When biological clocks tick bachelors turn to surrogates

18.03.2015

Dr. Conrad Cean was nearing 40 when he felt his biological clock ticking — with no special someone to help him start a family.

So he did something that’s only recently become an option for single men: He turned to IVF and a surrogate halfway around the world to make a family of his own.

The 43-year-old pain specialist from New York City is now the proud, single father of 18-month-old twins, Konrad Fritz II and Kennedy-Josephine Marie. And he’s considering adding to his brood.

No one keeps track, plenty of bachelors are intentionally having babies, though perhaps not “in the millions,” said Dr. Philip Werthman, director of the Center for Male Reproductive Medicine and Vasectomy Reversal in Los Angeles, who helps men optimize their sperm for IVF.

“The desire to be a parent is similar, whether you are gay, straight, in a relationship or not,” he said. “For these men, they are getting older, they have the resources and the love to give and they want to go ahead. Technology gives them the ability to have children outside traditional means.”

According to Cean, he planned to marry by 33 or 34, but his busy schedule interfered with finding the right woman.

“I had just finished my fellowship and was trying to get the lay of the land in the business of medicine,” said Cean. “I thought I would meet the right person, but I didn’t want to force anything.”

In 2012 there were two failed embryo transplantations in India, after which Cean went to Panama where for about two-thirds the cost of surrogacy in the United States, his twins were born on Aug. 30, 2013.

“I was ecstatic,” said Cean, who used his own sperm and is biologically related to the twins. “It’s other worldly, worth a thousand bucks, a million bucks. It’s hard to put into words.”

Stephanie Scott, executive director of Simple Surrogacy in Dallas, says she sees men like Cean “all the time.”

Source: today.com