Voices we don't hear from - a child of surrogacy

[OhHolyJesus]

I've found MN to be a source of voices we don't hear from, like trans widows and children of transitoners, children born from are not voices we often hear.

Surrogacy is often portrayed as positive, focusing on an infertile woman having her wishes come true by the kind and generous surrogate mother, bestowing the biggest give one can give...and all that BS.

This is Kylee, a 36 year old woman who was "Donor Conceived". Even if this short video you can see how she is struggling to express herself but she does so clearly and intelligently. I'm going to check out her blog too, there are clearly more like her.

twitter.com/StopSurrogacy/status/1246122272093540353?s=20

All those videos were interesting. I am very disturbed by the way women have been used like this. And the lack of follow up care.... And this was in a western country not a country where there is even less care and regulation.

OhHolyJesus

I read about a celebrity in Ireland who had a baby with her own eggs, through a surrogate.She said in one Interview "We have had no contact with the surrogate, they keep that totally separate. There is an agency who does all the co-ordination stuff".
So I wasnt sure if this is the norm, so thanks for clarifying.

My understanding is that some matching agencies encourage friendships, I see that as providing some kind of justification to wha they are really doing, but I suppose others actually do the opposite.

Some people are already friends and lose the friendships as a result of the surrogacy, others I suppose find their bond strengthen.

It must be a mix of situations, but I imagine, at least I think it's possible, that there are more children born of surrogacy who are now adults, who are like Jessica, but we never hear from them.

Here is her testimony to the hearing of the NYC bill, since then the bills has been passed, just earlier this month so it's been a long time that she has been trying to stop it but I don't remember hearing much about her, until now.

theothersideofsurrogacy.blogspot.com/2013/06/judiciary-and-public-safety-bill-20-32.html

It is adoption.

It merely skips the in depth vetting of the parents to be, and the required attendance at training. The training begins flat out from the point of 'adoption is rooted in loss on both sides' and 'adoption is no one's first choice: not the child's and not the parents' and works hard on parents understanding a child is not a blank slate on which to project their parenting dreams.

Adopting parents are also generally aware of the feelings of some adult adoptees of resentment at the separation from their birth parents, of being used within an adult agenda, of their own painful feelings about the circumstances of their adoption always being subordinate to the joy they're supposed to enact about their adoptive family. 'Gotcha days' where adoptive parents celebrate the day their dreams of parenting came true can be a day that commemorates loss and pain for the child, who isn't supposed to have those feelings.

Surrogate kids will be expected to have those feelings even less because of the genetic component and because trauma isn't taken seriously in babies, adults will insist a tiny baby has no awareness of loss or being taken from their mother the same way that adults used to insist it was better for children not to see their parents at all while they were in hospital: they cried less and were less traumatised.

Surrogate kids will also have to deal with having been medically and legally and expensively created specifically via an adult they don't live with, to provide adults with the lifestyle and experience they wanted. That's a hell of a lot to live up to. All of this paints the child as a thing, an object, like a pony or a tv, not as a human who proportionally will spend a very small part of their life in the circumstances they have been created for, but a very large part of their lives living with and potentially overcoming the emotional issues their birth created, long after the bed time stories and playing in the park and bathtime bit is over. It won't be every child, it will inevitably be some children, is it ethical to create a child into that situation and potential distress? Adoption is making the best of an already hard situation in existence.

It's not child centred. Having a child is not a right. Being a parent is not a right.

As ever, Michelle, you eloquently put my thoughts into words.

That is exactly it, interesting too how you describe the starting point for adoption training sessions as a "loss on both sides".

Really if surrogacy is to be allowed (and I would never support commercial surrogacy in this country or any other) then rigorous adoption processes should be applied and be the very minimum of requirements, and they should be applied through therapy and sessions before implantation.

As this woman learnt, it was far too late once she was already pregnant.

nordicmodelnow.org/2020/01/29/i-was-an-altruistic-surrogate-and-am-now-against-all-surrogacy/

There is alot of stories out there about the impacts of all types of surrogacy, donor conception etc. Its only 40 years since the first 'test tube' baby was born. We dont know about the long term physical or emotional impacts. There's also studies which connect it to the big rise in youngsters with additional support needs.

Surrogate kids will also have to deal with having been medically and legally and expensively created specifically via an adult they don't live with, to provide adults with the lifestyle and experience they wanted. Beautifully put. This has always played on my mind when it comes to surrogacy.

@Michelleoftheresistance just wrote possibly the best post I've seen on MN, and I've been here under various guises since 2006.

I find it difficult to clarify my ideas on this topic. As someone who has experienced the desperation of infertility (secondary infertility in my case) I suspect it is easier to have a clear standpoint if you don't have 'skin in the game'. I never went down any kind of donor route, but I am aware of the desperation that might make someone do so.

On another note, back when I thought my fertility was still good I thought of being an egg donor for a family member (oh the irony!). I explored it a little but never got as far as offering. Fast forward 7-8 years and, although their fertility problems were resolved, they have now taken up a very religious lifestyle that is very different to my own. Egg donation would have been an utter disaster.

Yep I feel that this is one of the issues that most people just don't want to think critically about. We're at the bottom of a big hill trying to educate and inform people who are accustomed to a consumerist society, who see women's bodies as expendable and frankly, see babies as products. When you know about the consequences for the women and the babies, it quickly becomes fucking obvious that this is unconscionable.

A world away from adoption where as others have said, you have unavoidable suffering but making the best of a bad situation. This is deliberately creating trauma.

Everyone is allowed to change their mind Michelle but how you plan or safeguard for the future? You can't. I too have considered egg donation in the past and even surrogacy but this was before I was a mother myself and also after I considered sterilisation! (What can I say, I was in my 20s and clueless!)

Victoria Derbyshire has spoken about offering to be a surrogate herself

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11528228/Victoria-Derbyshire-I-offered-to-be-a-surrogate-mother-for-my-brother.html

And here in this programme clip, she is either being incredibly balanced in her presentation, removing all personal bias whilst she does her job, or she may have moved her own position on surrogacy. (I think the full programme is still on iPlayer, sorry if I'm wrong on that score.)

mobile.twitter.com/victorialive/status/1222470322303180800

Sorry that was for Maybe not Michelle.

I'm not keeping things straight on this thread am I? Apologies.

This IS for Michelle

Surrogate kids will also have to deal with having been medically and legally and expensively created specifically via an adult they don't live with, to provide adults with the lifestyle and experience they wanted

This^^ is exactly what I think Jessica was explaining too. That some kind of burden had been placed on her from birth, simply due to how she came to be here. The pressure growing up must have been immense. To somehow be perfect and fit the constructed family and meet all their expectations of what parenthood would be like. And never being able to explain or talk about her own experience of it and feelings as it would be so different from what was expected of her.

I'd love to meet her and talk to her about this. I hope she has had a lot of therapy to process it all.

I'd like to know a bit of backstory. Was she having issues with her mother (as many people do) and once it all came to a head and she ceased contact, she focused all the blame on the surrogacy? She does come across as very bitter about it.

what do we think of anonymous donor conception? I know a couple of people who have become pregnant via the use of anonymous donor sperm abroad. I believe the child will get some general health related info re their biological father, but that's it. I'm not sure how I feel about it (albeit it very different to surrogacy)

Really great thread. Can I just add that I find it concerning how mainstream it’s becoming for celebrities to do this. Eg, Robbie Williams and his wife and the Kardashian.

It seems like the gay couples Elton and that swimmer, have paved the way for heteros to do it to. Reasons for which, I don’t know. But I don’t like the trend.

@Ereshkigalangcleg -for example I think it’s fine generally if a woman wants to carry a child for someone else out of altruism as many do. I wouldn’t be bothered if i was raised by my biological parents but carried by someone else. Also who are you to tell someone they can’t do that- it’s their body

Also I don’t generally object to donor conception either.

I think there’s a lot of conservative views on mn (about marriage etc). The reality is happy families come in all different set ups.

Didn’t they go abroad precisely because they wanted to avoid the more stringent rules we have about donor conceived children being allowed to contact donors?

That was for @happyhuman123

what do we think of anonymous donor conception? I know a couple of people who have become pregnant via the use of anonymous donor sperm abroad. I believe the child will get some general health related info re their biological father, but that's it. I'm not sure how I feel about it (albeit it very different to surrogacy)

I think that even if you call someone an "anonymous donor" they are actually a mother or father. Changing the lable doesn't change the nature of the relation.

I did once read a description of people who use surrogates which fitted perfectly - apex capitalists.
It is not poor single women or poor gay couples who are using surrogates but people with a huge amount of money.
Kim Kardashian is a perfect example of this - she gave birth to two beautiful children. At this stage a lot of women think “Christ that was hard work, I’ll stop at two” but Kim is insanely rich and treated herself to the size of family she wanted. There’s 7 billion people on the planet but she needed more babies so she paid someone to have them for her.
This type of capitalism is then bizarrely cheered on by the left wing (the Guardian etc) as being empowering and the needs of self have to be celebrated at all cost. The left have all but forgotten completely about class analysis.
But inevitably this type of capitalism has its down sides. The women who are giving up their babies to someone far richer in exchange for money and the babies themselves will find their voice as humans shouldn’t be seen as a product to buy off the shelf just because “you’re worth it”.

It's not child centred. Having a child is not a right. Being a parent is not a right.

This, exactly.

@Michelleoftheresistance just wrote possibly the best post I've seen on MN, and I've been here under various guises since 2006.

Among so many brilliant posts.

Also who are you to tell someone they can't do that - it's their body

No one is saying they can't do it but we are each entitled to have an opinion and share our thoughts.

It's their body Cayrol and their baby, only a surrogate often considered herself an 'oven' and not a mother, despite being one legally until a parental order is approved, and if the 'social' mother is not a very good parent then what is the child left with? We don't allow the sale of organs, even if someone decides that this is what they wasn't to do with a kidney or a lung, so why would we allow it for a child that will one day be a fully fledged adult with rights of their own, am I wrong?

I think Goose is right, changing a label doesn't change the meaning of a relationship. An egg donor gives away her DNA, as does a sperm donor, and by doing so you participate in the creation of a human being (let's remember that) that you are biological related to.

Whilst we are on the sperm donor side of it too, I was looking up a clip of this woman speaking about her difficulties in life not knowing her father (she was raised by two women, one who gave birth to her), I found this:

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3138016/How-feel-sperm-donor-s-child-women-say-shattered-lives.html

It's an old article but the last quotes refer to the cruelty and denial of a child natural heritage. Will keep looking for the speech from this other 'donor conceived' woman, I remember it as it was quite powerful.

Wow Dr Joanna Rose in the clip in that article. Sounds like there was a cover up to deny her and her brother access to her files.

She thinks she knows who the sperm donor, her father isn't interested. I imagine as he was a "prolific" sperm donor he didn't want to allow her the chance to know more as he would be asked to acknowledge all the children he fathered.

I wonder how many people there are out there like Jessica and Dr Rose? I feel so sorry for them, I can't imagine what it's like to not know, and not because your were adopted and because of the circumstances around that, but because you specifically created to be given away.