SURROGATE MOTHERS' NEW NICHE: BEARING BABIES FOR GAY COUPLES: From the New York Times

...In December, Ms. Stiller gave birth to the baby, named Samantha, for Dr. Friedman and Dr. Wellisch, conceived with a donor egg and the sperm from one of the partners. (They chose not to know which.) In her decision to work with them Ms. Stiller is part of a small but growing movement of surrogate mothers choosing gay couples over traditional families.

As legislatures debate giving gay couples the right to marry -- 14 states have amended their constitutions to prevent it -- hundreds of couples are finding ways to create families with or without marriage through surrogates like Ms. Stiller, who are willing to help them have children genetically linked to them and to bypass the often difficult legal challenges gay men face in adoption. ...

Many surrogates who choose to work for gay couples say they feel ill equipped or reluctant to deal with the sense of hopelessness and failure expressed by married women and men who have struggled unsuccessfully for years to bear children. Still others are drawn to men as clients because they fear the possible resentments and jealousies in working so closely with other women. ...

In the last 13 years, Ms. Stiller has had five children: one with her first husband, two with her current husband and two more as a surrogate.

Her first excursion into the world of surrogacy, for a Florida husband and wife, left her feeling unappreciated and depleted, she said.

Though the couple visited her in her 18th week of pregnancy and brought gifts for her children, Ms. Stiller sought a deeper relationship with the intended mother, a 40-year-old doctor. ...

"She was here for two and half weeks, and she never made an opportunity to share in my family," Ms. Stiller said. "It was very important for me to have my children see that we were helping to create a family, that Mommy wasn't giving away a brother or a sister." ...

And Ms. Buras remains committed, and plans to return for another attempt in June, despite the limitations their efforts have placed on her intimate life. According to her contract, Ms. Buras cannot have sex with her husband from one month before the transfer to one month after. Though her husband has been very supportive, she explained, "I can't say that it doesn't bother him, because it does." ...

The typical surrogate, according to the Center for Surrogate Parenting, is a woman of 21 to 37, who has had two children and 13 years of formal education. In many cases, she is motivated by a desire to be pregnant, as well as by a desire for attention.

Working with gay couples, psychologists say, minimizes the need for a certain kind of emotional vigilance that can displace the surrogate's own needs from center stage. "Surrogate mothers who work with heterosexual couples need to be incredibly sensitive to the loss and trauma that the infertile woman has suffered," Dr. Hanafin said.

Some surrogates also say they find the sense of defiance in providing gay couples with children meaningful.

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