# irish surrogacy legalities



## doopy (Mar 12, 2011)

hi there, i've been looking for info on the irish surrogacy situation for about 8 months now and i know its very complicated= i suppose i have a few questions and wonder could any of you help me or advise me about hwere to go to get the answers?
1. if i get a woman who is unmarried in ireland to be a gestational surrogate for us and my dh's name goes on the birth cert and then i do a step parent adoption would this be fairly straightforward? of course i realise (or at least i think!) that if this woman was to decide to keep the baby then there would be huge legal implications and i would have no legal rights as the genetic mother . but lets presume she does abdicate her rights and i adopt-anyone see any problems with this?
2. my sister does it for us and even though she is married we adopt the baby and possibly have to have dna testing to prove we're the parents?
3 we go to an agency in the ukraine and have to get a court order to bring baby home?

these are my 3 options in order of preference- if any of you have any thought on any of them please feel free to comment- i'd love any feedback on this minefield!!
thanks
siobhan


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## Jomi (May 3, 2011)

Hi Siobhan,

My dh and I are also thinking of heading down this route. 

I have also been researching this for a while and it really seems a very grey area when it come to the Irish law and Surrogacy. We decided that we would check out the legal side of things and are meeting with a Solicitor on Thurs and would advise you to do the same.

On some of the research I have done I have seen that private adoption is not an option but I don't know about step parent adoption. As far as I know you have to get a declaration of parentage and also have to apply for guardianship (not too sure so please don't take this as been written in stone).

Wishing you the very best with whatever you decide and hopefully we might gain a little knowledge from this forum.

Jomi


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## doopy (Mar 12, 2011)

hi jomi, its great to hear there are more of us out there  i hope the solicitor has good news for you or even clear information would be a start isn't it?! if you get anything interesting that you feel you could share with me i'd really appreciate it- can i ask who the solicitor is and how did you get their name? re private adoption i think it is possible- my friend is an adoption social worker and i've been picking her brains and she says the step parent adoption on is probably the most straighforward-she also says openness and honesty is prob the best policy and so i think i am going into the office to talk to the people who would be dealing with the adoption before i do anything else- to my mind its the adoption part that would be the most critical if we were to go the surrogacy route here- maybe not so critical for the ukraine option as you both would be named on the birth cert. can i ask have you seen any of the info on the recent case involving liam and silvia and having to get a court order in the high court to bring the baby home from ukraine? they are sometimes on this site. maybe the solicitor will be able to help you with this on thursday. best of luck anyway and it would be great to keep in touch.
siobhan


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