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

Oh, and maybe you can all go an post on the adoption board how none of them are mums, just adoptive parents. But not mothers or fathers. Fuck me.

@IWantRebeccasConfidence I am adopted but surrogacy doesn’t sit right with me

@IWantRebeccasConfidence I completely agree and I think I will do the same regards the thread. I can't get my head around people saying that when women have abortions, it's their body so therefore their choice. But when it comes to surrogacy, suddenly they aren't allowed to make that decision about their own body without the permission of some on MN.

Im out.

Why does a mum have to give birth to be a mum but there are no such requirements on dad?

Because we are mammals and that’s how it works.

BecaUse it's using vulnerable women

Literally no one has said that.

The point is that to those adoptive children at birth the woman who gave birth is their mother.

Oh, and maybe you can all go an post on the adoption board how none of them are mums, just adoptive parents.

No one has said that. Women who have adopted are fully aware of their child's birth mother. Reading threads on that board would make that clear and there is no 'just' about it.

Should this thread be on the surrogacy board rather than the infertility board?

OhHolyJesus i have explained my connection. Feel free to send me a PM for me to give my name/address/bank details and send you a copy of my front door key.

No need but I am always interested in the motivations of surrogate mothers and how much they got paid, in commercial surrogacy or 'expenses-only'.

The sarcasm is equal to defensiveness so sometimes I wonder whether those posting here are connected to the surrogacy industry and wish for it to continue and expand.

@Achwheesht no, I don’t get that because I have never seen such studies.
Please cite them, including their use of the word ‘ripped’.

@OhHolyJesus
The sarcasm is equal to defensiveness so sometimes I wonder whether those posting here are connected to the surrogacy industry and wish for it to continue and expand.

The sarcasm is nothing as compared with some of the sheer vituperation of some of those posting against surrogacy, however.

I am not connected to the surrogacy industry, but somebody who has become a parent through surrogacy. I know for that our child was not ‘ripped’ from its birth mother because I was there and the handing over process did not happen all in one go and took into account discussions that we had with its birth mother before it happened. But hey, I get that my personal experience counts for nothing with you lot. Anyone with a positive story to tell about surrogacy must be either lying or deluded.

@NotBirthMum you are talking from your point of view not your child’s

I was asking IWantRebeccasConfidence but as you have a surrogate born child it does count and you are clearly pro-surrogacy for obvious reasons.

I don't think, or have ever said, that anyone with a positive experience is "either lying or deluded", I do think there is a 'thin end of the wedge' to surrogacy that ends well for all, including the child and I also know that there are stories that are negative that we either rarely hear or don't hear at all.

I don't think anything is always only one thing, it is a range of things - positive and negative and in between) and as children are at the centre (and I find oddly not centred) it concerns me that only one viewpoint is 'allowed' at least in the mainstream (thanks to MNHQ for hosting this discussion).

As someone who has benefited from surrogacy I hope you would see the good and the bad even though your child is surrogate-born.

Do you think it is all good or all bad, or there is good and bad in surrogacy, both commercial and altruistic? Surely you know it can and does go wrong, would I be deluded or lying to say so?

Yes. All of that is correct. And I agree with all of it. It’s a good thing those things are not illegal and it is a good thing things there is some protection.

You are being incredibly close minded.

@Newnamenewname109870 I am talking as an adopted person, so very much on the child’s side

Yes. The whole thing is horrible and illustrates the desperation and selfishness of those prepared to go to such lengths to have a child.

A good life is possible without a child and it's a great pity not more is made of this fact, it should start with school children.

@OhHolyJesus
As someone who has benefited from surrogacy I hope you would see the good and the bad even though your child is surrogate-born.

I do, definitely, and am much more aware now than when we started out, nearly 12 years ago.

Do you think it is all good or all bad, or there is good and bad in surrogacy, both commercial and altruistic? Surely you know it can and does go wrong, would I be deluded or lying to say so?

I know that commercial surrogacy is not all good, and not all ethical, even when it is done in a supposed ‘ethical’ country, such as we chose. That much became clear to us at a couple of points along the way.

We were counselled against altruistic surrogacy involving family members, because it can and does go wrong. That being said, that doesn’t mean that it always goes wrong. But if there is any doubt whatsoever in the mind of anyone considering it then they shouldn’t go through with it.

I could never ever regret our child and will never cease to be grateful to the two women without whom he would never have happened.

Add to go back to the OP, there were no problems on either side in bonding.

When you saw the babies born to surrogate mums in Ukraine when the war started, waiting to be picked up by British families, it was awful. How do you think those children will feel when they know the circumstances of their birth. I would definitely see my parents in a different light.