Yzabelle Bostyn
A SPANISH lesbian couple have become the first in Europe to give birth to a baby they both carried.
Derek, weighing 3.3kg, was born in the Hospital Juaneda Miramar de Mallorca on Monday, October 30.
He is the first European baby born through INVOcell, a technique which allows two women to carry a baby.
His mothers, Azahara, 27, and Estefania, 30, worked with doctors Gustavo Carti and Miriam Mateos from Juaneda Fertility to become mothers.
Also known as ‘reciprocal effortless IVF’, the technique starts like traditional IVF, with egg production and retrieval from the mothers.
Then, the egg is combined with donor sperm. The egg is subsequently transferred to a device known as an ‘invocell’ and placed inside one of the mother’s bodies, below the cervix, to allow for fertilisation.
The embryos are then removed and frozen, until the other mother is prepared to carry the baby through hormone injections.
The second mother carries the embryo in her uterus for the next nine months and ultimately gives birth to the baby.
For Azahara and Estefania, the process began in March this year, when Estefania hosted the egg fertilisation.
Then, Azahara carried Derek for nine months, giving birth to a healthy baby boy on Monday.
They told ABC: “Thanks to this technique, we can say we both carried our baby. That is really special.”
INVOcell technology was first used in Texas in 2018 to allow lesbian couple Bliss and Ashleigh Coulter to carry their son, Stetson.
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