Assisted reproduction: Mother of gay man turns surrogate to deliver his child

A gay man whose mother stepped in as surrogate to deliver his child could spark a fresh debate on the ethics of assisted reproduction in the UK.

Eight-month-old Miles's surrogate mother is also his grandmother.

A high court judge ruled last week that the father Kyle could now adopt Miles.

Kyle was classed as both the baby's father and brother when he was born, but with the court decree he is just the baby's father.

Anne-Marie Casson, the 46-year-old healthcare worker, pitched in to help her gay son have a child by carrying the donor egg fertilised by Kyle's sperm. Anne-Marie described to The Daily Mail the initial days following the implantation as akin to "babysitting".

The difficult months of pregnancy saw her bleeding at least twice with fears of forced abortion.

But finally in last July, the child was delivered through C-section opted by Anne-Marie who viewed the whole episode as a "medical procedure" rather than "giving birth".

She insists here was no motherly yearning to hold the newborn who was handed immediately to his dad.

About criticism from some quarters on the ethics of the whole thing, Kyle says: "No one has the right to deny someone that opportunity. We are supposed to live in a world with equal opportunities, but single people are discriminated against. The law says that having a child is too much of an undertaking for a single person to take on. But I've proved that wrong.

"I don't care what people think — they can keep their opinions. He is cared for. He is loved. I paid for it all myself with a little help from my parents at the end, and that's all that matters."

Second chance

His mom agrees and sees it as her second chance to bring up a child. "I've loved being a mother," she says. "Every day is precious and it goes so quickly. I was once a single mum to three boys under five and if I watch videos of my own three boys when they were so little, I think: 'I wish I could turn the clock back.'"

Kyle, who declared himself a gay at 19, always wanted children, but was turned down by several surrogacy clinics on the grounds that he was single.

It was when accompanying Kyle on his appointments at the Care fertility clinic in Sheffield that the idea was first mooted by a doctor.

Initially Kyle had doubts and was unsure how his mother's health would be affected, but finally relented on medical assurances.

Where assisted reproduction offered a whole "designer choice" of child based on colour of skin, eyes, height and race, he simply opted for someone with brown hair and green eyes to resemble him.

The cost of the procedure — around £14,000 — came from savings and help from his mother.

The UK recently became the first country in the world to allow the "three parent baby" technique that replaces maternal defective mitochondria with the healthy mitochondria of a donor woman.