Sophie Beresiner - The Times - Baby Born from Surrogate Mother

[OhHolyJesus]

Sophie writes about the birth of the baby girl she had through surrogacy. I've been reading her column as my interest in surrogacy has grown and whilst the paper gave space to Rebecca's story, the surrogate mother, I want to remember the women who went before her, both in terms of egg donors and pregnancy attempts. I hope they are all well and not suffering in any way, wherever they are.

I thought this an odd comment:

"I, for some mad reason, kick into vanity mode and set about styling my hair and worrying that I didn’t choose the right outfit. It was difficult because it had some strict requirements: it had to be comfortable, be openable at the front for skin-to-skin contact, be cheap in case it gets birth-goo on it, be amazing because I need to make a good very first impression. The best first impression there ever was. No pressure."

And this, from Rebecca:

"Sophie makes me sound like a perfect angel in the column, which I’m really not; I’m just normal. And I’m so happy I could give her story a happy ending. I’m not sure I’m ready to use the word proud out loud yet, but I’m working on it."

I wonder at Rebecca's motivation, underneath all the usual "I want to help" stuff.

At a time of a global pandemic and immense pressure on the NHS, including maternity services, a room was made available for Sophie to stay with the baby overnight, away from Rebecca.

Sophie clearly adores Rebecca so I wonder how much she paid her and whether, as the newborn cloud descends whether they will stay in touch and whether Sophie will be hiring Rebecca again for her reproductive services in the future.

I’m not subscribed to the Times, but I thought Sophie was planning to employ a US surrogate as she didn’t like UK surrogacy law?

I’ve found some of the columns difficult reading and stopped looking. I appreciate that Sophie has had a difficult time - she had cancer - but the writing was nauseatingly me me me.

I’m not surprised by the outfit comments. What things look like matter to Sophie.

From memory Cat - and like Al1 I struggled to read all the columns in full - there were Russian women involved in previous attempts prior to finding Rebecca in the UK.

I have sympathy for the road that Sophie has to travel before this with the cancer and her recovery, but still everything about this is wrong.

The little girl is not legally hers, not related to her and whilst that doesn't impact her parenting ability it reads like a present she thinks she deserves rather than a human life that has been taken from her mother, both in terms of birth and currently legal mother, Rebecca.

I really hope they stay in touch and build a life long friendship and Rebecca finds whatever it is she was looking for. I wish I could hear more from her. I hope the little girl knows how she came to be and doesn't suffer as other donor conceived children have.

It was very uncomfortable reading for me.
I seem to remember that she went through a couple of potential surrogates in the US and turned pretty nasty on them when it became clear that they weren’t ideally suited to being her womb for rent- one because of health issues and the other because her marriage was breaking down and she didn’t disclose it immediately. One column sticks in my memory when the poor potential surrogate had to sleep in a chair because the hotel room provided was so grotty with a dirty bed. Awful, awful industry.
I thought it strange to allow two extra observers at the birth, with all the risks that entails at the moment, just so they could be there to take the baby at the earliest possible moment.

Having read the whole series, quite aside from my distaste for surrogacy, I don't think Sophie came out of it well. I also found the treatment of the two potential US surrogates was very unpleasant. I hope for the baby's sake that parenthood works out for Sophie, but I don't approve of a system which legitimates this sort of thing.

Agree with PPs. I am sorry that Sophie has been through the trauma of cancer and infertility, but that doesn't excuse her selfishness. It doesn't seem to have occurred to her that it is not in any baby's interests to be taken from its birth mother, unless there is a compelling need to do so, to protect mother or baby.

I suspect her daughter will struggle to deal with this when she is old enough to understand what has happened to her. It's hard enough for adopted children to understand removal from birth parents, even though, in their case, there are always good reasons. For Sophie's daughter, there is no reason, except that Sophie and her husband put their emotional needs before the needs of their child.

I notice that there are very few comments on Sophie's column, and they are always positive. I suspect many readers share our discomfort, but either feel unable to say so, because of the history of cancer, or are being censored by The Times.

@MrsNoah2020 Twice I left comments that were not positive but were perfectly polite and got completely jumped on by the other commenters. There’s a real fan club thing going on. I just stopped reading in the end because her whole attitude made me uncomfortable.

I also left a negative (but fair) comment once and was pounced on by the cheerleaders. Apparently you can’t criticise the behaviour of a cancer survivor .

I didn't even bother posting a comment, I'm sure I would have the cheerleaders baying for me.

I have no faith at all the any UK media would cover a surrogacy story fairly either. I've seen this on the babies in the Kiev Hotel have barely mentioned the surrogate mothers, I've seen many stories on it now and it's all about the commissioning parents not being able to get to the baby due to the pesky travel bans.

Sophie stayed in the hospital overnight on a separate room to Rebecca - the NHS is ever so accommodating during a global pandemic. Every whim has been catered to, even having 2 extra people on the room when one birthing partner is usual and strictly applied for all other births during Covid. She really did get her money's worth.

The poor, abandoned baby. She didn’t get to be held by her mother or to breast feed. I am actually shocked at how the baby and her right to be with the one person she needs more than any other in the world is ignored, air brushed away. Every account I read of new born babies separated from their mothers says the same thing that they scream and scream and nothing can passify them. The purchasing parents always refer to this as colic or some other reason, but the real reason is that the baby is hugely traumatised by being denied their mother.

I thought it very telling in the adulating comments below the article that not a single one of them mentioned the baby’s point of view. All the comments were gushing about Sophie’s journey and Sophie’s prize and Sophie’s present.

A baby is a human being. Human beings shouldn’t be sold.

I was shocked by Rebecca's comments too. How will this baby feel when she grows up and reads that her mother wasn't sad to lose her and happily went home to her wanted children, leaving the one she didn't want with Sophie?

To be clear, I'm not shocked by Rebecca feeling that way (if she really does) - I'm shocked about the lack of regard for how her daughter will feel when she is old enough to read the article.

Another woman who has survived cancer and thinks that entitles her to a baby.

She and her partner have spent £17k on IVF already but has set up a go fund me to find the surrogacy. He has a daughter from a previous relationship and she knows if the cancer comes back and she dies it done at matter as her partner would be a good dad.

So she wants to buy a baby, using another woman's body to grow and have the baby and then take the baby from the mother and also might be leaving the baby with a single parent.

She has found a 'surrogate' but clearly it's not altruistic as she needs the £15k first.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/cancer-survivor-desperate-one-last-22093452

I can understand how someone in Sophie's position doesn't understand what they are really doing. When you haven't been there, you don't know. When DC1 was born, I expected him to be totally helpless and dependent. What I wasn't prepared for was how much he needed me, not his father, not his loving grandparents, just me. I'm not sure anything can bring that home until you've been there. Until that point I expect I saw surrogacy as a lovely act of self sacrifice.

It really hit me when we were watching Bake Off a few years ago and one of the bakers made a cake about taking his surrogate baby home. It was plainly an overwhelmingly happy memory for him but I could only think about that poor uncomprehending baby. It took me a lot of soul searching (worried about being homophobic) to accept that I just can't agree with a situation where a baby is conceived with the intention of being removed from the birth mother.

I've found the entire series very uncomfortable to read but I made myself read it to understand more about the process and to see the other pov about surrogacy. I found it fascinating that there was such a disconnect between how the author thought they were presenting the situation and how they appeared.
Any comments, even the most mild, were met with a very emotional and angry response from commenters who would only countenance completely supportive statements.
I do understand why they were protective of Sophie. I don't understand why that solicitation didn't extend to the surrogates or the baby.

I notice that there are very few comments on Sophie's column, and they are always positive. I suspect many readers share our discomfort, but either feel unable to say so, because of the history of cancer, or are being censored by The Times.

I'm a subscriber but I don't read it because I don't want to feel cross, there are probably others like me.

Uncomfortable for me too. I have two donor conceived children (donor sperm) so this feels close to home. I might well have used a surrogate if I had had to back then. Now I’m not so sure - partly because of my own experience as a mother and partly because of what I’ve read in this board.

I do however cut Sophie some slack for her worrying about her looks. We all worry about stupid things before parenthood. I got my nails done and then found I had to have the varnish removed in hospital. We’ve all got friends who were dolled up to the nines for the first pic post-baby - Duchess of Cambridge style. I think it’s ok. It’s a long journey and we all have a lot to learn on the way.

I have two gay friends who have twins by surrogate. I am a little uneasy because it’s a commercial arrangement although US-based and I know this woman is married with children and relatively well off so not a Ukrainian baby far situation.

My friend - very much an older parent - also had some frankly daft ideas about what he and his partner were going to do career-wise in the months after the babies were born. It made me very uneasy because obviously women don’t have that option - their only choice is to sit at home and recover and give care. And that’s by design because that’s what the baby needs. I don’t necessarily think it must be the mother’s care but it definitely needs intense care from a primary caregiver. And because of the surrogate route, my friends had the physical option to opt out of that.

I hope that they didn’t and that reality hit them with a thud, as it tends to when you have a newborn, and they sat at home and did the nurturing. I am hoping that, as above, they just didn’t know and that they were doing what many soon-to-be parents do which is to totally underestimate the change that will hit their lives when a baby arrives. I don’t actually know how it went because I don’t want to quiz them and they live abroad - a very long way from here - so we only see each other when they come over.

I do however cut Sophie some slack for her worrying about her looks. We all worry about stupid things before parenthood. I got my nails done and then found I had to have the varnish removed in hospital. We’ve all got friends who were dolled up to the nines for the first pic post-baby - Duchess of Cambridge style. I think it’s ok. It’s a long journey and we all have a lot to learn on the way

Agree with that. I had my hair cut and nails done before my DF's funeral. I was devastated at his death, but it was important to me to look smart, as part of honouring him. Can understand Sophie feeling the same about an occasion that is so important to her. La Bella Figura can be a mark of respect.

I am hoping that, as above, they just didn’t know and that they were doing what many soon-to-be parents do which is to totally underestimate the change that will hit their lives when a baby arrives.

I can't imagine being handed a newborn without going through a pregnancy (including living with a pregnant partner and seeing what that entails day to day). Adoptive parents would afaik very rarely be in charge of a brand new baby as their first parenting experience.

DC1 was a really intense baby (probably due to traumatic birth), and if I hadn't had the pregnancy bonding and hormones on my side I can't imagine how hard it would have been.

People often compare adoption and surrogacy, but they aren’t comparable- it’s not often spoken about but it is acknowledged that is so damaging to remove a child from their birth mother that is only ever done in the most extreme circumstances, and that child (and future adoptive parents) will have access to therapists and support when needed.

Surrogacy meanwhile is subverted under ‘the kindest gift of all’ trope, the question is why? Why is it ok to plan to remove a child from its mother if cash changes hands?

Pre childbirth I supported surrogacy, but carrying and birthing and raising my own children has changed my mind, I know it’s verboten to speak of this but carrying and birthing a child is a wholly unique experience and the love you feel for that child is unique and if you haven’t experienced that then you cannot comprehend what you are asking women and their babies to give up.

Not to detract from those of you whose feelings on surrogacy have been changed by motherhood, but I am childless and still feel very strongly that surrogacy is wrong. I don't think you need to have been a mother yourself to see the harm in ripping a newborn from the woman who has carried the pregnancy (regardless of whose egg it was), purely to satisfy the emotional needs of adults. Even if the surrogate is altruistic and 100% happy, the baby's welfare should be paramount.

Fair point MrsNoah2020

Also your comment Even if the surrogate is altruistic and 100% happy, the baby's welfare should be paramount this really is the heart of the matter isn’t it.

Is there evidence to suggest that babies who were born from surrogacy and were taken from the birth mother right away suffer adverse effects in later life? I know that there is plenty of evidence that children who don't get their basic needs met from the very start, including cuddles etc, can be affected forever, but if it is someone else meeting the childs needs and not the birth mother, does that make a tangible difference?

Genuine question by the way, I'm quite interested in this!

Yes - there’s been plenty of research about the 4th trimester and it’s importance to healthy development.

@JoeExoticsEyebrowRing

I can recommend reading a bit about Jessica Kern.

thembeforeus.com/jessica-kern/

People often dismiss personal, anecdotal stories in favour of scientific studies but as there are no records kept on surrogacy pregnancies or births the children are not tracked and very little is known about them.

(I find their stories no less powerful, in fact more so, as this is about emotional and mental impact/pain which cannot be easily quantified by a study.)

A study in a thread about surrogacy has information showing up until around aged 10 I think it was, and the study itself said it wasn't conclusive.

Louise Brown, the first "test tube baby" will be 35 this year so donor conceived children and children born from surrogacy are now old enough to speak for themselves.

...another donor conceived child is Millie Fontana who didn't know her father and here she speaks of how this affected her.

.be

Can you link to some research about evidence of not being with the birth mother during the 4th trimester having a long term adverse effect on the baby? I have looked it up and a lot of 4th trimester stuff is actually about maternal health?