Bourn Hall Clinic, the World's first "test-tube baby" clinic was founded in 1980 by the pioneers Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards, who were responsible for the birth of Louise Brown on 25th July 1978. They were the first in Europe to consider treating couples who required gestational or IVF surrogacy. The first couple were treated in 1987 and their child was born in 1988, at about the time that Patrick Steptoe died of cancer. Shortly after this unhappy event, I was invited to become the Medical Director. I was determined to continue to treat patients who needed to resort to surrogacy. Bourn Hall is believed now to have the widest experience to date of treatment by gestational surrogacy in Europe. A review of their programme was published in the British Medical Journal in April 2000.

Bourn Hall has always believed in the very real benefit of having an independent Ethics Committee to review every surrogacy arrangement before treatment proceeds. The views of an independent group of people on the ethical aspects of this treatment have been of inestimable value to the team at Bourn Hall. The guidelines of the independent Ethics Committee on surrogacy have been published in a number of book chapters and articles that we have published on surrogacy.

My colleagues and I at Bourn Hall have always been very much aware of the benefits of good independent advice from patient support groups, particularly those specialising in surrogacy. Couples participating in surrogacy arrangements need a lot of support and advice and women who have been hosts themselves are especially suitable to provide this service.

I am very happy to support the new initiative of Ms Liz Stringer and her colleagues, who have set up SurrogacyUK. Liz Stringer has helped a number of couples in the past to have children and I came to know her well when she helped a particularly charming and deserving couple to have a child whilst under the care of Bourn Hall. She has my greatest respect and admiration for having acted in this selfless way. The first hand experience of having been a host on a number of occasions and her real desire to provide quality information and support to couples making surrogacy arrangements are commendable. I sincerely wish SurrogacyUK success in their support of those very deserving couples who need to resort to surrogacy.

To come

To come

I am Kim Palmer (Bunnykims), married to Michael (Big Nut Brown Hare) and overjoyed mummy to Mimi, who came to us via our friend Kim Harvey on July 5th 2007.

I would very much like to be elected as Secretary to SUK as I believe I have the time, commitment and skills to serve the membership; both IPs and our dear surrogates.

I have a strong background in volunteer work:

I worked in Romania for two years, just after their revolution, running a crèche in a hospital unit that specialised in 0-8 year old children with TB and AIDS, and ran an evening Youth Club for the over eight year olds in a nearby hospital. I was also responsible for finding placements for foreign aid workers in our sister hospitals throughout the region. To fund my activities there, I raised £16,000 in six months and received further support from North Eastern charities. I very much enjoyed fund-raising and hope to use this enthusiasm to swell SUK funds.

I have also served as the Personal Cases Co-ordinator for my union. This post drew heavily on my qualification in Counselling as I supported Members through work-related personal difficulties. This was a particularly sensitive role, often involving a great deal of mediation between vulnerable Members and senior staff. This role also involved holding a committee post, which meant attending monthly meetings, taking minutes and being available to Members at drop-in sessions. I managed a team of three other Personal Cases Reps (serving nearly 500 Members on three sites). It is a role I am very proud of as it gave the entire team the opportunity to have a direct and positive effect on people’s lives.

Michael and I have supported the RSPCA by fund raising, fostering animals prior to re-homing and conducting home-checks with families hoping to adopt pets. We have now retired from our RSPCA work and I have been looking for a new and challenging role.

I work for the Office for National Statistics as a Research Methodologist. I work from home, which I believe would help me to effectively fulfil the role of Secretary as I have the flexibility to deal with issues as they arise.

I am very much of the ‘serve the members’ school of thought. If I am elected, I pledge to listen to IPs and surrogates alike and have their interests as my guiding principles. I would like to see SUK flourish and develop its role as the UKs leading surrogacy organisation. I believe we can achieve this by first recapturing an atmosphere in which we work together and are a strong unified force in which all members feel valued, included and involved.

Hello my Name is Sarah Wisniewski, some of you might know me as Bluebell on the Surrogacy UK message boards. I am married to Jim and have 3 wonderful children. Jim and I are currently working hard training for our bike ride next year to raise money for Surrogacy UK.

This March I had the pleasure of introducing Reece to his Mum and Dad our friends Mandy and Rich. I have also become a surrogate support worker and hope to help to guide other surrogates through their own journeys.

I have decided to give my time to the post of awareness for surrogacy UK. I believe in teamwork and hope to be an impartial view to all decisions.

Surrogacy UK is all about creating families and friendship first ,I am passionate about that and I hope to share that with as many people as possible so that people are more aware of our wonderful organisation and surrogacy on the whole.

My name is Lee Bailey and I am married to Lizzie. We decided to wait until after we got married to join Surrogacy UK as Gold Members and so have only been members for just over a year, though I have being attending events and active on the boards for nearly 3 years.

I have been involved with voluntary organisations and in organising events since I was a kid, when as a member of the Boys’ Brigade I helped out at lots of galas, fêtes etc and then as a teenager ran classes and sports with the younger lads.

At university, I was the Fixtures Secretary for the Lacrosse Club, arranging games for the club’s two teams, and all the food, transport and accommodation when required. With the contacts I made across the country, the University become a founding member of a fledgling national University league. I was also the club’s Social Secretary for two years.

Whilst at University, I was a Social Secretary for my department’s Student Society: organising the annual formal ball as well as frequent fancy dress parties and the regular student pub crawls!

In my working life, I represent my office at a company wide technical co-ordination committee: providing papers to help drive the company forward and then disseminating agreed policies, procedures and other useful information back to my manager and colleagues promptly.

Within Surrogacy UK, Lizzie and I have helped set up and run stalls at several conferences – we still have plenty of boxes storing the bookstall! We have represented Surrogacy UK externally; presenting a successful talk to the York Infertility Group, at their request, earlier this year. Although a little bit nervous to start with, we also hosted our first Social earlier this year, and look forward to hosting more in the future.

Following the introduction of the deputy committee posts in April 2007, the Executive accepted my application for the Deputy (Events) role. I co-ordinate the monthly (and now, even more frequent!) Socials organised and hosted by Surrogacy UK members around the country. I am pleased that newbies to the boards and Surrogacy UK can feel more relaxed and welcomed by meeting a more experienced member at the start of their first event within the buddying system that I am responsible for. Especially when I think back to our first event: how nervous we were and how glad we were when someone came over and said hello!

SUK members kindly elected me on to the Executive Committee at the last AGM. I am now responsible for co-ordinating SUK Events, including organising the tri-annual Conferences. I look forward to being able to continue the good conference structure within SUK, at reasonably affordable venues and with interesting guest speakers.

I am Carol one of the Co Founders of Surrogacy UK. I have 3 children of my own and a wonderful supportive husband.
I first came into the surrogacy world in 1994, I have now been a straight surrogate 5 times. I met my first intending parents in 1994 and had a daughter for them in January 1996. It felt so good that I had the urge to do it again, so again I met a lovely couple, and I gave birth to their son Louie in June 1997.

I didn't expect to do it again but with hearing so many sad stories on a daily bases I felt the need to help again. I offered to be a surrogate to a couple whose story I had been watching for over a year. I gave birth to their daughter Kitty in August 2002 and in March 2005 I gave birth to a son Archie for them.
I gave birth to my 5th and final surrogate baby Julianna for some dear friends of mine in January 2008.
Although I know I cannot be pregnant forever Surrogacy UK is my way of helping as many couples and surrogates fulfil their dreams.

My name is Elizabeth Stringer and along with Carol I founded Surrogacy UK in 2002.

My initial interest in surrogacy began in 1986 when I had hoped to carry the baby of a close friend with cancer, but unfortunately she was never well enough. The seed was planted though and when the time was right and my own 2 daughters were old enough to understand I looked into it again. Little did I realise all those years ago how surrogacy would take over my life!!

 I have been honoured to carry 4 beautiful babies for their parents. I have always been open and honest about my interest in surrogacy and am very happy to say that over the years it has become much more acceptable. This is mainly due to the brave surrogates and couples that are willing to share their stories with the general public. I have now retired from Surrogacy UK to start a new life in Wales, but do wish everyone well and am sure Surrogacy UK will go from strength to strength over the coming years.

My name is Jackie and I am Surrogacy UK's surrogate support worker, I find this a very rewarding role. I am a mother to three wonderful children who fully support me in the work that I do.

In the eighties there was some publicity that I remember reading regarding surrogacy and at the time I felt that I would like to do that, once I had finished my own family the feeling was still there. So in 2001 I decided to fulfill my dream to help someone. I met a fantastic couple who I went on to have two surrogate babies for. At the moment I am currently trying to conceive for another couple.

My name is Andria Christophi, proud mummy to Georgina, born in June 2004. Severe endometriosis was the major cause of our infertility. We underwent various treatments, investigations and major surgery before closing that chapter of our lives. After looking into adoption we came across the concept of surrogacy and discovered SurrogacyUK. We soon became part of the online community and met our gorgeous surrogate and friend Sarah who has recently helped us achieve our dream of becoming parents. I have never been happier.

Since Georgina was born I have given up my career in television production and have been using my organisational skills as a member of the SurrogacyUK Events sub-committee. I enjoy organising Get Togethers as I believe they are the ideal environment for Surrogates and Intended Parents to meet.

I have also been successful in inducing lactation and have breastfed Georgina solely ever since birth. I see SurrogacyUK as my extended family and want to offer as much support and advice to other members as I possibly can. I want others to experience the same joy and happiness as I have felt.

I am Lynne and I am married to Richard.We have a 6 year old daughter and a baby son, both born through surrogacy. We tried for a baby for about 10 years and after many tests and failed IVF attempts, we decided to try surrogacy.

On the 14th of February 1999 our gorgeous daughter was born and on the 9th of November 2004 our beautiful son was born.
Before the birth of our daughter I was working as a Primary teacher. After her birth I taught on a part time temporary contract/supply basis until our son was born.

A number of years ago I was involved in a Scouting Fellowship organisation and I was secretary for a time. While our daughter was at pre-school I was also involved in a pre-school Committee. More recently, I have been helping to launch a new baby/toddler group in our village.

Until recently, I was an Executive Committee member but stepped down from this role at the last AGM. I am continuing to support Surrogacy UK as one of the Intended Parent telephone support workers. This is a voluntary post and is time consuming, yet personally very satisfying and rewarding. My role involves regularly telephoning Intended Parents, offering support and advice regarding surrogacy related issues.

Information appearing on the Surrogacy UK website is the copyright of Surrogacy UK and must not be reproduced in any medium in perpetuity without prior written permission.