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Portland businessman Jordan Schnitzer owns a billion-dollar real estate portfolio. He has homes in San Francisco, Palm Springs and Gearhart, and four residences in Portland. He has a private jet and the nation's largest collection of fine art prints. He's one of the city's top philanthropists, collects honorary degrees, sits courtside at Trail Blazers games and even has a museum named after him.
The only thing Schnitzer, 64, didn't have? A son.
Three days before Christmas, he fixed that.
On Dec. 22, 2015, Schnitzer's son was born at Samaritan Albany General Hospital, a modest, 69-bed Linn County facility.
That location—far from Oregon Health & Science University, to which Schnitzer's family has given millions, or any of the other large Portland hospitals—was close to the home of the woman who gave birth to Schnitzer's son. She was a surrogate mother, paid by Schnitzer to carry and deliver his child.
Gestational surrogate pregnancies—in which a woman carries another woman's fertilized eggs and gives birth for pay—are increasingly common in Oregon and elsewhere. (See sidebar.)
Frequently in gestational surrogacy...