This second-storey four-bedroom apartment is what surrogate mums will call home during their pregnancy

Nadiad's new 'tourist' attraction

ABOUT 40km away from Akanksha Infertility Clinic is the city of Nadiad, a rural college township where temperatures in the summer can reach a scorching 45 deg C.

Famous for the Dharmasingh Desai Institute of Technology and the Ayurvedic College, Nadiad attracts migrants from all over India.

But the hot and dusty town has been attracting a different crowd in the past few years: fertility tourists from all over the world headed for the surrogate house. Here, the surrogate mums welcome prospective 'parents'.

Praying for a safe delivery

THE surrogates congregate daily to pray in front of an altar with framed images of Sikh gurus, Hindu gods and Jesus Christ.

Most of them pray for a successful delivery, while others pray for their own children back home.

A solitary television set sits in the living room, with only a wall clock on an adjacent wall for company. There are no tables in the entire house.

Not your usual residents

CAMOUFLAGED among other similarly nondescript two-storey buildings, the residence lies along a dusty main road near a railway track that links Ahmedabad to Mumbai.

The surrogate house, as most people in the area call it, is not even a house.

It is a second-storey apartment with four rooms and a kitchen.

It has electricity and constant water supply; metal-framed sliding windows with curtains; and two squatting flush toilets instead of the bucket type.

The rooms are sparse, and everything is tidied away behind built-in cupboards.

Bond of pregnancy

BOUGHT by Dr Nayna Patel, the surrogate house is an essential part of her surrogacy services at her Akanksha Infertility Clinic.

The apartment is near a hospital and there is a caretaker who looks after the surrogates.

The occupants may not live with their families during the course of their pregnancy. Their children and husbands can visit, but only during the day.

The surrogate mums support each other through their pregnancies.

A caretaker, 42-year-old Niermala Oedra, ensures that they keep their chin up during their stay at the house.

'I treat the surrogate mothers as my daughters and I always ask those around to take care of them in my absence,' she said.

'I feel sad whenever one of my 'daughters' leaves the surrogate house after delivery. We get together and cry for the one who leaves the house.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.