Surrogacy a Booming Business in India
BY
ADRIANA JANOVICH
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC
DELHI — After two miscarriages and six
unsuccessful rounds of fertility treatments, Adela Ramirez Fryhover would do
anything to have a baby, including hiring someone else to carry it for her.
"I want to become a mother so bad,"
says Fryhover, an American who moved from Miami to Delhi for her husband’s job
with Nokia, the phone company. "The ultimate goal (in life) is to have a
child, to experience motherhood."
The desire consumes her. Fryhover says she
thinks about it all the time: "This is what you wake up to, and this is
what you go to sleep with."
She’s hoping Wyzax Surrogacy Consultants, part
of a relatively new but booming commercial surrogacy industry in India, will
help.
Surrogacy is a reproductive technique in which a
woman agrees to carry a pregnancy for someone else after being implanted with
an embryo. The practice was legalized in India in 2002 and, in the last three
years, has been the subject of at least two documentary films: 2009’s
"Google Baby" and 2010’s "Made in India." This spring,
Adrienne Arieff, a public relations executive from San Francisco, published
"The Sacred Thread: A True Story of Becoming a Mother and Finding a Family
— Half a World Away," documenting her journey to motherhood via India’s
commercial surrogacy industry.
Among the changes in the industry during the
past decade are rising costs. But commercial surrogacy remains cheaper in India
than in most countries, including the United States. India began implementing
free-market policies in 1991. Commercial surrogacy was legalized 11 years
later, part of a long-term campaign to boost medical tourism. Patients began
arriving from around the world — Europe, Australia, the United States and
Middle East, particularly Israel.
The practice remains unregulated. In fact, in
India, it’s easier for foreign clients to have a baby via surrogacy than adoption,
an option Fryhover also explored but backed away from because of all the
strings attached.
A year and a half ago, after losing a baby in
the third month of pregnancy, Fryhover, a 39-year-old yoga instructor, and her
husband Rex, 35, took a break from trying to conceive. A fertility specialist
referred her to Wyzax, and that’s where she found herself in mid-March, three
weeks before she and her husband were slated to move to Dubai, a three-hour
plane ride from Delhi.
Wyzax, located on the sixth floor of Vishwadeep
Tower, a beige, concrete block of a building in West Delhi, bills itself as a
"one-stop shop" for "the entire surrogacy process."
A tiny pair of metallic feet — resembling those
of a newborn or the popular mark often seen on steamed glass inside a car
window with the side of a fist and finger-tip stamps for toes — is affixed to
the floor outside the entrance. They represent Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of
courage, fortune and fertility.
"You put them in front
of the door as a sign for her to bring you prosperity and wealth,"
Fryhover explains.
Surrogacy in India is rapidly growing,
particularly among non-resident Indians and foreign clients, like Fryhover.
According to industry experts, that growth is expected to continue.
"It’s a new area, with a lot of clients
coming from abroad, all over the world," says Sunil Agrawal, a Delhi-based
lawyer who’s worked on surrogacy cases for the last four years. "There is
a lot of potential in this business."
The medical tourism industry in India, including
surrogacy, is projected to bring in $2.3 billion this year. Commercial
surrogacy alone is valued at an estimated $450 million.
However, because of the lack of regulation, many
argue the potential for exploitation, extortion and corruption is also growing.
The most vulnerable people in the process sit on
each end: the poor, low-caste women who want to better the lives of the
children they already have by carrying one or more for another, and the women
and men who desperately want to parent a child. Both sides face the
commercialization of their needs and bodies. Meantime, those in the middle —
clinics and agencies, doctors and lawyers, bookended by vulnerable
populations — stand to make a lot of money.
Fryhover says she’s aware of the risks. She’s
done research online. That’s why — after meeting privately with Wyzax director
Jagatjeet Singh for about 20 minutes to review her medical records and talk
about options — she wants to see where and how the surrogates live. She wants
to meet the women and decide whether they seem happy. And she has mixed
emotions: "I’m excited. I have anxiety. I’m very emotional."
She and her husband celebrated their fourth
wedding anniversary in June. They have been trying to conceive for five years,
a year longer than they have been married. In all, Fryhover says, they have
also spent about $10,000 on fertility treatments. She still doesn’t know what’s
wrong.
"I don’t have diabetes. I don’t have high
blood pressure," she says, adding she doesn’t smoke or drink and abstains
from caffeine — "no Coke or coffee." But, she says, "I got
married late."
Now, she’s on the verge of "one of the most
important decisions that my husband and I have to make in our lives. You’re
talking about a human being. If we find a good, healthy surrogate, we will be
forever grateful to her."
Prices for commercial surrogacy in India have
been going up, from about $15,000 to $20,000 as little as two years ago to more
than $25,000 now. But that compares to as much as $70,000 to $100,000 or more
in America, where surrogacy laws vary state to state. Some expressly forbid it.
Many side heavily with the surrogate.
At Wyzax, the basic surrogacy package costs
about $26,500, paid in five installments. Surrogates, Singh says, are paid 3.5
lakhs, or about $7,000. They come from different religious backgrounds — mostly
Hindu and Muslim — as well as different parts of India. Most learn of surrogacy
through word-of mouth. And they’re not interested in it for altruistic reasons.
"The money is the only driving force,"
Singh says. "All of them or most of them are poor, low-caste women."
A Catholic, Fryhover says she sees them as
"blessings."
Unlike most intended parents from India,
Fryhover isn’t concerned about the surrogates’ religion or caste: "I don’t
believe in caste. I don’t like to differentiate people. To me, people are
people."
She gets to meet five surrogates, dressed in
colorful salwar kameez — turquoise, red, green, gold and orange. They
share a three-room apartment in West Delhi, a 10-minute drive through a maze of
thoroughfares and narrow dirt roads from the agency’s headquarters. Inderpreet
Kaur, manager of corporate affairs for Wyzax, guides Fryhover and her driver to
the location, then acts as an interpreter. She tells Fryhover two surrogates are
pregnant.
The uncluttered, second-floor apartment where
they live is made up of a main room and two bedrooms. When Fryhover arrives,
the surrogates gather, sitting on two of the three beds in one of the rooms or
standing in the doorway. None speak English. Kaur translates, providing only
surrogates’ first names.
Right away, Fryhover expresses concern about
their beds, which appear to consist of plywood boards, covered with a thin
layer of bedding. She asks if she can bring a softer mattress.
"I’m thinking these are brick beds,"
she says. "I would feel better if I knew they were comfortable."
Through Kaur, the youngest surrogate in the
house, 23-year-old Rajima, one of the two who are pregnant, says, "I’m
happy here."
Rajima lives in the apartment with her 2-year-old
daughter. According to Kaur, she is from North Delhi, and her husband
"sells old things." She’s three months pregnant with twins for a
European couple.
Fryhover — wearing black yoga pants and a gray,
hooded knit top with sunglasses atop her head — is trying to understand their
world and somehow bridge the gap between them, the women at both ends of a
business that commercializes their deepest desires and bodies.
She has more questions: How’s her pregnancy
going? (Well.) Does she have morning sickness? (No.) How long will she stay
here? (About nine and a half months.) How often does she get to see her
husband? (Weekends, usually.) Why is she doing this?
"I’m poor," Rajima says through Kaur,
adding she wants to provide for her own daughter.
That’s why they are all doing it, Kaur says.
Fryhover has more questions: What foods do the
surrogates eat? (Mostly vegetarian.) Are they vegetarians? (Not strictly, but
some don’t eat beef or pork, for religious reasons.) Is there anything they
need?
The surrogates seem to have few personal
belongings.
"She’s saying, ‘We don’t require
anything. We won’t ask anything,’" Kaur says, translating for 26-year-old
Sadhna, a surrogate who has two boys of her own, ages 10 and 3, and is one
month pregnant.
Fryhover takes notes, writing down the names and
ages of the surrogates, how many children each has, how old they are.
Nazma, 28, has three children, ages 9, 6 and 3½.
Her husband is unemployed. She is not pregnant. Through Kaur, she tells
Fryhover she would like to carry her child. She also says, "If I had the
money, obviously I wouldn’t do it."
Kaur says all the surrogates agree. She also
says, "All would do it again."
Translating for Nazma, Kaur says: "She’s
saying surrogacy is not a bad thing: I’m getting money, and the other person is
getting a child. She says I’m doing it for your happiness. I’m doing it for
money, but I want to see happiness on your face."
Clinics and agencies like Wyzax have financial
reasons to safeguard the viability of a fetus. But there are no legal mandates
for surrogates’ follow-up care or protocols should something go wrong. There
are only guidelines.
"Right now, we are trying to take care of
it by putting the names of nominees in the contract," says Agrawal, the
lawyer, adding he wants to see the proposed legislation passed. Once surrogacy
is regulated, "My thinking is more people will come to India for
surrogacy. It’s cheaper here."
Numbers of surrogate births in India are on the
rise, according to industry experts. The exact figure, however, is difficult to
pin down. Reporting those statistics remains voluntary. There are no official
numbers.
"It’s a very closed circuit kind of
system," Singh says. "No one in the specific (surrogacy) centers
reveals their exact numbers."
Started as a pharmaceutical company about 10
years ago, Wyzax shifted its focus to surrogacy in 2010. Since then, Singh
says, the company has facilitated 22 successful surrogate births.
"We really feel proud of what we are
doing," says Singh, who — like Agrawal — is in favor of the proposed
legislation. He also says his agency adheres to the guidelines.
"We want to be as transparent as
possible," Singh says. "We want to organize the system. There are
lots of loopholes."
Wyzax requires surrogates to live in residential
surrogacy homes for "better monitoring." Often, he says, the
facilities are nicer than surrogates’ own homes.
Wyzax maintains a database of 60 to 80
surrogates. All are married and have at least one child of their own, Singh
says. Young children are permitted to live with their mothers in the surrogacy
home. Husbands are allowed to visit.
"We are really wanting to make it work,
especially for the surrogate mothers who are presenting themselves and their
bodies for this cause," Singh says.
Most foreign clients visit at least twice, three
times if they are able to come in the middle of the pregnancy to "see the
baby bump," Singh says. Most — some 65 percent — use egg donors, many of
whom come from former Soviet bloc countries of Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan
and Belarus.
When Fryhover eventually settles on a surrogate,
through a different agency in Mumbai, she will use her own, previously frozen
eggs and her husband’s sperm.
As she leaves the surrogates’ apartment, several
of the women join her, waiting in the dirt road until Fryhover’s driver
arrives. Rajima and Nazma ask to pose in a photo with her. As they stand
together, Fryhover asks Rajima if she can feel her baby bump.
With her hand on Rajima’s stomach, in a language
the surrogate doesn’t understand, Fryhover whispers three words to the young
pregnant woman: "You’re so lucky."
• Yakima Herald-Reporter
Adriana Janovich traveled to India in March through the Annenberg School for
Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California to report
on caste and religion in New Delhi.
