traditional gender roles as well as the hegemonic model of masculinity. The findings were consistent with the notion of quality of care as proposed by Ainsworth and her collaborators. The implications of the methodological device and research regarding same-sex planned families are discussed so as to understand the organization of the caregiving environment.

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“…In turn, surrogates are integrated into an "elaborate web of procreative, father, and family identities" (Berkowitz & Marsiglio, 2007, p. 378). Recent scholarship has shown that the majority of gay men perceive their surrogacy relationships, from prepregnancy through to postbirth, as harmonious (Blake et al, 2016;Carone et al, 2017, Carone et al, 2018. Gay fathers have ongoing relationships with their surrogates, describing surrogates as extended family members and friends.…”

Section: Surrogacy Relationshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Men and a Surrogate: A Qualitative Study of Surrogacy Relationships in Canada

Fantus

2020

Family Relations

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ObjectiveTo retrospectively explore how gay fathers and gestational surrogates in Canada perceived their relationship at three distinct time points: prepregnancy, during pregnancy, and postbirth.BackgroundCanada has witnessed an increased number of gay men seeking fatherhood through surrogacy. However, there is limited empirical research on the experiences and perspectives of surrogacy for gay men, both in Canada and worldwide.MethodQualitative in‐depth interviews (∼60–120 minutes) were conducted with (a) gestational surrogates implanted with one or more embryos from a donated egg and gay fathers' sperm, (b) gay men who pursued gestational surrogacy to have a biological child, and (c) single or partnered gay men and their paired surrogate. Participants who agreed to participate, who were willing to contact their third party, and whose matched party agreed resulted in a surrogate triad in which the intended parents and surrogate all participated. Interviews (n = 21) were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis.ResultsFindings from the present study draw attention to the intricacies of surrogacy relationships and demonstrate the variability of how gay men and surrogates identify and address their procreative roles and responsibilities through pregnancy and postbirth.ConclusionParticipant narratives challenge heteronormative experiences of pregnancy and childbirth, extending the two‐parent family paradigm to include families of choice and a close network of individuals and communities.ImplicationsAllied health professionals ought to provide competent, inclusive care that actively confronts a priori biases and assumptions regarding same‐sex parent families and surrogacy.

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Surrogacy families headed by gay men: relationships with surrogates and egg donors, fathers’ decisions over disclosure and children’s views on their surrogacy origins

Abstract: Support was obtained from a Sapienza Starting Grant for Research to the first author (grant number AR11715C77EB56B2). None of the authors has any conflict of interest.

Cited by 54 publications

References 18 publications

Cross‐border surrogacy: Experiences of heterosexual and gay parents in Sweden

Cross‐border surrogacy: Experiences of heterosexual and gay parents in Sweden

Can Children Have Ordinary Expectable Caregiving Environments in Unconventional Contexts? Quality of Care Organization in Three Mexican Same-Sex Planned Families

Two Men and a Surrogate: A Qualitative Study of Surrogacy Relationships in Canada

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