Am I being unreasonable to want to get paid to be a surrogate?

[Geanie]

I have already been a surrogate once, I didn't get paid a penny, not even for any expenses. The parents of the baby didn't pay anything towards the pregnancy, which I was fine with at the time as I had a good job and I didn't feel that I needed any reimbursements.

I have been contacted by quite a few people asking if I am planning on doing another surrogacy soon as they are looking for a surrogate.
I do straight surrogacy and there aren't that many of us in the UK so there are always a lot of people out there looking for a straight surrogate.

I definitely want to be a surrogate again, however, since my last surrogacy I was made redundant and am now self employed doing whatever I can to earn and get by, and to be honest I am really struggling.

I use quite a few surrogacy forums online and have noticed quite a lot of UK surrogates are now asking for a specific amount of 'payment' for their part as a surrogate.

I know that it is not allowed to be paid for surrogacy in the uk, but a surrogate is allowed to be paid 'Reasonable expenses' and they are pretty easy going when it comes to what those reasonable expenses are for as long as it is under a certain amount, usually around £15,000.

When we went through all the legal stuff after my last surrogacy I was told that they don't usually even question or check up on anything under £10k, as that is considered the standard amount.

I have thought about it quite a lot and I don't see why I shouldn't be able to benefit from this, I mean realistically I am going to be giving the parents a child, and pregnancy is hard. I don't see why, as long as I am upfront about it, I cant ask for a certain amount towards my 'expenses' during the surrogacy.

I'm not looking to make a profit or buy fancy gadgets or go on holiday. I would just use the money to help pay my rent and bills during the pregnancy.

So would I be unreasonable to do this?

(I have NC for this BTW. Pom bears, the MN scarf, bum sex at centre parks on a friday, and so on.)

Personally, I feel very uneasy about your last post OP. That is not compensation, that is a living wage. I don't think you shouldn't get anything at all, but I think that is an awful lot.

I would consider surrogacy although not with my own eggs. I would expect to be compensated for taxis to and from work if I needed it, maternity clothes and loss of earnings which I'm not sure would be an issue. Do you still get the same allowances when you are not keeping the baby?

Yes it does vary state to state, but from what I have learned from my surrogate friends in America whatever is agreed upon in the contract is legally binding and if the parents are the biological parents of the child they always have the parental rights, unlike here in the UK.

But then as Hilda has pointed out to me, I think it is a lot of money, but I have been lucky enough to have my own children with no problems.

I imagine people who have not been a fortunate as me would find it a bargain

op,yes you should be paid

what you do with the money is your buisness and yours alone

No, it's not legally binding. It can and has been contested. Many times.

The US system exploits working poor and poor women, IMO.

I agree expat.

Have you seen that new comedy? Can't remember what it's called, but it's about a young woman being a surrogate for a gay couple. She does it as a way to escape her cheating ex and earn some money. I just can't make it work in my mind.

Oh for God's sake, of course you should be paid! You are doing a fantastic thing, giving the greatest gift there is, but also you are performing a valuable service.

Some people seem to think this is okay only if you do it for "the right reasons". What precisely are those reasons? Some sort of vague charitable impulse?

OP, I think a sum for the duration of the pregnancy, plus a sum for delivery - £1000/month seems very reasonable to me, if it will allow you to live without taking other employment. You will deserve it, and as you mention, you are already saving couples a lot of money. I paid an egg donor - it was the happiest cheque I ever wrote and felt a lot more dignified that my donor was properly recompensed, rather than motivated out of pity.

i think you should be paid tbh. i think that surrogates do a TERRIFIC thing, only downside is that some women who are not mentally able to give a child up easily but are desperate for funds may do it for the wrong reasons and then suffer real unhappiness after. In general i certainly think you should be paid, actually i applaud you :)

Actually I think £1000pcm sounds more mercenary - more like a salary IYSWIM. Pregnancy costs are clustered at the beginning (any tests or travel) and the couple of months either side of delivery. Averaging out at £1000 over the pregnancy sounds reasonable, but actually that would likely be £1000 in months one and two, about £100 a month in months three to seven, then more like £1500 in eight and eleven, and £2-3000 in months eight and nine.

Men get paid to donate sperm, no questions asked, no eyebrows raised.

Women are expected to donate eggs and give up 10 months of their life to a surrogacy and all that entails out of charity and a desire to help others. There is a lot of pussyfooting around the issue of expenses.

Of course you should be paid, if you want to be.

I am self employed, so if I cant work, for whatever reason, I wont get paid.

During my surrogacy I would be looking to drop a couple of my current jobs though as they are not particularly pregnancy friendly. So I would either need to find alternative employment, which in my area is extremely difficult, or subsidise my earning with payments from the parents.

As I said, I am not looking to make a profit from surrogacy, I want to do it because I love being pregnant, and I love that i am able to help people who are not able to have a baby the traditional way.

If I was still employed in my old job I would happily do another surrogacy without asking for a penny, but I'm not in that situation any more.

Considering that you would be using your own egg I am very uncomfortable with any payment over and above reimbursement fo very specific costs and losses, maternity clothing, loss of earnings for example. It comes uncomfortably close to selling your child imo.

I don't see what's wrong with you making a living wage. You are essentially putting your own life on hold for the duration of this process and I see no moral wrong doing in you making a profit out of that. As things stand, you are not asking for a huge profit - just living expenses to be met and if you were pregnant with my child I would not want you doing 6 part time jobs to get by, as that would put unnecessary stress on the pregnancy. I would be more than happy to support you and indirectly, my baby.

But then, I have no moral qualms about women 'renting out their wombs', so long as it is done freely. It's less exploitative than people being forced to put their dc up for adoption because they cannot afford to keep them, yet no one has any moral issue with adoption.

I think Northernlurker has managed to put into words the unease I feel at this (because ordinarily I would think 'yes,she should be paid,it's hardly a lottery win amount').It's because that child would be 'half' yours,getting paid to sell him or her feels.....wrong.

If it was a host/gestational surrogacy,I wouldn't have the same unease.

You've summed it up for me too, Northern.

its basically selling babies.

op you have to answer to nobody

you do whats best for you and your situation

I think this is such a tricky area.

In some ways I think it's easier to see 'host' surrogacy as a service that requires payment but in 'straight' surrogacy, as you would biologically be the mother of the child, it clouds the issue for me and comes closer to selling your baby for material gain - I'm sorry if that sounds harsh.

I have no doubt, that understandably, many childless couples would be happy with the arrangement but I think it could encourage both financially vulnerable women and those solely out for financial gain to exploit the system. Also, in the worst case scenario, the child could at some point in the future realise that its biological mother deliberately conceived it in order to give it up for financial compensation - not a great realisation for a child.

I'm too torn to give any useful answer to this but I'm reading it with interest as a 3x (host) surrogate, my paid expenses didn't meet the actual costs but the close relationship I have with all the children (and their parents) more than makes up for that.

Have you thought about trying to get a rewarding career, OP? Perhaps focus on yourself (rather than other people). Spend your time trying to better your position. A pregnancy will just see you standing still.

Rent and bills is not expenses.

If a surrogate has a job or works self-employed and can pay rent and bills ordinarily, but is sacked because she is pregnant, or unable to take on self-employed work because of the pregnancy, then at that point money for rent and bills becomes expenses incurred because of the pregnancy, and would be a legitimate claim.

Sounds like the OP is in a situation where the work arrangements she has are not enough for her to live on, so she is seeing a surrogacy (that she would probably do at some point anyway) as a way to enable her to jack at least some of her work in and get her rent paid.

That's not genuine expenses and doesn't sit well with me.

OP I would advise you to sort your work situation out as a long term thing, which will need doing anyway. If your self employed stuff isn't working out, or paying enough, you need to address that first.

Once you are earning enough to keep yourself, then consider surrogacy, and ask for actual out of pocket expenses incurred rather than a monthly income as you are proposing.

OP, YANBU. You are providing a service. You're not holding a gun to these people's heads. It is up to you to decide how much money you will need, and up to them to decide if they are happy paying it.

I do see that argument, however, I would not be doing the surrogacy purely for the financial benefit, if I was I certainly would not consider donating my own eggs.

I would be just as happy to do a gestational surrogacy, but I was more drawn to straight surrogacy because I had already done egg donation in the past, and I do not consider a biological link at all binding. Also once I started talking to potential parents and the agency cots it became very clear that there is a huge shortage of straight surrogates but a massive amount of people looking for them, so since I have no problem donating eggs I was happy to consider straight surrogacy.

I personally don't see a difference between a straight surrogacy and a gestational one, it is never my baby, it is always going to be someone elses baby, wether it is my egg or not.
I never even considered the view that it would be likened to selling a baby.
The money has little to do with the baby and more my 'job' as carrying the baby and going through the pregnancy for someone else.

If I was expecting a lump sum at the end of the pregnancy I could see how it would be considered a baby sale, but the money will be used to support me throughout the pregnancy.

I think you have to accept that there is a very real possibilty that when the resulting baby becomes an adult,they may well consider that you 'sold' them.I feel very torn on this one...I know you're not doing it for huge profit,I accept that.There somehow is a difference though.

It smacks of a business deal,with an embyro being the commodity.

As for the comments about my career.

I actually have two masters degrees and a doctorate, and up until last year I had a very good job. Unfortunately the place in which i worked received budget cuts and so they decided to make me redundant.

I am hoping to find another job in a similar position at a different facility, but nothing is available at the moment. Until then I am working several part time jobs around school hours in order to pay my bills.

Obviously I do not know how long it will take me to find another job in my career, but there are other options, and if i don't find anything eventually I could look into other positions which relate to my career but are not the same job IYKWIM.

At the moment my situation is fine, yes it is a struggle, but i am not it debt, I have no loans or credit, I don't claim anything from the government, and I am earning enough for us to get by.

I want to do another surrogacy because i loved my last one and there are so many people out there who are desperate to find a surrogate. I receive several new emails a week from parents looking for a surrogate.
But the only way I could realistically do a surrogacy is to ask for payment from the parents.

In relation to previous comments, Yes I am fully aware that rent/bills are not classes as reasonable surrogacy expenses, which is why I stared the thread about being paid rather than just trying to mark it off as expenses.