I work, I don’t have time because of work. “They tell me point blank, ‘If I get pregnant, I will lose my part. The typical candidates are models and actors who are doing well but haven’t yet made their name. Hollywood stars have the leverage to call the shots when it comes to schedules, and can have more confidence that their careers will be waiting for them after they have a baby. The women looking for social surrogacy tend not to be the biggest celebrities, he says. But a lot of women don’t want to be pregnant and lose a year of their careers.”įertility specialist Dr Vicken Sahakian: ‘I understand that it’s borderline unethical for some.’ Photograph: Bradley Meinz/The Guardian There’s an advantage to being pregnant, the bonding, I understand that, and from experience I can say that most women love to be pregnant. “If social surrogacy was more affordable, more women would be doing it, absolutely. And if I’m seeing that, there are so many reproductive endocrinologists in the area who are very competent fertility specialists – I’m sure they are seeing the same.” It costs $150,000 to have a baby this way. If you want to use a surrogate, I’ll help you.”įive years ago, Sahakian says he would preside over a handful of social surrogacy cases a year now he sees at least 20. “If you’re a 28-year-old model or an actor and you get pregnant, you’re going to lose your job – you will. It is the ultimate in outsourced labour.ĭoes he have any ethical concerns about social surrogacy? “I don’t have issues with it,” Sahakian says, smiling. There is no medical reason for them to use a surrogate they just choose not to be pregnant, so they conceive babies through IVF and then hire another woman to gestate and give birth to their baby. Now, a growing number of women are coming to Sahakian for “social” surrogacy: they want to have babies that are biologically their own, but don’t want to carry them. The ultimate goal here is bringing happiness for someone.”Īnd as the range of fertility options open to clients has diversified, so have their requests. I believe in family balancing, gender selection, selecting out abnormal embryos, using egg donors, sperm donors, this is what I do. “It isn’t sad, actually – it’s pretty happy. But immediately after saying this, he checks himself. On his huge, black desk sits a glass paperweight containing a laser-engraved baby, next to a plastic uterus and fallopian tubes. He wears grey surgical scrubs embroidered with his name, his hair slicked back and greying at the temples. It’s sad, but it is the case,” Sahakian tells me less than five minutes after I sit down in his monochrome office. If you have money, you’re going to have a baby. If you are open to using other people’s eggs, sperm or uteruses and are prepared to pay, anything is possible. It’s given the state a reputation as the most surrogacy-friendly place in the world.Īs diverse as they are, Sahakian’s clients have one thing in common: their ability to afford his services. California law allows surrogates to earn a profit, and upholds the rights of intended parents over anyone else who is involved in the creation of their babies. In the UK, surrogacy is legal, but surrogates can claim only expenses for carrying a child for another person. (“You won’t hear it from me, but of course you would have heard of them.”) His clients are straight, gay, young and old, and they come to him from across the globe, particularly from China, or parts of Europe where surrogacy is either illegal or very tightly regulated.
He has worked with Hollywood stars, although he says he is too discreet to tell me names. In the 25 years Dr Vicken Sahakian has been practising, he has made families for thousands of the most privileged people in the world.
The images float upwards and disappear like bubbles in champagne. But the pictures on the flatscreen on the wall give it away: digital photos of newborns in scratch mittens, thank you notes, family Christmas cards, tiny heads cradled in grateful hands. With its crystal chandeliers and plush velvet and leather upholstery in shades of cream and mink, you’d be forgiven for thinking the waiting room was the changing room of a high-end bridal shop. T he Pacific Fertility Center on Los Angeles’ Wilshire Boulevard is the place where the people who have it all make their babies.
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