American gay couple takes possession of baby conceived by Indian surrogate mother

HYDERABAD - An American gay couple has taken possession of their baby, conceived by a surrogate mother at an infertility centre in Hyderabad.

Brad Fister had come to Hyderabad on January 25 last year and donated his sperm, which was fused with an egg donated by an Indian egg donor. The resultant embryo was then implanted in a surrogate mother. The entire procedure was carried out at a city based fertility centre.

The child was delivered by the surrogate mother on January 28 this year.

Fister expressed his excitement while holding the baby in his lap.

“It’s just overwhelming to have this beautiful little girl. It’s just absolutely overwhelming to think of like…. We are here to take of her for the rest of her life. It just makes you appreciate everything she does and to think like one day she is going to be walking and running…. it’s just unbelievable.” said Fister.

Fister also said that for getting a baby, they chose India over US as in India, the mother relinquishes her rights to the child soon after the delivery.

“The process there in US, it could have been done there but the problem is it’s the mother relinquishing her rights. The difficulty is that and that can take years to resolve. So there is always a possibility that she can come back and want to have contact with the child. We did not want that to happen, just for the emotional reasons, that I couldn’t imagine having to give my child away to someone else. That’s why we chose India because of the mother being able to relinquish her rights to the child.” Fister added.

Commercial surrogacy, which is banned in some European countries and subject to a wide spectrum of regulation in U.S. states, was legalized in India in 2002. (ANI)