Has anyone had a baby via surrogacy?

Your husband didn’t pay you to have his baby and then take it away from you.

I mean I didn't know how to say it but this basically. You're going to have to develop a tougher skin tbh OP and let things bounce off you if you're going to go this route. I know this is the Internet but these opinions exist "IRL" and swearing and telling people to go away and shut up probably isn't the best way to deal with them.

This

Exactly what I was going to ask.

OP, if you're aware of the ethics - which is to say, it's human trafficking, completely unethical - then why are you considering it at all?

Who actually think I give a shit what they think! They say 'oh you want to rent a womb but don't want to hear the truth'. I don't give a shit about your opinions - that's the truth.

It’s posts like this that lead me to think that anyone wanting to become a parent, by whatever means, should be screened the way that potential adoptive parents are.

If the OP were to be interested in adopting, she wouldn’t get far with an attitude t like this to those who challenge her.

No one has a “right” to a child. No one.

I was conceived with surrogacy in the 1990s so may have a different perspective to add.

On the whole, of course there are ethical considerations with surrogacy and my own case was a bit more complicated than the ideal surrogacy situation.

My (non birth) mother was unable to carry her own children due as she’d had cancer. Commercial surrogacy was illegal in Australia at the time, as well as being prohibitively expensive for most. Adoption wasn’t an option for them - Australia just doesn’t support it nearly as well as the UK due to misplaced fear of repeating historical mistakes following the stolen generations.

My parents spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on many many rounds of IVF, eventually the surrogate mother agreed to use her own eggs in combination with my fathers sperm - sort of like a planned adoption that wouldn’t be considered ethical but 1990s American private fertility clinics weren’t ethical. My surrogate mother had 5 pregnancies at this point, 3 of those were as a surrogate/gestational carrier. She was paid more than a years’ salary for each pregnancy and as far as I have been informed she provided her informed consent and attended counseling prior to each surrogacy.

My (non birth/non biological) mother describes the day of my birth as the most traumatic day of her life, she had done her best to establish a good relationship with my surrogate mother during the pregnancy, had gotten legal advice and done everything she could but at the end of the day she had no way of knowing if the surrogate would go through with the arrangement. She had to go to court to obtain legal guardianship of me and had a birth certificate issued in her and my fathers name.

My surrogate mother wanted to have a relationship with me akin to an open adoption, however as the years went on my parents were not supportive of this, I had no idea about the surrogacy until I was well into my teens and finding out that my mother wasn’t actually related to me was truly traumatizing. I have no doubt it would have been incredibly difficult for my surrogate mother not to have had the contact she would have liked with me following my birth.

I was raised by loving parents though and have had every opportunity in life - private education, travel, a huge financial head start in life. I have so much empathy for my mother’s infertility, her cancer/infertility was out of her control and I admire her determination to become a mother. I would have done the same in her position. I also am grateful that my birth mother was willing to take on the risk of carrying a child, and that she gave me to my parents despite the pain that it may have caused her, and regardless of the considerable financial compensation she received for it.

The love I have for my mother is not in any way changed by the fact she didn’t carry me or have a genetic connection to me. I don’t know if my surrogate mother would have been able to give me all the opportunities my parents did, or how things would have worked out if I she had changed her mind as my father would have then taken her to court for some level of custody. I guess what I’m trying to say is that surrogacy is so complicated, so many emotions involved and there are a lot of things that can go wrong.

It’s a really difficult decision and all I can say is that I’m happy surrogacy is an option for people, I wouldn’t be alive without it and whilst I acknowledge ethical concerns with surrogacy I think it’s easy to be adamantly against it when you’ve never felt the pain of infertility.

If you do go through with using a gestational carrier to become a parent, or if a person uses donor sperm/eggs or IVF or whatever alternative means to achieve a pregnancy I just think it’s really important to be open with the child about how they came into the world. That wasn’t as common when this technology was introduced and that is where most of the trauma stems from in my view.

Why would anyone feel entitled to put another woman through that sort of risk?

Volunteering for altruistic reasons or out of financial desperation is all very well but what happens if and when complications arise?

Miscarriage, abnormal foetal development, a disabled child, stillbirth, multiples (positively or negatively received but a very different pregnancy for the surrogate), pregnancy complications e.g. severe HG, SPD, complete bed rest for weeks or months, birth injuries (potentially permanent), emergency c/s, psychologically traumatic birth, PPD, traumatic separation, regret 😬

Maybe none of those things would happen but equally none are that rare. I'm sure altruistic surrogates enter an agreement with the best of intentions but how can you truly comprehend any of those scenarios until you've experienced them? Commercial surrogacy is even worse as it's usually borne out of financial desperation.

Are you even old enough to buy a baby?

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/deathsexmoney/episodes/surrogacy-death-sex-money

Interesting podcast in which a ‘professional surrogate’ in the US is interviewed.

Gives the personal experience you’re looking for OP - I listened to it a few years ago but as I recall she was fairly balanced about the pros and cons but on balance decided it was right for her. She did it to pay for medical debt incurred from having her kids, which does seem like a particularly insane situation caused by the US healthcare system…

@highsexdriveonhol

Surrogacy is a highly emotive topic, and one where it can be difficult to gather a full view of experiences. It might be helpful to focus on particular questions:

Why would surrogacy be something you're considering?
What kind of surrogacy? Altruistic vs commercial? Whose egg and sperm?
What challenges can be encountered for the surrogate, the baby and you as the intended parent/parents?

People talk a lot about bodily autonomy, freedom of choice, but the reality is that, for many surrogates, they haven't a truly free choice. For some women, it's the only feasible option they can find to support their family. Others find themselves under a lot of pressure and may feel they have no choice. How does that make you feel? How would that change your approach and the questions you'd ask prior to committing to surrogacy?

Have you looked into the physical health risks for the surrogate? Pregnancy carries health risks anyway, but data on health outcomes seems to indicate higher risks for some complications in surrogacy. How would that impact upon your decision-making? Even if you're considering altruistic surrogacy, someone would still be placing their health at risk by going through with it - how would you and how would they feel about that? And what if something went wrong - have you thought about how you might feel and how the other woman might feel if there were pregnancy complications which could have life-changing consequences?

Thinking about the baby, there is a lot of information available about outcomes for babies removed from their mother (in the case of surrogacy, this would refer to removal from the woman who has carried the pregnancy - regardless of whose genetic material has been used in conceiving). Even with the near-immediate introduction of loving and supportive caregivers, the rupture of the maternal-foetal/mother-baby dyad is associated with trauma. If you haven't already, I'd recommend reading 'The Primal Wound'. How would you support a baby, then a child, then an adolescent and then an adult, who has experienced that early trauma? Is that something you want for a child?

And think about how you would feel, going through that process and then bonding with a child. Have you considered the emotional, practical and legal issues? What supports do you have or would you have?

If surrogacy is one of the options you're considering, what are the others? Which ones feel 'right' for you, when considering your own circumstances and morals, as well as the information about outcomes and risks?

You might find help in relation to fertility issues over on the infertility board.

I've not personally participated in surrogacy. My personal feelings are that I would never do so. However, it's not illegal and you're not me. A word of caution, though: early life trauma can have devastating repercussions for a person, so don't underestimate the impact on a child.

I know someone who was a surrogate for her best childhood friend. It was very kind of her, the friend had gone through early menopause in her 20’s and was distraught she couldn’t have children. The surrogate (my friend) was married with 3 children of her own and offered to help her friend.

The thing is, there were complications during the birth and my friend nearly died. It was so traumatic for everyone. Luckily everything turned out fine but imagine leaving 3 children motherless?? In retrospect, my friend felt she was irresponsible to her own children and husband to put her life at risk like that. And her friend would never have forgiven herself had things turned out badly.

Yes, birth is traumatic, but it is also physiologically important, but separating a baby from its mother causes additional, and in the case of surrogacy, unnecessary, trauma.

So what?? Your opinions contributions are considerably less useful.

She doesn't want opinions, she wants experiences. Quite a clear distinction.

@GeraldTheGoodMouse birth is a traumatic experience. Full stop. Birth is a trauma all of us experience. There is nothing to suggest that birth or early life is anymore traumatic for babies born by surrogacy.

I think this falls firmly under the 'blah blah blah' category that the OP wasn't interested in

Well said @OhHolyJesus.

Lashing out at women who have linked to studies on the issues for surrogate babies doesn't exactly sound as if the welfare of the baby is a priority for the OP.

And calling women "weirdos" and "batshit" for pointing out legitimate concerns with surrogacy? Suggests an inability to engage properly with the subject and do genuine research into what is a very contentious issue.

It's bizarre. Don't the commissioning parents want a surrogate mother with good health, to maximise the chances of the child being born in good health? Don't they meet and research?
Obviously I'd never use surrogacy but in the unlikely event I was going to I'd be looking for a healthy young woman with a good obstetric history (but not grand multip).
Imagine thinking this is a good way to obtain a (healthy) baby. 🤷‍♀️

"You wouldn't be against surrogacy if you couldn't carry/have a child of your own!"

I wish people would stop saying this perpetuating the myth infertile/childless people are all thoughtless, selfish, baby crazy whack jobs.

I've had three rounds of IVF and don't have any children. I would never do surrogacy. Going through fertility issues has given me a lot of food for thought about the ethics of surrogacy and egg and sperm donation and what we ask of supposed 'altruism'.

I would rather be childless than go against my own personal moral code and do something I believe is deeply unethical.

If someone chooses to do something unethical in the selfish pursuit of a child that's about them - not a reflection on many of us who make different choices

For one Khole Kardashian has got nannies to look after her kids maybe that's why she didn't bond with him so fast

I'd imagine she does, but she spoke of the instant bond she had with her first who she grew and birthed herself, and I'm sure she could afford nannies then too.

Without wanting to derail the thread further, the difference between surrogacy and adoption is that with surrogacy you are deliberately creating a baby, knowing that it's going to be separated from its mother. There are plenty of studies which suggest this early separation can be detrimental to the baby.

With adoption, it's the next best possible solution for the baby because the alternative would be being brought up in care, and we all know how bad that is.

Adoption happens because individual circumstances mean that the baby/child can no longer remain with its biological parents. No one pretends that adoption is the perfect situation, or that it's without complications.

Of course there are many adopted children who are just fine. But there are plenty of stories of adopted children who never come to terms with their adoption, even though they may love their adopted parents very much.

If adoption was such a perfect solution, why are there so many stories of adopted children searching for their birth families when they're adults?

There's the same potential for all of these problems with surrogacy (ignoring all of the other additional problems that are inherent in surrogacy).

Infertility is heartbreaking and I understand why women (especially) seek out any possible solution but let's not pretend that surrogacy is just an alternative birth option without any potential issues.

A 'legit' experience for you OP, posted in the first 35 mins of your request.

The rest of you are weirdos.

Says the poster who came to a parenting site expecting to hear negative, as well as positive, accounts of surrogacy and told women (mothers - clue is on the name) not to talk about the ethics.

Parents who have had their children through surrogacy are hardly going to confess here 'god it was terrible I wish I'd never done it, the surrogate was a right bitch and the kid is a nightmare, screams all night like I've kidnapped her' are they?!

Your research will need to extend into places where the ethics around surrogacy is discussed OP as those 'using surrogates' aren't going to tell you honest accounts. The surrogate mothers are mostly bound by their actions but the stories of regret are there, go read the links and research properly if you care to look in a truly unbiased way.

The irony of your request and your rejection of what you don't want to hear isn't lost on me, as someone reading 'from both sides' that you've 'done your research'.

It’s interesting that very few people have given you what you want. Maybe you should think about that.