Update: Dennis Quaid, wife expecting boy/girl twins via gestational carrier

Update: It’s a boy and a girl, to be born around Thanksgiving. Dennis revealed the exciting news to a crowd at a charity event in Austin, saying,

We finally know the sexes of these sweet littlechildren coming into the world – we’ve seen pictures of them. One ofthem was a boy and one of them was a girl. I’m over the moon.We are both so thrilled and excited. This is something we’ve wanted for some time.

Originally posted May 21st: Actor Dennis Quaid, 53, star of American Dreamz, confirmed today that he and wife Kimberly, 35, are expecting twins later this year.  A surrogate or ‘gestational carrier’ is carrying the transfered embryos — the biological children of Dennis and Kimberly — who wed in July 2004. 

Dennis has one son, Jack Henry, 15, from his previous marriage to actress Meg Ryan. 

Source:  Entertainment Tonight

Thanks to CBB reader Jenny.

Comments

Awesome! I wonder if she has fertility problems? I think she’s only 35.

- Jessie on May 21st, 2007

Congratulations to Dennis and Kimberly

- Happy For M & P on May 21st, 2007

Not to be pedantic, but Kimberly was not “implanted with babies”. Embryos, not babies, were transferred, not implanted into her uterus.

Jessie, I was only 23 when I discovered I needed the help of reproductive assistance technologies, so it’s very rarely just an age factor.

- Pulpgurl on May 22nd, 2007

If the children are her biological children, she cannot have fertility problems. Probably she is unable to carry them because of some ilness or problems with her womb. I don’t want to think that she only doesn’t want to spoil her figure…;-)

- Petra on May 22nd, 2007

I wonder if they’ll be girls — remember the movie “The Parent Trap” he starred in?

- Marilyn on May 22nd, 2007

Embryos are transferred NOT implanted. Please be more careful– this sort of thing drives anyone who has been through IVF crazy.

It took me 3 years to have a baby and I was only 28 when I started ttc.

- mm on May 22nd, 2007

The hope is that once an embryo has been transferred to to the uterus, it will implant and grow. Doctors don’t have a lot of control over that part. They just have to wait and hope along with the prospective parents. It’s nice that it worked out for Dennis and Kimberly.

Hi mm!

- pixi on May 22nd, 2007

I’m confused. if the kids are Dennis and Kimberley’s, why do they need a surrogate? Can Kimberly not HOLD a pregnancy? she can get pregnant, but not stay pregnant? is that what that means?

More than likely, there is some reason related to her reproductive organs, or it is unsafe for her health to carry a child/give birth. We don’t know the exact reason.

- MuffThumb on May 22nd, 2007

This concept doesn’t seem that unusual to me. My brother and sister-in-law got pregnant about 4 or 5 times before she was able to carry a baby full term. In fact the last miscarriage she had, they did an ultrasound right afterwards and said “you still have a baby in there.” She miscarried one and the other (the twin) survived and is now a healthy 13 year old girl. There was some talk about having a surrogate because she had so much difficulty actually maintaining a pregnancy.

- TwinMom on May 22nd, 2007

There are a number of reasons why a woman cannot carry a pregnancy. I myself needed a surrogate because I had to have my uterus removed after I hemmorhaged following childbirth. I have met women who have a mishapen uterus or certain conditions can prevent them from carrying even though they have perfectly good eggs. So, she can certainly have “fertility problems” even though she can make good embryos.

- kathleen on May 23rd, 2007

I remember Kelsey Grammer’s wife was advised not carry a pregnancy because of irritable bowel syndrome so it could be anything.

- KD Griffin on May 28th, 2007

I think the term ‘gestational carrier’ is disturbing! A woman has to nourish these two fetuses to term for goodness sake! That is a huge thing to do and I am not sure if it’s reflects well on Western society to treat a woman’s body like an incubater.

- Neke on June 10th, 2007

Neke, as much as I’d like to agree, I’m sure she doesn’t care what she’s being referred to as, because imagine how much she’s getting paid by Dennis and Kimberly?

She IS the incubator, they aren’t her children in any way, shape or form.

- Natasha on June 10th, 2007

I saw Kimberly this weekend at the Quaid charity event in Austin. I was shocked at how skinny the woman is. She has to be around 5’9″ and maybe 105 lbs soaking wet. Tiny legs and no butt at all. I don’t think she could carry a baby. More than likely she does not have regular menstrual cycles, if she has one at all. Honestly she looks anorexic and some of her friends were commenting to her about how worried they were about her because she was too skinny.

- Joanna on June 10th, 2007

I was kinda shocked that Quaid chose the term gestational carrier. I am sure she gets paid a lot of money, bus she still is the one carrying the kids and giving birth. In many countries the law would actually consider her the mother, regardless of DNA. She’s not some womb on legs!

I saw some pictures of his wife at the event mentioned and have to agree that she looks painfully thin. She looks different than she did some years ago.

- Linda on June 11th, 2007

I wonder how one finds a gestation carrier like this. Are there agencies that advertise this kind of thing?

- inexcuseable.com on June 11th, 2007

I’ve known a few women who were so underweight they either couldn’t get pregnant or couldn’t sustain a pregnancy. It’s very sad.

- TwinMom on June 11th, 2007

She might be underweight for a medical reason that also happens to preclude her from carrying a baby. There are a lot of gsatrointestinal diseases that make it very difficult to carry a pregnancy, and can make a person lose a lot of weight. Crohn’s disease is one, and I can think of at least two others. If that’s the case, it’s hard for the person to nourish their own body, much less someone else’s!

- Aaron Boatwright on June 11th, 2007

I saw Dennis and Kimberly at a party after one of the charity events and they were both smoking and drinking. Therefore, I seriously doubt that it has anything to do with her having a medical problem. I remember recently Dennis was featured in Rachael Ray’s “Celeb Fridge” and there were Atkin shakes in the fridge. Rachael asked Dennis if those were his and to please tell her he was not a dieter. His answer was no, those were Kimberly’s. Scary that this woman actually works to stay this skinny. She is very unhealthy looking, imo.

- Joanna on June 11th, 2007

For the comment earlier…she can have reproductive problems but still produce eggs, they just may not release. Or she has blocked fallopian tubes or other problems…plus she may just not want to carry at all. Some people pay just so they don’t have to carry and deliver. For me that is crazy…I LOVED being pregnant although with Endo and PCOS it took a while to get that way. Their kids will be cute however it happens I am sure.

- Nic on June 14th, 2007

“I was kinda shocked that Quaid chose the term gestational carrier.”

The official term for a woman who contracts to bear and birth children for whom she is not the genetic mother is “gestational surrogate.” As in, she’s gestating the fetuses, but didn’t provide any of the material used to create them. You may find it insulting, but Dennis is using the correct term – one which I’m sure he’s heard many times. Most surrogacies these days are gestational ones rather than “traditional” ones in which the surrogate is also the genetic mother of the babies that she’s carrying, even if the couple in question are using the eggs of an outside donor – going that route helps the couple avoid a Baby M situation.

Also, in this case, since this woman isn’t a relative of either of the Quaids, I’m guessing that she’s being paid to do this – and paid well. I’m also guessing that she lives in a state, such as Texas or California, where the legal system has already established that she won’t have any custodial rights to the babies once they’re born, as she’s not the genetic mother. And yes, there are agencies that match up surrogates with would-be parents. Generally, the surrogates go through extensive psychological testing. They aren’t women desperate for babies – they’re typically women who easily carry pregnancies and enjoy being pregnant, but don’t want to *raise* 20 kids. I can pretty much guarantee you that the woman carrying these babies isn’t thinking of them as “hers”…especially as they’re NOT hers. Also, if they found her through an agency, I can guarantee you that she already has children of her own, since the only real test of someone’s ability to be pregnant successfully is, well, someone’s history of being pregnant successfully.

As for the idea that Dennis is being insensitive or insulting by using the “gestational” term here…I don’t know about you, but I consider “gestation” to be the hardest part of producing kids! (Not raising them, just producing them.) If I hear that someone is gestating children for someone else, I personally feel that that person is doing something extremely kind for the other person, payment or no payment. Nowhere in Dennis’s statements have I seen any suggestion that he thinks that gestation is a trivial thing. However, I think he does want to establish that the twins he will be raising are the *genetic* children of his wife, even though she isn’t bearing them, which I understand. I personally find this all far less annoying than Joan Lunden being “coy” on whether or not her 50-something eggs were used to create her two sets of twins carried via surrogate, but YMMV.

I think what’s going on here is just that a lot of the terms used in assisted reproduction can seem somewhat cold and insensitive to people who have been able to stick to old-fashioned ways of conceiving and bearing children. “Gestational surrogate” (or “carrier”) does sound weird, but the woman in question would have heard the term dozens of times from many different people. I seriously doubt she’s going to be hurt hearing it one more time from Dennis Quaid.

- mg on June 17th, 2007

Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly welcomed twins via a surrogate mother.
Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace were born today, November 8th.

Source : eonline.com

- Christelle on November 8th, 2007

That woman has got to be crazy. I carried twins (my own and husband’s biological) and it was brutal. I was a strong healthy girl when it started and by month 7 I couldn’t get out of bed from everything hurting, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat or breathe hardly (no room). My health not to mention my body are shot and it’s been more than a year. I can’t imagine doing that to myself for any other reason than love.

- Dee on November 21st, 2007