What has been your experience? Looking for advice

[Parkzy87]

Hello everyone, I am expecting a backlash so I'm buckled in ready, but please if you agree with surrogacy or not don't leave negative comments. What has everyones experience been with surrogacy? I am a male IP.
I know it's not pre set for time line or costs but how long has it taken people to meet a surrogate and what was the total cost. What agency did you use? And what advice/information did you wish you knew at the beginning.

Thank you

A common misconception here is that a child born via surrogacy is taken from its biological mother. The surrogate is our case is NOT the biological mother. Our son is biological my husband and mine

This. Please don’t buy a baby.

It’s really sad that you can’t have a baby either with your partner or with lesbian friends though. It’s an even bigger loss when we live in atomised, ever-smaller units where close, meaningful relationships with nephews, nieces etc are often harder to come by.

No one is arguing the genetic origin if it was full surrogacy. They issue is the baby doesn't know the genetics of its conception it knows the body it grew inside.

The Surrogate is the biological mother. She grew a baby with every cell in her body. She’s not an oven.

You took a baby from its mother.

We'll disagree on that.

Debate over use of “biological” are not the point, babies born to surrogates are taken away from the only mother they know.

The one that grew them in her womb, whose body kept them alive, whose heart beat regulated theirs, whose voice and smell they recognised.

We don’t take puppies away from their mothers because we recognise it as cruel and traumatising for the animals. Why we do it with human babies is beyond me.

OP I’m sorry you’re unable to have your own child. That doesn’t make it acceptable to buy one.

Think of the child taken from the woman that grew them and birthed them. Can that possibly be in the child’s interest to have that bond broken? No one who puts a child first could possibly believe surrogacy is anything other than horrifically selfish.

I feel for people that can’t have children, but surely adoption is so much better, morally?

There are plenty of kids that need a loving home. Surrogacy is ripping an infant away from its mother, at the most important time of its life, in terms of development and emotional security. It’s horrifying.

Then there’s the fact it’s SUCH an undertaking for the poor woman who then has a baby taken off her. I can’t imagine the pain, once you’ve agreed to it you are so pressured to go the through with it, even if you fall in love with the baby when it arrives.
Then there’s the physical toll pregnancy and birth takes on you, and the risk, and at the end of it you’ve got nothing.

There are plenty of kids with considerable needs that this couple may not be suited to adopt. Not the same thing!

All of this information is available on the many surrogate websites out there?
Why would you choose to post this on Mumsnet?
Answers on a hairy postcard….

What would you do "male IP" if you did commission a child from some woman you don't know, and then that child was found, either before or after birth, to have a serious mental or physical condition that would completely change the lives of you and your partner, financially, socially and in every other way, were you to take that child on as your own?
Would you take the child?
Would you pay the woman the full amount?

I think most people would disagree with you on semantic grounds. The fact is that your son was taken from the woman whose body had grown him, nourished him and protected him for nine months. The woman who passed on immunities to him, whose heartbeat and voice he knew. I have no doubt that your child is loved and cherished, but your dismissive attitude towards the woman whose body produced him is confirming many of the feelings that I feel about how brutal the concept of surrogacy is to both the birthing parent and the child.

We are absolutely not dismissive of her. We cannot possibly fully express our gratitude.

We talk every day and she is part of our son's life. That's not being dismissive

This.

And @Superfans ' statement, that children are not commodities.

There are comments most days on this site, focussing on controlling parents not 'owning' children and that they should be allowed to follow their own paths, but sometimes there appears to be a very large blind spot about this topic, where adults indeed act as if they own other humans.

What would you do "male IP" if you did commission a child from some woman you don't know, and then that child was found, either before or after birth, to have a serious mental or physical condition that would completely change the lives of you and your partner, financially, socially and in every other way, were you to take that child on as your own?
Would you take the child?
Would you pay the woman the full amount?

//

I'm very interested to hear the answer to this question ...

I'm also interested in the above point re complex needs..

This.

The word 'surrogate' is itself problematic. A woman who grows a baby in her uterus is a mother.

Paid 'surrogacy' is the commodification of women's bodies. Deliberately creating babies who will be taken from the only mother they know at birth, is horrifying.

Unfortunately due to your circumstances you can't actually have a baby but it doesn't mean you should comission one/buy one.
Nobody is entitled to a child

Surrogacy is disgusting. You cannot come in to a website aimed at mothers and control the responses you get. I don't hate you but I think you're very wrong for considering buying a baby.

You are NOT the birth mother of your son and he absolutely WAS taken from his mother, the only mother he knew. Your DNA connection to him meant nothing as he was separated from his mother and handed to strangers.

Wow. Such aggression from someone who clearly hasn't experienced it

I'm not aggressive in the least. I'm correcting you.

You're correcting to what you think is your version.

In fairness @PeriIsKickingMyButt is being factually accurate.

Babies born to surrogates are taken from the only mother they know. DNA is meaningless when a baby is taken away from the mother that has nurtured and protected them for 9mths. Whose voice and smell they are attuned to, whose heart beat they recognise, whose milk they seek.

as I said up thread we don’t take puppies from their mothers because we know it’s cruel. removing a child from their mother creates trauma. I understand that people who buy babies need to convince themselves this is not true, but it absolutely is. It’s the ultimate in selfish consumerism