Cameron Diaz “has third child” aged 53

Lady Gaga has appeared with a baby this week but no one appears to have seen her pregnant. Millie Bobbie-Brown says she's adopted baby number 2, I'm not convinced it's technically an adoption.

Not one thought there about the actual experience of the women who went through significant medical treatment, gestated a baby (they do not, in fact, just grow themselves in a passive vessel).

i should get back to it, but Jenny Kleemans book Sex Robots and Vegan meat covers the evangelical/ anti abortion research that is going into creating artificial wombs that really would "dispense" with any notion of the actual grunt work the mother does.

That article is horrific. It's superficially honouring the surrogate, but is so incredibly dismissive of the reality

After the transfer, which was as brief as a child’s strep test and infinitely less dramatic, the doctor told us he would do a pregnancy test in 10 days.

But she was preparing herself, inside our surrogate’s strong and healthy body

Scans, assurances about a normal heartbeat and some babies just coming in their own time.

I was so focused on our surrogate—in awe at her concentration, her period of quiet followed by what sounded like a roar—I forgot to look down until I heard our baby’s cry.

Not one thought there about the actual experience of the women who went through significant medical treatment, gestated a baby (they do not, in fact, just grow themselves in a passive vessel) and birthed it - not a mention of how being 13 days overdue might have been for her, birth as sanitised as the transfer.

I am actually really surprised that an American doctor was in favour of letting an IVF pregnancy with no genetic link to the pregnant woman go so overdue, given the clear evidence that such pregnancies are higher-risk and particularly so for placental issues. I really, really hope that that was a decision made between medical professionals and the surrogate not by Lena and her partner to fit any idea they had about how the baby should be born.

Genuinely is more about the shopping opportunities she now has.

Baby arrived 13 days overdue. Cripes that's more than me at 5

Uh, typo in my post.

Yes. She'd actually written about "Rejecting the fertility industrial complex" before.

I'm surprised Lena has done this - being a feminist I mean.

I don't know it you were being tongue in cheek, but I'm not surprised in the slightest. Lena's feminism is inclusive.

And by that I mean it 'includes' whatever Lena fancies, such as males and commodifying female bodies to make bespoke babies for rich people. A pick and mix of values.

"delivered via surrogate" is a repulsive and mechanical use of words

a horrible depersonalising expression

I expect Selena Gomez to buy a baby in the next couple of years.

https://www.vogue.com/article/lena-dunham-shopping-for-baby-october-2026

Lena Dunham is a huge disappointment with this. I have read her book Famesick and understand her issues in this area. In fact she had IVF by herself before her hysterectomy. She says that a baby is all that she wanted. However I would hope that she could see the impact on other women in regards to this. She has written an awful piece in Vogue saying that she loved building a wardrobe for the baby!

Adoption is not an easy route but I do think of Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall from Colin from Accounts who have adopted 2 children. They actually stand out in modern celebrity for adoption not surrogacy.

Yeah I saw that too. I'm also following the story of the surrogate who refused to abort when heart issues were discovered; it's just something that doesn't sit right with me (the buying of a baby to have it immediately removed from its birth mother). In certain circumstances, surrogacy perhaps for a loved relative with full care/continued bonding etc with the baby, but not commercial surrogacy whatsoever. Taking babies away from the mother who grew them isn't even something we would do to our pet animals.

I'm surprised Lena has done this - being a feminist I mean.

I can’t read that as not subscriber

Just been on the news that Kena Dunham has had a child via surrogacy.

So I guess that means something important about millennial / 3rd wave feminism since it involves her but I'm not sure what

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/sep/16/lena-dunham-baby-girl

According to Google:

The oldest recorded British woman to conceive and give birth naturally is Dawn Brooke, who had a baby boy at the age of 59 on August 20, 1997. She conceived the child accidentally after unexpectedly ovulating past her last normal period.

edited to say: I am 58 and I am 100% certain this will not be happening to me!!

It would be interesting to know the age of the oldest woman to conceive naturally in the UK

I wouldn't bother. I and others have already tried to explain to that poster how ridiculously inaccurate their understand of adoption is and they, perhaps unsurprising, don't acknowledge or interact with those posts.

They are worlds apart as surrogacy you plan to cause that trauma for a child just to become a parent. Not thinking of the resultant child at all

With adoption the child is already in existence and so what is in the best interests of that child has to be thought about.

I can’t understand why people can’t see the difference

And most likely removed because the birth mother cannot care for it. That can be for many reasons such as addiction, dangerous partner , inability to care safely etc etc.
Children in the UK are not removed lightly.
Adoption is about keeping an existing child safe and surrogacy is about creating a child for an adults benefit and causing harm to.them in the process.
World's apart

And most likely removed because the birth mother cannot care for it. That can be for many reasons such as addiction, dangerous partner , inability to care safely etc etc.
Children in the UK are not removed lightly.
Adoption is about keeping an existing child safe and surrogacy is about creating a child for an adults benefit and causing harm to.them in the process.
World's apart

You’ve mentioned the needs/wishes of and benefits for the potential user of surrogacy and those of the potential surrogate. Is there maybe anyone involved whose needs you haven’t mentioned or presumably considered?

Well the reality is with adoption that if no one stepped up there would be even more children in care or temp foster placements. But I guess that's better than adoption morally? Better to be back with your drug addiction mother who's new bf abuses you and nothing beats being with bio mum even if it means your abused daily. Utter BS.

But I'm in position of privilege here as I have my own bio kids.

That's really not true. Children are only removed from their birth mother against the mother's will if she is unable to keep them safe from harm or is actively harming them, and they will not be available for adoption but will stay in fostering or other temporary care if there is any hope at all of the mother gaining the skills and dealing with whatever other problems (drugs, alcohol, an inability to live without dangerous relationships with dangerous men) such that she could have the children back and keep them safe.

This is just untrue. The large majority of adopted children are not babies torn from their loving mothers who have been forced to give them up due to poverty, singleness, etc. Decades ago, that may have been the case, but it's not anymore. Very, very few newborn babies are adopted.

@ILoveAGingerCatif a woman is still having periods then she can still get pregnant. And some women in their late 40s/early 50s are still ovulating. I didn't say it was common, it is rare (esp in early 50s) but it's not impossible either. Which is why lots of women are still using contraception until they've been 12 months without a period.
Because we have access to contraceptives and the morning after pill, you wouldn't necessarily know. Most women at this age don't want a baby and would take steps to prevent or end an accidental one.

It's nothing like saying a firefighter is the same as an arsonist.

Both situations result in a baby being removed from its birth mother.

At least with surrogacy, the woman plans to have the baby often with the couple's egg and sperm, and knows she will be giving it to them.

Adoption is a woman forced to give her baby away because of various reasons, sometimes financial, sometimes practical, sometimes because family force it.

Behind every couple who are delighted at their new little adopted bundle of joy, lies a devastated birth mother who had to give up her baby.

How anyone can say adoption is better than surrogacy just baffles me.