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

[Discretion]

Bit tiddly but wtf ...

Now dd is older she does know that friend had had terminated pregnancy before. She just accepts it as it is

Does your dd have any contact with your friend?
It’s really lovely op.

Does your DD view surrogates son as her half brother?
Does she have any relationship with surrogate now?

😂 has to be something seedy like an affair because a man & a woman can't honestly stand talking without it leading to something 🙄

No bounce. When she was about 5 or 6 just about all of her friends had baby brothers. She decided she wanted him to be her brother
We had a lot of conversations about how dhe was born to our family. That he wasn’t her brother because they were in different families. He certainly didn’t want her as a sister lol. He’s 7 yrs older
I also had to talk to her about how her background wasn’t a secret but it was private. And she couldn’t un tell people so she was best to wait until big school before she decided what she wanted to tell people.
She did actually tell one friend that she had two mums and that one said ‘so your mum isn’t you mum’ which really upset dd. That kind of underlined the private nature of it
She was quite open at secondary school but tells people she was born by ivf for some reason. I’ve made it clear she wasn’t But she’s grossed out by insemination haha

It’s a beautiful start to a life. Your DD was, in every way, a truly wanted baby- wanted for you by your good friend, wanted by you and DH as a daughter to love and raise.

It all worked out just the way it was meant to.

Thank you. That means a lot 💖

Sorry missed the bit about relationship with birth mum
Yes sort of
My friends family are local and friend would always visit us if visiting family. The last two years I’ve seen photos on Facebook of local family events and she hasn’t let us know
I feel like when dd hit 18 she decided to back away
I always inbox photos of special events. Birthday and school pics. Prom and boyfriend etc
Send flowers on dds special birthdays and we have a standing sign off ‘thanks for the baby’ from me and ‘no, a birth certificate isn’t a receipt’ which always makes me smile

A couple of years ago we were having a pre planned meet up but dd wanted to go to a close city with friends. So she did.
It’s like there’s no mystery or fantasy. She likes her and I ALWAYS take photos of them together, but she’s just my friend.

I do have one concern. I have never got pregnant and have never had normal hormones
I do worry that a pregnancy may make dd think HOW ? How could she conceive me and give me away?

At least you still have a relationship with your friend, which means that should DD ever have questions she can answer them. I always get asked how i gave up my surro-baby...especially when people hear i have recently had my own DS (already had a DD beforehand). The answer always surprises people, but hopefully to your DD your friend's answer wouldn't make her feel any different about her conception.

Did you all have any kind of counselling first? I'm just curious as the idea of being a surrogate to somehow 'repent' for previous abortions doesn't sound mentally healthy to me. Were you concerned at all about this?

No we didn’t Twisted
But I’ve grown up a lot in 19 yrs. I’d question a lot more now. At the time it was a WHAT? I HAVE A FUTURE? I CAN BE A GRANDMA? Kind of thing

OP if you could change anything about your journey, with hindsight, would you have?

No. I love her so incredibly much.

Did you ever worry that the surrogate mum might change her mind after the birth and decide to keep the baby?

No. For some weird reason I knew it would all be ok. It took about 10 months for her to get pregnant (we actually tried for 5 months but it took ages for her periods to come back after not having contraceptive injection) so she had plenty of chances to back out
I think I was naive and don’t forget there was no internet back then, we knew about Kim Cotton and had had booklets And info from them, but no real knowledge of successful or failed surrogacies
We went into lots of detail before hand about how as dh would be the biological father, he’d apply for access and shared custody if she did. We spoke about termination choices for Down syndrome and other conditions, she was more concerned that it would be born and we wouldn’t want it.

My family though were terrified that it would all go wrong and constantly made negative comments, how to explain? Sort of like ‘we’ll always be here for you if it goes wrong, don’t get your hopes too high, having a child is not the be all and end all.’ That sort of thing
Dh family were much shallower in their thoughts on it, they just accepted it was happening and never doubted it for a moment 😂

Sorry if this sounds ignorant. So is 'straight' surrogacy not basically a private adoption really?

At least one parent has to be biologically related to the baby, so not quite like private adoption in that sense. But i guess in the fact that one parent has to be granted PR it could be considered similar to private adoption

Wow this is amazing! I think you all were smashing. So sad that some of your involvement with HCPs was so negative, but good to imagine it would all be different now.

I think it's wonderful you have always been so honest with your DD & didn't then have to have some "big talk" when you deemed her old enough to understand:

Thank you so much for sharing. It's so insightful to read about your journey.

Thank you!