I'm considering being a surrogate

[TheTwirlyPoos]

We have two good friends, they are gay.
They are desperate for a baby and I'd love to help them.
I've had two children of my own and am done.
My husband is uncertain and concerned I will become too attached etc.
Where do we start thinking about this?!

Yes, that makes total sense.

Is it "hugely kind"? Who is it hugely kind to?

Nah, it’s not ‘hugely kind’ to anyone at all, it’s narcissistic and virtue signaling on steroids imo.

It is most definitely not mostly about commercial
surrogacy, which responses here articulate better than I ever could.

That baby will have spent its time in development knowing the birth mother’s smell, voice etc. And then taken away from that in an instant just because two people who are by nature not designed to have children together want to defy biology.

It is never in the child’s best interests.

Your friends are happy for you to be put through a pregnancy and the inherent risk and discomfort for their own desires.

Please please think carefully about your real
motivations for doing this. On face value it’s an amazing, selfless thing to do for someone. But the reality couldn’t be more different and the vast vast vast majority of surrogacies to friends are not 100% altruistic…

@TheTwirlyPoos That’s great news. It’s a clearly an emotive subject and for good reasons as well. OP, you’re incredibly kind hearted and I’m happy that you’ve decided not to proceed 💐.

They are both such lovely people. I have no doubt they would be great parents. I know they'd want me to stay in the baby's life, I know they'd be supportive of me and choices I make during pregnancy, I know I'm the answer to their problem.

But I can't get past the idea of giving up a baby.

You don't know any of that, you just think it.
You may be right but you don't know

Donor eggs significantly increase the risk to the mother’s health.

so not that simple.

If they are genuinely lovely people, they will understand that the only ethical way they can start a family is via adoption.

Lovely people don't take a newborn baby away from its mother.

I can see why you might want to do it for friends.

And I can see why you are initially thinking about how you would feel about giving up the baby, and why that’s a primary thought. That’s the “best case” with surrogacy.

But i think you should also think carefully about all of what might go wrong both in terms of your health (impact on you and your family, potentially long term) but also what would happen if baby poorly whether at birth or scans flag concerns. It’s difficult to draw up a contract for all eventualities - and difficult to know how you will feel physically, morally, emotionally if problems arise. Fetal abnormalities for example are not uncommon - and many come with “grey” diagnoses and a lot of guilt. It’s bad enough when it’s your family and your baby - it must be very challenging indeed for surrogates.

Sorry this is depressing addition but I think it’s critical to think about how it all works if it goes very very wrong too.

I think at the end of the day, whether you use your own or a donor egg, you will be this child's mother. The only mother they will ever have. What surrogacy actually is, is a mother giving up her newborn baby for adoption, by prearrangement. I personally could never do it so long as I had the basic means to care for that child myself.

How do you know they'd be supportive of your choices?

Let's say the baby had high chance of downs, you wanted to keep and they didn't? You keep it anyway. Then a baby with downs was born. Are you 100% confident they'd still take the baby? Or would the respecting your choices end when you choose to not terminate at a point where they think you should...?

Are you willing to risk your life and potentially leave your existing children without a mother?

I think the OP has taken on board the comments and agrees that it would be a bad idea.

You’re not the answer to their problem. You are no doubt a kind and compassionate person but this is way beyond that.

OP you now will not face the prospect of an adult coming to you in later years asking why you weren't their mum.
It chills me that people forget babies aren't pets that forever stay young and the human mind needs to develop from a place of honesty, not a place of commodity.

MN is super against any form of surrogacy. I would suggest joining the UK surrogacy Facebook group. You can meet surrogates who have done it. Many surrogates in that group have experience helping gay couple. Most are still in contact. It is a noble thing to do.

It's only a noble thing to do if you don't care about the trauma inflicted on a child by being removed at birth from the only source of nurture and comfort he/she knows.

If I couldn't have had children I wouldn't have let a friend or family member do this for me, and put their body through that trauma and risk.
Now I'm a mum I couldn't risk making myself ill or dying in childbirth for other people (more worth the risk if the kids get a sibling out of it at least).

Most dont stay in touch. The ongoing UK research shows this.

I couldn't have children and I adopted 2 older, neglected children. I am not going to suggest that everyone in my situation should do the same - adoption is an absolute roller coaster - but the loss of birth mother is imo a massive thing. Absolutely not something we should be deliberately inflicting on children to satisfy the desires of adults.

What would happen if the pregnancy went wrong and the baby was disabled in some way (mentally or physically) and your friends decided they didn’t want the baby? Would you keep it? Could you afford to keep it? Would you feel different about keeping it if it wasn’t your egg?

Are you still considering doing this x