By Sharon Lamothe

Aren’t you sick and tired of listening to the opinions of people who refer to surrogate women as those who ‘are living under the poverty level’ or ‘ are carrying other women’s babies for the money’ or better yet ‘low-life trailer trash that can’t do anything else but have babies’? I would think that not only the women who volunteer to become surrogate mothers or gestational carriers would be highly insulted but so would the Intended Parents who are trusting these women with the most valuable dream that they have…their very own child!

I’d like to clear up a few, lets say, misconceptions. First of all most of the women I have known or worked with in the surrogacy world over the years have been perfectly capable of supporting themselves without putting their lives on hold for another couple to become a surrogate mother. They may have been stay at home moms who did volunteer work at their children’s school, church or community but their husbands/partners were able and willing to make enough money to support the entire family on one income. There are the women who were not only mothers but students too, attending classes for nursing, criminal law, cosmetology, business and architecture (to name a few) and had the support of their family and friends as they carried precious babies for other couples. Lets not forget the working mothers who not only held full time jobs in fields such as teaching, nursing, legal assistant, hospice, hair salons, real estate, and photography studios (and some who owned their own businesses). Did any of these wonderful, caring women live in a trailer? I bet a few did. So what. The point I am making here that no matter what the background they were no where near ‘low life trash’ and I resent that implication on behalf of all surrogates and myself.

Secondly, Intended Parents, for the most part, are not the type of people that give cart blanch to their agency owner and say “just give me anyone on your list that can carry a baby for me. I don’t care about their back ground, where they come from or what they do for a living…if they can carry a baby that’s all I need to know”! That comment may be a WISH of some agency owners out there but I am telling you it is rarely heard. IP’s are very concerned about the type of person that they trust with their maybe babies. Not just anyone will do. Is she healthy? Dose she live in a nice calm environment? How are the working conditions where she works? These are some of the questions that are asked. And some of the concerns that are answered.

So, people out there painting ’surrogate mothers’ with one swipe of your brush. Until you walked in our shoes or the shoes of the IP’s I ask you to keep the name calling to yourself. Thank YOU!

By Darlene Hull

I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.
~Jesus (Matthew 25:40)

Have you ever wondered what it must be like to raise a child in abject poverty, where you didn’t know if you would eat that week, let alone that day?

Have you any idea what it would be like to look at your little baby and know that you wouldn’t live to see it grow up because you would be dead of AIDS long beforehand?

How would you feel if you looked at that baby and knew that you had infected that child with AIDS?

I live a pretty sheltered life here in Calgary in my lovely home in a nice suburb. I have no idea what that kind of suffering is like. However, millions of mothers in this world have those thoughts as their daily reality.

I never spent much time thinking about this before; it was always “out there”, not here in my home. I felt sad, but was able to easily distract myself from the problem and get on with my life.

Well, I recently had a wake-up call.

My local church launched a campaign to fight against AIDS and Poverty. They’ve called this campaign, “Compassion in Action”. It brought the whole thing home to me all of a sudden, and I began to wonder how a solitary mother on the “prosperous” side of the earth could make a difference. I began to do some research, and found many organizations that are reaching out and needing help from people just like me. Perhaps I could sponsor a child through a relief organization such as Compassion; perhaps there was a petition to sign, or an organization that could use a donation to feed the hungry and supply medical attention to the sick. I discovered there were plenty of ways that I could add my voice to fight against the problem.

And then I realized that if each of us reached out in a way that worked for us, we could really make a difference. If the equivalent population of my city was orphaned every two years here in North America, politicians would hear about it, and we would fight until something happened. That’s precisely what’s happening in some of these developing countries, yet those poor people on the other side of the world have no voice. Their governments often don’t care, or don’t have the necessary resources to bring healing, peace and prosperity to their country.

I realized that my one, solitary voice alone is a little limited. However, my solitary voice joined together with many other solitary voices, could make a difference; a real and vital difference. I then wondered what could be accomplished if every mother on the planet did one small thing to aid those in need.

That would be a true army of compassion; mothers on a mission! Step aside, because mothers are women who are not to be messed with! What an accomplishment it would be if every mom joined voices to do battle for those who cannot fight for themselves!

Now that is worth fighting for!

By: David Cowley
White diamonds are produced by mines all over the world in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. With the rise in popularity of the colored diamonds the term White is misleading. A white diamond is considered to be totally colorless.

Color grading scales used by the internationally recognized laboratories (GIA & IGI for example), ranges from D which is totally colorless to Z which is a pale yellow or brown color. Brown diamonds darker than K color are usually described using their letter grade, and a descriptive phrase, for example M Faint Brown. Diamonds with more depth of color than Z color fall into the fancy color diamond range.

One thing that will remain a constant and that is that white diamonds are classic. The simple beauty of a white diamond is magnificent. There are so many jewelry possibilities that include the use of white diamonds. There are necklaces, bracelets, anklets, earrings, rings, and even toe rings and belly button rings. Nothing is off limits when displaying the sheer beauty of white diamonds.

Choosing a piece of jewelry is not always as simple as visiting the jeweler and choosing something that looks pretty under the glass. Diamonds are expensive and knowledge is needed to make a wise purchase that will retain or even increase in value over time. This means understanding how diamonds are classified.

There are the “4 C’s” of diamond classification and they stand for cut, color, clarity, and carat. Each has its own set of very precise rules when grading a diamond. The first is the cut of the diamond.

The act of polishing a diamond and creating flat facets in symmetrical arrangement brings out the diamond’s hidden beauty in dramatic fashion. There are mathematically proven algorithms involved in creating the perfect cut. When diamonds are cut properly they will enhance any piece of jewelry. They are stunning to look at, and when the sun catches them, they flash like miniature suns.

The next consideration in white diamonds is color. The color has its own scale ranging from D to Z. Diamonds appear white but often have tones of yellow or brown. The more these colors are apparent, the lower the quality and the lower the price of the diamond. It is most desirable to find a diamond that is close to the D rating.

Every diamond is going to have some imperfections. Nature rarely produces anything that is pure and that is why one of the reason man made diamonds are becoming so popular. Many of the man made diamonds are of a better quality than what can be found in nature. There are some cloudy spots in some diamonds and these can often be hidden by a high quality cut.

Finally, diamonds are classified by carat. This is the weight of the diamond. The larger the diamond, the more it costs if the other 3 C’s also fall in line. Jewelers must take into account the other 3 C’s of classification because two diamonds of equal carat can have drastically different prices based on the cut, clarity, and color.

Author: Jonathon Hardcastle

Diamonds are one of the stones that god inspired Aaron from the Jewish history to implant on the breastplate of the high priest. It represents the month of April and planet Venus and it is very commonly known as the King of gemstones. In plain words diamond is the girl’s best friend! Diamonds are believed to have divine powers that they can bestow upon the wearer.

Even while you are watching diamond commercials on television you can feel the shine, the sparkle penetrate in your eyes, leaving you mesmerized. The whole world has been working really hard to make this stone as a symbol of love and affection. No wonder men spend their life savings on buying a diamond ring for proposing marriage to their beloved instead of using a gold one. Too many magical powers, too many superstitions beliefs have been associated with diamonds.

The diamond is chemically composed of carbon and it is the hardest of all gems. The perfect four dimensional shapes of the stone make it very useful. The women today who wear diamond rings and necklaces to show off their extravagance little know that this rare gem stone has a big hand in industrial development as well. It is used for cutting other metals because it is the hardest of all metals. Diamonds are available while in raw state in different colors. They may be totally colorless or pale yellow and they can even be orange, red, blue, black and green.

Diamonds are believed to be very old. Their life spans can be as long as 2 or 3 billion years and they can live as long as forever. They were popular in Greek mythology, gods were believed to use this to communicate with people and thus it even has a Greek name that is called adamas.

The substance that diamond is made up of; over the years as it has lived to prove itself as the most reliable of all stones has earned it deep veneration.

Diamonds are said to have magical powers. It may be superstition but it has prevailed through the times and women go on using it as a means of good luck. Good luck is something very minor diamonds can heal many fatal diseases and surprisingly it even has. The wearer is given strength in his relation with his spouse. It is said to give power to a weak soul and most of all it provides longevity. This attribute is something no man can deny to have longing for. No wonder then the world says diamonds are forever!

Article Collected by: Pastor Geneve

Author: Less Wright

The ability to grow true gem-grade diamonds in a lab has been a long standing goal of science and industry, and one that has been achieved on a limited basis over the past five years.

Unfortunately most media publications are usually designed to sell articles, and thus often do not provide consumers with a true picture of the commercial reality and availability of lab-grown diamonds. Further, many sellers of diamond simulants (stones that look similar to diamond, but are not real diamond) exploit this knowledge gap as a way to deceptively sell their simulants as ‘lab-grown diamonds’. As the president of a company that has been involved with both lab-grown diamonds and diamond simulants for over seven years, and having seen the confusion many of these less than factual articles have caused, I wanted to help provide customers with an industry insider assessment of what is and is not commercially available, and help educate those who are indeed looking to purchase a true lab-grown diamond. Thus, we begin a short tour of myth vs. reality in the lab-grown diamond market (circa 2007).

First and foremost, lab-grown diamonds (real diamond, but not mined) are in fact available for jewelry purchase, but on a limited basis. The significant catch though is this – when most people think of a diamond, they automatically think of white diamonds. As of October, 2007, no one is currently able to offer white (colorless) lab grown diamonds for sale on any type of production basis. Regardless of what various reporters write, the reality is only fancy color diamonds (predominantly yellow, and to a much lesser degree, pink and blue) are available.

Pastor Geneve Diamond Investment

The reason for that gap between what consumers want (white lab-grown diamonds) and what labs can deliver (mostly yellow lab-grown diamonds), is due to both commercial value and natural barriers. Lets discuss the natural barrier first – yellow diamonds are yellow because they incorporate nitrogen into their crystal structure. White diamonds are white (or clear) because they have much less nitrogen in their crystal structure. When growing diamonds, however, nitrogen is a catalyst – it significantly speeds up diamond growth, and in addition reduces defects. Thus, you can grow a 1ct (finished) yellow in roughly one week, versus growing the same size white (by restricting nitrogen) can take you 4-6 weeks (using BARS method, the default method currently). In other words, nitrogen can help you grow up to 6x as much yellow diamond as white in the same amount of production time. That’s a tough natural barrier.

The commercial barrier, is that yellow natural diamonds are worth much more than white natural diamonds. In nature, there are roughly 10,000 whites for every fancy yellow. Thus, fancy yellows command a much higher price per carat. Lab grown diamonds typically sell at a discount but are still pegged to their natural counterparts, and since yellow diamonds are worth more than whites, the absolute selling price for lab grown yellows is higher than what the market will pay for lab grown whites.

Now, if you combine the fact that labs can grow yellows much more quickly and easily than whites, and that yellow diamonds (lab grown and natural) further command higher prices than whites, you can see you have a severe dis-incentive to produce white diamonds with the current technology. White diamonds can and have been produced by labs (we have some sample photos on our website) but they are not price competitive with natural white diamonds at this time. Hence, a very big reason for why there are currently no white diamonds available for commercial sale.

These fundamental reasons are typically not explained in most published articles about lab grown diamonds, and many articles typically leave the reader with the exact opposite impression, that white lab grown diamonds are plentiful and cheap (remember the $5/ct quote from Wired magazine?). Various unethical simulant (CZ) makers have utilized this confusion to deceptively advertise their imitation diamonds as being “flawless man-made diamonds”, “perfect lab-grown diamonds”, etc. all for the low price of $100/ct. And based on emails we’ve received from customers, people have been tricked into buying plain CZ, after being told it was a ‘lab grown white diamond’ and having seen articles discussing the advent of lab-grown diamonds being available.

There are two easy ways to avoid being suckered into unethical advertising like that. First of all, the price. To cut a 1ct finished diamond, you need between 2-3 carats of rough diamond to start. Cutters charge by the carat for their cutting work, and $100-$150/ct is a common rate. That means even if the diamond material were free, a seller would still have to charge at least $200-$450/ct just to break even on the cutting cost. And obviously, the lab grown material is not free and the seller would like to make a profit instead of break even, so if you see a seller selling ‘cultured diamonds’ or ‘man-made diamonds’ for less than several hundred dollars per carat, you can be assured it is not real lab grown diamond, regardless of what claims they make. Currently, lab-grown yellow diamonds are selling for around $4,000/ct. And remember, yellows are produced up to 6x faster than whites, so you are unlikely to see lab grown white diamonds selling for much less than that in the future unless someone figures out a much faster way to grow diamond.

The second way to protect yourself, for lab-grown diamonds of any size (i.e. .30ct and higher), is to only buy a lab-grown diamond that comes with a certificate from an independent lab. Just like natural diamonds, virtually all major gem labs now offer grading reports for lab grown diamonds (including, as of this year, the GIA). They are basically the same reports as they issue for natural diamonds, but with the origin listed as “lab-grown”. If there is no certificate with a ‘man-made diamond’ of any real size (i.e. .30ct or larger), and the seller declines to provide one when asked, then you can also be pretty sure its a simulant being called a lab-grown diamond.

Checking for the price and the grading certificate can ensure you are dealing with an ethical seller of lab-grown diamonds. We’ve seen many a customers whose hopes were dashed after we explained that the $150 pair of ‘man-made diamond’ earrings they bought were in fact nothing more than deceptively advertised CZ. Don’t fall into that trap.

Another common myth about lab-grown diamonds is that all lab grown diamonds are ‘perfect’ or flawless. As noted, the current default technology for growing diamonds (BARS method) is simply replicating the high-pressure and high-temperature present under the earth, and doing it above ground (sometimes with additional catalyst to lower the necessary temperature/pressure required). And just as diamonds from under the earth have flaws, diamonds grown above the earth also have flaws. It is a more correct analogy to think of growing diamonds (using current technology) as diamond-farming, rather than diamond manufacturing. Just like farming, you plant a seed, and try to optimize the growth conditions, but you no more get a perfect diamond than a farmer always gets a perfect tomato. In fact, sometimes after a week is up, the chamber is opened and no diamond has grown at all…so it is no where near the ‘push a button, out pops a perfect diamond’ that many people think. Similarly, labs cannot customize how the diamond grows to be a specified shape (i.e. pear or emerald cut) – you get what you get, and cut to optimize the yield of each crystal.

That being said, it is true that most lab grown diamonds (especially yellow diamonds) are slightly harder than their equivalent natural diamonds. In yellows, this is due to the nitrogen being more perfectly dispersed, and Carbon-Nitrogen bonds are slightly stronger than Carbon-Carbon bonds. This is also one way labs with Raman equipment can detect man-made versus natural yellows – in yellow naturals, nitrogen is clumped, versus it is quite evenly dispersed in lab-grown yellow diamonds.

The next myth – lab grown diamonds can always be produced, so their prices will continue to drop vs. a natural diamonds will keep going up. Currently, gem grade, lab-grown diamonds are in fact substantially rarer than natural diamonds if you compare yearly production. While white diamonds are being mined in tens of millions of carats per year, lab grown whites are virtually non-existent except for research samples, and yellow lab grown diamond production is measured in thousands of carats. And because growing lab diamonds is still hard, prices for lab grown diamonds have slowly gone up, not down because there is only so much production available even as demand has increased due to public awareness.

One more reality about lab grown diamonds – size. Currently, most diamond growth chambers are unable to grow larger than 3ct piece of rough (sometimes 4ct) and thus, after cutting, most lab grown diamonds are 1.5ct or smaller (frequently smaller after accounting for flaws being cut out). The reason for this is that in order to grow a diamond using the standard HPHT (high pressure, high temperature) technology, you have to place an area under extremely high pressure and temperature. The larger the area you are trying to maintain these extreme conditions, the harder it gets..exponentially harder, in fact, because the pressure at the center is magnified due to leverage. The parts applying the pressure themselves have a limited lifespan, as they will eventually crack and fail, and require constant replacement. Thus, most labs have not tried to go beyond the 3ct size growth chamber as it does get exponentially harder to maintain the same pressure for a larger area, and that is one reason why no one is offering 6ct finished yellow diamonds for sale.

With the reality check done, we’ll end this article on a positive note – even with all the problems, costs and issues that still hamper lab-grown diamond production, colored lab-grown diamonds do offer people the ability to own and wear extremely high-end, fancy color, real diamonds at a fraction of the natural price. We’ll emphasize that these are still real diamonds – chemically, optically, physically, and of course will pass any test for being diamond (since it is diamond, the place where it was grown is the difference). Most lab grown colored diamonds are vivid in color, meaning they are among the most valuable color grades as compared to natural colored diamonds. For example, one of the first lab-grown diamonds we ever sold was graded a ‘fancy vivid orangy yellow’, and was initially appraised as a natural diamond, valued at $65,000 by a major lab (we had informed them we were submitting a lab grown diamond btw). We then received a very panicked call the next day from the same lab, who after running a Raman analysis on it realized it was a man-made and not natural diamond (due to the nitrogen being so perfectly dispersed). We sold that same diamond for $3500. Similarly, most of our pink lab-grown diamonds also grade fancy vivid pink, and if they were mined instead of lab-grown, could sell for as high as $150,000/carat…we sell them for around $5,000/ct, but unfortunately due to low supply (production difficulties) are sold out most of the year. Nevertheless, the lucky few customers who do buy a lab-grown pink have a lot of fun walking into their neighborhood jewelry store and seeing the jaws drop. It is also usually the first time their jeweler has seen a real lab-grown diamond in person, again due to the relative rarity of true lab-grown diamonds. They are very beautiful and leave most natural fancy color diamonds (who are normally less intensively colored) looking pretty bland by comparison.

Technology continues to improve, and hopefully over the next few years, there will be additional breakthroughs in lab grown diamond technology. One of the most promising areas is growing diamonds by mimicking how they (theoretically) grow in outer space. This is by using ultra-low pressure, plasma and high temperature, often called plasma vapor deposition. Because it does not require the high pressure, chamber sizes are much larger and in theory, much larger pieces of diamond can be grown. Conditions are more controllable as well, due to the diamond growing by in a more nano-technology like environment (carbon-rich gas is shredded at the molecular level, and the carbon atoms then reassemble on the diamond seed below). The trade off is the machines to do this often run between $500,000-$800,000 each, and a host of additional problems not present in high pressure growth regimes come into play in this new growth environment..but hopefully in the future these will offer a new method for growing lab-grown diamonds.

Now that you are armed with industry insider knowledge, you’ll be able to readily avoid the scams that so many unethical diamond simulant sellers use by playing on the publics (and even the medias) ignorance of the realities of man-made diamonds. Hopefully, you’ll also realize that the constant claims that DeBeer’s or other forces are to blame for the lack of lab-grown white diamonds are not true (there are in fact real natural and commercial barriers to it). Finally, you’ll hopefully have an appreciation for the hard work and effort that many scientists have put into turning the former dream of lab grown diamonds into reality on your finger, even if it still has many constraints as to what types, sizes and colors of lab-grown diamonds are available.