surrogate help!

[brunotheboxer]

hi everyone, i have now in the process of having my 8th miscarriage!! ive been to the consultant who says everything is fine with me but i think that there must be something wrong as i keep miscarrying! i now looking into having it implanted into me or even a surrogate! has anyone had any of the above? if so how much did it cost and how do you go about it?
please help - im so desperate for a baby!

So sorry to hear what you are going though, it must be heartbreaking.

I have been the other side of the coin as I have carried a baby for a friend who kept miscarrying her own children (that was nearly 9 years ago I've since had 2 more for another friend who'd lost her womb to cancer).

Have you seen a specialist and had antibody tests done? Sometimes there is an immune issue that can be treated during the pregnancy although I don't know the details of what that involves.

In terms of costs, well they vary greatly. It is very rare for the NHS to fund surrogacy but some people have been able to get funding for the drugs needed for IVF and occasionally for the egg collection and fertilisation. The whole IVF cycle costs vary form clinic to clinic and depending on how you and your surrogate respond to the medications but it is upwards of £8k.

Surrogates receive expenses to cover things like childcare, loss of earnings, clothing, life insurance and other things depending on her situation. Legally these are meant to be below £10k but there are exceptions. If you have a friend or family member who is prepared to be your surrogate then usually these costs are lower but that varies wildly.

If surrogacy is something you really want to look into then there are a couple of big organisations that can offer initial advice and put you in contact with other people who have been through surrogacy or are also looking into it, that's usually the best place to start.

Sorry if this is too much information, I tend to blurt it all out, I know there is a lot to take in.

Again, I am so sorry to hear you are miscarrying.

hi thanks for that. ive had all the tests done and the consultant says everything is fine! i have family members but 1 is disables and the other has had her womb removed due to problems after problems! i do have a really good friend but i dont know if she would as she has 3 children of her own and i dont know what her partner would say! is it hard(emotional) to carry for someone else?
i think surrogacy is going to be the only way as i dint feel like the docs are helping me!
dont suppose you know the names of the big organisations do you?
at least i could contact them and get a better idea of things.
again thanks for all that!

www.surrogacy.org.uk/

I didn't find it particularly hard but I put that down to being so close to the parents, they were involved in everything and every stage. The IVF was hard, I have a particularly strong negative emotional reaction to the down-regulating stage of the process but it was worth it.

The orgs I know of (and have worked with) are:

COTS: www.surrogacy.org.uk/
Surrogacy UK www.surrogacyuk.org/

There may well be others but I don't have experience of them.

thanks for that. can i be cheeky and ask how much roughly were you paid to carry the babies?

I have agreed with the parents not to make the figure public as it makes them uncomfortable but my expenses were significantly below the average of £8-10k as I had low costs (I was at the time a stay-at-home mum and my parents live local enough to help with my childcare and my pregnancies were close enough together to re-use much of the clothing).

So sorry to hear of your miscarriages.
FWIW someone I know had 9 miscarriages and the 10th pregnancy stuck - her DC is now 3 and she has just had another one last week. Her tests etc also came back all fine and noone can tell her the reasons for miscarrying 9 times before 2 successful pregnancies. So what I am saying I guess is don't lose hope. Hope it all works out for you x

thanks everyone for all your info.
firsttimemum77 - its very hard not to lose hope! im trying not to but then everything goes wrong again for me!
i soooo want another baby - i hope they do investigate me more now and help me in some way - just not fob me off with "everything is fine"!!!!!

Hi,

my DH and I spent 4 years working with several different surrogates from COTS who tried to help us have a baby. In the end it hasn't worked and we're now doing surrogacy in the US but that's not the fault of Cots or any of the terrific surrogates we met.

With Cots (which is by far the biggest surrogacy agency here in the UK - they'd have helped well over 600 surrobabies come into the world by now) and the other, smaller, surrogacy agency (surrogacyuk) it's about forming a close relationship with your surrogate, and the financial side should be secondary to that (although muminbeds is right and expenses can add up. I say take it out of DS or DD's pocket money in years to come ).

I think the hardest thing for many women is getting your head around the idea that it wouldn't be you carrying your child in utero... for me no big deal, as I've always known it would be that way or nothing - but for many women this is too hard to accept, and they prefer to not have children rather than have someone else be a 'tummy mummy'. Once you're okay with that part of it though, the rest is just administrative hassle, co-ordinating the IVF stuff and cultivating your relationship with your surrogate.

When it works and you actually end up with a baby (which is about half the time) surrogacy can be an amazing option - imagine how you'll feel when you're holding DS or DD.... or twins (eek)! Totally worth it.