Death is not the end. At least in Russia, where one can conceive a child and become parent even after death. On the 22nd of September 2010 a young citizen of Saint-Petersburg Artem Klimov became father. It would have been an ordinary story if not one fact: by the time of the child’s conception Artem had been in the other world for two months already.
Last year a 22 years old medical student developed leukosis. Before the chemotherapy started his mother Natalya Yuryevna had persuaded him to leave his sperm sample for crioconservation. Treatment didn’t lead to any results and several months later Artem died in the hospital on his mother’s lap.
As soon as the monitor showed that his heart stopped beating, I remembered about his frozen genetic material – Artem’s mother says. I am 41 years old and I could give birth to my own child but what I needed was a grandson, manifestation of my son.
In one of St. Pete’s reproduction clinics Natalya Yurievna selected an egg-donor and, in order to enhance chances, found two surrogate mothers. There was too little sperm this is why only one attempt could be done. Two weeks later Natalya Klimova got to know that one of the surrogate mothers was bearing her grandson. The child was born before term as the surrogate mother’s placenta started peeling off – but he was healthy though a bit premature. His weight was 2,800 and height 47 cm. The happy grandmother named his grandson Egor.
Egor is the second posthumously born surrogate child in Russia. The first posthumous surrogacy program was successfully implemented in 2005 in Yekaterinburg for the Zacharovs family. On the 5th of November 2010 Ekaterina Germanovna’s grandson, Georgy, will be 5 years old.
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