Friends doing surrogacy: how to keep my feelings to myself

[AlexandraOrlov]

Before having my daughter, I had no issues with surrogacy but in the years that have passed, I’ve found it less and less comfortable. She screamed every time she was removed from my chest after birth, and for weeks her world was only right when she was on me, and no-one else. It was such an animal, instinctive bond, like we were still one unit. I cannot imagine what it would have meant for her if I’d have left then and she’d just had her father.

My friends (gay male couple) are starting their surrogacy journey. They’re in the US, it’s costly, but they both earn crazy money and they’ll have as many goes as it takes. Most contact with them has been over WhatsApp so I’ve been able to say all the “right” things but we’re visiting them in February and it’s going to be hard to sound supportive when I just feel really odd about this baby who is going to emerge knowing the smell of its “mother” and rooting for milk. Full context we are TTC again and it’s not going well, which is not helping.

I know all of this is probably not rational, and I truly believe that same sex couples are wonderful parents. I also don’t know how I feel about surrogacy when there’s a women or two women as the intended parents, I can’t unpack it that far.

How the bloody hell do I handle my mixed up feelings on this visit to not ruin a friendship I value deeply? Processing and debating it “live” with them doesn’t feel like a great idea but I’m terrible at hiding my feelings.

well there is a well known concept.
It's called informed and enthusiastic consent

Consent is only consent when it is freely made and without conditions, yes? It is also possible to withdraw consent at any time, yes?

What happens if a pregnant woman who - has actively and enthusiastically agreed to her baby to someone else, with all the information required to consent freely - changes her mind and decides to withdraw the consent she previously gave?

I find surrogacy and egg buying abhorrent. People who do this are creating a baby on purpose to deny them their birth mother AND their biological mother. How is this good for children? It's also treating women like commodities.

If your gay friends were adopting a child through an ethical placement (where the birth mother isn't being coerced into giving up her baby) or if they were co-parenting with its mother, then I'm sure you'd be celebrating their parenthood. I would. Adoption finds a family for a child who has none. Surrogacy creates this loss on purpose. Very different.

What they're doing harms women and children and I agree with your feelings. I have a friend who had babies via surrogate and while she's a generally a good person it was obvious she did this to "give her husband a biological child" and paid 2 other women's bodies to do it. It's always been a hard thing for me to know she did this. Now, her daughter is a teenager and has lots of identity issues wrapped up with her lack of knowledge of her biological family. I feel for my friend but can't help wonder why she didn't foresee this? She's blindsided by it. Friends who have adopted children were far better prepared to deal with their child's bio background. With surrogacy and egg donation, parents seem to think it's going to be no different than other families. Not always the case.

When I think of all the trauma caused by forced adoptions and taking of babies from their mothers in Ireland, I could weep at how quickly so many Irish people have embraced surrogacy. It’s baffling.

Importing babies is now legal in Ireland.

www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2022/11/13/overseas-commercial-surrogacy-to-be-permitted-under-new-law/

It's not possible to pay an Irish woman to have a baby for you, but a woman in another country can and then you can bring the baby to Ireland and be recognised as the legal parents of that child.

Why the double standard?

Officials in the Department of Justice had previously advised that it would be “difficult to justify” the “double standard” of permitting commercial surrogacy arrangements abroad while banning them at home.

The Irish Government: "People do it already and we can't stop them."

But an Oireachtas committee which examined the issue earlier this year heard that banning commercial arrangements for surrogacy would effectively end the service that is used by hundreds of Irish couples, usually in Ukraine. Its report called for international surrogacy arrangements to be allowed and regulated.

Ukraine. Says a lot doesn't it?

@fifteenohfour it's the terminology I object to not the process. Women get terms like barren and harvest, like we are land to be worked.
Men get expressions like sowing their seed. Which is also incorrect as it's not an entire product in itself as a seed is, they still need the female part to reproduce.

We had a lot of problems conceiving, it was heartbreaking and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I was very conscious that all my partner had to do was produce into a pot, while I had one invasive appointment after another and it was me who was taking all the different types of drugs.

Wow. Just wow.

Did I strike a nerve?

Coercive control exists.

Newsflash: It's hard to tell the difference between someone enthusiastically consenting and someone enthusiastically consenting because they feel pressured to...

@fifteenohfour I have re-read what I posted and I can see what you were offended by, I apologise for that. I mean grim in the sense of the toll it takes on the body and emotions - the medication, hormone changes, the procedure itself and how invasive it is. It is a means to an end and I think we are lucky we have the science to be able to do it, but the process itself is difficult and a big ask of another woman to go though.

The primal wound is accepted as affecting many, many adult adoptees who were relinquished at birth. Being removed from the mother should be last option

Redtoothbrush I've been on this board for over a decade under various names - mostly lurking. I recognise you as one of the most knowledgeable long term contributors to FWB. I've never seen anything as audacious as someone calling you 'unsisterly' and telling you to 'do some reading' because you don't think babies and women's bodies should be commodities.

Newsflash: It's hard to tell the difference between someone enthusiastically consenting and someone enthusiastically consenting because they feel pressured to...

Well I guess your entitled to your opinion. But how does anyone know anything about anyone & their decision. ?

Did you have your children due to consent ?
Have you ever had consensual sex?
Or did you just enthusiastically consent because you felt pressured to?
How on earth do we know...🙄

And @FKATondelayo I agree with the majority on here that commercial surrogacy is a disgrace & should be illegal. I have a different view on familial & friend surrogacy.

At some point (especially if it's between two women) we have to believe that the women involved understand what consent means.

Hear hear - not quite a decade for me but I agree entirely.

But asking questions^ of process and concepts that affect and involve women (and children) is quite....unsisterly^ apparently

Before having my daughter, I had no issues with surrogacy but in the years that have passed, I’ve found it less and less comfortable.

That's natural. Once you've managed to have a baby it's easier to judge the actions of others who weren't able (which you might have looked on differently had you been unable to conceive yourself).

A lot of us who are opposed to surrogacy have been through infertility. Some have been lucky and have a child, some don't.

I don't want any woman to go through the invasive procedures that form part of IVF. It's not fun, none of it.

I dunno. For me it 'your body, your choice'. I genuinely think some feminists hate the patriarchy because they want to be the ones telling women how to live.

If you read more of this thread and others like it you'll see that mostly the objection is to the lack of free choice the women have.

When money changes hands you have vulnerable women who are exploited.

@OhHolyJesus nope. Asking questions is not unsisterly.
Insinuating another woman doesn't understand consent in a situation when she had clearly stated she was against all commercial surrogacy.

And was instead discussing her continued support for familial or friend surrogacy when consent was enthusiastic & informed & when I was discussing my best friend. a woman freely and lovingly and delightedly was a surrogate for her young sister who was infertile due to cancer at a young age.

Is pregnancy a risk ✅
Should women's bodies ever be for rent or sale ❌
Do men have an entitlement to take a baby from its mother thanks to being in a better financial position ❌

Can an adult woman consent to being a surrogate for her sister & be lovingly willing to do that in full sight of the risks & willing to take those risks for her sister ✅

So yes, @RedToothBrush tone with me was unsisterly- no matter how many years she's been on Mumsnet.

Other views are allowed.
We women are not a homogeneous group.

No one who has a baby for a sibling or friend can ever really consent to all the risks. The risk the mother might die. The risk that her body is irreparably harmed. The risk that the foetus is has a condition which the mother and the commissioners disagree on. The risk that the baby has health conditions. The risk that the mother has fundamental disagreements with the way her child is being raised by her family or friends. The risk that the child grows up feeling abandoned by its mother.

They are risks that no one can truly prepare for. And coercion is a massive issue. There has been one recent high profile case where I'm pretty sure the mother was coerced into surrogacy.

All surrogacy is banned in most of Europe. The rest of the world needs to fall into line.

all my partner had to do was produce into a pot, while I had one invasive appointment after another and it was me who was taking all the different types of drugs
women take all the hits, while men bask in the status of having fathered a child. We grow new humans in our bellies, we should be lauded and celebrated and richly rewarded for doing the important work of keeping the human species going...but we just get the shitty end of the stick.
Which is why so many young women now see the light & prioritize earning potential over sacrificing their bodies.

@beachcitygirl so on the matter of asking questions, how do you feel about my questions on consent upthread?

@beachcitygirl

Here...to save you scrolling.

Other views are allowed.
We women are not a homogeneous group.

True. And these include 'unsisterly' views.

I think So much of surrogacy is a legal & moral minefield.

In answer to your question, I guess - it depends. If the egg is a donor egg or her own egg. If it's anonymous donor sperm or known father sperm.

I also think there are questions & clarification & unintended consequences needed around statelessness & disability & multiple birth. Stateless is a big issue. Arguably the biggest.

So I guess a child welfare court with representatives from each party would need to decide that one.
I would want the mother to get legal aid without any question.

Who should get the baby tho? I'd need to read some examples of this situation with familial or friend surrogacy & thoughts/legal position of those involved. When they removed their consent, their position re coerced consent etc.

Like I say I don't purport to be a lawyer.

Commercial surrogacy. Just NO. Not allowed. Never, no circumstances. The very thought is horrific and it doesn't take a genius to join the dots re coercion and trafficking & abuse & similarities to the prostitution of women.

I agree that it is a legal minefield and wanted to focus on this point:

"If the egg is a donor egg or her own egg. If it's anonymous donor sperm or known father sperm."

We don't consider this as a factor in other donor conceived pregnancies. Women who are Egg donors are anonymous until the child is an adult and they waive parental rights and do not have any legal parental responsibilities, whether the egg is used for a surrogacy pregnancy or a pregnancy a woman has in order to keep the baby. Same with sperm. Men who donate sperm do not have legal rights or responsibilities but any children they have a part in create can find them at a later date.

(Genealogical bewilderment is real and the donor conception board as well as the donor conceived network is a useful resource. So is Them Before Us, Anonymous Me and also the documentary Anonymous Father's Day.)

Why would this be different in surrogacy? I think it's connected to the fact that a surrogate mother isn't seen as a mother, a woman whose egg was used is considered the biological mother when actually she is the genetic mother, the surrogate mother is the biological mother and the commissioning mother - if there is one - is the legal mother with rights and responsibilities when parental rights are transferred.

With all these mothers - and possibly a number of fathers - it's important to consider the child at the centre who grows into an adult.

As for consent - it can be withdrawn at any time and the pregnant woman can decide to terminate or to keep the child at any time, for any reason, free of coercion of any kind. Whether it is her egg that's conceived the pregnancy or not. Her body her choice right? Or isn't it?

Otherwise, it's not consent at all. Not any kind of consent that is freely and enthusiastically given.

@OhHolyJesus

Any woman reserves the right to terminate for any reason or none at any point.I couldn't agree more.

Where this becomes a problem is where the woman who has agreed to have a baby for someone else finds that this other person or people don't want her to terminate. As you quite rightly pointed out, it matters or makes a difference, as to whether it is her egg or someone else's, if someone else or a group of other people have been involved in the conceiving of this child, do they have a say in what happens, on what she can/cannot do with her body.

We can both agree that it is perfectly right and reasonable for a surrogate mother to terminate her pregnancy for any reason, even if she just wants out, but what if that baby doesn't 'belong' to her. If this happens in familial/friendship surrogacy, does the friendship or family relationship survive? Would she feel guilty? Could that guilt be at a level that persuades her not to terminate? What if her life was at risk but her sister so very badly wanted a baby, what if her sister couldn't have one due to childhood cancer or a condition that puts her life at risk should she be pregnant?

I share this, not only as law reform is going through, to follow Ireland, to precede the U.K., but to give a real life example of a Sinai or situation we are discussing as a hypothetical...

www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/health/kiwi-mums-heartbreak-after-surrogate-terminates-her-pregnancy-i-went-into-shock/