Surrogacy thread on Reddit has boiled my blood

[User6gh]

I just can’t believe what I’m reading. The idea that it’s the birthday party invitation up for debate here and not the act of surrogacy shows how fecking wonky the world has gotten about these things. A few people in the comments arguing that surrogacy is wrong but it’s generally met with “SIL went into it willingly”. Most people actually just answering the question at hand.

[Helleofabore]

That is good to know. Thanks Rockingcloggs.

[Rockingcloggs]

@Helleofabore Absolutely not! The HFEA are incredibly strict in this country with regards to fertility treatment and my clinic would certainly not have increased the risk of OHSS. Indeed, a number of the women who I have met (both online and in real life through fertility forums) had their treatment stopped when over stimulating became even a small risk.

[Helleofabore]

@Rockingcloggs

So, egg share is where you are anonymously 'matched' with a recipient ie a woman who for whatever reason cannot use her own eggs. You agree that the eggs that are collected after will be shared evenly between the recipient and yourself. Should no eggs be collected you have the option of another 'free' cycle, if a low number of eggs are collected you have options of either giving them all to your recipient or keeping them for yourself. At any point during the cycle you can change your mind.

Yes, egg sharing does reduce the costs for the woman 'sharing' her eggs, it is a benefit when you know that it is unlikely you will have a positive cycle on the first go.

My first cycle resulted in 14 eggs - so 7 each and a BFN for me, the second cycle resulted in 19, so 10 for me and 9 for my recipient. Again BFN for me but BFP for her!

It didn't actually reduce the cost that much for us because I have a lot of immune issues so the treatment for those were added onto the cost of a reduced IVF fees. I had 6 cycles altogether but only the first two were egg share cycles.

I am happy with my decision and I am also very proud that I helped a woman become a mother when otherwise she may not have been able to do so. There was absolutely no coercion.

Thank you for answering.

Were you given treatment to maximise the number of eggs you produced?

[toastofthetown]

I’d assume it’s fictional ragebait like 99% of AITA.

[Rockingcloggs]

@Helleofabore

Rockingcloggs

When you say you ‘egg shared’, do you mean your eggs were harvested for your own use and your donated to someone else?

If so, did you get a discount on your own treatment?

So, egg share is where you are anonymously 'matched' with a recipient ie a woman who for whatever reason cannot use her own eggs. You agree that the eggs that are collected after will be shared evenly between the recipient and yourself. Should no eggs be collected you have the option of another 'free' cycle, if a low number of eggs are collected you have options of either giving them all to your recipient or keeping them for yourself. At any point during the cycle you can change your mind.

Yes, egg sharing does reduce the costs for the woman 'sharing' her eggs, it is a benefit when you know that it is unlikely you will have a positive cycle on the first go.

My first cycle resulted in 14 eggs - so 7 each and a BFN for me, the second cycle resulted in 19, so 10 for me and 9 for my recipient. Again BFN for me but BFP for her!

It didn't actually reduce the cost that much for us because I have a lot of immune issues so the treatment for those were added onto the cost of a reduced IVF fees. I had 6 cycles altogether but only the first two were egg share cycles.

I am happy with my decision and I am also very proud that I helped a woman become a mother when otherwise she may not have been able to do so. There was absolutely no coercion.

[Helleofabore]

Rockingcloggs

When you say you ‘egg shared’, do you mean your eggs were harvested for your own use and your donated to someone else?

If so, did you get a discount on your own treatment?

[PayPennies]

There are numerous signs that this is not real and very logical explanations for which Reddit as a platform and fake content such as this bonds together.

[Rockingcloggs]

I am in the UK and I egg shared twice. I know that a male child was born to a woman from my donation.

I was not coerced into anything regards to my egg sharing. I had to attend counselling sessions before I was even considered for it and it was not a decision I was pushed into.

However, I can't believe that the Reddit post is real, surely no one can be that much of a c*nt.

[Usethesausageasabreakwater]

Rage bait… do these people have jobs, lives or hobbies etc or not?

[Usethesausageasabreakwater]

Hope it isn’t. It’s as flippant as talking about a missed parcel from Amazon. Disgusting entitled people.

[Avaynia]

Aita is notorious for fake stories and rage bait.

[Holliejollie22]

@AttilaTheUOkHun

That can't be real...

I very much doubt it is tbh

[FannyCann]

@User6gh

A friend of mine could get a discount on IVF if she donated eggs… in the UK. I never considered how coercive it was. (She didn’t do it.)

The discount is huge. Payment for egg donation in the uk is limited to £750 but discount for egg sharing will be several thousand pounds.

Another concern is how much women who are egg sharing are stimulated to produce multiple eggs. NICE guidelines for IVF are that drug dosages for ovarian stimulation should be kept as low as possible to produce the necessary number of eggs and to reduce the risk of ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome. Sometimes I take a look over on the infertility board and have seen several times that women are concerned they only produced a low number of eggs and others reassure them saying their consultant said "you only need one good egg" and luckily for them their one egg produced a baby. Because no one wants 20 babies so there is no need to produce 20 eggs. Unless a fertility clinic wants half of them.

My other concern is that, again, looking at the infertility board, women talk about the good quality eggs and egg grading. I have no idea about the science behind the grading of eggs, but how would anyone know (or trust) that the fertility clinic didn't cream off the best eggs and leave the egg sharing customer with the lower grade eggs?

[User6gh]

@Helleofabore just in case you’re interested, it’s this image; page 22 of this: www.completefertility.co.uk/sites/complete/files/2022-11/Complete%20Fertility%20Price%20List%20Full%2011%20-%20FINAL.pdf

I think I am reading that right?

[BedTaker]

I feel like it might be fake too. The casual use of 'Unfortunately' and then swiftly moving on.

But then, nothing would surprise me any more when it comes to surrogacy.

[Helleofabore]

User6gh

I didn’t know it was done, here.

Yes. It is financially coercive. It plays on the emotional needs of the woman too.

[User6gh]

A friend of mine could get a discount on IVF if she donated eggs… in the UK. I never considered how coercive it was. (She didn’t do it.)

[Helleofabore]

No chance. More like “no I won’t, that won’t happen to me!”

Yes. We often see this on threads about surrogacy.

There is also denial about the risks of egg donation. Maybe not so much an issue here in the UK ( but there is always risk, and there is always the potential of coercion even if it is emotional (friends and family)) but certainly in the USA and it is a know issue to fly women from the USA to Canada and back to harvest their eggs.

I believe I read about a women dying recently from hyper stimulation of the ovaries. I don’t believe this is the only death.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9212082/

I know women in other countries who have been given discounts on their IVF for donating extra eggs. It is all linked. That is coercive by those clinics.

Egg donation has great potential for coercion and exploitation, just as surrogacy has.

There are mounting stories of egg donors having strokes, losing their own fertility amongst other health issues from egg harvesting.

[User6gh]

What’s additionally worrying is the amount of commenters on the thread saying the woman knew the risks. We all know that death in childbirth is a possibility, but I refuse to believe the woman understood the risk.

”I’ll carry your baby for you”
”You might die and leave your own children motherless”
”Well that’s a risk I’m willing to take”

No chance. More like “no I won’t, that won’t happen to me!”

Also those commentators comparing it to a job. Apparently lots of jobs come with risks. Ignoring that this was altruistic anyway.

Gah, the whole thing makes me so mad.

[Delphinium20]

Depending on where the surrogate mother lives, the birth could have been recorded as her child and then later an adoption would have been needed to make the baby a legal child of the commissioning father as her husband would have been the legal father at birth (despite not being the bio father). So, a hospital certainly would have recorded the death but it wouldn't have been recorded as a "surrogate death." No idea if this is fake, but lack of a news story or lack of data noting surrogacy is not surprising if this is in the states.

[Helleofabore]

@MintyFreshOne

information now coming out about the increased risk to any woman carrying a child that is not her own

Source? Genuinely interested

I am sure I can find better link later but I am about to go out. If I remember correctly, it was associated with IVF.

fortune.com/well/2022/11/17/business-thriving-surrogates-risks-reproductive-ethics-debate-america-carolyn-barber/

In the analysis, surrogate pregnancies (those with a single baby) had higher rates of maternal complications, including gestational diabetes,
hypertension, placenta previa, and c-section–and were three times more likely to result in preterm birth when compared with their own spontaneous pregnancies.

There are some links in this article. I will look for others tomorrow.

[NadjaCravensworth]

Its a shit post

[MintyFreshOne]

information now coming out about the increased risk to any woman carrying a child that is not her own

Source? Genuinely interested

[MintyFreshOne]

I really hope that’s fake 😢

[WomaninBoots]

I think it's the attitude of the woman writing the post that is unbelievable rather than the scenario (which I can well believe). It is so awful. No remorse or regret or sensitivity.

I believe it though. It is just so horrifying I'd rather it wasn't true.