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

I desperately wanted a second baby, life didn't turn out how I wanted it to, as it often doesn't.
Not once would it have occured to me to buy a baby, not that I could afford it even if it was my only option. I'd be much more likely to be the woman for sale than the buyer.
I'm poor, I have to take my lot, I can't even 'comission' someone to clean my house or do my gardening.
Commissioning always reminds me of art or made to measure furniture.
It's just a nice way of saying ordered and paid for.
All those babies in Ukraine who couldn't be picked up on the order date. Poor things.

A baby being with it’s birth mother isn’t good for anyone?

OK then.

How can you possibly say that it isn’t best practice to give a surrogate boundaries they’re happy with? What exactly in that post is ‘not good for anyone’?

I’d bet my bottom dollar none of you have any idea of what being infertile feels like

If you bet that in my case, you’d lose every dollar you bet. But I’m not the one trying to buy another woman’s womb.

That you think a surrogate should go to appointments and give birth alone but then move in with the parents and breast feed and do all care for the baby for 12 weeks and transition them over? Surely that’s more confusing for the baby?
The surrogate wants to be with her own family. Don’t surrogates do surrogacy because they love being pregnant and want to be pregnant but jot have another baby, but also to see the look on the parents faces at the scans and birth?

🖕

@Achwheesht uoi really can’t comment telling OP to drop wanting a baby when you went on to have 2 FFS!
op’s last response was entirely justified.
Honestly @ivfregret join the Facebook groups with likeminded people.

Having a child IS a right. A human right.

Please can you post me to the U.K. ratified human rights convention @DannyZukosSmile that states there is a human right to a child (not the right to marry and to "found a family", Article 12, Human Rights Act)?

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/schedule/1

If you are referring to legislation in another country I'd take that too, as IANAL but to my knowledge there is no human rights law where a person is entitled to a child and should be provided with one to fulfil a 'necessary need'.

"Founding a family" in the Human Rights Act is in relation to discrimination, as in being prevented from (see amended U.K. adoption and surrogacy law).

If you can't find anything then that shows readers here, again, that facts and stats from pro-surrogacy posters about UK laws and international surrogacy laws (bans) are clearly not to be relied upon on this thread.

But great if you can cite your source. Thanks!

@HathorsFigTree

I have arrived at my position, not through unhappiness, but through joy, wonder and respect towards motherhood, the mother-baby dyad and the unconditional love of a baby towards its mother.

I was the the same, the mother/baby dyad is fascinating, there is loads we know about micro-fetal microchismerism and genealogical bewilderment but still so much to learn about the 4th trimester and all that follows with child development in the early years and beyond.

I found this really informative, Benjamin Boyce usually does really in-depth interviews with Detransitioners so I thought it was a bit left field to be covering surrogacy.

Don’t worry op, most of the world isn’t like mumsnet.

Good luck with the rest of your journey and I hope you get your beautiful baby, however he or she comes into the world.

It doesn't really matter whether having children is a right or not. The bottom line is surrogacy is legal and therefore anyone wanting to do it is not doing anything wrong.

“is legal and therefore anyone wanting to do it is not doing anything wrong”

The law doesn’t cover morals.

So it is perfectly legal to have affairs, to lie, to be narcissistic and selfish, to mock the disadvantaged, etc.

Even so, there are legal caveats around surrogacy, which aren’t being enforced, eg- commercial surrogacy is illegal in this country. So people who buy babies abroad are breaking British law (ie- doing something legally “wrong”) but nothing is enforced, so people are pretty brazen about it.

@HathorsFigTree Morals are subjective though. Everyone has different moral standards so who makes the final determination on what is morally acceptable?

I think any decent human would agree borrowing someone’s body part for convenience is a pretty despicable thing to do

You appealed to the notion of ‘right and wrong’ when you said “not doing anything wrong”.

I don’t think most people would understand ‘right and wrong’ to be synonymous with ‘legal and illegal’ would they?

I remember the MP’s expenses scandal. They had all been advised by accountants as to what they could lawfully claim as expenses. The fact that they opted to take the piss and basically squandered public money, was widely deemed as ‘wrong’ even though it was lawful.

What do you mean @BSB30 by ‘not doing anything wrong’ - do you mean ‘not breaking the law’?

That’s a very low bar between right and wrong if it’s the case.

Would you be considering altruistic or commercial surrogacy, @ivfregret ?

I meant not doing anything wrong from a legal perspective and additionally from a moral perspective because not everyone deems surrogacy to be morally wrong. As long as it is consenting adults who are making the decisions and not being forced into anything then that choice should not be taken away from a woman.

@YouWonJayne I think any decent human would agree borrowing someone’s body part for convenience is a pretty despicable thing to do

Yes, but it is only a fanatic who would frame surrogacy in this way. There are many who disagree with surrogacy who don’t. For them, even people who are assisted by a surrogate are still decent humans and not despicable.

The issue is everything is arguable based on perspective and how you spin it.

I wonder how many of the people who say they couldn't 'buy a baby' have no issues with IVF, in which parents pay a fortune for potentially several rounds to have a baby. What about non-IVF fertility treatments and tests? Clomid isn't free to the NHS, someone has to pay for it.

Those arguing the surrogate shouldn't be allowed to choose to be a surrogate because they might die and leave their own kids orphans. What about people joining the armed forces? They're choosing to accept money to act as a shield to protect you, in spite of the risk to their life and leaving their kids without a parent. Would you also ban all military jobs? Or does your perspective and thought processes tell you that them choosing to risk their life for money is fine but a surrogate choosing to risk hers for the same is not allowed?

Whatever side of the argument you’re on I just WISH people would acknowledge that it IS using someone for their womb.

If not why aren’t you using old women?

You’re using fertile women for you own means - wether they have ‘informed consent’ or not. You’re doing it literally because their body parts are appealing to your desire to have a child that has your DNA.

Just own it FFS

Wrong.
People who do surrogacy abroad still get a parental order issued under British law. Still recognised as parents. Wouldn’t be granted if seems to have broken the law. As long as the rules of the country where the surrogacy took place have been followed and you meet the uk requirements it’s allowed.

additionally from a moral perspective because not everyone deems surrogacy to be morally wrong

So do you believe right and wrong is defined by consensus? ie- unless everyone, without exception, agrees something is ‘wrong’, then even if only one person disagrees with the majority, and thinks something is morally acceptable, it must therefore ‘right’, as long as it is within the law?

@YouWonJayne of course you are “using” another woman, there is no denying that. If the parent is happy and the surrogate is and her family then it’s between them. Some women are addicted to pregnancy, for some it improves a medical condition and for others they use it to improve their lives. Some just want to feel they’ve left a mark on the world.

Both of these arguments are seriously clutching at straws.

IVF doesn’t involve separating and buying the baby from the mother.

There is a need for the armed forces while hostile nations persist and threaten our security. There is no greater threat or harm to society avoided by women purposely getting pregnant in order to give their babies away.