A Match Made in... Iowa?

Surrogacy laws vary by state. Illinois is one of three states with great surrogacy laws that recognize surrogate contracts and make it very easy for IPs to obtain a pre-birth order, which gives them parental rights from birth without having to adopt their own child. The catch? The law only protects gestational surrogacy. Not only is it harder to find a lawyer to represent a TS and get a PBO, we're also learning that many clinics won't do IUIs for TS journeys.

Iowa does not have any laws regarding surrogacy, thus it is not protected nor disallowed. This can be scary for IPs because a surrogate could, in theory, fight for custody of the child and it's likely Iowa would rule in favor of the SM. PBOs can be obtained, but only if the IPs are both biological parents, which means only one IF could be put on the birth certificate and even that isn't so simple. In Iowa, the law states that the husband of a mother is the father. That means that no matter who the sperm came from, if a woman is married, her husband is the father on the birth certificate. If we decided to deliver here, we would have to go through the process of getting a PBO and do a step-parent adoption. More time, more money, more complicated.

In an ideal world, a state that supports gay marriage would also support gay parenting but such does not seem to be the case.

At this point, we are still up in the air on where we will deliver. I have just begun reaching out to midwives with some of my questions and seeing whether they see me as a candidate for home birth. My IPs and I have touched on this just briefly, and while I certainly don't want to push them into something they aren't comfortable with, I also want to present my case since they did say it was something they'd be open to.

More recently, they did hint that they are more comfortable with a hospital birth so I have also been looking into the hospital facilities in my area. While there are no birth centers within 160 miles, a few of the hospitals have switched to the LDRP rooms equipped with a pull-out sofa, jacuzzi tub and large room to move about during labor. If a home birth is not an option, this would be the next best thing. But man-oh-man would I love to birth at home ::swoon::