Im becoming a surrogate, AMA

[HotPotatoBlessMySoul]

Just had first transfer in hopes of becoming a surrogate for a friend.
Ask away.

I was raised without my biological mother for different reasons. I would have seemed like a happy, well adjusted child to most observers. It has however left me with significant issues that became more apparent as an adult. It has certainly damaged me. And that's without the additional baggage of being given away, deliberately created to have no mother, confusion about 'carrier' vs egg donor etc that this child may face.

I think you are amazing and I would do it myself but my husband does not like the idea.

How do you know that your issues are caused by your not being raised by your biological mother? Most people I know were raised by their gestational and genetic mother in the usual way, and loads of them have "issues" of some kind, if you are talking about the kind of stuff that would not be obvious to a casual observer.

How do you know that your issues are caused by your not being raised by your biological mother?

Really? Because I know my own feelings and thoughts, and I have had counselling too. And I'm talking about significant mental health issues as a direct result which have impacted on many aspects of my life. Of course lots of people have issues but that's very different to deliberately creating a child with a whole host of potential trauma to navigate intrinsic to their conception.

Has anyone read “never let me go” by kazuo ishiguro? This is what comes to mind when reading these surrogacy threads. It’s like human farming. It all seems so dystopian. People “want” so if there is a way and provided of course they can afford it, they “get”. Never mind the issues and baggage for the child we can’t even begin to understand yet.
The child is always going to a Loving home of course so we shouldn’t judge. At least with adoption there is a very strict vetting process!

Babies aren't fruit trees. You don't merely plant a pip and hey presto the sunshine and earth magically do the rest
A human, a woman, creates every cell of that human from her blood, her bones, her organs, her body, after that embryo implants. The genetic material is a blueprint. But the child is entirely OF her body, OF HER

I read this on a similar thread on here once. I felt that the poster captured perfectly what I had been struggling to express myself. I saved it and hope whoever first wrote it doesn’t mind.

It really bothers me when couples who use surrogates convince themselves she is nothing more than a helpful vessel. I feel surrogacy (and egg donation) reduces women to commodities to be traded for their parts. It leaves children with no clear sense of who their mother is. The woman who donated the genetic material or the woman who actually created them.

When women donate their eggs they tell themselves they are not the real mother of any children to be born from that egg.

When women carry babies using another woman’s egg, they tell themselves they are not the real mother as they didn’t supply the egg.

Who is right?

SpokeTooSoon - you missed out the mothers who carry babies they want to keep using another woman's egg and then tell themselves they are the real mother.

All of these things cannot be true at the same time

I've got into discussions about these things with supporters of surrogacy and basically their 'arguments' boil down to saything that 'motherhood is a state of mind'.

But it isn't.

Have you ever studied emotional development, attachment disorder, bonding, etc?

I have, extensively, and I also know the difference between attachment disorder (very uncommon) and disordered attachment (much more common). Attachment bonds are very much made within the first 12-18 months of life, and if a child was going to have difficulties you’d certainly see it by the age of 11, which is the time period covered by the study provided. I do not see that surrogacy, on its own, would impact upon a child’s attachment development. It would require other aspects of parenting to be missing.

That’s not to say I’m a supporter of surrogacy - I’m not - but not for those reasons.

Sorry, but all I can think of is: that POOR child. Imagine he is growing inside you attaching to you, your smell, your voice. And then, he is given to someone else, never to hear you again. He will never have a mother... I imagine it must be really hard to live without A MOTHER. I think these people are selfish and want it all.

I agree. My heart actually aches when I think of it.

If you consider what a mother means to a child, how central she is, I do find it hard that a child won’t have one from the outset.

I think these people are selfish and want it all

Which people? Same sex couples?

There is no general rule against same sex couples having children and I’m sure some of them would do a much better job than some “traditional” couples. Same sex couples can become parents without surrogacy so that’s not really the issue, is it?

I would take a good look at your OWN children and ask yourself this: would they be happy without a mother?

Then try and think of all the times they needed you and you only. Not your husband, but their mother, the one that carried them inside her WOMB and where they ever felt so safe. Do you know when people die or are in pain, they usually crawl into a faetal position? You know why? Because that is the position they were their most safe in. It's the position they were in for the good 9 months they were inside the womb. So, ask yourself this.

FenellaVelour

So you’ve studied attachment extensively, but still see no problem with a neonate being taken away immediately and permanently from its mother?

And you’re happy with that study, that spoke to 30 children, 3 time’s, age the ages of 3,7 and 10? And probably the parents of the surrogate child, who of course would naturally, either consciously or subconsciously, not mention any emotional issues in their children as they would not want to admit it was their ‘fault’ for want of a better word?

Ok then.

Are you really ok creating a baby with the sole intention of removing it from its mother the second it is born? You ARE it's mother, it wouldn't exist without you incubating it . The first thing it hears will be your heart beat and your voice. The first thing it feels will be your emotions and the away of your body. Every instinct it has is to be near you. But you will just hand it over for a few grand without a thought of the impact it has on a child being given away? This baby won't have a mother through choice and intent and that's just fine?

You really should look into attachment issues with children that have been given up. It doesn't matter an iota who the donors are. You are that babies mother. What makes that one £££ when. Your others didn't have a price tag attached to them?

Where's the OP? Not saying she has to be here on standby and I get that she has a life and all, but why start an AMA thread if you're not going to answer the questions you are asked?

Im so thankful that this buying and selling of babies is illegal in most of europe and so many other countries.

How dare two men ask this of you

@SorryAuntLydia I agree completely with your analysis of how this will affect the OP's existing, very young children.

My kids are older than hers and would still be traumatised and distressed if I got pregnant, had a baby and then gave it away.

It would also be humiliating and confusing for them at school if all their friends saw me pregnant and were expecting them to have a little brother or sister.

I remember my younger siblings being born and even without all this extra stuff, it's still quite emotionally challenging to see your mum go through all the challenges of pregnancy when you're little. (One of my siblings was very premature and was in the SCBU and my mum was in hospital for weeks).

To have that and then NOT have a baby sibling at the end of it is just awful.

I wouldn't be surprised if the OP didn't come back. It's turned into a bit of a pile-on.

I'm against surrogacy myself and I asked some challenging questions but I'm uncomfortable with the way it seems to be going.

I also think you are wrong to ask MOTHERS what they think about having a child and giving it away for money or indeed charity. No real mother would answer to you in a positive way.

I don't for a minute think OP didn't know how a thread like this, and with the very detached and cold way she is talking about it, would go down on Mumsnet.

I'm against surrogacy myself and I asked some challenging questions but I'm uncomfortable with the way it seems to be going

But isn't an AMA thread just that - Ask Me Anything? Not just 'ask me the questions I want to answer'? Surrogacy is a highly sensitive and controversial topic. If you're only prepared to hear 'I think you're wonderful giving the gift of life to this lovely couple' stuff, why did she make the active choice to start this discussion?

I agree with that but some of the questions are not questions at all, they're thinly veiled criticism.

I agree with a lot of it but this thread is not the place.

I wanted to understand the OP and her friends' reasoning a bit more to see if it would change my opinion.

It hasn't but no need to put the boot in when OP might actually be pregnant already.