mumbai outsourcing to india just took on a new dimensiona childless couple from singapore has found an indian woman to mother a surrogate baby in a firstofitskind instance at hiranandani hospital the ethnic chinese couples child is growing in the womb of a mumbaibased woman xiuan wu name changed and his wife had approached the hospital through internet after four failed attempts at assisted pregnancy in singapore his wife had a history of tb which had been treated prior to all her ivf attempts but she couldnt conceive in ivf or in vitro fertilisation mature eggs are removed from the ovaries and subsequently fertilised with sperm another method of intracytoplasmic sperm injection or icsi is used to treat couples who are unlikely to achieve fertilisation due to the male partners low sperm count wu told toi he and his wife were in their mid30s and had tried ivf without any success coming from a small family we felt it is important to try every possible option we have been trying to start a family for the last five years said wu the couple will be spending nearly rs 10 lakh to have the baby in mumbai before zeroing in on the city wu had been in discussions with an ivf centre in california which has a liberal law on surrogacy however the costs and logistical arrangement made consider india said wu adding it would have cost him 6000080000 in the us nearly rs 2635 lakh wu had problems with singapore laws too which prohibit surrogacy since the indian government has came up with guidelines in assisted reproductive technology art on surrogacy i felt comfortable from a legal perspective knowing the law allows the intended parent to have the custody right of the child as their genetic child the chinese couple has not been permitted to meet or have direct contact with the surrogate mother they track the progress of their baby by a dialogue with the doctors in charge the hospital says the interaction has not been allowed as it could lead to emotional bonding the baby due in june 2006 will be handed over to the couple the same day wu is consulting dr gautam allahbadia the consultant fertility physician at the dr lh hiranandani centre for human reproduction the real challenge for allahbadias team was the ivf cycle when they had to transfer half the cultured embryos into the chinese womans uterus and the other half into the surrogate mothers uterus which was primed with hormonal replacement therapy the menstrual cycles were synchronized using hormonal therapy the pregnancy is now confirmed and we are now awaiting the first sonography results to rule out multiple pregnancies said dr allahbadia who was assisted by three others including dr yashodhara mhatre dr anup kumar director delhi ivf fertility research centre told toi that he too had helped a couple where the husband was british and the wife was of indian origin dr indira hinduja a gynaecologist at jaslok hospital and