Baby girl taken from mother to live with dad and his boyfriend

[Darcey2105]

I'm horrified!! Have you seen this story this morning?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32603514

A baby girl was taken from her mother and is now in sole custody of the dad and his boyfriend. The reason being that he said the baby was conceived to be their surrogate child. but she says he agreed to be her sperm donor so she could have the baby.

What is going on? Surely even if the mother had changed her mind about surrogacy she could still be allowed to keep her own baby. I am totally appalled. The men had a top female lawyer fighting their case. And it looks like it was a woman judge who ruled it was in the baby's best interest to live with the dad and his boyfriend - even though the baby was still breastfeding!!

how can there be so little support of mothers? Please tell me I hallucinated the whole awful story.

Does the Judgement say when she registered the child?

All I can see is "On the 21st May 2014 the Applicants applied for prohibited steps orders regarding the child's name and her baptism. The Respondent had registered the child on her own with her surname and with first names chosen by her that had not been discussed with the Applicants or agreed between the parties. "

"And? are you disputing something there?"

not really - just showing that the children were spending large chunks of time with their mother. As they are older I imagine they would have been given some choice?

I think that the references to EB, co-sleeping and baby-wearing have been added more to add depth to the picture of a woman who is almost co-dependent on her child and has raised that child with the aim of being the sole carer to the exclusion of her two other parents. In doing so, she is deliberately cultivating a scenario where her DD can’t cope (or finds it more difficult to cope) without her, when she knows that she is supposed to be sharing caring responsibilities. That is not putting your child first. She got pregnant knowing that, best case scenario, she would be sharing custody with her DC’s Dad and his parent.

The judge isn’t saying that people who make these choices are wrong or fostering weird kids. But in this case the DM’s motivations behind those choices are unlikely to be as wholesome as other parents.

"She got pregnant knowing that, best case scenario, she would be sharing custody with her DC’s Dad and his parent"

and she's ended up with supervised contact (After a Guardian's recommendation that she see her once a month!) partly because she co-sleeps and breastfeeds a 15 month old.

Horrifying IMO

Having worked in family law, the only person taken into account by the courts when placing a child is the child and their best interests. They do not look to the parents needs. Its unlikely the judgement is wrong, however, I have also seen that happen too.

"as M grows she must be allowed to become independent and grow as a human being separate from her parents and carers" and 15 months is the line which should not be crossed?

" In her oral evidence she was unable to say how long it would go on but indicated that it would be as long as M wanted it to which could be as much as several years into the future." many people do this - this doesn't mean that the child will be breastfeeding on demand all the time. natural term weaning doesn't mean fathers can't spend time with their children nor that children will be feeding through the night.

And in an event where a parent looks to exclude the other, the court is likely to have a dim view of this and award custody to the other parent.

When I had my son I was going to put him in his own room at 6 months and get him off the breast at one. None of that happened. Sure, the court believes that she did these things on purpose to curtail contact but it doesn't follow that all mothers need to have a plan and are not allowed to change it.

maybe i will shut up now before someone accuses me of

having an unhealthy interest in the case
Being 'S'
Not getting out enough on a beautifully sunny day.

sigh

I remember those threads, and afaik a large number of them were removed due to concerns that the story might end up in the press and they might end up being quoted. At the time I questioned whether this was a surrogacy agreement because of the way in which the op posted.

She didn't come across well on those threads and was told as much and she doesn't come across well in this judgement.

It's simple, if you accept money to carry a child for someone else then morally and legally you should have an obligation to give the child to its intended parents, be those two men or a straight couple.

Fwiw I don't agree with surrogacy in itself, but if the process exists then this case opens up the likelyhood for laws surrounding the process to be changed to disallow this kind of thing from happening in future, and rightly so.

I don't imagine that she gave money back to the couple who paid her to be a surrogate did she? no don't imagine she did.....

Did they pay her?

I didn't read the judgment as criticising extended breast feeding, slings, co-sleeping etc. they are all valid parenting choices. It was the fact that she had chosen to use her parenting choices as an excuse to exclude the child's other biological parent despite court orders etc. She ignored other court orders and appears to have taken her daughter for a number of spurious medical investigations to frustrate contact. She was apparently unable to express to allow overnight contact but needed to express when her daughter's father was giving evidence? The key thing is what was in the best interests of the child and contact with both parents is usually the right thing. I read the judgment as saying that they didn't really trust her to comply properly with contact orders hence the supervised contact to begin with.

OK - but why do we disbelieve the stuff she has said in the other thread?

She says he has money and solicitors, she does not. Why do people assume she is lying when clearly she was representing herself for much of this and then only had a solicitor on a pro-bono basis?

IF that is true she's at a disadvantage and so that might be why she has used all other means possible to stop the father getting full custody?

She mentions the support of her older children - they could still have been supporting her while not living with her full time. She may even live in the same area as them, like parents do when they lose custody but want to play an active part in their lives.

I don't know why people here are so quick to assume everything she says about the case is lies or fabrication?

We don't know that it was her in the other thread (details about the other two children don't match).

The criticism in the judgement of attempts (by her or her supporters) to use social media around this case would make me cautious.

I think the father has email correspondence off her that confirms it was a surrogacy and the child was supposed to live with the father.

the op of that thread had another one which was deleted, and it was blatantly obvious from that thread that this was a surrogacy agreement which she was trying to back out of, even though she didn't state it in as many words.

But in that thread she made multiple references to the things she was going to do to prevent overnight contact for as long as humanly possible.

The whole thing was very because she stated that this was a long-term friend of twenty years who had agreed to have a baby with her and that his partner was ok with this fact apparently.....

And so what if they have solicitors. If you were fighting for custody of your child wouldn't you put as much money as you could behind that?

"It can be seen from the chronology I have set out above that S continually disrupted contact. S flouted the order of the court even after the order was enforced by Mr Justice Newton. She repeatedly took M to the GP or to the hospital when the child was not ill or had no more than a cold. This pattern of behaviour was consistent with her attempts to recruit people to support her cause and as a way of stopping contact taking place; it involved M in unnecessary visits to the doctor and hospital with the attendant intrusive examinations and time spent in an alien environment. It was not in her best interests to be put through the experience repeatedly by S who was clearly putting her need to further her case before the needs of the child. "

This is from the judgment.

The mother seems deranged, manipulative and like a bad person.
I'm happy the baby has 2 dads that adore the baby.

"as M grows she must be allowed to become independent and grow as a human being separate from her parents and carers"

I found that a bit scary as a perspective on a 15 month old and the Judge's attitude towards breastfeeding and co sleeping was also a bit ill informed. Yes the woman's clearly behaved and handled the situation very badly, but sudden cessation of co sleeping and breastfeeding for the child is going to be more than slightly distressing for her, and devastating for the mother.

"I think the father has email correspondence off her that confirms it was a surrogacy and the child was supposed to live with the father."

why do you think that?

there is this "I accept B's evidence that he was involved in discussions with S after the initial email exchanges and that she had described her role as that of a surrogate"

but then this.

"It has been referred to by Miss Isaacs QC, counsel for the Applicants as a "failed surrogacy" agreement.. As the Applicants on their own case have always accepted that S was to play a continuing role in the child's life, that description is not quite accurate. "

"S says that she and H agreed to have a baby together to the exclusion B and that there was no surrogacy arrangement. She claims that the emails between them support that claim"

there is this...

"The emails in February 2013 which passed between S and H they are, from the point of view of S's case, at best ambiguous, and cannot be said to provide proof that the agreement was that H would act as a sperm donor so that she could have a child. In a an email from S on 7th February she said that she was not saying that B would be excluded and that he would be part of the child's life. She said "I learnt that I can live without seeing my kids every day. When it comes to my two daughters it is harder, as i know that [W] does not care about them. But knowing my child is with you and [B], I would be satisfied because I know they would be well looked after and loved." It is difficult to read into that email anything other than a reflection of the agreement as H describes it.
The emails do not set out an agreement in terms and it is H's case that after the beginning of February the discussions were oral and went on to include B. The fact that there are not any emails produced after February supported his case. It also fits in with the insemination taking place about the fourth week of April 2013, in the Applicants' home with B there on at least one occasion. It is, and I use the term advisedly, inconceivable that B was not aware of what was going on before April and was not party to any of the discussions. In this as in much else I do not accept the evidence of S. Her later use, in evidence, of the term "sperm donor" is completely at odds with the tone and contents of her emails in February. It is not possible to accept both from what H told her in the emails and from the obviously close relationship of H and B (which I have seen at close quarters throughout the trial) that S could have ever thought that she was having a child with H to the exclusion of B; she says so herself in her emails. I conclude that she must have either deliberately misled the Applicants about her intentions or changed her mind as the pregnancy progressed."

but are people no longer allowed to intentionally change their minds?

Hold on, it wouldn't be the first time that parents are happy for the surrogate mother to be in touch with the child, esp when the surrogate mother is also the egg donor.

It still doesn't mean that this wasn't a surrogacy agreement.

But Dueling, whether it is because of this case or not, she has behaved in a manner which quite clearly indicates that she is not putting her child's interests first. Does it not concern you that she is subjecting her to unnecessary medical examinations, stopping her having contact with her natural father, lying and making homophobic accusations about her natural father, failing to put her father's name on the birth certificate or take his wishes into account in relation to baptism, etc? And if the child is carried in a sling all day, won't that have a bad effect on her growth and mobility?

Only on mn

The mother wasn't criticised for sling wearing, co sleeping and extended breast feeding. She was criticised for using these as reasons to not allow the father contact. She also kept taking the child to the go or hospital to stop contact. She accused the father of being addicted to antibiotic's and, I believe, she did similar with her first 2 children who no longer live with her.

The judge believes the surrogacy agreement. But the judgment is not based on that. The emails, though do show that surrogacy was the plan.
The judgment was based on the fact that the mother did not act in the best interest of her child and from the court papers, I agree with the decision.

Despite what a lot of mners think, in some cases a child is better off with their father. Being a mother does automatically make you the better parent.

From the court papers this women is manipulative and will stop at nothing to keep that child to herself. She does not act in the best interest of that child, she puts what she want first.

She has tried to use social media to have the facts skewed in her favour and broke court orders.

I, mean, come on 'Addicted to antibiotics'??

She has wasted precious resources, manipulated and lied. None of which has helped the child.