Wednesday Weirdness-Separating Surrogate Twins

Welcome to Wednesday Weirdness, a recurring theme where we post something truly weird and wacky in adoption or child welfare.

A surrogate was hired by David Tutera and his spouse Ryan Jurica. She became pregnant with twins right before they broke up. The girl is biologically David’s and the boy is biologically Ryan’s child. The Parent Trap realized.

“Tutera and Jurica were united in a civil union in Vermont in September 2003. About three years ago, they decided to have children through a surrogate, but by the time the babies were born, the couple had split up. After the two ended their relationship earlier this year, they reached a temporary custody agreement to raise their 2-month-old twins, a boy named Cedric and a girl named Cielo, separately.

Although the divorce isn’t final, the couple has decided Jurica will raise his biological child, Cedric, and Tutera will raise his biological child, Cielo.

Tutera appeared on “The View” last week and announced the couple’s decision.

“We transferred two embryos into the surrogate: One was biologically mine, my daughter, Cielo. One was biologically his, his son,” he explained.

Jurica said it was Tutera’s decision to split up the children, and he’s still sad that this is the solution they’ve reached.

Jurica said the idea came up when the two separated and Tutera told him, “We know the boy is yours and the girl is mine. You can have your son and I can have my daughter, and we can move on with our lives.”

Going forward, Jurica said, he plans to explain everything to his son as soon as he’s mature enough to understand the situation.

“I plan to tell Cedric everything. I think honesty is the only way to live,” he said. “Obviously it will have to wait until he’s old enough. It’s a complex and complicated story, both how he came into this world and my past and my divorce, so it’s a lot to talk about.”

HLN contacted Tutera for a response, but he declined to comment”

David Tutera’s ex: Splitting up twins is ‘complex’

[CNN 9/18/13 by Alexandra Thomas]