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

Is your outlook so miserable that you can't contemplate that someone would do this altruistically for another person?

Not miserable, realistic and given that only 1 of us has skin in the game here which one of us do you think has an opinion not purely based on emotion and how it has benefitted them personally?
You NEED to believe that it was pure altruism and its all lovely and everyone is happy but I can see the reality of surrogacy.
Anyway, I hope everyone involved in your case is ok and happy but no matter who claims its a good thing I will never ever be convinced Surrogacy isn't exploitative and wrong.

I think some posters are forgetting here that there are some absolutely wonderful women in the world who chose to be a surrogate. They aren't approached or persuaded or forced into it. They register with agencies, they do not expect payment for anything other than legitimate expenses, they do it because they want to give another couple the chance to have a family of their own. It is their choice to begin with and they are then put in contact with couples seeking help.

Do posters feel the same about egg or embryo donation? Is it wrong in those circumstances to accept another woman's child?

And adoption...those children that are no longer with the mother that they grew inside of for 9 months, do you berate those women for giving up their children? Or do you acknowledge that these women gave life and had a choice to keep it or not, or maybe they didn't have a choice due to their circumstances and the decision was made for the good of the child.

We live in a world of choice and freedom. Please stop with the exploitation script. Yes unfortunately this may happen in certain countries/families/cultures but in our modern world it's not the dark underworld some posters are making it out to be.

And yes, I have personal experience of surrogacy. A very close friend and his partner have a beautiful daughter via a surrogate. A surrogate with 2 children of her own who wanted to help a childless family. They did not know each other before. They now have a wonderful relationship. They will be forever grateful for the gift she chose to give them. She has no regrets.

Adoption solves the problem of a child already conceived who is unable to remain with its birth mother for a myriad of reasons.

Surrogacy creates a problem by deliberately conceiving a child in order to remove it from its birth mother to hand it over to other people.

It is human trafficking. Based on the presumption that everyone who wants one is entitled to a biological child.

Whilst infertility is absolutely horrific for anyone experiencing it, the rights of that person do not override the best interests of the baby. And it is not in the best interests of the baby to sever the relationship between the mother and baby unless there would be a significant risk to baby in remaining with the birth mother.

We all know about "the fourth trimester"... that period is just as crucial as the gestation period.

Surrogacy is ultimately a selfish act. The pursuit of a biological child above the rights of the baby.

I think any woman who volunteers to gestate and give up a baby for strangers not even for monetary gain is not in her right mind and motivated by some deep psychological need that she is seeking to meet in a very damaging way. I absolutely don't believe that women just feel like going through pregnancy, birth and giving up a baby because they are just lovely people who want to make strangers happy. No way.

In relation to egg and sperm donation, that's ethically dubious because many children struggle with being raised with different genetic material to their parents, and with the idea that their parents did this to them deliberately. However it's not the same as surrogacy.

adoption is so many miles away from surrogacy that to try to compare them is just too stupid to respond to.

I would say that women who offer to do this, especially for strangers are either doing it for money or to try and find something that is missing from their lives, or both.
Some sort of weird saviour/hero complex thing going on.

And there lies your problem. You fail to accept that not everyone is like you or will agree with your way of thinking.

Your opinions are so disrespectful to many parents here on MN. Families come in all different shapes and sizes. I think you need to open your eyes to the modern world and accept change.

I will never accept Human trafficking, no matter how old the victims are

Dictionary
noun: human trafficking
the unlawful act of transporting or coercing people in order to benefit from their work or service, typically in the form of forced labour or sexual exploitation.
"she is a victim of human trafficking"

Not exactly human trafficking is it !!

Thats exactly what it is

Any mother will know how much their baby wanted them and only them at the beginning.

The altruism spoken of in this thread is for the parents only, not for the child.

Because even after the baby trauma, the extent of which can never be known, but beyond that, what will a child think when they're say 15? And have say two fathers. Who bought them and has never seen the surrogate again for eg. Once they know how sex and biology works. How will they feel once they realise they have a mother, who they weren't allowed to spend time with, who was paid? What can you imagine that that 15 yr old will think about their fathers?
Anyone who's had teenagers will know that their hormones and thoughts are all over the place anyway, even in a 2.4 family.

How on earth will they feel?

I'm thinking a lot of them would be absolutely disgusted at their parents.

Don’t do it.

Why is it weird just because you choose not to understand it?

Thank you

I'm sad for you that you think this narrowly about why people might choose to be a surrogate

All this 'biological mother' chat, how do people square this with adoption? I was adopted at birth...not to say I am particularly supportive of surrogacy but many, many babies aren't brought up by their biological mothers...

Funny how your post makes no mention of the woman who carried him, risked her life, mental health, and gave birth to him?

just a side note for you

💯

there is a reason commercial surrogacy is outlawed in many many countries.
italy has made it illegal to use commercial surrogacy abroad even.

just a side note for you...
I was discussing the claims of 'trafficking', not personal details of someone not on this forum

Great point to think about

I have never yet seen someone who has bought a baby via surrogacy debate the benefits to the child. They mainly harp on about what a wonderful gift the birthing mother gave them, and what a good parent they are.

I’d have more respect for surrogate parents if they admitted they cheerfully bought a baby just because they wanted one. Which is what it comes down to.

Ok. I cheerfully state that I had a baby via surrogacy.
I didn't buy one though

Agree with this - the focus in these conversations seems to be very much on the parents, with little mention of the impact on the child.

I would be interested in hearing how donor-conceived children feel about it all when they are old enough.

oh now you suddenly care about this woman’s rights and wellbeing?

what you did wasn’t altruistic or morally right. You have to live with that and one day explain that to your son

Adoption is about finding parents for children who already exist, who need to be raised outside of their birth parents. It's completely different to creating babies deliberately to remove them from their birth mother. Nobody deliberately creates a baby to give them up for adoption do they?