Having a baby the celebrity way

For many childless couples in the UK who need to use egg donors or indeed surrogates to have children, they can often face a long and lengthy wait for an egg donor to come forward and for a suitable surrogate to be found.

So it can be particularly hard for them to see celebrities such as Elton John, who somehow manages to bypass all of the waiting to have his own son.

Elton of course simply went abroad to America, where for a fee you can freely choose egg donors based on their physical characteristics and skills. Egg donors in the USA are plentiful, because they get paid quite well for their donation, compared to the UK which is currently limited to a maximum of £250 expenses-only.

Their surrogate was also ready and waiting on a list of many at the same clinic in California, and by also choosing to have their baby there it meant they were considered its legal parents before it was even born. Some media reports are speculating that Elton’s child could have cost him up to $1 million, when you take into account all the fees that would have needed paying.

Of course, in day to day reality, hardly anyone has this sort of money to jet off to where the legal rules fit their needs. So for those in the UK who desperately want a child, but can’t without the generosity of another, either through egg donation or surrogacy, they just have to wait…and wait.

Egg donors in the UK are in particular short supply, and finding a surrogate can be equally as difficult because it’s illegal for women to advertise for one, although there are organisations such as COTS – Childlessness Overcome Through Surrogacy – which help couples to find one.

So, this January how about making a New Year’s Resolution that will really make a difference. If you’re a woman aged 35 and under with no serious medical history, why not think about becoming an egg donor? You really can make a real difference.