Michelle Stafford parent through surrogate mother

As I have written before, by the time a woman is 40, her fertility has dropped to a point that it is highly unlikely that she can deliver a living, healthy, normal baby. Yes, some women do that but the number is in very low single digits. Others can try techniques like IUI or IVF but they are not much help. A smarter thing to do is to what Celine Dion did who froze her embryos a long time ago and then became pregnant with it.

If you have failed with these attempts (and burned thousands of dollars in case your insurance does not cover these procedures) then your next option is to use donor eggs, in which case, the real mother is someone else but a woman can still feel connected to the baby since she will be carrying it. These procedures are prohibitively expensive in most of the Western world but in countries like Czech Republic or Ukraine, poor and desperate women will sell their eggs for a very low price. The probability improves but if this does not work, another option is to use a surrogate mother, a procedure used by Ricky Martin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Marissa Jaret Winokur, and Clay Aiken. In other words, hire a woman to carry a man's child using the surrogate's or donor's eggs. This procedure can cost tens of thousands of dollars and surrogate moms are not lining up for the job.

We can now add another name to the list of women who are becoming "moms" with the help of surrogates: Michelle Stafford, who at 43, tried all of the above, but failed. Interestingly, in her case, since she is single mom by choice, both the sperm and egg are from donors and she will simply be raising the child. This option is akin to paying someone for adopting their baby.