Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not consider surrogacy for SIL when I would for my sister?

391 replies

nervousnelly8 · 13/10/2020 21:32

DH's sister has longstanding fertility problems. She has been told surrogacy would be her best option. DH and I were discussing today whether I would consider acting as a surrogate in future (she hasn't asked me directly but has raised it with DH).

I came down pretty firmly on the no side. I'm currently very pregnant with DC2 and I do not enjoy pregnancy. I had bad birth injuries with DC1 and am very apprehensive about going through it again, but know it will be worth it if we get a healthy baby out at the end.

Selfishly, I just don't feel willing to but my body through a pregnancy/birth for SIL, with all the risks that it entails. We're not sure yet if we would like more children after DC2, so that plays a part too.

DH asked if I would be willing to do it for anyone else. And the honest answer was that I would do it for my own sister. I would do anything for my sister. DH understood but was visibly upset, and I now feel like a selfish cow. AIBU?

OP posts:
WhereYouLeftIt · 13/10/2020 22:25

"I had bad birth injuries with DC1"
And for that alone, I think your husband was being a FUCKING ARSE to raise the subject with you. He should have shut his sister's 'discussion of the option' immediately by pointing out that you were not an 'option'. And seriously nelly - "if DH could carry a child for his sister, I have no doubt he would" ? Since it's an impossibility, that can never really be known.

No, raising this with you when you are so heavily pregnant was a complete mis-step on his part. That you would feel different if it was your sister is neither here nor there. He was wrong to try and back you into a corner on this; which, given you say you now feel like a selfish cow for saying 'no' is what he has done.

So stop feeling bad for saying no, and tick him off for asking you to put yourself at risk in the first place!

diamondpony80 · 13/10/2020 22:26

I would NOT do it for my husband's sister for any reason. Despite having had two horrendous births and an awful last pregnancy I WOULD do it for my own sister, or my brother's wife (for my brother). I know none of them would ask though (they know what kind of births I had) and it would only happen if I offered and they accepted. I'm surprised your SIL would even suggest it to be honest, particularly as you're already pregnant. I don't think you should do it, especially if you think you might want another child yourself eventually.

Original poster
nervousnelly8 · 13/10/2020 22:26

@Howlooseisyourgoose sorry didn't mean to ignore. He asked and I told him the truth. It possibly was tactless, but my sister is younger and has not TTC yet. If she were to end up in the same horrible situation as SIL is, I know I would help if I could.

OP posts:
Stripyhoglets1 · 13/10/2020 22:28

I knew as soon as I was pregnant with my first that I would never be able to do this for anyone else not even my sister. Its just too much to ask of most people.

CrappleUmble · 13/10/2020 22:28

Your DH is well out of line. He made the choice to ask an entirely unnecessary and avoidable question re your sister, and has no business getting pissed off because he doesn't like the answer.

Clymene · 13/10/2020 22:29

[quote WhereverIGoddamnLike]@Clymene

I don't agree with surrogacy so I'm not arguing on that score, but what makes that person the mother?

If you're using the egg and sperm of the intended parents, and the woman is willingly doing it, without coercion or payment but through pure choice, then is she the mother? Or is the woman who gave her egg fertilised by her husband's sperm the mother?[/quote]
The woman who gives birth to a child is its mother, regardless of whose gametes were used. Otherwise women who use donor eggs aren't their child's mother when clearly they are - they gestated them for 9 months and gave birth to them.

Pro surrogacy language tries to decouple motherhood from that process. It's wrong.

SirVixofVixHall · 13/10/2020 22:31

Surrogacy should never be presented as an “option”. Apart from the fact that surrogacy, even in families, is exploitation of women and their bodies, there is another person in this, the baby. A baby should be with its mother. That is the person the baby wants, a small person is not a doll to be doled out to someone else or sold.

MsEllany · 13/10/2020 22:31

I had considered I would offer to be a surrogate for my (gay) cousins should they ask me. This was before I had my own children. Now that I do, I couldn’t do it. It’s easy for me to say I suppose, but I don’t think anyone is ‘owed’ the right to their own baby, and having gestated and birthed a child I don’t think I’d be able to give it up. My sister is currently going through some fertility issues and I’d say no to her as well. I love her, but my body is not an incubator for hire.

rorosemary · 13/10/2020 22:32

@EmpressoftheMundane

Cheeky of your SIL to ask and to put your husband in the middle. Would she ask for a kidney? Pregnancy is no joke.

In retrospect, it was probably insensitive to tell your husband that you would do it for your own sister. I think it’s understandable and not unreasonable, but your husband is under emotional strain and caught in the middle, do this just makes it more painful for him.

Maybe it's just me but I'd have less of a problem with someone asking for a kidney than asking for a surrogate. A kidney is life saving, most of us have two, the process is much shorter, less risky and no emotional attachment.

I'm for altruistic surrogacy in some casesbut it needs to be offered without being asked imo.

Branleuse · 13/10/2020 22:34

I dont agree with surrogacy, even altruistic, I think its the ultimate commodification of the female body and to go through one of the physically riskiest things you can do and hand over a child youve grown, its just too much. Thats not a gift, thats exploitation of someones good nature. I think its actually pretty shitty that she floated the idea with your husband and not you. Hard no. I think tbh, even with your own sister you might well not actually do it when it came down to it,. but saying that, shows the depth of your love for her in comparison to your partners sister. Its not the same. Id feel humilated and pressured now. Youre not their familys walking uterus

movingonup20 · 13/10/2020 22:35

Just tell him you would be uncomfortable even for your sister (it's not on the cards so hopefully irrelevant)

Branleuse · 13/10/2020 22:35

did you know surrogacy is completely illegal in most of europe

JetBlackSteed · 13/10/2020 22:35

@CodenameVillanelle

I'd have carried a baby for my brothers if their partners had been unable to get pregnant but for nobody else. (I don't have a sister) I wouldn't do it for anyone who wasn't a close blood relation of mine. I'd need to be in that child's life forever for one thing, and that's not guaranteed with a husband's sister. Also I love my brothers so much that I love their children like my own. It would be totally worth the sacrifice to have another niece or nephew in my life. But not for anyone else. Not sorry and never would be.
But surely you can't carry a baby of your brothers, incest springs to mind. Op is different, she is not related to her husbands sister or her husband!!
CrappleUmble · 13/10/2020 22:36

Him thinking it was appropriate to even mention it to you in the late stage of an unpleasant pregnancy is pretty suspect.

ChloeCrocodile · 13/10/2020 22:36

The risks you’d take for those you love dearly are very different from those you’d take for those you care about. Most people don’t love their DSIL as much as they do their DSis. That isn’t unreasonable, it’s normal.

Your DH asked a question and you answered honestly. He may be upset but that doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong. Sometimes human nature (loving your own siblings more than your in laws) is irrational and upsetting.

walker1891 · 13/10/2020 22:36

Some males seek to see women as empty vessels and are not bothered about the interests of the female or the impact this will have on your body. The physical, mental and emotional strain of a pregnancy and the impact it will have is not taken into consideration.

He shouldn't get to debate what you do with your body. You are not a container to carry something in. You are a person who has your own reproductive rights. That right is to say no.

BlueCatRedCat · 13/10/2020 22:36

Be kind, be bloody kind! I am sick of women being told to be kind, when their boundaries are being well and truly trampled all over. Nobody has a right to expect kindness, tact, or any other sort of soft soaping when they are requesting access to another person's body.

Your H is a dick, and I would not forgive him for even entertaining the idea of utilising your body, in a conversation with his sister behind your back. How dare he.

saraclara · 13/10/2020 22:38

@FourPlasticRings

Wow. She approached her brother about renting out his wife's uterus? The mind boggles.
No she didn't. Read the OP's update above your post.
RedToothBrush · 13/10/2020 22:40

She asked your husband not you.

The emotional blackmail in this is off the scale.

No. No. And again no.

You don't owe her risking your life or your health because you just happen to be married to her brother. It is massively selfish to even ask.

Powerchewings · 13/10/2020 22:41

Surrogacy is a fucking vile thing anyway.

Clymene · 13/10/2020 22:43

@BlueCatRedCat

Be kind, be bloody kind! I am sick of women being told to be kind, when their boundaries are being well and truly trampled all over. Nobody has a right to expect kindness, tact, or any other sort of soft soaping when they are requesting access to another person's body.

Your H is a dick, and I would not forgive him for even entertaining the idea of utilising your body, in a conversation with his sister behind your back. How dare he.

Yes
shesgonebatshitagain · 13/10/2020 22:44

I’ve not read all the thread but my gut reaction is your SIL has a nerve asking you and your DH equally so for communicating it, even more so when you are heavily pregnant.

To ask a woman who on paper could be a surrogate - for the complex range of factors and situations etc required - that you already are close to and she already knows of your situation then the chances are she’s already privately wondered if you’d asked her and hopes you won’t. Because she hasn’t offered

I couldn’t be a surrogate for anyone not even my sister.

You don’t have to be an incubator of anyone else‘s hopes and dreams if doing so would wreck your own life as well as your memories and experiences of motherhood.

They need to respect that and move on

CounsellorTroi · 13/10/2020 22:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

seayork2020 · 13/10/2020 22:44

There is no way I would be a surrogate for anyone, a kidney is totally different. My body is not for 'sale'

hammeringinmyhead · 13/10/2020 22:46

Another who wouldn't do it for anyone. Handing over a baby I'd birthed would break me forever. I don't care whose egg made it.