Hollywood star Cameron Diaz has announced the birth of a new son, saying she is “blessed and grateful.” The 51-year-old and her husband, Benji Madden, have a 4-year-old daughter and announced their second child on Instagram, but declined to post photos or describe the circumstances of the birth.
Diaz, who starred in hits including “There’s Something About Mary” and “Charlie’s Angels,” took a break from acting in 2022 to enjoy motherhood and has expressed the joys of watching her young daughter grow.
Media reports following the birth of her daughter Raddix in 2019 revealed that Ms. Diaz and her husband had struggled to conceive. They tried in vitro fertilization (IVF), acupuncture, and other methods but to no avail. Eventually, the couple turned to surrogacy. They have not revealed, however, whether their new son was conceived the same way.
Surrogacy involves a woman carrying a baby to term on behalf of another. It can involve the egg of the biological mother or that of the surrogate, and conception occurs via IVF. Emri Seli, MD, of Yale University, said that the procedure, “alone or in combination with egg donation,” is highly successful in many cases, and has led to thousands of healthy births.
Statistics reveal that around 4,000 babies are born via surrogacy in the United States every year. The cost ranges from $110,000 to $170,000, including medical fees, surrogate expenses, and legal costs.
The legal aspects of the procedure vary from state to state, with some more accommodating than others. Experts in the field tend to divide the US into “surrogacy-friendly” and “non-surrogacy-friendly” states. The friendliest include West Coast states and those in the Northeast. These allow payments to the surrogate, as well as non-compensated arrangements, and recognize the validity of surrogate parenthood.
Non-friendly states include New York and Michigan. Compensated surrogacy is illegal there, and surrogacy contracts between parties are non-enforceable. All other states are considered somewhere in the middle, and attitudes and services can vary between counties.
