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Feminism: chat

Baby born to Surrogate Mother still with her nearly one year on

98 replies

OhHolyJesus · 27/03/2021 18:47

Due to the travel restrictions this little girl remains in the care of the surrogate mother and her husband and as she approaches her 1st birthday she might be with them for a lot longer...

"For the biological parents, the entire process of traveling to and from the US to collect their baby could take up to three months, according to Chrislip.
“I just don’t know if they can take that amount of time off of work,” she said."

So tricky to collect the order you made from China when you can't take time off work...

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/nypost.com/2021/03/24/surrogate-caring-for-baby-year-later-due-to-covid-travel-rules/amp/

OP posts:
MazekeenSmith · 27/03/2021 19:36

@RachelRoth

In the uk handing over a baby at or close to one years old, who has been on foster care for their first year, is commonplace in adoption. Maybe we need to look a little closer to home first.
What does this have to do with surrogacy? What point are you making?
MazekeenSmith · 27/03/2021 19:37

@RachelRoth

It is absurd to conflate that with surrogacy.

We are talking about this one particular surrogacy. Is the fostering system and the adoption process in the UK better than this particular surrogacy?

It’s completely different
MazekeenSmith · 27/03/2021 19:40

@RachelRoth

The other option for children in care is that they remain without a forever family for the rest of their lives, never feeling like they belong. Do you think this is a better option?

Yes. I'm a massive supporter of the foster-to-adopt system, where people who wish to adopt are trained also to be foster carers. so they foster and if the child does need to be adopted, those foster parents adopt the baby. I think for newborns this is absolutely the best course of action.

Foster to adopt is VERY complex If it works it can be amazing for the child but fostering is not the same as adoption. Most adopters would struggle with caring for a baby before there is a care and placement order in place as attaching to the baby is risky. I’ve only been involved with one such case and the adopters struggled with it hugely. It was traumatising for them, especially when the proceedings were extended by several months.
BewareTheBeardedDragon · 27/03/2021 19:42

Regardless of the very valid points demonstrating how different the two scenarios are - suggesting that people should look at the adoption and fostering system in the UK before being concerned about surrogacy in general is pure whataboutery.

OhHolyJesus · 27/03/2021 20:15

Payments to a surrogate mother usually take place on a monthly basis with a final payment upon delivery so it's very likely that Emily would have been paid but then she would be caring for the baby and doing what sometimes surrogacy is called 'extreme babysitting' - well this truly is extreme babysitting! She and her husband would be caring for the baby girl as if she were there own. Her contract may have specified that she was to pump milk so she may have decided to do that directly. Equally she might have stuck to the contract for fear of being found out somehow and have pumped or fed her formula as per their arrangement. She would have expenses paid I imagine but would she be paid a fee on top? Possibly.

It would of course be hugely expensive beyond the fees and expenses already paid, then they would have needed all the baby clothes, nappies, cot etc, that they wouldn't have intended on buying or having on standby.

The commissioning parents would have to pay it all and it truly does come down to money as you are paying Emily and her husband to not just care for their child but to love their child. How could you not?

And at some point that ends, time's up, job done. They come to take her away. Imagine the flight home? First time on a plane and she's with people she doesn't know, nothing is familiar, it will take them several flights to get back to China and this poor little girl will be screaming for her mother.

Emily has a son, how is she going to explain it to him? Basically his sister has been taken.

I don't think they had much choice and I'm sure they have done their best but the worst is yet to come. The greatest day for the commissioning parents will be absolute torture for their daughter.

OP posts:
SmokedDuck · 27/03/2021 20:42

@RachelRoth

Oh i misread that comment Blush. No i wasnt saying they shouldnt have a forever family. I was saying they should be placed with a potential forever family significantly earlier.
But I think everyone involved in adoption understands this is a problem and the ideal is that the infant should stay with the same family.

The reasons they don't are either about there no being the right kinds of placements available, or cases where other goods are being considered, like reuniting the child with the birth mother.

In surrogacy the whole problem is glossed over.

MissBarbary · 27/03/2021 21:06

@RachelRoth

In the uk handing over a baby at or close to one years old, who has been on foster care for their first year, is commonplace in adoption. Maybe we need to look a little closer to home first.
There is NO comparison. We don't create babies solely to hand them over for adoption. Adoption is a process for the child's best interests- not the parents'.
MissBarbary · 27/03/2021 21:14

The greatest day for the commissioning parents will be absolute torture for their daughter

Do you think the commissioning parents will take her? I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. The gilt will have worn off now she's no longer a newborn.

I can't see how a court could possibly enforce the contract to make them take her if they don't do so voluntarily.

TheRabbitOfCaerbannog · 27/03/2021 21:16

The gilt will have worn off now she's no longer a newborn.

I'm minded to think the same. Plus they'll be aware that it will be harder to relocate and settle a child of that age.

RachelRoth · 27/03/2021 21:21

What does this have to do with surrogacy? What point are you making?
I thought it was quite clear. A one year old baby does not understand the reasoning behind the actions. To all one year old babies taken from a carer for their first year and handed to someone different is the same. To the one year old child they have lost their primary carer.

As adults we can apply reason to the situations. But to the child the situation is the same.

How do you think it is different for the child in the case of this surrogacy and adoption of a one year old?

MissBarbary · 27/03/2021 21:27

Rachel again what point are you making?

Have you read any of the responses to you?

TheRabbitOfCaerbannog · 27/03/2021 21:29

Why should this prevent anyone from being concerned about the ethics of surrogacy Rachel?

MazekeenSmith · 27/03/2021 21:30

@RachelRoth

What does this have to do with surrogacy? What point are you making? I thought it was quite clear. A one year old baby does not understand the reasoning behind the actions. To all one year old babies taken from a carer for their first year and handed to someone different is the same. To the one year old child they have lost their primary carer.

As adults we can apply reason to the situations. But to the child the situation is the same.

How do you think it is different for the child in the case of this surrogacy and adoption of a one year old?

It isn't different to the child However that is a strikingly irrelevant point in a post critiquing surrogacy. Since adoption and surrogacy are totally different matters.
Superfoodie123 · 27/03/2021 21:36

Oh my goodness, traumatising just to read this. That poor little girl, this will stay with her forever.

FannyCann · 27/03/2021 21:45

Devastating case and I'm pretty sure it won't be unique.
Also one of the problems for babies in this situation in the USA is healthcare as they won't have insurance. I'll have to look for the article where I read about it but it is a very complex situation.

They look such a happy family in the picture and yet I wonder how much those parents have schooled themselves to keep a distance and not love that baby too much. How sad.

Slight derail but I remember a book I loved to sob over as a child, called The Yearling. A key issue was that the mother of the young boy protagonist had six children who died in infancy before he was born and is a very strict and distant parent avoiding any emotional attachment to him.

FannyCann · 27/03/2021 22:01

I see the family lives in Boise. I haven't been able to see this documentary but Boise has a cottage industry, breeding babies for buyers who can pay.

A surrogate mother from Boise who died was reputed to have carried five surrogate babies although it is unclear whether that included the twins who died with her. Many deaths of surrogate mothers are covered up - in the USA there are NDAs. In places like Ukraine or Nepal I doubt they are even reported.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/american-surrogate-death-bb_8298930

https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/made-in-boise/

merrymouse · 27/03/2021 22:13

How do you think it is different for the child in the case of this surrogacy and adoption of a one year old?

It probably isn't, but I don't think that is intentional. For obvious reasons the state cannot easily remove a child from parents against their wishes, although sometimes that may be necessary.

FannyCann · 27/03/2021 22:20

Found the link, an article from May last year.

A hodgepodge of temporary childcare arrangements which would almost certainly fall foul of normal safeguarding in countries such as the UK.

"Martin is adamant that she’ll be able to give Steven back to his parents when the time is right. “It will be hard to give him back, because I’ll miss him,” Martin says. “But I know he’s not mine, and that I have to give him up, which is totally OK with me.” She pauses. “But there’s definitely a bit of attachment there,” Martin says. “I care for him. When you love on a baby, you love on a baby.”
To avoid leaving children in the care of their surrogates, with the emotional challenges this can entail, some surrogacy agency workers are taking babies into their own homes. “I never anticipated something of this nature happening,” says Katie Faust, a 26-year-old surrogacy case worker from Tampa Bay. Faust is caring for a three-week-old baby girl, whose name we have withheld at her parents’ request."

And even where parents were able to get to the USA, lots of financial problems and the major concern that the baby is uninsured.

"The Tciks did not budget for nearly two months in the US. They estimate they have spent almost $20,000 in additional costs due to the coronavirus shutdown, on top of the approximately $150,000 cost of the surrogacy. “If this goes on much longer,” Tcik says, “we are going to have to borrow money from family and friends.”
He is terrified that Noga will fall ill – as Noga has no official paperwork, she is uninsured. As a result, the Tciks are terrified to take her outside, lest she contracts coronavirus. “We are stuck in this hotel,” says Tcik. “All the time, we’re in this hotel room. We don’t feel safe.”"

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/may/14/surrogates-baby-coronavirus-lockdown-parents-surrogacy

Soontobe60 · 27/03/2021 22:25

@RachelRoth

In the uk handing over a baby at or close to one years old, who has been on foster care for their first year, is commonplace in adoption. Maybe we need to look a little closer to home first.
That’s a totally different thing. Children are fostered and adopted in the UK generally because their parents cannot look after them. Money does not change hands. Surrogacy is purely procuring the services of a woman to produce a baby. The cost is high. We should do everything we can to help these women keep their babies
NotBadConsidering · 27/03/2021 22:29

If a newborn baby is to be removed from its mother at and place into foster care, this is a decision usually undertaken by a judge (depending on jurisdiction) because the gravity of the situation, and only done when there is absolutely no alternative.

In surrogacy, intended parents walk in, take the baby, and walk out.

TheRabbitOfCaerbannog · 27/03/2021 22:31

Thanks for sharing the article Fanny, those poor babies.

Voice0fReason · 27/03/2021 22:36

Just one of the many horrific stories about surrogacy.
This poor child will suffer trauma that will affect her for the rest of her life.

MobyDicksTinyCanoe · 27/03/2021 22:38

They can sugarcoat it all they like....... Its babies for sale. And no real thought is given to their needs.

The surrogate wants her money, the ' mother' wants what she's paid for. The poor baby is the last person thought about in these cases. Not to mention the poor things sibling who's going to have her wrenched away

SionnachGlic · 27/03/2021 22:46

That sounds awful, poor baby will likely be traumatised being uprooted at 1+yrs old. Do both parents have to be in China to get baby out & home? My DH & I would move heaven & earth so at least one of us could go for the 3 months or whatever & other would join whdn possible. If an employee came to me with this problem, I'd give them the 3 months needed to go & do what needs to be done to allow them take their child home. I wouldn't be able to pay any more than annual leave amount as would need to get temp in...but they wouldn't lose jobs over it.

I thought the comment at end about China order was a bit sarky....

FannyCann · 27/03/2021 22:54

This really highlights one of the key inconsistencies regarding surrogacy and parenthood.
In the USA and other countries where commercial surrogacy is legal, (and in the UK should the proposals from the law commissioners go ahead), parental responsibility is assigned before birth allowing commissioning parents to take the newborn as soon as it is medically safe to do so.
Now we are looking at babies that have lived with their birth mother for nearly a year, maybe more. Are they still chattels, as if they were newborns? (Not saying it is right to take a newborn but clearly a one year old is bonded with the family who have been caring for it and there is a difference). What about five year olds? When do social services step in and demand a judge look at the best interests of the child?

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