Louise Thompson and surrogacy

[somethinginbetweenlove]

Louise Thompson had, by all accounts, a very traumatic experience during childbirth where she nearly died.

She has now decided to use surrogacy for a second baby. She is using a private IVF clinic in London and posting a lot about how hard she is finding the egg retrieval process.

I really don’t understand how she can, in good faith, do this. She is all too aware of the risks that a healthy woman can face. Yet she is choosing to buy another woman’s body, and expose her to potentially life long health consequences. I’m disgusted

Yes. I have previously linked at least one study that has shown this. I wonder if I can find it.

Wow. This is a really really sick thing to say. You should be ashamed of yourself

This is really well put and hopefully will convince some people.

I think people think that the only thing that can make a pregnancy 'high risk' is some characteristic of the mother, and so that you can just find a surrogate who is 'low risk' and that's the problem sorted. As this post shows, it's actually much more complex than that. The baby itself can have factors that make the pregnancy more complicated - and the placenta is entirely the baby's DNA. This means that if you have a family history of placental issues (which includes postpartum haemorrhage, and also gestational diabetes - that's also caused by the placenta) then by having a surrogate you aren't solving those issues, you are just transferring the risk to someone else. The only person who is now 'safer' is you - not the surrogate, and not the baby.

I hope that people don't know that they're risking someone else's life like that, but I fear that they just don't care.

This one? https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/24/18/13945

Well, she's rich and the womb she hires will most likely belong to a poor woman. And it doesn't much matter what happens to poor women. Unless of course their experience can be used to virtue signal. Twas ever thus.

What happened is actually very out of the ordinary… have you read her book? Lots of people have traumatic births but what happened to her was very rare and quite extreme, she was in hospital for such a long time. I don’t really have any views either way on the surrogacy but I just wanted to point out that what happened to her was out of the ordinary.

I don't think I have seen that one. I do assume that there are more than 1 published by now though.

"I think people think that the only thing that can make a pregnancy 'high risk' is some characteristic of the mother, and so that you can just find a surrogate who is 'low risk' and that's the problem sorted."

I think this is probably the case for many people too.

Then there are the significant issues of what happens if the pregnancy needs to be terminated, there are health risks for that woman in that too. Including the risk of her becoming infertile due to complications of that termination.

Of course, like that instance with baby Gammy and I believe there are other cases, there is also the risk that a child is rejected by the commissioning parent / parents.

There are so many risks that are so often dismissed by media and by people who don't have a knowledgable position. So often, what is focused on is the emotional story of the commissioning parent / parents.

"Their ability to recall what happened, and in what order, has been impaired by the anxiety felt for the health of the babies, and by the tensions that arise when a woman's body is rented for the benefit of others and where the unit of exchange is measured in the life of a new human being," Judge Thackray said.

This judge says it like it is in this particular sentence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-36012320

He also said:

Justice Thackray said the case "should also draw attention to the fact that surrogate mothers are not baby-growing machines, or 'gestational carriers'".
"They are flesh and blood women who can develop bonds with their unborn children.

and

"Quite apart from the separation of the twins, this case serves to highlight the dilemmas that arise when the reproductive capacities of women are turned into saleable commodities, with all the usual fallout when contracts go wrong."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-14/baby-gammy-twin-must-remain-with-family-wa-court-rules/7326196

Although, it seems that perhaps the commissioning parents did not 'reject' Gammy as the mother had suggested they did. Again though, this case significantly highlights some of the core issues of the risks of surrogacy.

Not to mention she said on her brothers podcast that she won’t have a girl because her husband couldn’t handle it

Let’s face it if god forbid the baby had lifelong health complications or a disability she’d check right out. That sounds horrific typed out but in her sorts of circles this is an unfortunate and not uncommon attitude to have.

She’s already peddling a potential baby for content and clicks and at this stage it’s nothing more than an embryo. That is completely fucked up.

She doesn’t have a permanent stoma - it is reversible

Louise strikes me as an unusual character. She is extremely spoilt and used to her parents handing everything to her on a plate. If you follow her ilaicial media over time you see a pattern. Anything is catastrophised. If she is unwell, it’s automatically life threatening and triggering. She has no resilience whatsoever.

Her young child was sick and her and her partner Ryan Libby video’d him listless on the sofa and posted it in their social media. He was in hospital the next day and louise posted a photo from HIS bedsidE (for the Gram!) with a picture of HER fertility medication for attention making sure it’s all about her. she is fucking nuts.

she posts her young child daily on social media. Him in the bath, him asleep, him just playing innocently. It’s appalling.

as she monetises everything, she will do the same to a new baby.

She wasn’t unwell during her pregnancy. It’s documented. She was unwell during childbirth and lost lots of blood.

she is now asking another woman to take that same risk. That is absolutely unforgivable.

surrogacy should be illegal.

I am not in favour of surrogacy because the baby will be bonded to the woman that carries it. However, that issue aside, the comments on this thread that downplay her birth trauma are not just nasty but also work against women in general.

Women, including Louise, ought to be treated brilliantly during labour. let’s not justify terrible outcomes just because this particular woman may not be very likeable.

Her experience was awful. she saw blood pouring out of her while she haemorrhaged, heard doctors say they had nicked an artery, saw her son not breathing/ being resuscitated, had her womb accidentally lacerated so severely she is now unable to carry another child, haemorrhaged again at home where she nearly died. all that led to an awful colitis flare requiring surgery for a stoma, and she developed an additional autoimmune disorder (lupus) from the ordeal, and ended up on anti psychotic medication. this is so, so much worse than most birth stories I can fully see how she wouldn’t expect the surrogate to go through anything remotely close to that.

I don't agree that surrogacy is fair on the baby.

I bet she didn’t think it would happen to her, but it did. Yet they are still ok with putting another woman at risk and to take a baby from the mum he/she will know for 9 months. They should be ashamed.

What happened to her was terrible, I agree, so I won’t minimise that.

However from what I can deduce, no medical professional has told her that her womb can’t carry another child.

She has been through the mill certainly but I wouldn’t automatically take everything she says as the absolute truth.

I was going to say. Louise can give her story (and boy does she like doing that), but the medical professionals who treated her may say something very different. What's the quote - "recollections may vary".

You are making assumptions about the surrogate. Who is to say she's doing it for money? She may be better off financially than the other woman

Can you explain to me why a woman would put herself at such high risk, where she is at risk of dying or developing life limiting health issues if she was not doing it for financial consideration, or emotional reward?

Please also find a reported incident of a wealthy woman making this choice?

A friend of mine used a donor egg for her pregnancy and carried the baby herself. Years later she decided she would be a surrogate to ‘give back’ and help another family, as she was helped by someone who have the donor egg. She has an amazing career and is very well off and still made that choice. Some people do it for selfless reasons.

So that is one woman versus how many others around the world? And what drove her? The emotional guilt to ‘give back’.

Do you know what arrangements she made in case she ended up with serious life limiting outcomes? You said she had a child, Who would have looked after that child if she had been left incapable of doing so?

Did she also ever acknowledge the risk that the egg donor took to donate?

I don’t consider it ‘selfless’. I consider that she felt some compulsion to ‘pay it back’ so she felt she settled a perceived debt. Would she have done this if she didn’t need a donor egg?

You asked for ‘a reported incident’ so I just gave an example from personal experience. I also know of one other surrogate who did it for personal reasons, not financial at all.

I don’t actually agree with surrogacy, I don’t think it’s right for the baby being taken from the ‘mother’ that they’ve known for 9 months and I completely agree about the risks to woman carrying the baby, especially with my friend who has her own child. Personally I would never understand taking that risk. I’m just replying really to the point that every surrogate is essentially forced into it and I have two personal examples where well off intelligent women chose to do it with absolutely no external pressure. You don’t know the circumstances of people choosing to be surrogates so stop assuming you do.

The impact on children who are adopted, in care and in kinship care from the separation from birth mother (and father) even from birth, can be immense, devastating and traumatic. This is well known but separation happens because it has to, for the child’s safety. Why on earth are children being willingly put in a position of being sold and removed from birth mother, knowing there will likely be no relationship with her or extended maternal family? Or no knowledge of who is there birth father - intentionally.
I wonder what the impact will be on the generation of sold children.

It’s absolutely indefensible in any circumstance. There should be a worldwide absolute ban. It’s very sad when people can’t have the children they want but buying another woman to have the baby for you is just too far. A friend is dealing with a traumatised adopted child. The trauma of being removed from your parents is real. Actually bringing this situation about intentionally is im sorry evil and not focussed on the best interests of the child but the parents.

About Your last sentence… louise didn’t expect to go through that either. Therefore why WOULDN’T she expect another woman to go through that?