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WEKU
WEKU
Kate Wells

As Michigan legalizes surrogacy, here's how families found ways around the ban

Eric Portenga and Kevin O'Neill with daughters Sylvie, Robin and Parker O'Neill celebrating the girls' 2nd birthday in Sept. 2023. The babies' surrogate lived in Ohio because of Michigan's laws, that are changing now. (The Portenga-O'Neill family)

The first time Tammy and Jordan Myers held their twins, the premature babies were still so fragile, their tiny faces were mostly covered by oxygen masks and tubing. Their little hands rested gently on Tammy's chest, as the machines keeping them alive in the neonatal intensive care unit in Grand Rapids, Michigan beeped and hummed around them.

It was an incredible moment, but also a terrifying one. Because a court had just denied the Myers' parental rights to the twins, who were born via surrogate using embryos made from Jordan's sperm and Tammy's eggs (which had been frozen before Tammy underwent treatment for breast cancer.)

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