Devoted dad documents surrogacy journey after finding 'lack of information'

SWNS

A devoted dad has documented his journey to have a child via surrogate  after he found there was a 'lack of information' about the process.  Kevin Pittuck-Bennett and his husband, from Chelmsford, Essex, welcomed their daughter in November 2024.   The couple's surrogacy journey began on January 1, 2021, when they began investigating what avenues they could take.  Kevin, 46, has made videos explaining the surrogate process to help others and for his daughter to look back on.

Transcript

00:00The first step, if you're into surrogacy, is to find a surrogate, obviously.

00:08In England, it's different to some other countries. You cannot do it as a business.

00:13No one can profit from it.

00:15People do private arrangements quite often, what they call an independent journey,

00:20like a friend that's willing to help out, that kind of thing.

00:24It's called Surrogacy UK.

00:34Filled out the application form from Surrogacy UK for same-sex male-intended parents.

00:41Asked you a fair amount of questions, details of who you are, who your family is, why you want to be parents.

00:51We have to spend £200 on an admin fee for Surrogacy UK to go through our application.

00:57There is about a year's wait, and when we get to the top of the list, there's another £1,000 to pay.

01:05Because surrogacy in the UK, you can't do it as a business, and it can only be done as private arrangements,

01:13Surrogacy UK essentially act as a social service to put you in touch with people.

01:20And introduce you to potential surrogates.

01:24So once a year, Surrogacy UK do a big conference.

01:27And everyone from all over the country comes and they learn lots of important things.

01:32And there's a bit of a social the night before.

01:35Now I am at the hotel the night before.

01:38We've not done any kind of physical social one-on-one interaction.

01:44I'm on my own because Michael had to work tomorrow.

01:47And I'm about to go to a bar full of very, very many people.

01:57So we've got some IP training coming up, which will be over Zoom, which will be a group with other IPs.

02:03IPs being intended parents.

02:06Then we will have a one-to-one conversation with one of the founders of Surrogacy UK,

02:13just to make sure that we're all set.

02:14And at that point, we will then become proper full members.

02:17It's been accepted as full members of Surrogacy UK, which means we can now set up a profile.

02:23And can put ourselves out there for potential surrogates to look for.

02:29A couple of surrogates out there that we're chatting away with.

02:31All very lighthearted.

02:33Everyone's lovely.

02:35We don't want to scare anyone off.

02:37We've had embryos on ice ready to go for about eight months.

02:44So we needed to have a very deep conversation.

02:48Will we have a child who comes from me?

02:51Or will we have a child that comes from my husband?

02:53The first step we've decided to take is to go to a fertility specialist where we can have our seed.

03:06What do we call it?

03:09Checked.

03:10Our specimens have been checked, verified and given the all clear.

03:13And more importantly, we know whose we're going to use.

03:17So we've been on the waiting list for egg donor with our local clinic for over a year.

03:24We made the decision to go to a specialist donor agency.

03:29They found someone who is probably perfect.

03:33Height, eyes, study, interests, hair colour.

03:40We've picked someone that's kind of similar characteristics to both Michael and myself.

03:46So we said, yes, go ahead.

03:48Perfect choice, which is exciting.

03:50So now the next stage from the egg donor's perspective is to go and get various tests and checks.

03:57So our egg host is now off to be stimulated, apparently.

04:01That was grim, sorry.

04:03And so now it's up for us to hold our end of the bargain.

04:07So Javi and I are off now to redo our samples that we've done previously, but now with this new agency.

04:16So everything is all in the one place.

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