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Original poster

Surrogacy makes me very uncomfortable

795 replies

HermioneKipper · 14/09/2021 23:34

I was listening to Giovanna Fletcher’s podcast with H from Steps and hearing them talk about him using a surrogate for his twins made me feel very uncomfortable.

It’s essentially renting a woman’s body to buy a baby.

I understand the woman must’ve consented but she was paid and it doesn’t take into account the risk she was putting her body through. Pregnancy and childbirth is a huge strain on a woman’s body and she risks serious injury giving birth that she’ll have for life.

Even more so as she had twins which is even more dangerous.

And the babies taken away from their birth mother immediately. Who knows what harm it does to them.

It feels akin to the black market of buying and selling organs.

I know I have children so perhaps don’t have the right to comment but it doesn’t sit right with me.

OP posts:
grey12 · 16/09/2021 17:47

A different thread was about a lady who is incontinent after giving birth. People think about an uncomfortable pregnancy and painful labour but not about certain outcomes, like this.

Mickarooni · 16/09/2021 17:48

@BeenAroundTheWorldAndIII

“ I would be a surrogate, and it would be ridiculous of you to think a grown woman is not able to weigh up the risks of a pregnancy and child birth.”

Using this logic, why is not legal for me to sell my organs?

Theluggage15 · 16/09/2021 17:49

Bloody hell, some of the language around surrogacy here is so childish and simplistic- ‘they will be loved until the end of the earth and back again.’ ‘Families come in all shapes and sizes’, ‘all a baby needs is love’. You’re creating a baby with the sole purpose of taking it from its mother, there’s nothing nice and flowery about it.

OhHolyJesus · 16/09/2021 18:32

Imagine going abroad and leaving your kids behind to deliver the baby you are having for your sister in law only to be left paralysed from the birth/medical negligence...

Altruistic Surrogacy in a family and Medical Negligence in Belgium www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4223469-Altruistic-Surrogacy-in-a-family-and-Medical-Negligence-in-Belgium

DebbieHarrysCheekbones · 16/09/2021 18:38

@Theluggage15

Bloody hell, some of the language around surrogacy here is so childish and simplistic- ‘they will be loved until the end of the earth and back again.’ ‘Families come in all shapes and sizes’, ‘all a baby needs is love’. You’re creating a baby with the sole purpose of taking it from its mother, there’s nothing nice and flowery about it.
That’s precisely it and frankly it’s hideous

But because they feel entitled fuck it

TheRebelle · 16/09/2021 19:22

[quote Mickarooni]@BeenAroundTheWorldAndIII

“ I would be a surrogate, and it would be ridiculous of you to think a grown woman is not able to weigh up the risks of a pregnancy and child birth.”

Using this logic, why is not legal for me to sell my organs?[/quote]
Or take class A drugs?

Plumtree391 · 16/09/2021 19:35

@grey12

A different thread was about a lady who is incontinent after giving birth. People think about an uncomfortable pregnancy and painful labour but not about certain outcomes, like this.
Exactly, and severe PND, tearing, haemorrhage - maybe an emergency C-section (a neighbour had two sections, she certainly wasn't expecting to even have one when she started her family), never mind being separated from the child who has grown inside you.

The baby will need their mother too, anyone considering surrogacy should read 'The Primal Wound' by Nancy Verrier.

The surrogate mother may actually DIE; unusual though that may be, it does happen.

All those risks to satisfy a selfish person who thinks they 'need' a baby in order to be fulfilled. Newsflash: childless people can be fulfilled if they are open to opportunities.

Now I expect we'll be told we don't understand, blah blah. Maybe so but we probably understand the needs of babies and children.

ThisOldSaddo · 16/09/2021 19:42

I'm a woman who had two babies for a couple who couldn't carry. I'm a solicitor, an equity partner (and was at the time) no less 😉 😆 so I'm the well to do woman who was a surrogate.

And thinking of going again. 😱

I'm still really involved in that world - as an OG with some legal knowledge (although that's not my practice area).

I could tell you some stories, but none from our journeys - they were actual perfection.

Siameasy · 16/09/2021 19:53

Yanbu I’m certainly not in favour of commercial surrogacy.

Why is the latest cut-and-paste argument now “if you don’t like X don’t do X hth”. What about the baby’s rights to have a relationship with its mother?

Lockdownbear · 16/09/2021 19:58

@ThisOldSaddo can I be nosy and ask did you know the couple? Are you genetically related to the children? Did you feel empty handed or have any PND when you handed them over?

GlitchStitch · 16/09/2021 20:26

Families come in all forms, and the most important thing is the baby is loved

Did you grow up with your mother? Because I didn't know mine. I was loved but I'm still very damaged by that loss.

YourFinestPantaloons · 16/09/2021 20:30

@GlitchStitch

Families come in all forms, and the most important thing is the baby is loved

Did you grow up with your mother? Because I didn't know mine. I was loved but I'm still very damaged by that loss.

This is why I loathe fluffy, thoughtless phrases like the one you quoted.

"The most important thing is the baby is loved".

No actually it's not, knowing where you came from is essentially a fundamental human right and the people who spout this crap only ever grew up in a 2.4 household with mum and dad in situ and have no idea what's it's like knowing your parents messed around with dynamics for their own gains, and refused to think of their child's feelings when they did so

ArabellaScott · 16/09/2021 20:35

I'm not surprised surrogacy makes you uncomfortable, OP.

There was an illuminating/scary youtube from Posie Parker earlier this week interviewing a woman from 'Stop Surrogacy Now':

Worryingly, the APPG wants to allow 18 yos to be surrogate mothers, with no need to have gone through a previous pregnancy. This means young women will potentially go into surrogacy with no idea at all of whta they're getting into.

ArabellaScott · 16/09/2021 20:37

Glitch Flowers, I'm sorry.

MayorGoodwaysChicken · 16/09/2021 21:31

@ThisOldSaddo

I'm a woman who had two babies for a couple who couldn't carry. I'm a solicitor, an equity partner (and was at the time) no less 😉 😆 so I'm the well to do woman who was a surrogate.

And thinking of going again. 😱

I'm still really involved in that world - as an OG with some legal knowledge (although that's not my practice area).

I could tell you some stories, but none from our journeys - they were actual perfection.

Not for the poor babies they weren’t Sad
Comedycook · 16/09/2021 21:40

Childbirth is no joke. It has the potential to kill you. You could have horrific birth injuries rendering you incontinent and destroying your sex life. I wouldn't risk that so someone else could have a baby

YourFinestPantaloons · 16/09/2021 21:45

I'd like to ask the surrogates here how long they remained with the baby after giving birth? I have a colleague who did it for her sister, and lived with her sister and BIL for six weeks to 'transition' (and breastfeed) the baby before moving back home. She got maternity leave in this time. And her sister and BIL weren't at the birth either, her boyfriend was and they came along later. It was out of the question that her sister and BIL would see her give birth, and they respected that. It feels to me like this is the best way to do surrogacy and wondered if it was standard practice?

Hamsteronrollerblades · 16/09/2021 21:56

I don’t like surrogacy at all but its especially appropriate for teens to have babies and give them away. Like the op who had the stats on awful outcomes for surrogates it’s quite similar for birth mothers like me. Those of us who are doing well are more than made up for by those who drowned in grief and loss. Many never to have more children. I thought of myself a bit like a surrogate, helping, being kind. I judge the adoptive parents and their greed for my baby. I understand it but I am uncomfortable with the conflict of interests and the pressure that was placed on me to fulfil their needs. Poor young girls have always been treated thus though so it’s no surprise. The baby may have got a good home but not the right start.

The happy wealthy surrogates who have posted, what a minority group that is, still take on such risk. I couldn’t ask that of another and just like the case I know which was in the family and went well it doesn’t do anything to compensate for the inequalities within this area.

Hamsteronrollerblades · 16/09/2021 21:57

I obviously meant inappropriate!

FannyCann · 16/09/2021 22:28

Worryingly, the APPG wants to allow 18 yos to be surrogate mothers, with no need to have gone through a previous pregnancy.

I do not believe it is possible to give informed consent if you have not been through pregnancy and childbirth before.
There has been a long running thread about birth injuries. Imagine going through all that and giving the baby away and having your body ruined at age 18.

They also do not propose an upper age limit as they don't want to prevent women acting as surrogate mothers for their children, giving birth to their grandchild. Clearly women want to help their own children and also, no doubt, long for a grandchild. But we are invariably looking at women in their late forties, early fifties doing this. There are plenty of statistics about how childbirth risks and complications increase over the age of about 35, and I have read lots of surrogate stories about older women who, surprise surprise developed problems with raised blood pressure and had to be delivered early, having a premature baby.
The Law Commission didn't consult with expert bodies like the RCOG or the RCM and have given no consideration to the risks of pregnancy and childbirth. At one of the public consultations I attended when they were taken to task for the lack of medical safeguarding they said they were lawyers not doctors. Hmm In which case one would have thought that perhaps they would have got a doctor onto the team.

FannyCann · 16/09/2021 22:30

The thread about obstetric injuries.

Guest post: "Women are expected to go home with life-changing injuries after giving birth and jus... www.mumsnet.com/Talk/guest_posts/4302468-Guest-post-Women-are-expected-to-go-home-with-life-changing-injuries-after-giving-birth-and-just-get-on-with-it

Plumtree391 · 16/09/2021 22:37

It is very worrying. Babies are not commodities to be passed around just because somebody who cannot have a baby wants one (I realise there are some who have to be separated from birth parent and others who are orphaned but they are the exceptions).

We cannot always have what we want, that's a fact of life!

Nobody is really thinking about what the baby's needs, it's all about the adult would-be parent.

I wish surrogacy, and some other things, had never started and was never even thought of.

Plumtree391 · 16/09/2021 22:39

Last but one sentence, I should have removed the 'what'.

Plumtree391 · 16/09/2021 22:40

Hamsteronrollerblades Flowers

Redyellowpink · 16/09/2021 22:54

There will always been women who 'chose' to be prostitutes, just like there are women who chose to be surrogates. Doesn't make either right. Doesn't mean both industries aren't harmful and exploitative to women