To ask if you've regretted surrogacy/struggled to bond?

[ivfregret]

Posting for traffic the other forums do not get much response.

This is not a thread about the ethics of surrogacy so I'm hoping it doesn't become that.

I'm posting because starting a family myself is becoming a very unlikely route for me and I may have to consider surrogacy.

I'm just concerned about bonding with the child/having regrets so I'd like to know if anyone has had this experience experience?

Thanks in advance

Here we are : a shocking thread about birth injuries with a guest post and some statistics from Masic Foundation.
Imagine if this was your sister or best friend going through this because you were selfish enough to want her to carry a baby for you.

Guest post: "Women are expected to go home with life-changing injuries after giving birth and just get on with it"
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/guest_posts/4302468-Guest-post-Women-are-expected-to-go-home-with-life-changing-injuries-after-giving-birth-and-just-get-on-with-it

My friend was a single mother to a pre-schooler, and wanted to do this for her family member, but has said it's not something she would do for a stranger. She wasn't asked to do it, but raised the option herself. The baby was also biologically hers.

wow. I can’t believe she is openly telling people she sold her own child. Insane.

Womens bodies aren't a collection of useful body parts to share or offer up to others. Her DNA may be carried in eggs now in a daughter she half-created by donating her own eggs. Maybe this is something that comforts her or makes her proud. Personally, I don't think it sends a good message to girls, particularly in this new age of misogyny we are living in. It is not a woman's job to have a child for anyone else. Because it is only women who can do this, it is helpful to a worldwide billion-dollar industry that women do think like this and do want to be useful in this way.

Couldn't agree more @OhHolyJesus
I have two daughters and have told them never to consider doing this for anyone including not for each other, they shouldn't ask and they shouldn't offer.

So many questions, but happy to answer to best of my abilities. Woman 1 is my best friend so easy to get answers - though we met after her surrogacy so I didn't know her then.
Her husband doesn't consider himself the father of the baby she gave birth to through surrogacy. She knows of the two babies who were born through egg donation. Both were to the same parents, with a 3 year gap. She was written to by the clinic when each child was born and both were boys. She was also contacted about an additional donation when the family wanted a third child, but she didn't feel she was a position to do so at that point. She doesn't know what the family then did. Both her and her husband are more than open to being contacted and having a relationship with the children from egg donation and surrogacy. Even though her husband doesn't consider himself a father to the baby born by surrogacy, he is very happy for the child to be in their lives as much as they want though.

Woman 2, I don't know about rent. My understanding was initial medical stuff was paid for, maternity clothes etc - basically, anything that would have left friend out of pocket, but there weren't "payments" in that sense.

Woman 2 does have a daughter. She is also a staunch feminist and very successful in her career with a very high powered job. Rather than seeing it as "a womans job" she see's it as something amazing that only a woman could do for another.. and that makes it very special and powerful. It's something she wanted to do, but would never expect it of anyone else. It's a very personal decision.

Sorry. Woman 1 does have a daughter that should say...

This!

Every parent has had their baby as they selfishly want to be a parent, whether planned or accidental they’ve decided to go ahead with the pregnant as they want a child. Despite their being drug addicts/neglectful parents who know this when getting pregnant they still go ahead.

every parent is selfish. Not just those through surrogacy.

Well no because abortion requires decisions and risks on MY body, unlike surrogacy

I'm pregnant with a happy surprise and wouldn't change it for the world. Believe its meant to be and gives my son a sibling ❤

I may out myself here but I know of a woman who had a baby boy via IVF in her early 40’s and kept the frozen eggs at a clinic. Sadly her only son died in a car crash aged 18. He had a girlfriend at the time who was obviously distraught, who his mum wasn’t very nice to and called her a ‘rough Chav’ (for her private school boy) When her son was still alive and tried to persuade him to dump her

Anyway in her early 60’s a few years after his death, she was obviously missing him terribly and her DH was chronically ill too. So she looked into surrogacy for the frozen eggs and managed to persuade her son’s girlfriend (ay this point aged 20) to carry her baby. They had to go abroad for the insemination because it didn’t pass the ethics committee here.

This woman is a doctor.

Some people in my peer group thought it was a lovely gesture. I thought it’s one of the creepiest things I ever heard and she wasn’t happy for her son to be with the ‘rough chav’ but didn’t mind borrowing her womb to carry her dead boyfriend’s little sister. That poor girl would have lived on and got over the death, and led a normal life without being tricked into thinking surrogacy at her age is a good idea.

How anyone cannot see what an abhorrent practice it is is beyond me.

Woman 1 may have to face some difficult questions from the boys conceived via her eggs. Their parents may feel, and may have expressed, their disappointment and not having a third genetically related child. Maybe not, who knows. Maybe they had another who is unrelated to the boys and that child has genealogical bewilderment. Maybe not.

They may also want to meet their genetic siblings (her children with her husband) and know more about their genetic roots in general, not just for hereditary diseases (which would be screened at a clinic) but also about mannerisms and other unavoidable genetic similarities. As this is your best friend and she receives pictures of these boys does she look like them, do they look like her? Do they look like her other children?

The message about what women can and should do with their bodies also extends to boys. If men grow up understanding the message that a woman's body is useful or can be 'used' ("used a surrogate" is often the wording in the media about couples obtaining babies this way).

So whilst the staunch feminist has a good job, career and has been able to provide for her daughter as a single mother (good on her) her altruistic actions do send a message about what women are for to her daughter, however subtle or subliminal. Had her child been a son the same would apply but the expectations are different.

I don't see the same message being sent to boys, that they should share their sperm around so men can be fathers. But I'm not on Dadsnet or other male-dominated forums so maybe that is the case and it's all about being kind and sharing for the men also.

Even if it was - and I don't think it is - a sperm isn't a baby without an egg and a vacant womb to pop an embryo into, so as a staunch feminist I'm sure your friend understands the necessary provision of women and why it aid the fertility industry in perpetuating this narrative.

And surrogacy, the use of women, is for same sex male couples and heterosexual couples (rarely same sex female couples and it's obvious why but it is possible with social surrogacy on the rise).

Oh my god.

Was the egg from the grandmother? I cannot imagine. So when you say little sister you mean as in the relationship the dead son has with his mother?

That poor child, how on earth will he or she come to know and understand this? I suppose he or she will be told how badly she was wanted by the genetic grandmother and perhaps as she ages the child will then care and provide for her.

Does the surrogate mother have any contact? Was it her egg?

The commissioning mother was a doctor?

Yes so the embryo was the mum and dad’s which they kept frozen for years and the girlfriend of the dead son was the surrogate. So she was carrying her dead boyfriend’s little sister.

The commissioning mother is a doctor. And the biological mother of a now toddler girl. Surrogate mother has no contact AFAIK.

Hi there. We've had a few reports about this thread and the direction in which it's going. We can see that the OP is asking for advice and while we understand that folk have strong feelings on this subject, might we respectfully ask that those opinions are aired on a thread started specifically to discuss the ethics of surrogacy? For now, we've moved this thread over to the Infertility topic so that the OP can seek the advice she was originally asking for. Peace and love.

Basically, NOBODY has the right to be a parent. As in, if you can become a parent, good for you. But the buying and selling of children is abhorrent.

We abolished enslavement in the UK in 1833. It should not be permitted to return under the banner of “compassion.”

And I fail to see how this view is in any way similar to arguments against abortion. In fact, there is far more in common with the pro-choice argument - that a woman is not simply a vessel for bearing forth someone else’s children.

I can understand why this thread has been moved, but the ethical considerations must be part of it.

If there was a fertility treatment which gave any babies conceived by it a strong chance of a lifelong painful medical condition, I’m sure any prospective parents considering it, would be subject to the same kind of sobering talk on mumsnet.

Just to reiterate this is still bollocks. Surrogates also don’t get surrogacy leave, they get maternity leave the same as any other pregnant woman. Intended parents also qualify for maternity leave or adoption leave which are equal, gay parents can also take the same leave as adoption leave.
Some surrogates do breast feed or donate milk but they do not solely have care of teh baby for 12 weeks and then slowly wean them over.

Some surrogates want to birth alone but most want to see the look on their parents faces so want them there. Small blood pressure appointments no, but they want them there for the scans etc. You are really describing something far from the norm. I think you are just posting for a reaction seeing a the other stuff you are posting seems anti surrogacy.

Surrogates also don’t get surrogacy leave, they get maternity leave the same as any other pregnant woman. Intended parents also qualify for maternity leave or adoption leave which are equal, gay parents can also take the same leave as adoption leave.

Out of interest, how does this work out? Do employers have to pay for everyone in the equation then?

@HathorsFigTree In the case of adoption, the birth mother would get full maternity leave despite having her child taken off her/voluntarily relinquished and the adoptive parents would also get full adoption/maternity leave équivalant. Same for surrogacy. Some companies give maternity leave and some adoption. Most want to be seen as supportive and would still give their companies equivalent if not getting the SMP part. Realistically a lot of surrogates are SAHM so there isn’t an issue. Or some would only want to take 4 weeks and got back to work if it was split with the mother.

If the surrogate is going to lose out on pay a over what she would get from her maternity leave then that’s something that her intended parents would also top up and have been pre agreed.

@ivfregret You will not have any problems bonding. 50% of the worlds parents haven’t carried a pregnancy and still bond with their child. You can have belly buds which play a recording of your voice to the baby in utero. The fact that you have been through infertility and have to think about these things and look for answers just says you will be a great parent. You will also not be recovering from birth so you will be in a better physical state to nurture during the 4th trimester and wear/skin to skin for the first few days. Most of my friends who have carried their own babies also report that sometimes it was instant and other times it took weeks to feel that head of heels love.

Yep! Even the way the woman chooses to birth or if she chooses to abort it. If she drinks alcohol, takes drugs, whatever.

But the drug addict/alcoholic uses her own body. She doesn't hire another woman to do the business of gestating and birthing the baby whilst she carries on taking drugs.

Unlike women who don't want to risk their own body, eg actresses and models using social surrogacy, and who carry in with their careers while another woman does the grunt work and takes the consequences.
Or the woman who wants a baby and can't carry her own.

It's a double whammy of selfishness to expose another woman to risk.