Has anyone had a baby via surrogacy?

[highsexdriveonhol]

Posting for traffic as no one replied to the surrogacy area (fully aware probably the worst place to post but need answers!)

Disclaimer: this is NOT a thread about the ethics of surrogacy - please don't come here with posts about how you don't agree with surrogacy blah blah it's not what the thread is for and you'd be wasting your breath.

I'm exploring all routes of starting a family and to be honest, not convinced this route is for me but I feel only right to consider everything before drawing a line.

So I wanted to hear about positive and negative experiences of surrogacy from parents that did this to have a family.

Did it go well or not well for you, would you do it again?

Are there trauma issues for the child in your experience? Did you struggle to bond with the child?

Ideally looking for couple that used their own sperm and egg where possible.

Thanks in advance x

“maybe surrogacy isn't as nice and fluffy as people want to pretend it is.”

Let’s face it. If the negative aspects of what you are doing can be stated in such blunt terms that it makes you that uncomfortable, and is not misrepresenting what you are doing, then you as a person understand that it has significant negative ramifications you just don’t want to face.

Looking back though I notice the posts saying ‘you won’t get a ‘balanced’ view here, or you should seek advice from other places’. I suspect these posters have somehow convinced themselves that some kinds of surrogacy are fine and dandy because they fully believe that the woman is making their own decision to be exploited. (And often those posters hate that term, ‘exploited’). It is what they say about sex work. It is said from
a privileged position of never having had to make the choice or because they bury the health risks behind, what was it?, just like getting in a car with someone!

Well if someone is going to use that fucked up analogy, it would be getting into the car with someone for 9 months non-stop, not knowing where you are going and with a bit of a map but it is not guaranteed that the map is even relevant to where your destination is, and driving throughout winter on roads that may be cleared of hazards but just as much a chance that they are not. What are your fucking chances of making it out of that car safely with no lifelong ramifications at all with a more realistic analogy ?

The minimizing of exploiting women’s bodies and infants is mind blowing when you see it in action on threads like this. There is no comprehension that this is exploitation at all. Infants and women- just a resource to be tapped while people use whatever denial mechanisms they can to hide the fact.

It is illegal to pay someone in the UK to be a surrogate. There is no money involved and women do it voluntarily. There is far more demand than availability iyswim.

Actually @MistyTrains2 women can receive “expenses”. These often average between £15k- £20k per woman. That provides a very real financial incentive for women from poor backgrounds to do this for richer people, for the money. U.K. surrogacy is not altruistic.

Let us not forget ‘voluntary’ covers a huge range of eventualities. Including family unmentionable dynamics or someone’s need to ‘be a good person’ which can hide many motivations.

And we have heard surrogates who have done it so they can care for their own children. But still ‘voluntary’ supposedly

If a mother isn't lucky enough to be there for the golden hour (I was in theatre for it after a EMCS) the baby will breast crawl on another adult. Fathers being a great example. My baby was so happy with their dad that other women on the ward told me it made them tearful to watch. (I think they thought I was dead as it was so long before we were reunited.)

If people feel strongly about poor women being surrogates as they have no viable financial options are they doing anything to prevent that need? It is all very well to say a poor woman shouldn't be exploited but say that woman can't feed her children or she has a sick child and she can't pay for the necessary medical treatment, what are you doing about it? Surely the first step is to campaign to ensure no one has to be a surrogate as her only option, banning her from using that option might mean her children are sick or dying.

To me banning surrogacy seems to be starting at the wrong end of the problem.

In my twenties I used to feel fine about so called “altruistic “ Surrogacy. I was childless, and hadn’t given it much thought beyond the “what an amazing thing to do for someone “ type of thing.
Then I had my daughters, which shifted my feelings somewhat. The main thing though was that a couple I know of, not friends of mine but friends and employers of my friend, bought their child from a specific country because it was “the cheapest”. This is a couple who boast on their website about their business giving money to people in poverty in various other countries. I also read more on Surrogacy, I thought more about the ethics, in particular as the trend for using an egg not from the surrogate became the norm, and I came to feel that even altruistic Surrogacy is wrong.
There is very new research coming out on pre-eclampsia and the lifelong health issues associated with it. Having had PE increases your risk significantly of vascular issues, including dementia, it also increases your risk of getting PE yourself in pregnancy . This applies to the baby as well, not just the mother As a PE baby who also had PE when pregnant, I am really worried about this personally, but as surrogate mothers who have had another woman’s egg implanted are at a notably increased risk of PE , that is another factor that makes Surrogacy something where all the benefits are for the commissioning parents, and none for the mother or baby.

@user1471598758 without revealing your identity (as the documentary series has a limited number of women, with too much info I suppose we could narrow it down) can you share here what motivated you to enter into a pregnancy for someone else?

You first. Tell us what you are doing but I can guarantee that some of us on this thread are indeed working and campaigning to make a difference. Your attempt at shaming women who are speaking out about this is an empty one.

That's really interesting about pre eclampsia. I had no idea, my own position on surrogacy having done a 180 when I learned about early childhood trauma and attachment.

It strikes me that the knowledge around surrogacy just isn't widely enough understood. And the bias in our society as viewing women as purely vessels (in this case incubators) and children as possessions and commodities, serves to prevent people being curious about the wider implications beyond "I want a baby".

You’ll likely know who I am, but I don’t really mind that🤣

For me it was for the person not about the act. I first hand watched someone’s trauma for years and I was able to help them. I think a lot of people in my shoes would have done the same.

My opinion on surrogacy in general is still very mixed. Lots of people on both sides do it for the wrong reasons so I’ll never support it in it’s whole. In our situation it was easy and right though.

I would never actively seek out doing it again. But equally if somebody else close to me had similar problems I would probably do it for them.

I agree sirvix, that is interesting about PE.

It is just worth adding, I know it has been raised on this thread already, but the risk of Pre-eclampsia in a surrogate pregnancy has been shown may be greater, just as if you are carrying a donor egg.

Carrying an foetus that is not formed from your own genetic material is now being recognised as a huge potential risk for pre-eclampsia. I wonder if surrogates are being told this before they undergo the procedure. It is just another risk factor. Or, are there so many risks that they seem to be easy to shrug off?

Except if they die their children will be left without a mother.

Don't forget how they manage to support their family if they don't die but have a life changing birth injury. Which aren't as uncommon as you think

Here is an interview with a young woman whose mother died as a result of surrogacy complications when she was a child.

Well said.

You are very defensive, why is it a problem to say the first thing that needs to be done is helping women so they don't need to do this.

What do I do? I donate a tenth of my pension to a charity that is helping women. The amount isn't any of your business but it is what I can manage. I vote for an MP who supports increases in aid to developing countries. I support fairtrade.

Tell us what you do apart from saying, "Don't do this for the money even if you desperately need it."

How do you know what other people think about life changing birth injuries. Are you psychic?

I think people neglect the risk or think it won't happen to them or are just unaware of it.

And it's not about what people think about life changing injuries anyway. This might be a difficult concept to understand. It's about the reality of what happens not thoughts.

It's about what happens to the children of a woman who now can not work full time due to a birth injury.

I am not the one who wrote the post questioning whether women on this thread are 'doing anything to prevent that need?' You were.

Instead I assume that many of the woman on this thread ARE doing things that aim to 'prevent that need'.

Your post comes across as being meant to shame people who are pointing out the exploitative nature of surrogacy. Was it? Did you mean it to be suggestion women were all words and no action?

What am I doing? I also contribute to women's charities however I also join groups that work with and support women who are within their community to help 'prevent that need' through their own community led support groups for domestic abuse and educational support across not just formal educational opportunities . But also access to mentoring and personal guidance for the many difficult situations that face the women in that borough. We work with women here in the UK who come from some of the countries that are targeted regions for surrogacy services.

I do other things too, but why should anyone have to declare what they do because you felt that you should question whether or not women were 'doing anything to prevent that need' as you posted.

Banning surrogacy is not 'the wrong end of the problem'. Banning surrogacy, including preventing illegal surrogacy from continuing, while providing support to those women who are at immediate risk of needing to do this to feed their children and providing long term support is exactly the right 'end of the problem' to start. However, banning surrogacy is absolutely the first step to break the cycle because it also then clearly and without any ambiguity works to prevents the situations that we saw as covid broke and where trafficked women were being used to produce babies on demand.

Banning surrogacy sends the message that it's reprehensible and unethical. Strangely it's banned in many countries for exactly this reason.

But women still have to justify why they dislike surrogacy and 'what they are doing'.

Why is it always the case that people who aren't doing the questionable act are the ones that have to do all the proving and demonstrating. It's just another form of gaslighting and DARVO - it's a shift of focus from the ones engaging an actual act of buying babies to women for 'wrongthink' yet again. Women aren't allowed opinions - they have to flog themselves to death instead meanwhile the monsters who traffic children are painted as poor victims of infertility who had no other choice or gay men who are just the victims of homophobia.

It's such utter bullshit. It's all a PR job done by the most wealthy in society to 'babywash' in same way as greenwashing or rainbow washing.

You're right. We should legalise selling organs so people in poverty have more choice.

Nationalise brothels. Then there's regular work available and it's taxable.

Absolutely, who needs 2 kidneys? And am sure you can donate bits of liver?..
Woo hoo! All the options. 🙄