Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 ··· 15 16 17 18 19 20

Original poster

If you had money to burn, would you use a surrogate?

476 replies

Hippiesip · 12/02/2018 16:42

Say you're having difficulty TTC a second or third child, would you pay for an American surrogate if you simply didn't want to wait/go through the pregnancy?

I think I would. I loved creating my son but pregnancy was extremely difficult for me mentally and emotionally. I would rather not doing it again, but still growing our family.

OP posts:

mustbemad17 · 14/02/2018 19:20

So in that sense surely any couple who has a baby via IVF using donor eggs (that they basically pay for) are also ethically immoral & should announce this when they announce their baby news?

Thehogfather · 14/02/2018 19:21

former not all women who give birth and keep the baby are mothers in anything other than a biological sense. And if you've never experienced it you can't miss it.

that same as I feel.

Dozer · 14/02/2018 19:26

“ if you've never experienced it you can't miss it”

Unlikely to be true, eg based on evidence from adopted DC.

Thehogfather · 14/02/2018 19:39

dozer there's a difference between losing something you had, and not knowing what you could have had. Adopted dc from mothers they were attached to versus those where there was never a bond are a wide group with different feelings.

And whatever the cause for being raised without a biological mother, being told that you have lost something irreplaceable, even when you never had it sounds really hopeless and bleak. Like 'yeah, you're fucked because you'll never get that back'.

mustbemad17 · 14/02/2018 19:43

I agree thehogfather. Let's condemn all children without a mother to the shit heap now, save some time! The truth is for some people not having a mother - known or not - doesn't have as big an impact as people think.

bananafish81 · 14/02/2018 19:47

@DianaPrincessOfThemyscira totally understand about American commercial surrogacy, but was curious about your opinion on my situation - altruistic gestational surrogacy with a friend, no payment other than expenses, no biological link. She wants to be a GS and has offered to do her first journey with us.

@BeyondTerfyCassandra aha so now I have a very interesting question for you!!

If 1 would be a blood relative, and my friend would be a 2...

Our situation is that my dad's partner has also offered to surro for us. So not a complete blood relative. But one step removed.

She has offered because she wants to help us. If we do not end up matching or doing a journey with her, she won't go on to be a surrogate otherwise - it would purely be altruistic to help us

My friend wants to be a surrogate, and has already signed up with surrogacy UK. If we do not match with her, all being well she would still go on to be a surrogate with someone else, if she finds the right match

So two altruistic GS scenarios, that we are currently facing. How do those score?!

mustbemad17 · 14/02/2018 19:48

I have a lot of respect for GS surrogates...IVF can be brutal. Fair play to them!!

Kerry111 · 14/02/2018 19:49

I would use a surrogate in a heartbeat if I could. I have 2 children and had difficult pregnancies and can't carry again. I would love more children. Both my children are through IVF.

Obviously in an ideal world id bonk, get pregnant, have a non high risk pregnancy and have a normal labour. Sadly none of that's been the case. I'd use a surrogate if I wasn't so frightened of it all.

wakemeupbefore · 14/02/2018 19:50

If I couldn't carry pregnancy through for whatever reason, I definitely would.

formerbabe · 14/02/2018 19:53

Let's condemn all children without a mother to the shit heap now

No one is doing that. It certainly says something about society though if mothers are now seen as unnecessary or an optional extra. A child may not be with its biological mother for a number of reasons, relationship breakdown, abuse, addiction, death...these are all unfortunate circumstances. To me, it's the deliberate creation of a situation where a child will be left motherless which I find troubling.

stitchglitched · 14/02/2018 19:58

As I said earlier I grew up without my biological mother. I have no memory of her but feel the loss very deeply and it has had a big impact on my life. The deliberate creation of a baby to be given away by it's mother is troubling to me. There seems to be alot of focus on the feelings of the surrogate and IPs and not much on how the child in that situation will feel.

stitchglitched · 14/02/2018 19:59

Xpost with formerbabe.

mustbemad17 · 14/02/2018 20:01

But other women who grew up without a mother may have very different feelings to you stitched. Does that mean that theirs are more or less important than yours? Of course not. Its an individual thing. Surrogate children that i have had the pleasure of knowing haven't grown up without their biological mother in their lives, the dynamics are just different. They don't feel any malice towards them

Battleax · 14/02/2018 20:09

I had no mother (different scenario to stitch's, I think). I am a mother, several times over. I tend to agree with stitch.

It's interesting. My father was, in many ways, a fantastic parent, but that didn't negate the huge gaping deficiency (although as a teen I would have bolshily insisted it did). Maybe you need to be without something to see the value of it.

mustbemad17 · 14/02/2018 20:09

If i'm still about on MN in ten years i'll update everyone on my surro situation, will be interesting for sure

stitchglitched · 14/02/2018 20:10

You don't have to feel malice towards someone to be effected by their actions. I know people who have been 'given up' by their mothers in different circumstances who feel terrible about themselves, that there must be something wrong with them that the woman who gave birth to them doesn't want them. If you strip back all the twee language of tummy mummy and surrobubs there is actually no difference between that child and the children that you had and kept. Biologically and genetically they are all equally your children, but you only feel attached to 2 of them. That is a big gamble, to create a child in those circumstances and hope it doesn't negatively impact upon them.

mustbemad17 · 14/02/2018 20:11

Battleax but what then of people who don't have relationships with mums or don't have mums for whatever reason that genuinely don't feel they are missing out? I totally get that some people feel that, some might feel the same about not having a dad around...but it's not a unilateral, one size fits all feeling

mustbemad17 · 14/02/2018 20:14

Stitched i definitely don't see it as a gamble, if i thought that being born into the family she is with would have a negative impact i wouldn't have done it. In exactly the same way i wouldn't bring a child into my own family unit if i thought it would be negatively impacted in some way.

I guess its difficult to get for some people, that's fine. Adoption is hard for some people to comprehend. Everyone is different.

Battleax · 14/02/2018 20:17

Battleax but what then of people who don't have relationships with mums or don't have mums for whatever reason that genuinely don't feel they are missing out? I totally get that some people feel that, some might feel the same about not having a dad around...but it's not a unilateral, one size fits all feeling

I suspect it's about whether or not you acknowledge the loss (or the absence). It's perfectly understandable that people who have been rejected or feel stigmatised would be defiant in defence of their family shape. It took be decades to acknowledge that I HAD experienced a loss, and that that was an ongoing loss (or lack).

Battleax · 14/02/2018 20:17

Took ME decades^

mustbemad17 · 14/02/2018 20:21

Maybe. Maybe not. A good friend of mine openly discusses how much better she is without her mum (she's not been around since we were kids). People always tell her how sorry they are for her...she doesn't see it as something to be pitied. In her eyes she never had the relationship that many mother/daughters have, so she hasn't actually lost anything.

If i lost my mum now i'd be devastated, but i'm 30. I've had 30 years of my mum & a brilliant relationship. It's a huge difference to me losing that to not having it.

Battleax · 14/02/2018 20:21

I guess its difficult to get for some people, that's fine. Adoption is hard for some people to comprehend. Everyone is different.

You keep doing this; You keep branding those with reservations or who feel cautious as "judgmental" or lacking understanding.

Maybe it's the opposite? Maybe wiser people with a wider life experience can empathise more deeply with all the parties (including the children) and see more clearly the downsides and potential traps?

I'm glad you've done something that you feel was altruistic and working out okay, that doesn't mean you have 360 degree insight.

mustbemad17 · 14/02/2018 20:23

So because i disagree it's me that is being judgy??? Many people here have discussed adoption as a more viable option...yet some people disagree with adoption. What makes your view more 'insightful' than theirs exactly???

Battleax · 14/02/2018 20:24

People always tell her how sorry they are for her...she doesn't see it as something to be pitied. In her eyes she never had the relationship that many mother/daughters have, so she hasn't actually lost anything.

Her loss (or part of it) in that case predates the bereavement, doesn't it? She's always missed out on a healthy mother/child relationship.

Battleax · 14/02/2018 20:25

So because i disagree it's me that is being judgy???

I didn't say that.

I think you're FAR to quick to label other people as judgmental.

I also think your personal experience, whilst important to you, is necessarily single-perspective.

Flip

1 2 ··· 15 16 17 18 19 20