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.

"And if the child is carried in a sling all day, won't that have a bad effect on her growth and mobility?"

ALL day?

"This is a child who at 15 months old is still carried by her mother in a sling on her body."

where does it say all day?

I actually think the introduction of the criticism of the sling being used (At 15 month) as if it's some how an odd way to behave just makes the judge look utterly ridiculous.

Was she appearing in court with a baby in a sling? Did the two men put that into their reasons why the baby should be with them not her?

To me it sounds like both sides were playing dirty at some points but one side had the benefit of having the money to pay for good legal advice and the other side was in the unfortunate position of facing the child they had carried taken away from them because of an agreement that no one thought to make legal or obvious.

I read the judgment - apart from bits where the redaction made the meaning unclear, it is quite thorough and I find it entirely reasonable.

The mother was deceitful and untrustworthy from before conception, and violated agreements and repeated court orders afterwards. She also registered the child as if she had no father and applied for a passport in her name (a British one, and having in the past obtained a Romanian passport for her other children, had clearly 'form' for potential abduction). All of this makes her position very difficult to defend as she cannot make a believable case. Surely this is behaviour that is not 'right' and the courts should not ignore it when assessing a parent's suitability for parenting? Ie, the precedent as to those behaviours is a good one to set - they are not recommended (but I think these cases don't create precedents as they're very much fact-based).

But when it comes to looking to the child's best interests, it is apparent that this parent

• wanted an exclusive possession, a "toy" child of her own, rather than the responsibility of co-parenting (which was on offer at all times)

• set out deliberately to negate any meaningful relationship between the father (whom she described first as a 'friend' and later as a mere 'sperm-donor') and the child. She did this in ways that were either 'normal' but excessive such as taking the child to GPs and A&E unnecessarily at contact times and upon return from contact; breastfeeding and co-sleeping (although here the the judge found that she was trying not to make the baby healthy but to forge an unassailable attachment link and/or to make herself indispensable to the child which may be considered 'excessive' attachment behaviour) or that were, again, quite wrong, such as accusing the father and his partner of all sorts of sexual (and financial, I think) deviancy, being generally homophobic and attempting to ruin the father's life and relationships with his own family back in Romania. Basically she would have brought /will bring up the child hating and despising her father, for no other reason than that she wants the child all to herself.

It seems to me that I read a lot of posts on here about emotionally or financially abusive men who exhibit many of these behaviours with women, and are always roundly condemned.

And the other parent (and his partner) instead

• were expecting to co-parent from day one (but were not even told that the birth was happening) including moving to a bigger house where the mother could stay with her other children
• were at all times available and did not (according to the judgment) go in 'all guns blazing', but accepted a lot of compromise to keep seeing their child, which they did successfully. The judge said that in her opinion of the facts, the evidence provided and the demeanour of the parties in court (which we cannot evaluate, of course) they were entirely child-centred, which is what the law requires.

To reiterate - the paragraph about how the mother breastfed exclusively and co-slept and carried the child in a sling are not self-standing, saying that this is suspicious behaviour in everybody that does it. They are merely examples of how the mother appeared to try and rely on physical contact/nutrition/etc to make herself indispensable to the child so as to keep her away from her father for no better reason than that she was possessive, homophobic, and had no understanding of the fact that it's the child's best interests that matter. I would consider that if that child had stayed with that mother for much longer (especially as she is said to be about to talk now) she would have been considerably harmed by that over-protectiveness (to give it a charitable name).

(ps, I am currently bf and co-sleeping with an over-1; though I don't see how that makes my view of this case any more relevant than anyone else's).

Mothers are special and protected because history tells us societies pretty much fall apart when they are not. That's not to say that all the mothers in the world are perfect, but overall it's a reckless society indeed that assumes they are dispensable once the breeding process is over

Who is trying to dispense all mothers? This is mother does not appear to be the better parent for this child. As you say not all mother are perfect. This mother is far less than perfect. She is willfully hurting her child. That is not to say ALL mother are, is simply the case in this situation.

Dueling
Even if she changed her mind about the surrogacy, that doesn't mean she get to deny the other biological parent contact entirely, which is what she was trying to do. There are two separate issues, surrogacy and the right of a child to have contact with its biological parents.

Addicted to antibiotics

Not just antibiotics, but extra-strong antibiotics from Belgium.

We'll it seems as if the judgment is on her behaviour now regardless of any previous agreement.

If the hospital flagged her behaviour up Also I think the child is better of away from her.

Again - in response to Shwept

"This is a child who at 15 months old is still carried by her mother in a sling on her body."

what is wrong with a 15 month old child being carried in a sling on a parent's body? There is no embelishment to this statement. no 'All Day' no 'All the time' No 'The baby can't walk' ...

It's a fact that many women (and men) carry older babies in a sling - it's recommended to parents on Mumsnet all the time. There is nothing at all wrong with carrying a baby in a sling.

The sling thing makes the judge look like an idiot.

*No. On the contrary, the judge says he won't consider it as a surrogacy case:'

Yes if you had read my next sentence....that's what I said.

And I am pretty sure the judge was a woman. Her title is 'ms'

yep judge was a woman.

duelling what are you talking about? Where have I said there is anything wrong with a 15 month old in a sling?

"that doesn't mean she get to deny the other biological parent contact entirely, which is what she was trying to do"

My understanding was that, having received court papers days after the birth, regarding an unwritten 'surrogacy' agreement that she had changed her mind about (Prior to the birth) she was panicked and all her behaviour after this was the result of that.

Unfortunately for her she seems to have done herself more harm that good but I can totally understand why she would have resisted overnight contact at 4 months when breastfeeding her child. She was allowing them to spend many unsupervised hours with the baby.

Shewept - It was in response to

"The mother wasn't criticised for sling wearing, co sleeping and extended breast feeding."

Clearly the judge was critical of a child being worn in a sling at 15 months.

I read the judgement expecting to read about the mother being abusive. Instead it talks about her using a sling, breastfeeding on demand and cosleeping as if this is overly and abusively attached.

Yes the mother sounds difficult but since when was that a reason to take a 15 month old baby away from her? I can't see anything in the judgement that justifies the removal of the child, it seems to be based on the behaviour of the applicants in court and the preference of the gay couple over the mother due to their seeming ability to keep control of their emotions in the court room.

The whole thing is thoroughly depressing.

Dueling
Next paragraph of the judgment
"The attachment which will develop in an infant who sleeps with her mother, spends all day being carried by her mother and is breastfed on demand through out the day and night raises questions about the long term effect on M. From the point of view of this judgment it further begs the question as to who benefits most from the regime S has chosen to impose without reference to M's father, H."

That is the reference to being carried all day.

Huge apologies to the Judge!

It actually sounds like the hospital/doctors may have raised the issue of whether she has Munchausen's by proxy or similar. This is a child protection issue and can be very serious.

The judge sounded critical to me too. A baby doesn't need to learn independance. A baby needs to form a secure attachment to it's carers. They've just severed that attachment to the baby's main carer by drastically reducing contact. I can't see how that is in the baby's best interests.

Fair enough. Bizzare that she would be carried all day. How on earth would she change her nappy!

Duelling I don't think she was. I think she was critical of the mother using the sling wearing and other parenting choices. an excuse to block contact with the Childs biological father. Not because she genuinely believed it was best for her child. I don't think the judge looks like an idiot. She sounds, to me, like someone who thinks the mother is manipulating anything she can ti exclude the father...imo that's not ok.

Sorry, I'm speaking more hypothetically there, as I know there are more issues than just the sling/cosleeping etc. The munchausen's by proxy concern is worrying.

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.

I find this an absolutely horrifying attitude, wannaBe. A baby is not a commodity, and a pregnant woman should not be treated like an incubator.

The mother received court papers days after the birth because she tried to keep the birth a secret, registered the baby in her own name straight away, and generally did a u-turn regarding co-parenting. Thus, the father and his partner were suddenly faced with (what must have appeared to them) a child-snatcher who had deceived them and was now ranting at their 'unnatural' sexuality and had to act fast - which they did by serving court papers. And I don't think she 'allowed' long contact - she was forced to do so by the court (as with all contact, or so I am led to believe here...)

I think the supports of the mother keep over looking the excessive trips to the GP and hospital leading to intrusive tests that wasn't needed.

That's not normal by anyone's standards.

The courts papers say On the balance of probabilities, and for the reasons set out above and in the following paragraphs of this judgment, I find that S deliberately misled the Applicants in order to conceive a child for herself rather than changing her mind at a later date

So the judge did believe there was an informal surrogacy agreement, but in fact s never intended to give the baby up, rather than changing her mine. Besides which, its not a surrogacy case its a custody case between 2 biological parents.