Surrogacy: Meghan Trainor

[MoreDangerousThanAWomanScorned]

I did a site search and couldn't see a thread about this - sorry if I've missed one. Meghan Trainor (of 'All About That Bass' fame) has recently had a baby using surrogacy. Although it is a particularly 'inflammatory' case (third child after two pregnancies of her own; she posted a picture of herself blatantly posing as postnatal) I still thought the largely negative reaction was interesting in terms of suggesting public opinion has turned a bit on this - a few years ago I am sure anyone criticising this would have got a much stronger, 'be kind' pushback.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/leylamohammed/meghan-trainor-third-child-surrogate-discourse?bfsource=relatedmanual

I have to say that 'We had endless conversations with our doctors in this journey and this was the safest way for us to be able to continue growing our family' particularly bothered me - safest for whom? Presumably not the woman whose womb was rented.

I think for me it’s even worse when it’s women who have been pregnant before and are using their wealth to ensure they don’t experience the negatives they have in the past.

Khloe Kardashian posed in a hospital bed wearing PJs, cosplaying as a woman who had just given birth.

Having children is not a right!!! Why does she need a third??

It's called LABOUR for a reason: it's bloody hard work.

The photograph is the equivalent of someone standing in athletics clothing at the end of a marathon, taking a selfie with a medal round their neck and a water bottle in their hand, who didn't actually run the race. All the glory without putting any of the work in.

Some parents who commission surrogates must do so in full ignorance of the trauma they are inflicting. I'm sure of that. I'm sure some would actually be heartbroken if they did a course on infant development and realised what they'd done.

If children born of surrogacy report distant relationships with their commissioning parents, that may in part be due to the fact that the "surrogacy journey" refuses to acknowledge the separation trauma at all.

When adopted children go to school, they get preferential choice of placement, they ought to be receiving family therapy, at the very least their adoptive parents will tell them their life story and teachers ought to take their past into account.

Contrast that with the surrogate born child who has also endured trauma at a young age but their parents are likely to be the last people ever to acknowledge that. Their story, if it's even told, will couched in euphemism.

What upsets me is that these children are little more than Instagram props to these people, and they're raised by nannies with minimal effort from the people declaring to be parenting them. Can't be bothered to birth them or raise them.

Tide turning, or just people who enjoy verbally kicking women (while fawning over men who do the same thing)?

Yes, but the photo is unnecessary.

I can only speak for myself but I have never "fawned" over anyone who's used a surrogate. Ever. And I'll happily give a verbal kicking to anyone who does, be they man, woman or alien.

I completely agree that many adoptive parents are more loving than biological ones. But adoptive parents don't have the option of sticking their heads in the sand the way parents of donor-conceived or surrogate children do. I've never heard an adoptive parent claim that their child's DNA changed when they adopted them, but I've heard recipient mothers claim that epigenetics has altered their child's DNA to the point that they're now officially the genetic mother. This level of denial is bound to impact on bonding as they gradually realise it's not actually true.

On average, they may not.

But it definitely will be true in some cases, as happens in some cases of adoption, where parental bonding sometimes fails or there was never a true intention (sadly) of ever establishing a strong filial/family bond with the child for various reasons.

People can even fail to bond securely and positively with their own biological conceived and carried children, let alone one gestated and birthed by someone else, who may not have any of their genes

Both in cases of adoption and surrogacy you are raising a child who has endured trauma. The challenge of that alone can mean a strong parental bond never becomes established or the child doesn't respond positively no matter how much the parent thinks they are trying. I have heard stories from people who have been adopted that are heartbreaking. They were effectively traumatised twice. Sometimes the trauma they endured after fostering and adoption was worse than the trauma they were originally removed from.

If anything I would say the bonding failure rate of parents who choose surrogacy is likely to be both significant and higher in percentage rate than those in failed adoption.

Firstly there is no years of preparation (one's having your own children or having spent years yearning for a child is not the same) no assessments and testing for fitness. That means if the desire to employ surrogacy stems from mental or emotional health issues, or from abusive or dysfunctional family dynamics or even weird fetishistic ideas, (a 'rainbow family' for e.g.), or something darker, there's no one to vet.

Then there is a sense of entitlement to use another woman's body and even exchange funds for the child, then remove the child from the mother. That means there's a mental commodification and disembodiment of the baby that may, for various reasons, not ever evolve into one of seeing a baby as a fully fledged human being.

If you think that last statement was too strong, there have been many cases of people abandoning a surrogate baby when it turns out to have a disability and proves to be less than 'perfect' even when they have enough wealth to get the best healthcare and therapy that would, in some cases, completely ameliorate the effects of the disability, thus revealing the underlying commodity thinking. This can even include a baby with simply a prominent birthmark that is deemed unaesthetically pleasing. For more on this look up surrogacy in Ukraine, but there have been high profiles cases of surrogate baby abandonment in the news.

People also abandon babies that might not be the preferred sex. Or are twins.

Then you have the issue of dealing with another mother having birthed the child. That can be difficult to overcome. There may later be resultant guilt or just a feeling of difference and resentment that may emerge later.

Then the assumption that because this is a brand new baby it will automatically fit in with pre-existing children. But the child may not quite gel with their other siblings growing up, and the differences start to be clearer and again resentment forms.

As someone said up thread there are probably few longitudinal studies on outcomes

Someone’s commented on fb ‘her body, her choice’ 😆 isn’t that just the point though? It’s not her body. She’s used someone else’s.

I've heard recipient mothers claim that epigenetics has altered their child's DNA to the point that they're now officially the genetic mother

WTAF??

Epigenetics means that the womb environment can affect how certain genes are expressed. However, this does not mean that a surrogate mother (or a woman who receives donor eggs) can pass on personality traits, eye colour, facial features, etc. A DNA test would find the woman whose egg was used to be 100% the biological mother.

Egg banks make a big song and dance out of epigenetics, and some women latch onto it. I've heard women claim that their donor-conceived child "looks just like me" because they passed their DNA on during pregnancy.

Oh I see. I thought you meant mothers who have had zero biological involvement (ie donor eggs, surrogate pregnancy) are saying that they have passed on their DNA by raising the child.

Meow 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I was about to start a thread about this y’day, but decided not to after reading all the Facebook comments about the birth online. All but one were in favour of what they had done, which absolutely shocked me. I was nervous I would get the same reaction here!

So many were saying that she was told by medics to have a surrogate, due to concerns with her health if she carried another child. Maybe just don’t have another child then, and be happy with the two you already have! How entitled.

I also suspect the gender was chosen during the process, but I may be wrong.

Completely agree.

It's very 'The Handmaid's Tale'.

I wonder if she was doing the breathing exercises and faces too 🙄

It’s admirable how you’re trying to justify this by talking about skin to skin as if any old person will do. A baby has spent 9 months growing inside its mother’s uterus. It literally exists directly because of the mother. Its umbilical cord is completely intertwined with its mother’s body. It hears its mother’s voice, its father’s voice. Its heart beats in rhythm with its mother’s heartbeat. Then, through the process of birth, it’s detached from the only thing it’s known - its mother. The whole process of skin to skin is meant to lessen the trauma of this detachment, make it more gentle, reduce the stress the baby feels. It feels the same heartbeat but externally now. It hears the same voice it has been hearing for 9 months. The same smell, the same warmth. It’s not done so that the baby can begin to bond with its mother’s - that bonding started the moment the pregnancy started.
What happens during and after giving birth in surrogacy situations is pretty horrific - we wouldn’t allow a new born puppy to be treated like that. In cases when, for instance, a lamb has been born and its mother dies, oftentimes the mother’s skin is removed and placed on another sheep in order to try to get the orphan lamb to bond with that other sheep - often this fails and the newborn lamb does.
The active procurement of another woman to produce a baby for someone else is the ultimate act of selfish barbarism and should be banned in all cases.

Yes, I think there's a confusion about what sometimes needs to happen for genuine medical reasons, with people portraying this as ideal. There are many reasons why a mother might not be able to do skin-to-skin straight after birth, and in those cases it is advised that someone else, ideally the father, does it. That's not at all the same as taking the baby away from the woman who just gave birth to them for the sole reason of allowing another adult to pretend that it's them who just gave birth.

Skin to skin is advised between new fathers and babies for the benefit of the fathers, not for the baby.

The baby only benefits from skin to skin with its mother, no one else.

“I hate this rent a womb nonsense 😒 she and her family have reasons to do this and personally if I had the money I would do the same. The important thing is that baby is going to be loved and cared for and supported beyond words”

What are the ethical reasons for exploiting a woman’s body for her reproductive ability, putting her at great risk of harm to produce a child, that through this process has just been commoditised and created and delivered on demand?

I think you may have the lamb story the wrong way round. A dead lamb's skin is put on a live lamb so that the dead lamb's mother will accept it and adopt it.

I hate surrogacy with a passion. It is selfish and does not put the babies needs first.
it should be banned.
You never see a rich woman being a surrogate for a poor woman.

All these celebs that just buy their babies so they dont have put on weight/ go through the pain and risks of childbirth. It’s disgusting.