A bundle of joy for childless couples

Shilpa Dhamija

Pune: A late pregnancy, a resultant miscarriage and severely damaged kidneys have shattered Anita Verma's dream of becoming a mother. Doctors have told her she will never bear a child. Friends have told her adoption is the only option. But this 33-year-old finance professional wants her own child.
Anita and her husband Saurabh Verma eventually opted for the surrogacy procedure to get their own baby, early. "If we go through this then baby will be genetically ours. Somewhere in mind it a makes difference that it will be our baby," she says.
Agrees her husband, "The only emotional difference was that we wouldn't be having our baby but the very fact that there was an option to have a baby was a positive emotion for us."
There are many such working couples like the Vermas across India opting for surrogate mothers to have a child.
In Pune alone, Dr Sunita Tandulwadkar - Chief IVF (In-Vitro Fertilisation) Consultant and Endoscopist at the Ruby Hall Clinic - has conducted 15 surrogate procedures in the last 18 months. Half of them were cases of working couples unable to conceive.
"Such couples it is very safe to induce them to take out retrieve their eggs, take sperms from spouse and take help of surrogate mother," she says.
The cost of surrogacy is high: the IVF procedure costs up to Rs 80,000 and surrogate mother can charge anything between Rs 50,000 and Rs 5 lakh. But those who have the money, feel it’s worth the cost. "I feel life is incomplete without a baby whether you adopt it or from surrogacy, whatever the method is,” says Anita.

Clinic offers hope for infertile couples

Pune, April 6: The twin facilities of having a test-tube baby at one-third the cost and no waiting period at the Ruby Hall IVF and Endoscopy Centre, has now started attracting couples from around the world. This was disclosed by Dr Sunita Tandulwadkar, chief endoscopist and head of the Ruby Hall IVF and Endoscopy Centre.
The centre recently held a get-together programme of proud parents who had benefited from the facilities at the Centre, in the form of IUI, IVF, ICSI (test tube baby). The centre recently completed one year. It provides services in all areas of treatment for infertility.
“ We have at least 15 couples in the past year who have had successful results. We have had more than 50 enquiries for IVF treatment from patients abroad. Dates have been finalised,’’ Dr Tandulwadkar added.
‘‘Couples from abroad prefer to come here for IVF treatment as we are constantly upgrading our technology, with our tie-up with the Sydney IVF centre. Also the cost of IVF treatment in India is lower and does not carry any waiting period,’’ she added.
Dr Tandulwadkar said that in some cases of couples from abroad, the husband’s semen was shipped to India and the wife reaches the centre at the time of stimulation. This avoids the husband’s visit to India and shortens the wife’s stay.
“We also offer advanced endoscopic surgeries. We have been successful in usage of surplus embryos obtained in the IVF/ ICSI cycle using our advanced Cryoplaner-10 computerised controlled freezer. These frozen embryos can be used in subsequent cycles if the first attempt fails,’’ she said.
The Cryoplaner-10 computerised controlled freezer also helps to freeze embryos of hyper-stimulated ladies who are at the high risk of early abortion and then transfer them in natural cycle resulting in increase carry-home-baby rate. ‘‘We have frozen embryos of ladies who are pregnant in the very first cycle with fresh embryos. These ladies can come back to us after two or three years as per their wish and can have another baby through frozen embryo transfer,’’ Dr Tandulwadkar said.

7-kg Tumour Removed

Pune, December 2: FORTY-YEAR-OLD Sheela (name changed) complained of abdominal pain due to multiple fibroids and reported a 10 kg loss in weight over the last six months. The multiple fibroids had increased over the last ten years and formed a large mass that made her look pregnant.
Unable to move and wanting to beget a child, Sheela agreed to go in for surgery. Surgeons in Nashik and Mumbai had refused to operate since her case was a high risk one.
Dr Sunita Tandulwadkar, chief in-vitro fertility (IVF) consultant and endoscopist at Ruby Hall Clinic finally offered her relief when after hours spent in the operation theatre, the doctors extracted a 7 kg tumour from her body.

Pregnant cause

Anuradha Mascarenhas
Posted online: Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 0000 hrs IST

Pune

When Mumbai-based Reema (name changed) found out she had cancer of the uterus, she was devastated. More than the cancer—for which she could and did have a hysterectormy—it was the news that she couldn’t have a baby that sent the 31-year-old hurtling into a severe depression. It was then that Reema’s mother decided to step in, lending not just her ears and shoulders to her grieving daughter, but also her womb. She had decided to be a surrogate mother.
Soon enough, the process was set into motion. Reema’s sister donated her ovaries, the egg was fertilised with the sperm taken from Reema’s husband and the embryo implanted in 56-year-old Reema’s mother’s womb. Now, she is 14 weeks pregnant and the family is staying in Pune till delivery under the guidance of the Ruby Hall Clinic’s in vitro fertilisation (IVF) clinic.
Reema’s is not a stray case. With infertility rates pegged at 14-15 per cent in the country and one out of 10 such couples seeking surrogacy, the trend is here to stay. Which is why an increasing number of surrogate mothers have surfaced at the 400-odd IVF centres in the country—from Mumbai, Chandigarh and Kerala to Delhi and Jammu & Kashmir—in the past couple of years.
“There is a huge demand for surrogate mothers,” agrees Dr Naina Patel of the Akanksha IVF centre in Anand, Gujarat. “We’ve had inquiries from 70 couples, of whom a sizeable chunk is foreigners, NRIs and even locals. We have assisted 35 couples so far.”
Dr Sunita Tandulwadkar, director of the IVF clinic at the Ruby Hall Clinic, who has 10 such cases with her, says that in case of medical complications, women in the family tend to help. “It’s a risk for women over 50 years who offer to be surrogate mothers for their daughters. We had to give Reema’s mother hormone treatment to repair the lining in her womb,” she says. While some couples look for volunteers within the family, almost 90 per cent seek outside help, mainly through advertisements, and sometimes with help from gynaecologists.
On the flip side, gynaecologists are worried about “cheap surrogacy” or surrogacy of convenience, and exploitation of women by NRI couples. Says Dr Kamini Rao, director of the Indian Society for Assisted Reproduction (ISAR): “Medical surrogacy is all right where the woman cannot conceive or there are other complications. But it’s thumbs down for the couples who opt for surrogacy simply because they don’t have the time to go through a full-term pregnancy.”
While most gynaecologists are drawing the line at inquiries on “hiring surrogate mothers” because career-oriented women have no time for a pregnancy, Tandulwadkar rues that the trend is catching on. She recalls a persistent NRI based in Singapore. “She was in the IT sector and unwilling to give up her career and get ‘stuck’ with a child. But the couple wanted a child, so they issued ads and employed a south Indian woman. She is now with them and four months pregnant.
“We try our best to help these couples and convince them that the mother-child bonding is essential,” says Tandulwadkar, citing the case of a 43-year-old librarian from Mumbai who didn’t want to give up her PhD for a pregnancy. “The husband is supportive and will pay anything to hire a surrogate mother,” she shrugs. In such cases, money is not a problem, with couples paying a minimum of Rs 1 lakh to the surrogate mother.