Meet Ricky Martin's Twins!!!!!

Take a look at the Celebrity Twins who have graced the cover of PEOPLE magazine over the past years. The latest to join them will be Ricky Martin's Twins! The biggest difference being they are born out of Donor egg IVF & Gestational Surrogacy.

Born via surrogacy in early August, Ricky Martin's 4-month-old twin boys make their debut in this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

A joyful Martin, 36, spoke candidly with PEOPLE at home in Puerto Rico about his desire to be a parent, the decision to seek the help of a surrogate, and juggling caring for twins -- he has no nanny!

Describe this time in your life?
"I'm so happy! Everything they do, from smiling to crying, feels like a blessing. Being a father feels amazing. This has been the most spiritual moment in my life."

How hands-on are you as a father?
"I don't have a nanny. I'm doing this on my own because I don't want to miss a moment. I have a personal assistant who helps me, someone who takes care of me while I'm taking care of them, but I'm the one who changes the diapers, the one that feeds them, the one that bathes them, the one that puts them to sleep. For any parent, the first couple of months tend to get a little bit intense."

Why did you choose to become a parent via surrogate?
"Adoption was one option, but it's complicated and can take a long time. Surrogacy was an intriguing and faster option. I thought, 'I'm going to jump into this with no fear.'"

Tell us about Valentino's and Matteo's personalities?
"Valentino loves to sleep. I call him 'Mr. Peace and Love' because he's so chill and serene. Matteo is more alert and active. He was up at 3 a.m. the other night and just hanging!"

What is your philosophy on raising your sons?
"I love to read books to my sons and tell them stories. I play music for them so they develop their own personalities. I want to give them information and raise them with honesty and love, and give them self-esteem and a lot of acceptance."

No more Baby Manjis in India, draft law on Surrogacy ready

New laws to regulate assisted reproductive technology in India will be introduced to Parliament later this year. The text of the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill 2008 was published last month by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for public comment. The bill aims to regulate surrogacy arrangements in the country where regulation is lacking, in addition to other technologies including pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and research on embryos.
The bill will set up a National Advisory Board for Assisted Reproductive Technology to oversee the delivery of the services in the country. A regulatory body, the Registration Authority, will grant licences to fertility clinics to store gametes and offer fertility services. Embryo research must be performed on embryos donated for research and not stored beyond 14 days. Researchers must apply for a licence from the Registration Authority to perform research on embryos. The bill will also make it a criminal offence to perform sex-selection procedures except to prevent or treat a sex-linked disorder or disease.
Media reports last August about a baby girl, Manyi Yamada, showed inadequacies in India's regulation of surrogacy, which was legalised in 2002. Manyi was born to an Indian surrogate mother, but the Japanese couple who arranged the surrogacy split up prior to the birth of the child. The child's biological father sought parental rights over the child but Indian laws were not clear on the status of foreign parents involved in surrogacy arrangements within its borders and the matter had to be decided in the
courts. The new bill will clarify this area by making a surrogate child the legitimate child of a separated or divorced couple. Foreigners seeking surrogacy arrangements in the country will be required to register with their embassy and will have to state with whom the child should be looked after in the event of one of the parent's death. Following surrogacy, the child's birth certificate will show the names of both genetic parents. The bill also forbids women under 21 from entering into surrogacy arrangements and from having more than three live births in their lifetime. Once a surrogate child attains the age of 18, they may apply for information about their surrogate parent.
India's Health Ministry does not keep official statistics on the number of surrogate births in the country but it is believed to be low. Media reports suggest that surrogacy arrangements in India can attract surrogate fees of between $12,000 to $30,000, with the industry being worth around $445m. The bill does not ban offering surrogate mothers compensation for their services. Dr P M Bhargava, a member of the ICMR who helped draft the bill, told the Times of India that, 'considering all the news about surrogacy, including the recent case of the Japanese child, we realised that the new law addresses all the problem areas'.
The bill was timetabled to be debated by the Indian Parliament in the winter session. It met with stiff opposition from the Medical community and will be now reviewed by the Indian Law Ministry.

Conceived in Japan, Orphaned in India

She's only 11 days old, and already her fate is tied in legal knots and international complications. Her biological parents are Japanese. When her mother, Yuki Yamada, could not conceive, she chose a surrogate mother in Ahmedabad to carry her child.

The child was born on July 25 in Anand, Gujarat. But a month before that, Yuki divorced her husband, Dr Ikufumi Yamada, and disowned the child. And that, it seems, is the root of all trouble for the infant who still does not have a name.

Her father is keen to take the girl back home to Tokyo, but a law enacted 120 years ago is in the way. First, as Dr Ikufumi is only the biological father of the child, the girl's legitimacy will have to be proved. Secondly, according to the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890, a single father cannot adopt a girl child.

With so much loaded against her, the girl is now spending time at a hospital in Jaipur. A friend of Ikufumi, Kamal Vijayvargiya—a jeweller from Jaipur settled in Tokyo—was instrumental in getting the girl shifted to Arya Hospital in Jaipur. He also got Ikufumi's mother to come down and take care of the child. She's here on a three-month tourist visa.

"She (the grandmother) is very disturbed as the child cannot be taken out of the country because of adoption laws. The child's mother, Yuki, who divorced her husband and disowned the child, turned down her ex-husband's request to visit India to complete the adoption process. The grandmother becomes very emotional when she is told that the child cannot be taken out of India. The lawmakers will have to find some solution to this," said Dr Sanjay Arya, who is looking after the girl.

Ikufumi (45)—an orthopaedic surgeon attached to a Tokyo hospital—and his former wife Yuki (41) signed an agreement of surrogacy with Dr Nayanaben Patel of Akansha IVF Centre, an Ahmedabad hospital, on November 22 last year. Pritiben Mehta, wife of Brijeshbhai Mehta, also from Ahmedabad, signed an agreement to serve as the surrogate mother. The fertilization process of Yuki's eggs with Ikufumi's sperm was completed in Tokyo and the embryo was brought to Ahmedabad.

The embryo transfer was done at Dr Nayanaben's hospital on November 22 in the presence of the Japanese couple. After that, they left for Tokyo. The baby was delivered on July 25.

But by then, the Japanese couple had divorced. And after the birth, surrogate mother Pritiben stuck to the terms of the contract and left the baby and went home. If the baby, whose nationality is Indian, doesn't get an Indian passport after the adoption process is completed, she may become the country's first surrogate-orphan.

Womb Raider

A UK High Court judge ruled earlier this year that the biological father of a child born to a surrogate should be able to keep the baby. The surrogate had been in a court battle over parenthood with the man following the birth of the child in December 2005. The court's decision was handed down in July, but only made public last week, after the Court of Appeal dismissed the
woman's appeal saying that the trial judge had 'crucially' found that the woman and her husband had deliberately embarked on a path of deception.
The woman, known only as 'Mrs P', had apparently deceived the man and his wife into believing that she had miscarried the child she had conceived using the commissioning father's sperm, and agreed to carry for them. Once the commissioning father found out that this was untrue, he and his wife launched legal proceedings. The judge found that while Mr and Mrs P had been good parents to the boy, they had deliberately embarked on surrogacy with the object of adding to their own family and had never intended to hand the baby over. The little boy now lives with his biological father and his wife, known only as Mr and Mrs J.
The court heard that the surrogate had also deceived another couple previously - in that case the father did not learn that a child had actually been born until the girl was four years old. Then, the girl's biological father, who had paid Mrs P £850, decided not to apply for custody of his daughter and Mrs P was allowed to keep her. The father instead sought a court order for contact with the girl, and later made an agreement with Mrs P that his daughter would be told about him at the appropriate time and that he would be allowed to see her.
The information about the deceptions came from the woman's 19-year old daughter, who informed the surrogacy agency that the couples had gone through. The surrogate already had three children of her own but was motivated by 'a compulsive desire to bear further children', found the court. The couple's actions were evidence of a 'desperate desire to parent
more children by fair means, or failing that, foul', said the judge. Mr Justice Coleridge, hearing the case at the High Court, ruled that the surrogate should give up the boy because she had set out to deceive both couples. It was for the court to decide, based on the best interests of the child, which set of parents would be better for the boy's upbringing in the long term, he added. Recognising that surrogacy arrangements are a feature of contemporary life, he acknowledged that 'when all goes according to plan they are a way of remedying the agony of childlessness'. But he added that 'when arrangements do not go according to plan, the result, in human terms and legal terms is, putting it simply, a mess' and that 'the cost, in terms
of appalling emotional pain for the parties, is huge'.The judge also issued a warning to surrogacy agencies, saying that they
should make more stringent background checks on women putting themselves forward to become surrogates. While surrogacy is legal in the UK, agencies must operate on a not-for-profit basis and surrogates are not allowed to be paid more than 'reasonable expenses'. Notwithstanding this, arrangements are unenforceable and usually if the surrogate changes her mind she will be entitled to keep the child.