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.

Choices do not occur in a vacuum. They have effects. Choices that commodify human infants and the bodies that gestate them are not neutral.

Wanting a child is not a justification to do whatever you ‘choose’.

Society constrains the choices available to us all in various ways - some have legal consequences, some financial, some social. Let’s not pretend that this is merely mean women trying to control people.

Frankly, buying babies should be both illegal and utterly socially unacceptable. Judging someone who decided they’d do it is completely reasonable.

I want doesn't always get.

I went through infertility. I understand the all consuming desire for a child. I understand the heartbreak of it not happening.

I don't support buying babies and I don't think anyone is entitled to a family.

When you show me a rich woman who become a surrogate for a poor one, I'll believe that it is a free choice.

The "intended parent", or commissioning person/people if you will, are not the parents. The mother is the only guaranteed parent that child has at birth. In the UK, if she is married then her husband is automatically the other parent with full PR from birth. One (possibly both?) of the commissioning person/couple might be a genetic mother/father, although there might have been both donor egg and donor sperm from third parties.

You have no idea if the commissioning person/couple will give the child a good life. Unlike adoption, there are no checks done as to their suitability. Hence the awful situation with the Australian commissioning couple who rejected one of twin babies they had commissioned because he had Down Syndrome. The adopting father in Australia was a convicted paedophile.

No one has the right to start a family.

Even if a rich woman is doing it for a poor woman, it doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of surrogacy is enormously exploitative.

Nor does it change the human trafficking of infants (grown on demand). Human infants are people not products.

We (as a society) don’t just allow people to do whatever they ‘choose’ for a whole range of reasons. Individual choices can cause great harm to others - directly and indirectly.

Really wanting a child does not give those who can afford it the right to simply do whatever they like.

Adoption because you desperately want to be a parent isn't necessarily going to work out well at all for the child. Adoption and fostering are different to having a child as there are all sorts of different emotional things for the child to process and often different challenges in parenting.

Co-parenting is in many cases a recipe for disaster.

Surrogacy is much easier in terms of the experience for the child - the likely prenatal environment, the early age at which the child is placed in a stable situation.

If your friend don't want to adopt or foster off their own bat, I'm glad they're not doing it just a satisfy a personal need. This is the best outcome for any potential child they might have.

However I think for you this friendship has probably run its course as you have such strong feelings against what they are planning. I would not try to stay with them because those days are over.

I think it's very likely that if you can keep a bit of distance and all goes well, you will probably realise everyone in the scenario is ok, and that will make easier to tolerate. But that's a big if.

The women who carry these babies choose to make this decision too ? Its sometimes the only way people can have children
Do you criticise a women for having an abortion or accept her body her choice , therefore surely it is the same in some respects
But OP if you feel that strongly own it and tell them and accept its the end of the friendship
I know of a couple who used surrogates and birth mum is still involved a little in childs life
And they are very loved and wanted and grounded kids
Its easy for those who can have children to say they wouldn't do this / that etc
Adoptions especially from abroad isn't all great either sometimes

@TheYummyPatler two women can't create a baby either without using science , its still intervening with nature ?
If a women wants to be a surrogate and many do it for friends or family then that is their choice to make
I get paying large sums is not ok , should just be costs and medical expenses etc
But this is still a choice a woman can make if they wish

It’s got fuck all to do with ‘nature’. 🙄

Nor is the comparison with abortion relevant. Abortion is about a woman choosing not to put her own body through a pregnancy.

Surrogacy is buying a baby by paying for a woman to gestate it.

I don’t care if it’s the only way some people can get themselves a baby. People are not entitled to a baby just because they really want one. Even if it feel deeply upsetting and unfair that other people seem to be able to just do that easily.

All your arguments boil down to choice and some sort of basic human right to have a nice, new (untainted) baby. Babies are not like cars or watches. They’re people.

My body my choice is about abortion rights, so I don't take that as a good faith argument with surrogacy. No feminist would argue a woman should be allowed to do anything to her body if she chooses. We don't let women sell their organs. Many feminists think women are exploited in prostitution and while we don't want them prosecuted, we question most of them having a "free choice" in the matter. If demand, past trauma, poverty, fear wasn't there, would women offer up their bodies?

I take issue with commissioning parents (vast majority who are straight) demanding rights to use a woman's body for their own selfish desires. Buying and selling babies is abhorrent. Buying, selling and renting women's bodies is abhorrent. It's the unethical demand for babies at any cost that we should question. Wrap it up with soft language and "making a family" narrative all you like, but surrogacy is an ugly business.

Like the sex trade, the baby trade is one where I’d argue that there needs to be enormous judgment of those who profit from other women’s bodies being used and sold and those who want to buy use of those bodies.

The tiny number of women altruistically motivated to grow a baby for someone else do not justify the enormous harm done to the women who are coerced into it or see no other way of surviving and so on. The risk to the women outweighs any benefit of enabling those who can afford it to buy parenthood.

The commodification of and trade in human infants is so utterly problematic that nothing could outweighs that.

’i really want a baby’ does not make any of this defensible.

Yes absolutely so

All the time it is illegal to buy a kidney even if it would save your life, it definitely should be illegal to buy a baby if you're infertile. The method is not justified, no matter how much you want a baby or how sad your story is of how you became infertile. It's illegal to steal food, no matter how hungry you are. Etc etc.
And just because it might have worked out ok for friends/family, doesn't mean that it will be ok for many others. Pregnancy and childbirth is full of unknowns and risks and many of the possible outcomes are not properly considered by the people involved.

There are not just two parties to consider. There are three.

You also can not consent if placed under duress and if there is any kind of power imbalance that manifests during the process you have issues with consent in terms of details of the pregnacy and birth.

Therein lies your problem.

For example, if the mother feels she can not continue with the pregnacy, can she have an abortion? Or is she 'legally obligated to carry out the contract' despite the effect on her body (including where it might involve life endangering or changing issues).
Or it turns out that one of the parents is revealled to be a paedophile?

This doesn't consider the impact on the child where the mother is erased too. Which perhaps should be legally not acceptable - with the assistance that birth certificates are not able to be change and the child has legal rights to contact the mother that the parents are legally not allowed to prevent.

etc etc.

There are many more problems here. Instead it becomes about who 'owns' the baby, rather than where the baby comes from which we know is a common human desire to know which is fundamental to identity formation and resolution.

Then there's things like sibling relationships....

Well said. My body my choice. Some women think they have the right to control what other women do with their body. They think it puts them on a moral high ground. They immediately jump to the conclusion that it is exploratory to the Surrogate Carrier.

The kids I know who were born through surrogacy have a loving family. The people who did that have gone through the whole IVF and adoption processs. It did not work out.

“My body my choice” is such a red herring. There are loads of things you can’t do to your body. As women we don’t even have the absolute right to an abortion. You can’t just decide in a late stage of pregnancy that you don’t want a baby and start shouting “my body my choice” at doctors because abortion after 24 weeks is illegal.

my body, my choice.

I’ll just sell some organs then? Oh wait, that would be unethical? But I want to.

OK then. I’d like to cut my leg off and have this strange guy I found online eat it. What do you mean I can’t? It’s my body. My choice!

Buying babies and renting women's wombs is on the same level as prostitution and human trafficking for me. I couldn't stay friends with someone who did this.

I find it abhorrent whichever combination of sex of couple does it.

Strangely over Christmas I met someone who was in a similar situation OP, they decided to end the friendship as they thought differently of them as a result of the surrogacy arrangement.

The woman who had a baby for them was living in poverty in India and they didn't seem to see anything wrong with what they had done. They were considering doing it again before it was banned. She couldn't continue the friendship as she totally changed her view of them, they weren't who she thought they were. She was a lovely woman and I would say it was their loss.

I was going to say the same.

This is all about what the couple wants. How about the poor child? They will never know their mother. Imagine growing up not knowing where you came from - that you were an anonymous egg carried inside a random woman who was in no way related to you? What might that do to someone's sense of self, their identity? It's cruel.

I have been a surrogate for 2 children, and I had no problem giving the children up as they were not my babies. It was a wonderful experience , I love being pregnant but not the actual caring for baby part. It can help so many people if people find the right surrogate.

I'll change my mind on surrogacy the day we see wealthy women carrying babies for poor families.

@kerrybemmy
Just because you think it went well for you and the baby doesn't mean it's right.
Again, I say, if you aren't allowed to buy a kidney to save yourself from dying, why are you allowed to buy a baby when you're infertile?

I think it is really unnatural to have no problem giving up a baby. They certainly were yours @Kerrybemmy

I don't think anyone can know if it was ok for the baby to be given away, apart from the child. These two children may have missed their mother in the 4th trimester and as newborns never have been able to articulating beyond screaming which we know is normal at that age. Who knows how they feel now, would they each be able to say even as adults if their parents talk about how badly wanted they were and if they know their mother also?

We know that children grow into teens and then adults and those who are separated from their parents at birth and beyond do have difficulties, not all, but it's widely understood that children should be with their mothers when they are young, otherwise why would we be so careful with adoption and only remove a child from his or her mother when the child is at risk?

Any child a woman gives birth to is her child, regardless of who's gametes were used. Children do not hear the heartbeat or voice of the gametes used to conceive them and women are not cupboards to store other people's belongings.

I think it's very controlling and arrogant to tell another woman if her feelings are 'natural'. You're also quite confused if you think this woman is obliged to feel a baby is 'hers' if she has no genetic connection and feels no maternal link.