Brittany MacNeil is 33 weeks pregnant, but the baby is not hers.

The baby girl she carries belongs biologically and legally to Anne-Lee and Sam of Melbourne, Australia, who preferred not to disclose their surname due to fear of repercussions from their country, where commercial surrogacy is illegal.

MacNeil, 23, is from Moorpark, in a state where gestational surrogacy is not uncommon and where laws about parentage are well-established.

“ Surrogacy is difficult in Australia,” Anne-Lee said in an overseas phone interview. “It’s not set up the same way. Surrogacy here needs to be altruistic— we can’t pay someone to have our baby. And then the baby is not automatically born to you.

“You have to adopt the baby from the birth mother, even if the embryo is yours—assuming the birth mother doesn’t change her mind and decide to keep the baby.”

According to California law, a gestational surrogate has no parental rights to a child born to her. The ruling, which was made in the 1993 California Supreme Court case Johnson v. Calvert, states that the one who intended to “bring about the birth of a child that she intended to raise as her own—is the natural mother.”

That law is precisely why the Australian couple decided to find a surrogate in California.
And through the help of Sunrise Surrogacy Solutions, a local agency that opened its doors in Ventura County i n 2005, Anne- Lee and her husband found MacNeil, who was ready and willing to help the couple have their baby.

“( Surrogacy) has always been something that was in the back of my mind,” MacNeil said. “ Being so young and healthy, and being able to help someone else—I just felt like it was something I needed to do. If I’m able to make their dreams come true, then why not?”

Making families:

Jennifer Eckhardt, a former U.S. Marine and founder of Sunrise Surrogacy Solutions, started the agency shortly after her own experience as a surrogate.

“I was already done with my own family,” the mother of three said. “I had enjoyed my own pregnancies, and I bounced it off my own beliefs and interests. I had heard bits and pieces about surrogacy and decided it was something I was interested in and just kind of took it from there.”

During her surrogacy in 2004- 05, Eckhardt said, she was proud of being able to help someone make a family. She enjoyed it so much that she began researching the idea of forming an agency to continue helping others make families.

When she started the agency, Eckhardt lived on the Marine Corps base in Port Hueneme with her husband and worked with clientele across Ventura County.

Today she runs the agency from her home in Murrieta and works with clients all over the world and surrogates and doctors throughout Southern California.

From 2005 to 2009, Eckhardt had 30 clients. The outcome was successful for 21 of them, or roughly 70 percent. But Eckhardt said she’s not interested in boasting about her success rates.

“We just want to offer the opportunity to anyone who wants to try it,” she said. “Surrogacy is basically a surefire thing if your surrogate has a good reproductive system.”

Generally, circumstances outside the control of the surrogate affected the 30 percent who didn’t succeed, she said.

For example, one client discontinued the program because she “ran out of frozen embryos,” and another terminated because of financial reasons, Eckhardt said.

The costs of surrogacy:

For intended parents, commercial surrogacy can cost anywhere from $42,000 to upwards of $90,000, depending on the experience of the surrogate, varying pregnancy and delivery expenses, whether a single or twin pregnancy is achieved, and whether the surrogate has medical insurance.

The estimate doesn’t include medications or the cost of visits to an in vitro fertilization (IVF) physician or a couple’s search for an egg donor.

Although the costs may be lower for intended parents who find a surrogate on their own, the benefit of going through an agency like Sunrise Surrogacy Solutions is that the process becomes less stressful for the parties involved, Eckhardt said.

The agency ensures that the intended parents have the means to pay for the process before pregnancy is attempted and holds funds for the surrogate in an escrow account.

Also through the agency, intended parents can find surrogates who’ve been prescreened for health, medical history and lifestyle. The parties also have the opportunity to get to know each other before moving forward with the process.

“ Only when everyone involved has had the opportunity to get acquainted is it considered a confirmed match,” Eckhardt said.

Becoming parents:

Anne-Lee, who had been trying to get pregnant for six years but was unable to because of health issues, said she’d never have considered going through the surrogacy process on her own.

“The level of confidence I have now wouldn’t be there,” she said. “Knowing from the start that Brittany was doing this for us and that there was no way she’d change her mind. And other things, like the payment of money—going through Jenn takes the business part out, and we can deal with the more personal side.”

Next month, Anne-Lee and her husband will fly to California for the fifth time since the beginning of the surrogacy, this time to witness the birth of their baby girl.

“ It’s just been a blissful experience compared to everything else we’ve been through,” she said. “We have a really great relationship with Brittany, and we’ve never had any major doubts or worries.”
MacNeil, who already has one child of her own and two stepchildren, said she’s prepared for the upcoming birth.

“I know the baby is going to a safe place,” MacNeil said. “When I met (Anne-Lee and Sam), I just knew it was right from the beginning.

“You have to trust the intended parents and really get to know them before you find out they’re the right couple to hand a baby to.”

MacNeil said that if all goes well and she meets another couple like Anne-Lee and Sam, she may consider becoming a surrogate again.

“It’s going to be a real rewarding experience,” she said. “To be able to hand a life over to someone else—it’s almost like saving a life. It makes me feel so happy, being able to change someone’s life and give them something they always wanted to come true.”