I’m mum to a 19yr old straight surrogate baby AMA

[Discretion]

Bit tiddly but wtf ...

You're mother to a straight 19 year old?

Ooh! Does your DC know they are a surro baby? Seems silly but some hetero (sorry huge assumption there) couples do hide it from their kids. If so, how do they feel about the fact somebody else carried them for you?

I was a TS surrogate a few years ago, she is 3 this month. People always throw at me that because i am not around - and she was born for a gay couple - she will end up screwed up somehow. I love chatting to families created via surrogacy!

Title is a bit confusing.

Are you straight and used a surrogate 19 years ago?

Or are you mother to a 19 year old straight child who is using a surrogate or who is a surrogate?

Sorry jusy to be clear.

I think that "straight" in this context refers to the type of surrogacy rather than sexuality. Straight surrogacy is where the surrogates own eggs are used. Host surrogacy is where a fertiliser embryo is implanted into the surrogate to "host".

Straight surrogacy is (i think) traditional surrogacy...which means using a surrogate & her eggs as opposed to a surrogate going through IVF. There's a biological link between the surrogate & the baby in straight surrogacy

fertilised embryo that should read!

Oh wow that makes so much sense! Thanks for clearing that up! I wasnt sure what it meant.

So the surrogate is the biological one. I get it.

Does your dc know about the surragacy op? Do you keep in touch with the surrogate or not? And how did you find someone to do it?

She’s knows and always has. I wrote A very simple book with photos and read it at bed time all the time
Mummy and daddy
Mummy and daddy wanted a family all of their own. Mummy and daddy were very sad as mummy’s eggs didn’t work and mummy couldn’t grow a baby etc
Photos of surro and her son and me and her dh and her. Her pregnant and photos etc
So was never a surprise

Friend offered @MarthaArthur. Proper altruistic offer where we paid genuine expenses
Obviously went a tad ott and spent about £2k the allowed amount was and is £10k but she didn’t want that
She had her own reasons for doing it too

We are still close though she moved counties years ago

Sorry for confusion but yes, straight surrogacy means surrogate own biological child with my dh

Boiled down to 5 months of me turning up with a pot of sperm tucked in my armpit and us giggling hysterically

Dd knows that she’s here because she was wanted so much. She doesn’t feel bought or sold as she’s seen the file and list of stuff paid for (10% salary top up. Petrol and train tickets for her mum to travel hundreds of miles post birth etc)
Most importantly she doesn’t feel rejected as she’d have simply not existed without the situation

Thanks for answering op glad you got your sc out of it :)

How did you find the PO experience OP? I'm intrigued to know how much (if at all) it has changed in 19 years. Expenses now even for straight surrogacy are averaged at a lot more than £10k now!

We were the first surrogacy at our Gp surgery, hospital, courts and registry office
I had to tell the courts what forms they had to get and where from
It was quite soul destroying as no one really understood. We had to go and get g
Her registered then apply for PR for dh and ‘order’ the forms for the P.O.
I can’t remember if we went before the court when we applied and after?
I think we did? All a blur now
What I found awful and invasive was the guardian ad litem who was of course a social worker who dropped in on me on a pre arranged visit and also spot checks. She also visited and interviewed mine and dhs parents
Obviously friend and her son too
The report she drew up for the court was sooo long and went on at great length several times about how much dd looks like her dad. Some comment about no doubt about her parentage.
I was a bit thick about it for years when I suddenly realised they were making sure they believed dd was dhs and not just my friends unwanted pregnancy
The fact that we went together to the GP and midwife at surgery pre pregnancy obviously didn’t convince them
She was 9 months when it was finally granted and then never ever saw a social worker again 👍🏻

Wow that does sound pretty horrific! We too found the social worker/CAFCASS officer unorganised & not really sure what to do...in fact we had to apply for an extension to the courts for the hearing because we were going to be past the deadline for paperwork otherwise, all due to their incompentence!!

Did you have to have a DNA test done then or did they accept the notion that your DD resembled her dad? That attitude is frustrating tbh

Wow, your friend has such a kind heart!

Were you there at the birth?

Was your DC breastfed?

Was yout DD born in hospital? What was your experience like surrounding all of that?

Did the surrogate deal with difficult emotions following the birth, like bonding issues?
How old is your DC now?

Did you struggle at all
with DH’s involvement in the process, as if he had ‘more’ involvement genetically, or was that not even an issue?

No dna test - I’d imagine ‘they’ didn’t actually want to pay for one if they didn’t have to as back in the late 90’s it wouldn’t have been cheap!

She (birth mum/friend) is amazing. She loves her own son but she’s a very unemotional mum if that makes sense? She fell pregnant very very easily before and after he was born

I was ALMOST there at the birth, she had an EMCS in the end and insisted on GA so dh and I waited in the delivery room.

She wasn’t breastfed. The midwives allll went on about it but friend was adamant she wasn’t expressing or breast feeding and I didn’t want her to either.
There was a load of info forced upon me about how to stimulate your breasts into producing milk. Something like 20 mins of sucking or pumping 4 times a day for SIX MONTHS 🙄
And even then, having never been pregnant, I can’t see it would have worked or been enough. There was some weird kit that consisted of a milk bag and tubing that you taped to your nipple 😂

She was born in hospital. Pre delivery it was mostly amazing. Our gp midwife came in and out daily (long failed induction ) and was in theatre. We had s meeting at the hospital pre labour and they were super amazing putting a birthing plan in place and allowing dh and I to be with her when she wanted us to be
However, the anesthetist was completely against surrogacy and initially refused to do the CS under GA as he wanted her to be awake so SHE could bond. with the baby
It ended with her yelling along the lines of ‘give me a fucking general and I don’t want the fucking baby and I won’t change my fucking mind’
Quite distressing for her. And us

Once dd was born the care turned to shite. Friend had a side room and they wanted her to have the baby with her and wouldn’t let me stay
Cue her raising her voice again
The post natal unit then agreed to let dd and I spend the night in the bereavement suite. And repeatedly told me it was the bereavement suite.
Talk about comforting
The next day they said dd and I couldn’t leave until the rounds and then made us do a weird physical hand over. Friend had to be given the baby by a nurse and then physically hand it it to me Well they said to dh but friend and I both insisted on me

I rang friend daily for chats and to check on her etc and one day she rang me first. She was crying and I was petrified. She finally managed to tell me that she thought something was wrong with her as she’d been for the post natal check and the Dr asked if she had any regrets. She said absolutely not and then cried when she got home BECAUSE SHE HAD ABSOLUTELY NO REGRETS 😂 and decided something was wrong with her. Bless her

Dd is 19 now (or 228 months 😉)

Re his involvement, not really. He was rubbish. He panicked when she cried and couldn’t sleep and basically was totally lost and reliant on me haha. I made the PArental Order application in my name first and also waited until I myself was able to claim child benefit as I didn’t want it paid to dh. It was a psychological thing somehow!!
Things I struggled with are like that, also vaccinations dh had to sign the forms (I still took her as he was hopeless 🙄)

Think I answers it all

You said your friend had her own reasons for wanting to be a surrogate. What do you think they were?

She got pregnant very easily yet only had one
Child... I am completely pro choice and knew this had happened during our friendship and had supported her decisions
She watched me go thru fertility investigations and treatment and wanted to give back was the way she put it

It's really interesting that the hospital reacted the way they did. Some things haven't changed in some cases then, which is quite sad. The whole process sounds really quite traumatic there.

I had no one else I could talk to who had been through it obviously but have supported another lady in her journey. Her dd is 9 😁

So are you saying she had abortions and felt that giving birth to a baby for you would make her feel better about that? 'Give back' in a sort of karmic way - a new life to make up for the ones she ended prematurely?

OP how have others reacted to you when/if it ever comes up that you used a surrogate? I can imagine based on reactions i've seen now that back then you had some corkers

Interesting topic thank you.
I'm wondering does your dd ever question her surrogates motives?

Yes Ellementary

All reactions to my face have been positive
Dh heard the hairdresser talking about us all when friend was pregnant. Someone told her that someone they know ... he didn’t speak up

Apparently a few at work had seen that she’d been coming to my house a lot and seen her and dh talking in the street outside the house etc in the months before she got pregnant. Therefore they were having an affair and me claiming the baby was her punishment ... gossip 🙄