Michigan Family Struggles to Adopt Twins Born via Surrogate

• A couple is trying to adopt their biological twins, whom they have raised for nearly 11 months.
• Because Tammy had breast cancer, Tammy and Jordan Myers used the gestational carrier.
• Michigan law does not recognize surrogacy contracts. However, other couples have managed to get around it.

A couple in Michigan is currently undergoing background checks, psychiatric evaluations and fingerprinting. They also need to inspect their home. There are many paperwork involved.

The catch: The twins they’re fighting to adopt — and possibly paying upwards of $70,000 for, two adoption agencies told them — are their own.

Due to Myers’ breast cancer history, Tammy and Jordan Myers used a gestational carrier for their children. Since January, the Myers have raised them.

However, the Michigan surrogacy law is restrictive and the judges who enforce it prevent the couple from being legally recognized as the parents of the twins.

“The only thing that we’re trying to do is be on the birth certificate and try to get them on our insurance,”Insider spoke with Tammy, who has a 9 year-old daughter, Jordan. “That’s, you know, like any normal thing that you would do when you have a baby.”

Before Tammy was diagnosed with cancer, the couple had frozen embryos.

Tammy has already fought breast cancer.

After finding a lump in her abdomen, Jordan was diagnosed at 33. She and Jordan had 48 hours to decide if they would try to preserve her fertility by freezing eggs before she underwent aggressive treatment.

“We didn’t know if I would even be here or if we would even have this opportunity, but we knew we wanted to grow our family and we needed to do whatever we could to make that possible,”Tammy stated.

Tammy had a double mastectomy and underwent an operation. “emergency harvest”In order to get as many eggs as possible, it was necessary to do so in a matter of 10 days instead of the normal two to three month period. It meant feeling very sick and being pumped with hormones. But the procedures resulted in 58 eggs — a record for that fertility clinic, Tammy said.

Tammy and Jordan went through 18 rounds, 28 rounds, more than 20 surgeries and, about five years later. Tammy and Jordan had a rethink about building their family. She will continue hormone therapy for 10-15 years.

Two times, the Judges denied Myers’ request

Lauren was a gestational baby carrier that Lauren Myers discovered through social media. She had already had two children and was eager to help the family. They worked together with a lawyer to create a plan. Tammy’s frozen eggs were fertilized using Jordan’s sperm, before Lauren was born.

BecauseMichigan’s Surrogacy Parenting ActTheir attorney advised them that they could have to adopt their own children.

It was however unlikely. They could instead get “pre-birth order,”Which Before the surrogate gives her birth, recognizes the parents as full legal and valid parents. One was granted to 75 other Michigan couples.

Lauren and her husband were both listed on the birth certificate when Ellison and Eames were born two weeks earlier than the prebirth order. Despite 70 pages of documentation that proved their biological connection to the child, Lauren and her husband were denied emergency legal rights by two different judges.

Finally, April will see the release of A judge ruled that the Myers could have been recognizedAlthough they are legally guardians of their baby, they are still trying to be recognised as adoptive parents.

“It feels like it is another terrible thing that’s happening to our family,”Tammy stated, “but maybe we’re meant to be an example so that something good can come of it and this law can be updated in Michigan so that other families are not facing the same thing.”