With Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas’ announcement Friday that they had welcomed a new baby daughter via surrogacy, they became the latest celebrity couple to employ medical technology and to hire another woman to carry their child.
Chopra, 39, and Jonas, 29, were upfront about the fact that they used a surrogate, probably knowing there would be questions because the actress hadn’t been seen looking pregnant over the past nine months or so, but they weren’t forthcoming with an explanation for why they went that route.
“We are overjoyed to confirm that we have welcomed a baby via surrogate,” on Instagram. The Daily Mail reported that the baby was was born prematurely at 27 weeks so she’s still in the hospital. The Daily Mail also cited sources who said the couple’s busy schedules “had gotten in the way of their family planning” so they went the surrogacy route.
In anticipating questions about the surrogacy or the baby’s birth, the couple, who married in 2018, sidestepped them. “We respectfully ask for privacy during this special time as we focus on our family,” the statement said.
Such questions about the surrogacy are inevitable, and the answer could be any one of the top reasons that people choose surrogacy. According to Healthline, the reasons people choose surrogates include:
— Health issues that prevent a woman from getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to term.
— Infertility issues that prevent couples from either getting or staying pregnant, like recurrent miscarriages.
— Same-sex couples who wish to have children.
— Single people who want to have biological children.
Healthline also pointed out that surrogacy usually is costly and can bring legal and emotional complexities. It almost always involves high-priced in vitro fertilization procedures, searching for and hiring a woman to carry the baby, paying for her medical care and hiring lawyers and signing contracts to make sure there are no future disputes about custody. The Guardian said having a baby via surrogacy can cost around $150,000, and insurance companies don’t cover many of the expenses associated with it.
Kim Kardashian has been open about the medical condition that made it dangerous for her to carry her four pregnancies to term. She went through pregnancies with her first two children, North and Saint, but her deliveries were complicated by placenta accreta, a condition wherein the placenta attaches too deeply into the uterine wall. The condition is known to put mothers and newborn babies at risk of bleeding to death.
For that reason, Kardashian and her ex-husband Kanye West chose to hire surrogates for their third and fourth children, Chicago and Psalm.
Other celebrities who have chosen surrogacy include, according to Insider, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, Amber Heard, Anderson Cooper, Jimmy Fallon and “Grey’s Anatomy” star Ellen Pompeo.
Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick’s twin daughters, Lorette and Tabitha, were both born via surrogate in 2009 after the couple reportedly struggled to get pregnant after their first child was born, according to Insider. Neil Patrick Harris and David Burkta’s 11-year-old twins, daughter Harper Grace and son Gideon Scott, were born with the help of two different women, as Burtka said in a 2002 interview.
“There was an egg donor, a wonderful woman who was anonymous,” Burtka said. “We took two of our best guys and implanted them into her eggs, two different eggs.” That way, they don’t know which twin was biologically theirs, he explained. Then, they used a different woman to be surrogate.
As surrogacy has helped couples with medical or other needs, The Guardian reported in 2019 on a growing trend among Hollywood stars and other wealthy people — choosing surrogacy because it’s a more convenient way to have children and better fits into a woman’s busy schedule.
The Guardian described how a growing number of women were visiting the upscale Pacific Fertility Center in Los Angeles for “social” surrogacy. The women want to have babies that are biologically their own, but they don’t want to carry them. The Guardian said there is no medical reason for them to use a surrogate.
“They just choose not to be pregnant, so they conceive babies through IVF and then hire another woman to gestate and give birth to their baby,” The Guardian said.
The Guardian quoted Dr. Vicken Sahakian, chief medical officer at the Pacific Fertility Center, on why he didn’t have any ethical concerns about social surrogacy. Sahakian, whose patients have included Hollywood stars and other affluent clients, said: “I don’t have issues with it. If you’re a 28-year-old model or an actor and you get pregnant, you’re going to lose your job – you will. If you want to use a surrogate, I’ll help you.”
Sahakian agreed that “money talks” when it comes to social surrogacy. He also said there are emotional benefits to the mother being pregnant. “The bonding. I understand that, and from experience I can say that most women love to be pregnant,” Sahakian said. “But a lot of women don’t want to be pregnant and lose a year of their careers.”
While surrogacy has become accepted in celebrity world, controversy occasionally erupts. That’s what happened last March when the actor Alec Baldwin and his influencer wife, Hilaria Baldwin, announced the arrival of a new baby daughter just five months after Hilaria had given birth to a son.
The Baldwins initially were cagey about how they suddenly acquired a new child. Their silence struck many as surprising given that Hilaria Baldwin so frequently shares photos and personal details about her pregnancies, miscarriages and children’s lives on social media. Alec Baldwin even told an inquiring mind on his Instagram account to “shut the (expletive) up and mind your own business.”
The couple have since acknowledged using a surrogate for their sixth child, Lucia, and have promoted the agency that helped them on Hilaria Baldwin’s Instagram. Hilaria Baldwin also has posted photos of her nursing her two infants at once and now often refers to them as her “twins.”
