Brazilian Gay Couple Become Fathers, Thanks To IVF

For the first time in Brazil a gay couple has succeeded in having a child through in vitro fertilization.

Baby girl, Maria Teresa, was born January 29 in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, and her birth certificate lists both men as her parents.

Artificial Insemination - Milestone Types Intrauterine FAQs
Artificial Insemination is a medical procedure usually used to treat infertility. In this procedure, sperm is placed into a female's vagina, uterus or fallopian tubes by artificial means.

Mailton Alves, 35, and Wilson Albuquerque, 40, told television channel O Globo that they decided they wanted to have a child after being together for 15 years. They were married in 2011 in ceremony recognized under Brazilian law.

The couple's right to have a child was upheld by a decision of Brazil's Federal Council of Medicine, which authorized the artificial fertilization with sperm donations from either partner.

Until then, authorizations for artificial fertilization were granted only to women who were married or in stable relationships.

Invitro Fertilisation - 3D
Interactive section of Medindia gives explanation for Invitro Fertilisation - 3D.

Doctors used an anonymous egg donor and sperm from Alves. The fertilized egg was implanted into the womb of his cousin.

"It's an important precedent for people like us who have spent 15 years together and who managed to realize their dreams to have a child, a family," Alves said.

Egg Donation
The term ‘Egg Donation’ is commonly used to refer to the contribution of her eggs by a woman to another, who is incapable of producing her own.

Clicerio Bezerra, a family court judge in the Pernambuco capital of Recife, has legally recognized the paternity of the couple's child.

"There are cases of registration of double paternity by adoption," the judge told a local newspaper. "This case is the only one in which two men have registered a baby as a legitimate child, as far as I know."

Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI)
Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) is an assisted reproductive technological procedure performed under a microscope, which aids in the introduction of a single sperm into the cytoplasm of an egg.

If it "is permitted that (same sex couples) constitute a family through marriage, why not allow that family to be completed with a child," the judge said. The couple said they plan to have another baby next year.

Source-AFP