Front Burner - Baby business Part 2: The parents

Episode Date: March 5, 2020

What happens when your fragile parenthood dream is not in your control? In the second part of our series on surrogacy in Canada, we look at how the surrogacy industry affects parents. The costs can reach more than $100,000. There’s a fear that they’re breaking the law. The pressure to not rock the boat is high. Jayme talks to Chris Glover and Chelsea Gomez about the ways surrogacy is not working for parents.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. You have so many other people that are in control of it and taking control of this time in your life. And you just want that baby.

And you'll do anything for that baby. She can't give birth herself, but Anna Camille Tucci is now the happy mother of her own genetic child. A boy born with the help of a surrogate and an agency. We just kept learning about new things, new costs. And we just had to pay them because that was our only option and we were already in it. There was no going back at that point. Yesterday we heard about the business of babies in Canada

and how that's putting the health of surrogates at risk. Today, we're going to talk about the parents, costs that can top $100,000, rules against payments that make them fear they're about the parents, costs that can top $100,000, rules against payments that make them fear they're breaking the law, and a reluctance to speak up because they're ultimately not in control of the birth of their own child. My colleagues Chris Glover and Chelsea Gomez are back again today. They've spent months investigating surrogacy in Canada, interviewed dozens and dozens of people.

I'm Jamie Poisson, and this is FrontBurner. Chris, Chelsea, welcome back. Nice to be back. So, Chris, tell me about Anna Camille Tucci. Why did she look for a surrogate to have her baby. Anna Camille Tucci is like so many women and men out there who just always grew up wanting to have a baby and wanting to be a parent. Since I can remember, I wanted kids like quite young, like everyone that I meet now that knew me as a child, they're always like, of course you have a baby. And so then in 2017, when she's in her late 20s, knowing that she and her spouse,

2017, when she's in her late 20s, knowing that she and her spouse, her husband, they wanted to have a baby, she found out that she had ovarian cancer. And as a part of that treatment, she had to have a hysterectomy. Devastating, crushing news for her. It was hard thinking that I wouldn't be able to have my own baby that was genetically mine. And even the thought of not being able to carry, that was really difficult. However, the good news is doctors were able to go in before that hysterectomy, before that surgery to remove the uterus, and they were able to harvest her eggs. And so that way, she was able to have that genetic child that she had always dreamed of when she fertilized the eggs with her husband's sperm. Women, when they find out that they're going to be infertile for whatever reason, the hospitals will give them some

information about, you know, adoption is a choice and surrogacy is a choice here. And there are some agencies that you can turn to. So she ended up turning to an agency to help her find a woman who was willing to do that for her. Okay. And we talked about this idea yesterday that you can't get paid to be a surrogate, although you can certainly get compensated for expenses. Because the whole point with this is that this surrogate is taking on a huge risk, a huge role, a huge job for these parents. They should not be left financially worse off after the pregnancy. That's kind of the underlying rule of Canada's reimbursement promise. Right. I know there are some people who think that they should be flat out paid,

that we're also going to talk about today. Absolutely, a lot of people. But first, let's break down the cost of this in its entirety. Because yesterday, we talked about how this could cost between $60,000 and $100,000 for parents. And can we break it down? Just where is all of this money going? Let's start with the agencies. Okay, so when we look at the agencies, the first thing you have to consider is the money that's going to the surrogate. So in Anna Camille Tucci's case, she agreed in a contract to pay her surrogate reimbursable expenses up to a monthly maximum of just about $2,000. That's on the low end of what we've seen. that's on the low end of what we've seen. We've also seen people who are signing contracts with surrogates up to $3,500 a month in pregnancy-related expenses. And so on that math,

it can go up to as high as $40,000. That money is just going to the surrogate. Okay. And then is there an agency fee? And then the agency fee is a bit of a sliding scale. We've seen them as low as roughly $3,000. bit of a sliding scale. We've seen them as low as roughly $3,000. And then we've seen on the higher end, about $10,000. You also have to factor in there are legal contracts here. Lawyers are very heavily involved in this process. Right, as soon as you hear the word contract. Exactly, yes. And this is a very important contract because you're not just considering things about how much money in reimbursements you're giving the surrogate. You also have to think of things like what happens if you determine that there's a problem with the baby? Who gets the

call on termination? Exactly. And so everybody knows that at the end of the day, this is a woman's body. And so it will be her choice. And that's typically written right into the contract. But then it will also say, however, the surrogate and the parents have agreed that if there is a genetic issue with the baby or if there is a problem that the baby is going to have to live with for life, then the surrogate and the parents have agreed that it will be up to the parents to decide if there is going to be an abortion. Okay. So they have to work through all of this with the lawyers. How much are we talking about here? Like ballpark. $8,000 for the lawyers is typically what we're kind of seeing.

And Chelsea, also you have to do IVF here. And we all know that that costs money. So what are we looking at here for fertility clinics? Right, so the fertility cost that the families have to take on essentially is dependent based on their own situations, right? Some of the moms have gone through IVF themselves to harvest their own eggs, and that comes with a cost, or they have to actually find an egg donor and pay for the cost to have eggs harvested from somebody else.

And then there is the freezing, the storage, the fertilization, all of those things add up. And then on top of that, you have to then go through the transfer process, where an embryo is actually transferred into a surrogate. And that's roughly $3,000 a transfer. And you're not guaranteed that that's going to take on the first try. So we've heard from multiple surrogates and IPs that are going through four, five, sometimes six transfers, like tens of thousands of dollars in fertility payments.

Just in transfers alone. I talked to a dad who broke down crying because they had been able to harvest five or six eggs, harvest and fertilize all of them. And then they went through all of them, and each one led to a miscarriage. And so then their money had run out. They'd spent something like $85,000, and they didn't have any money left,

so they had to stop the process. So it can be really, really heartbreaking and devastating for people. So much empathy for these parents and how difficult this is. These costs, I imagine that this is all very frustrating for the parents, you know, and Camille Chuchi, for example. The money just kept adding up, you know. What was her financial situation like? So the thing is, a lot of people hear about this process and assume that it's for the super wealthy. And of course, we have found

families that are very well-to-do who are turning to this option. But then we're also looking at very average and regular families as well. So Anna Camille Tucci and her husband live in, you know, a regular house in the East End of Toronto. And he's a firefighter, she works with children, they are not rolling in the dough, as a lot of people might assume. They're regular average people who are trying to pay mortgages in the most expensive city in the country, and they're struggling too. So when they were looking through this process, they knew, okay, so I'll have to spend that much on a lawyer, that much on a fertility clinic. So the grocery column is pretty high. Oh, and then there's going to be these reimbursements.

And then the mileage is also quite high. And so for them, the word maximum was really significant because they thought, okay, so it's going to be $2,000 a month up to a maximum of $20,000. Okay, so that's just a maximum. How can we keep our costs low? Right. We're talking about the expenses to the surrogates here. And it strikes me that this category seems to be like where there's a little bit of leeway,

whereas a lawyer's fee seems to be kind of stuck. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's exactly. And I think that's why the reimbursement side of things gets a little hot in these conversations with the surrogates or the agencies. And it gets very contentious with the families because there are fees that they can't avoid. But in the end, they're doing everything possible to try and keep the costs low. They're booking their doctor's appointments on the days where the surrogate's not working. They're choosing a

surrogate that's local to them so that she doesn't have to travel really far ways in order to get to a clinic. Sometimes they choose surrogates that don't have younger children, so they don't have to cover child care or things like that. So they're really taking concrete steps to try and keep those costs low. So when the bills come in, maxing out every month, it's almost like they feel offended. We didn't really know where all that money was going or what was really reimbursing. Some of the big agencies will handle the receipts for the parents,

and they tell the parents that after they've reviewed them, they will reimburse the parents' money to the surrogate. Essentially what is happening is the parents are getting an invoice statement. They're not seeing any of those receipts. They have no idea what's leading to that big number, only that number that they've hit that max every single month. Here we were having this great experience. Everything was going pretty wonderfully with our surrogate.

We had a great relationship with her. And then we're shown the financial side, and we're kind of wondering, you know, this wonderful person, and how are these receipts getting this high? How can they make it? How can she make that max every single time? Some people might be listening to this, getting this high? How can they make it? How can she make that max every single time? Some people might be listening to this, and I imagine they might be thinking that these surrogates might deserve $2,000 a month. But first, I want to talk to you about another

reason why these parents are frustrated. It's not just about the money, right? That's right. I mean, you talked about how some people out there might be thinking that these surrogates should be paid. Even some of these families who are questioning these expenses think that these surrogates should be paid. But the issue is, technically, they're not allowed to. And they're not allowed to by a big law in Canada that says, if you do pay a surrogate, something that isn't pregnancy related, could be considered a gift, then that person who pays could be held criminally liable. And it is a big punishment. We're talking about up to 10 years in prison and a half a million dollar fine. So that's what these parents are so concerned about. And it's not just okay to say, well, there's an agency in the middle that's dispersing the money because lawyers have told us that it's still their money. They are the ones who could potentially be liable. We trust that they know what they're doing and that legally nothing will come back to us. We had to trust

them because that's the way we would get our kid. And if you put yourself in the shoes of the families, they're essentially seeing the money just taken from their account every month with absolutely no proof. So they see categories sometimes, like Anna Camille, she saw categories of what was being reimbursed, but she had absolutely nothing to back up that those categories were really true. We loved our surrogate. We trusted she was doing everything she could be doing to the best of her abilities. So it was more we were questioning CFC's process of going through those receipts and what might be approved and what is not being approved. They're frustrated by how opaque the process is. And as another example, I know you talked to an Ontario father who actually saw receipts. So this father had a very short pregnancy with his surrogate. She miscarried after, you know, within the first month. And yet, after that miscarriage, this father gets a bill for $5,000. And he thinks, how can she have incurred $5,000 worth of pregnancy related expenses in just such a short amount of time?

pregnancy-related expenses in just such a short amount of time. So he became very concerned about his own legal culpability in this. And so he said to the agency, I need to see these receipts. It took a couple months before he got them. So we ended up taking them to his fertility lawyer, Sherry Levitin. What about this receipt? Do you see that second item there? Oh, a lottery ticket. Yes, all right.

I don't see how lottery tickets are reimbursable expenses. And Chelsea and I were able to find some of the receipts were from before he'd even met his surrogate. There were also many that didn't even have dates on them at all that we could see. We have to play within the rules. And this is not playing within the rules. So it's putting everybody at risk, right? It's putting the agency at risk.

It's putting the intended parents at risk. And we saw thousands of dollars worth of receipts within this package that had all of those problems that I just listed. Okay. Has anyone ever been charged? Yes. So there was one charge in Canada. This happened back in 2013. That was Leah, at that time, Picard, now Swanberg. I had a gun to my head. My offices were raided. And she is actually the head of the largest agency in Canada, CFC. And she ended up pleading guilty and was fined $60,000 for took a surrogate's word, she sent in some receipts, and it was a very relaxed system, and now it is not. can lead to a life-changing connection.

Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. So look, we're talking about the frustrations around this expenses issue from the parents' perspective, but what about from the surrogate's perspective? Chris? I want to set the table here and just say that surrogates, many that we talked to said that they did their best to keep their

costs low and to make this a really good experience for the families. And some even told me that they did not hit their monthly limit because they felt like they wanted to keep this as inexpensive for the families as possible, knowing that they had all these other costs in place. That said, I did call one surrogate. I'm going to record and take some notes. It kind of came out of the blue, like a lot of these, you know, you're passed along from one friend to another friend to a third friend. And by this point, you're like, hi, are you a parent or a surrogate? You don't even really know who you're actually speaking to on the other end at first. Number five five I'm going for. Number five. Oh, my.

Yeah. So we started speaking a little bit about how she was a repeat surrogate. She'd done this a few times, and she seemed very happy about the process and saying that everything had gone really well. And then at a certain point in the conversation, we started talking about these expenses. And I said, have you ever had any problems with them? And she started to share these stories and this one particular story of a couple from the end of 2019.

It was beautiful. Like, oh, we're going to be so supportive. Money's not an issue. Where she'd sent in her receipts. In this case, there was not an agency involved in the expenses. So the couple was seeing the receipts and then reimbursing her that money. So in this case, they started seeing things like car payments and car insurance and full grocery bills. And so

the lawyers that we've talked to have said that those would be among the most kind of controversial expenses because a car you would have had before the pregnancy and you would have it after the pregnancy. The couple pinged on this as well. The couple just like nickel and dimed for everything. And so they started saying, I don't think that's fair. And so there seems to have been some disagreements here. She described it as nitpicking and then it really devolved. It was just bullshit after bullshit. And I was like, okay, I'm done. I was going to abort the baby. It was at that point, I was so done. She said that the fighting between them just got so severe that she said they had

breached the contract. She would breach the contract. And I could hear in that moment, I mean, this had happened months prior, but she was getting so upset, even in the phone call with that moment. And I could hear how it was impacting her they wanted me to birth the baby so out of the kindness of my heart Chris I go through all the hell and birth her child and just to explain the end of her story um she says that a few days later she ultimately ended up having um a miscarriage and she was at a hospital she there was bleeding and and that baby was lost. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.

Yesterday, we spoke a lot about the health of surrogates, but I also wonder about the baby. Are there any kinds of standards put in place so that parents can be sure their surrogate is taking proper precautions? Unfortunately, no. So we were told that all the building with your surrogate. So for Anna Camille, she talks about really having to release control. And most parents really do have to release control. Everything was out of our hands and it was all in their hands. It was all in our surrogate's hands, which I imagine was a lot for her as well to carry that trust. But yeah, trust was a big piece that we just had to do. In the end, the pregnancy is out of their hands. I mean, parents cannot just call up a surrogate and say, I want you to eat this way.

Right? At some point, someone else is carrying your baby and you need to respect their autonomy. You need to respect their privacy and their ability to live their life and in the end, give you a healthy baby. But that's hard for a lot of families. And that's hard for mostly it's actually really hard for a lot of moms. And the other factor here is that, as we talked about earlier, the supply of surrogates is so small. So these parents are desperate to take whoever is put in front of them. So I mean, we met families who told us that they knew that the woman was a smoker and decided to go through with it because they were just so

desperate. And then we also heard from surrogates who said they had smoked through two of the pregnancies, but they had gone fine. And as long as she had disclosed that information to the parents, she felt like she was doing everything that she should. You know, I would also imagine that these parents want this process to go smoothly because they might want to do it again. They have been trying to have kids probably for years themselves already. And most families want to have one or two. Except for the gay couples. But, you know, most families don't just want to stop at one.

Most want a couple and they want a sibling. And because this is such a small community, the surrogacy community is so small in Canada, everybody knows everybody. And there is this very real fear about burning bridges. There's this very real fear about speaking out and angering somebody in the surrogacy community and ruining your chances about having a sibling. Chelsea and I have been working on this since November. We have talked to a lot of families. None of them had complained to Health Canada. And also, only one of them, Anna Camille Tucci, was brave enough, and brave she was, to speak out and to share. She has concerns.

She has questions. She's not angry with her surrogate. She loves her surrogate. This woman has been amazing through this process. And she said that countless times. But still, she thought this process isn't working right for everyone, didn't work right for me. So that's why she stuck her neck out. I think the industry takes advantage of families, for sure, intended parents. I think people have found a way to pull at parents' heartstrings. So as we move into the final part of this conversation, let's talk about what people

are saying about what we might be able to do here for a system that clearly isn't working for at least some surrogates and at least some parents. And I know on day one, we talked about how there is a concern over commodifying women's bodies. And that is why women have not been allowed to be paid for this. So there is a very real divide in the surrogacy community, whether you're an expert or whether you're part of an agency, surrogate, whatever, a parent. Everyone disputes this, whether or not surrogates should actually be paid. But most people are telling us, regardless, it needs to be decriminalized because it's going to open up the ability for people to complain. It's also going to open up the ability for it to be regulated. A lot of people liken it to potentially being regulated like adoption agencies where there could be auditing and there could be an external body that can go in and basically provide external oversight.

And Jamie, the one thing we know that is coming is that there are these new regulations around the reimbursements in June. They were called for back in 2004 when the federal government legalized surrogacy and it has taken 16 years and a Supreme Court challenge from Quebec and a whole bunch of other hangups along the way. But now here we are 16 years later and these regulations around challenge from Quebec, and a whole bunch of other hang-ups along the way. But now here we are 16 years later, and these regulations around these reimbursements, which have been given to these women for 15, 16 years, now will finally have rules around them. They'll lay out some broad categories of what can be paid, things like mileage, things like groceries. And the other thing that you'll see in these new regulations is a declaration form.

This declaration form will require signatures both from the surrogate and from the person paying. Now, lawyers that we've talked to have said that when an agency is involved, they are technically the person who's paying that surrogate. They're giving that money. So they could still be the ones to sign that declaration form. That's what the lawyers are telling us. Okay. So it doesn't necessarily fix old problems. No, because it leaves these parents in the same place as before.

They still won't necessarily get to see those receipts. Okay. And even though it does have broad categories, it actually doesn't lend a whole lot more clarification on what can be included in those broad categories. more clarification on what can be included in those broad categories. So we've got these rules from Health Canada that are rolling in in June, and people aren't even sure if they're going to fix the problem around expenses that they were designed to fix. We also have these issues that were raised day one. There is a lack of oversight monitoring the health of surrogates. What do you think needs to happen here? Surrogacy isn't going anywhere.

Right. And the legislation, the legislation that's in place and the rules that are in place aren't really actually curbing what they're trying to curb. So at this point, I think there needs to be greater attention paid

to the reality that surrogacy is here in Canada and how it's operating to really find out whether that law is doing its job. And the one thing that we know is that there's so little information out there. Most people are hearing all of this stuff fresh for the first time. It is time that

we have a conversation in this country around surrogacy and whether it's payment or whether it's decriminalizing or whether it's fixing the rules around reimbursement so that it works for everyone. It doesn't matter what the outcome is. I think most people involved here would say that there should be a conversation around what we do next to make sure that it does work for everyone. Okay. And so I want to thank you both then for coming on to the podcast over the last two days and for like, maybe at least starting this conversation. Thanks. Thanks for having us. All right. Thank you so much for sticking with us these last two days. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thank you so much for listening to FrontBurner and talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.