'I'm pregnant with their baby'

[tryingtobemarypoppins2]

AIBU to find this really hard to watch.....emotional mess watching it!

I'm not sure if I'll watch this. I couldn't be a surrogate. In an ideal world I'd be brilliant at pregnancy but my second one was awful and I couldn't put myself through it again.

I would love to donate eggs - it is a very invasive procedure though, and given how hard I found it just being examined/having sweep/smear tests etc, I was terrified, crying etc (abused as a child), I don't think I could do it. Such a waste, I am only 24, but I just couldn't. Unless I was anaesthetised for it maybe?

No-one stops to think about the child. It's only ever the needs of the would-be parents. Since when did not being able to give birth to your own child become the absolute worst tragedy that can befall a person? I know it's hard, really really really hard. But jeez, those poor babies being created in these complicated selfish circumstances and handed over like a commodity. Those chickens will come home to roost. As for knowing you are "genetically connected" to another family (ie. your mother and half siblings) and being ok with that because it's all you've known...? I sincerely doubt the child will see it that way.

I think all those women last night were being exploited. I could have wept for the young scottish girl. The scottish couple came across as naive idiots. As for the bloke - did he speak at all??? And the woman with her "Lots of women would say skipping the pregnancy and birth part is a good thing...celebrities do it all the time... anyway, I'm the one who's bought all the clothes, it'll still be my baby". No, it won't actually. It'll be your husband's baby with a poor, vulnerable young girl in a tenement struggling to bring up her own baby and yearning for some kind of validation. So wrong.

I hated the middle-class couple with their insistence on no skin to skin for the surrogate. I can see how she wouldn't want the skin to skin but it was the way they were sooooooo adamant about it. And kept going on and on about the stupid midwives who would just hand the baby over to her "because it's what they're used to". Yes, sir, I imagine it is. And her whipping her top off without a by your leave or a "How are you?" to the poor cow who'd done that for them. I thought they were crass and grasping and it made me feel very uncomfortable.

Am still really troubled by poor Louise. I wonder how she is and what sort of counselling she is receiving.

My cousin and his partner (both male) recently had twins using a surrogate in the US. She was paid handsomly. I can see that this arrangement has plenty of potential for a woman to be exploited, however I know tha DC went to a lot of trouble to select a surrogate he felt was truly emotionally able to deal with the experience.

They used a different woman's eggs and each fertilised one of the two eggs which were implanted.

In the US, the surrogate has no right to claim the child if it is not genetically hers.

They are still in regular contact with the surrogate who has become a friend, and they plan to take the kids to visit her every year or so, so that she is someone who has always been part of thier lives which they hope will make the "where did I come from" talk a bit less confusing.

They will be great Dads and I am so happy for them and feel very comfortable with the way they went about it.

MrsMilton, some people are horrible and exploitative and will potentially be bad parents. Some people are immature and emotionally unstabale and will make bad surrogate. Together, they make great TV.

In relation to the resulting child's expereience, I would think that the fact that the parents had to go to such trouble and heartache to bring the child into the world puts them way ahead of the naturally conceived unwanted babies who are born every day. With loving parents to explain the situation, I doubt many of the children will feel anything but gald to have been so wanted. Many, many naturally conceived children have more complicated and less happy family arrangements.

Well put, MrsMilton. I completely agree. It seemed to be all about them and themselves.

I think in the situation of two gay male parents, it is and must be different. They can never reproduce, the two of them together.

But that wasn't about this was about at all. It was like the other show, on Channel 4, with the Russian lady, the surrogate was purely a rent-a-womb to her, a thing, a commodity, a 'gestational carrier', as they say in the US.

Women as commodities, reduced to mare bits for hire for other women, as has been for centuries. And other women, like Bags, thinking that's okay, it's all about those who hire them out. How dare the hiree have any emotions! She's a rent-a-womb. She's body parts.

Oh, I tell you, I'll have my daughters reading such comments and watching such a show, to show, 'This is what they think of you, you're just bits for hire, you're not to presume any relationship with them, in fact, you're even worse than if you sold your own kidney, you're a potential blackmailer, a criminal offense, you're a potential criminal who's only worth is a womb with no brain.'

Did I bring up my daughters as such? As brood mares for hire? Did I fuck.

'I would think that the fact that the parents had to go to such trouble and heartache to bring the child into the world puts them way ahead of the naturally conceived unwanted babies who are born every day.'

I went to the world of trouble for even the idea of children. I gave up everything I ever knew, even my own country, for good, for the idea of having them, knowing that, if they never came to pass, then I tried.

I would not presume that makes me any better a parent than someone who fell pregnant any other way, including accidental and unplanned.

No way.

Do you realise, though, that these particular individuals would have been selected for this program because they are unsuitable for surrogacy. TV producers choose sugjects not beacuse they are indicative of the reality of a senario, but because they are the out-liers who are intersting to watch.

Just beacuse these parents were sh*ts and the surrogates were exploited does not mean that under different circumstances it can't be a very positive relationship for all concerned.

Maybe it's better to teach daughters to recognise exploitation wherever they may find it?

Lachesi, I didn't say that accidental babies are less wanted (I've had one myself), I said that babies that are wanted are luckier than babies that are unwanted.

and I mean unwanted even when they arrive.

I agree with MrsMilton. People don't have an automatic right to have a child by any means necessary. There are very many lives that are affected by surrogacy. The women on the programme were being exploited. They all seemed in their own ways looking for an opportunity to feel important. Unfortunately, the only way they felt they could do it was by being a surrogate. It seems another example of the rich taking advantage of the poor.

Having had PND, I beg to differ. Wanting and having, two different things. Read 'Down Came the Rain', Brooke Shields' account of having PND after giving birth via IVF after treatment for cervical cancer.

I'm sure it can be a positive thing, that is very obvious from the posts of surrogates here, but not how people like BagsofHolly, who are apparently representative of HEFA, have it in attitude.

That's HEFA? You're just a rent-a-womb for the net gain of the infertile woman? An emotional blackmailer for life with a spare part that is all your worth, so shut up?

Read her posts. It's enough to counsel my own daughters to never even entertain the thought!

I agree, Pang. Well-stated.

So beacuse some women do it for the wrong reasons no one should do it?

Sounds like this TV producer did a good job!

What if your daughter really wanted to help a couple and was clearly emotionally and financially secure enough to be making the decision for the right reasons.

What if the couple were not trying to expoit her and treat her like a rent-a-womb but saw her as a treasured part of the process of having their baby?

I would hope to raise a daughter with the strength of character to differentiate between a situation where they were appreciated for thier generosity and a situation where they were exploited for their vaulnerability.

If i had a duaghter who grew up with emotional issues or who found herself under financial pressure then I would counsel her to avoid surrogacy.

'So beacuse some women do it for the wrong reasons no one should do it?'

IMO, yes.

And there will be forever women who are not brought up to know the difference, due to circumstance, as was illustrated.

IMO, the duty of care should always be in the favour of such women rather than those lucky enough to have been brought up otherwise. They are vulnerable, and IMO the business of society is always towards those most vulnerable first.

As for my daughters, well, I teach them that their parts are not for hire to anyone, for anything, that their babies are a blessing to all our family, no matter their circumstances of their conception, we, their family, will be there to support them.

I cannot say what the future of my daughters will be., of course.

And someone like Shannon is too young to determine this.

That's why I think at the very least the minimum age should be raised to 25 and to women who have borne at least one biological child of their own.

It doesn't seem like HEFA are doing a very good job, from posts like BagsofHolly, tbh, it seems like they are all about the infertile couple.

So till that changes, I'll be making shows like this and comments like hers available to my daughters so they know, HEFA thinks they are rent-a-wombs for people who think it's a right to have a child.

I agree there should be some sort of screening and regulation to prevent young, vaulnerable women being exploited in this process, but I would not tell my daughter that the process is intrinscly exploitative. it doesn't have to be.

"It doesn't seem like HEFA are doing a very good job, from posts like BagsofHolly, tbh, it seems like they are all about the infertile couple. "

I didn't, don't, and haven't posted on behalf of HFEA, please don't infer that I have.

HFEA don't regulate surrogacy, and are involved in comment only in so far as it relates to fertility and embryology.

HFEA aren't "all about the infertile couple." However my posts will probably sound like I am because that's my perspective and experience of fertility issues.

I'm hoping this post doesn't make me look like I think I am some kind of surrogacy oracle because I really don't, I avoided posting yesterday for that reason.

Over the past 11 years I have met dozens of surrogates and have sat in support groups with them discussing lots of very personal issues surrounding surrogacy, issues from having to abstain from sex with one's dh/dp for months while trying to get pregnant with a surrogate child, to dealing with (understandable) feelings of jealousy from the intended mother and eventual child to the heartbreak of having to tell people who by that stage are dear friends that you have miscarried their child. I've known a surrogate die hours after giving birth (due to medical complication she didn't know she had), a couple have years of infertility and have a child through surrogacy to then get pregnant themselves and the mother go on to be a surrogate herself, I have known surrogates from a range of professional and 'class' backgrounds.

I'm no longer active in the surrogacy 'community' myself as I find it so hard to see waiting couples knowing I can't help them as my disability has reached the point where it would be too risky for me but I my first surrogacy was with COTS and my second and third were with Surrogacy UK. Both organisations are non-profit making, there are costs to intended parents to join but these cover administration and importantly counselling for everyone involved. I do think that the support that these organisations give is vital but I do worry that the most vulnerable people (couples and surrogates) avoid them for various reasons.

When I had my first surrogate pregnancy I was young, younger than most people are comfortable with and I really can understand that, maybe I should have waited a few years but the timing felt right to me at the time and as I say I have no regrets. I was 22 but I was married with a child, dh is 6 years older than me and we were (and are) emotionally and financially stable not fitting any kind of 'poor and vulnerable' view. I was working from home at the time and dh worked in IT and had just been through the whole Y2k thing, money wasn't part of surrogacy for us, I got expenses but not much as when I got pregnant ds was 15 months so the seasons matched exactly for clothing and as I say, I worked from home so didn't need to give up working. I was protected however, the parents paid a big life insurance policy for me and if things had gone wrong and I had a need for long term hospital it was agreed they would pay childcare and loss of earnings. I have never felt comfortable receiving more than receipted expenses (and not a holiday for that first one, when I later had the girls I accepted their kind offer to rent a caravan near them for a week so my children could see the girls with their parents and have chance to understand where the babies had gone).

In order to be accepted by an IVF clinic for that first surrogacy dh and I had a lot of counselling, we firstly had a meeting with a representative of COTS (Kim Cotton herself actually) and she was very blunt in running through the risks, she pulled no punches and rose-tinted nothing. After I had met my couple we all met with her again and talked through what we expected from each other and ran through the most painful possibilities including how we would decide how to behave if a scan shows a disability, who would make funeral arrangements for a still birth, how we would cope if the birth/parental order marked the end of our friendship and how it would feel if I lost my fertility as a result of surrogacy.

Once we had done that we each met with two different clinic appointed counsellors dh and I went in together and my couple went in together, we each had 2.5hours with each counsellor so 5 hours total discussing all the things we talked about before as well as discussing our own family background and establishing the state of our mental health. These reports then went to the clinic ethics committee who discussed our case before deciding if we were allowed to go ahead.

After the birth I took part in this study to establish "the motivations, experiences and psychological consequences of surrogacy for surrogate mothers." As you can read the results are very positive. Dh and I have just been interviewed for a follow-up study to examine long-term effects but the results are not yet published.

Sorry this is such a long post, I have tried to keep it shorter by only discussing my first surrogacy but I know it is still long, you deserve a if you made it this far but I wanted to counter the view that surrogacy is a vulnerable and needy young woman being used as womb by a couple who can afford to buy the use of her body.

mrs milton well said completely agree with all you said. Surrogates are not paid "only expenses and a family holiday" that is paying in my book.

OddBoots - It is nice to read a balanced account by someone with a lot of experience. I think that in the programme Lyndsey came across a bit like you. She seemed very aware of all the ups and downs and in control of her situation.

I agree with comments that the couple she was doing it for came across very badly. I really did not warm to them at all.

Poor, poor Louise. I too hope she is getting the support she needs. She most definitely appeared to have a poor grasp of what she was doing and the implications.

I would not be able to be a surrogate and wouldn't wish it on dd either I'm afraid. If I'm totally and utterly honest it all seems a bit 'Handmaid's Tale' to me. Something about it makes it an impossible option for me to even consider. I know that's horrible, for some people it is their only option (and I believe that if I was struggling with infertility I too would go to the ends of the earth to have a child) but it is how I feel.

Oddboots, your story sounds like a great surrogacy experience, but bad TV.
Such a shame so many people are so swayed by a purposely skewed depiction of the situation.

"What if the couple were not trying to expoit her and treat her like a rent-a-womb ......? "

Bubbaluv - But isn't this the case.Unless it is done for a loved family member or very close friend, isn't it effectively renting a womb?

The reason I make the family/close friend distinction is that there is already a bond there between the surrogate and intended parents. But even in these cases I not sure I completely agree but I feel more comfortable about it then with total strangers who really have no interest in the surrogate other then the fact that they can have a baby for them.

I bet the majority of parents who have babies with surrogates would prefer to have very little contact with the birth mother once the child was born.(They probably wouldn't say this because of the risk that the surrogate would pull out).Not because they are cruel but because they want get back to as normal a life as possible, with their little family.

I feel sorry for that poor girl Louise on the programme - she went into it completely blind. Will she be tramatised for life knowing that her baby boy is being raised by someone else.

The girl Shanon - seem to be looking for friends. She was contacting the couple often to enquire about their personal lives. She was annoyed that they only contacted her once a week. Very needy.

The Welsh Lass felt it was the only big impact she could make on the world.

It's so unfair to use these vulnerable women.

No question that the girls on TV had bad expereiences, but that's why they were on TV. It doesn't sound like a very rounded sample group from which conclusions should be drawn!

My sister has ad 4 surrogate babies, for 3 different families. When she announced she was going to be a surrogate, I had HUGE reservations and had no qualms in letting her know this. However, through the years I have seen what a difference she had made to these peoples' lives. I actually was her birthing partner for her fourth (and final) surrogate birth and can honestly say, I have never felt such emotion - on all sides, including the midwives - in one place at one time. All three couples make an effort to stay in touch with my sister and all the children have no doubt where they have come from - there are ways to do this sensitively and help the child understand.

IMO, this is a situation where you should not judge until you have walked a mile in the other persons shoes.