A baby boy was born four years after his parents were killed in a car accident, The Beijing News reported on April 10.
The boy is named 甜甜(Tiántián), which means “sweet”in Chinese
According to the news report, the boy’s genetic parents, Shen Jie (the father), and Liu Xi (the mother), from Wuxi, Jiangsu province, were on an infertility treatment, and unfortunately died in a car accident only five days before the scheduled date to have the embryo-transplanting surgery in Gulou Hospital in Nanjing.
Both Shen and Liu were only children, so their death left the Shen and Liu families with nobody to carry on their genetic line. The grieving parents then launched lawsuits to obtain custody of the four fertilized embryos frozen in the hospital.
After four lawsuits in three years, the parents won custody of the embryos in early 2017, after which they embarked a long journey trying to find a surrogate mother. Since surrogacy is prohibited in China, the grandparents finally found a surrogate mother in Laos.
Since all the airlines refused to carry the frozen embryos, they were transported to Laos by a team of experts in the surrogacy field, led by a man surnamed Liu (not related to the mother) and his colleagues.
The Laotian surrogate mother had no idea the baby she is carrying has such a special background until she came to China to give birth. “We didn’t want to give her (the surrogate mother) extra pressure,” said the expert surnamed Liu.
The baby boy was born in a hospital in Guangzhou on December 9, 2017. The grandparents named him 甜甜(Tiántián), which means “sweet” in Chinese.
“We’ve suffered so much grief after losing our children. We hope the grandchild will bring our life a taste of sweetness,” explained Hu Xingxian, the maternal grandmother.
Tiantian’s grandparents flew to the hospital in Guangzhou to see their long-wait grandson.
Tiantian’s birth has sparked a heated debate on Chinese social media, where China’s previous one-child policy and surrogacy were the two major controversial topics.
“Surrogacy should be legalized in China. Not all families are rich enough to cover the expense to get surrogacy abroad,” one netizen commented under the Beijing News Weibo post.
“This piece of news weighed down my mind. I’m an only child too, and I often feel so overwhelmed by both the financial and mental pressure that puts on me,” another netizen commented.
According to Chinanew.com.cn, there are more than one million parents in China who have lost their only children, which has not only resulted in one million heartbroken parents but also added extra pressure to the country’s support system for the aged.
Photos: bjnews.com.cn, Pixabay
