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.

Oh sorry I cross posted there.

@TabbyTurmoil

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.

A member of my extended family was approved for adoption on a Thursday and got a call on Friday to say a newborn would be surrendered on Monday (30+ years ago, an unwed mother ) and they were matched. The (adpotive) mother sometimes jokes she still isn't over the shock.

Speaking of adoption I just saw this.

www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2020/05/unbelievable-youtube-couple-blasted-for-returning-adopted-chinese-son-with-autism.html

There are many, many differences between surrogacy and adoption in my view but this little boy reminds me of the Baby Gammy story.

Rejected, 're-homed', like a dog.

I don't buy the tears in the video for a moment and I worry for the children who were told they had a new brother who has now disappeared.

@OhHolyJesus Louise Brown is 41 and I don’t believe there was a donor involved in her conception. The IVF industry certainly warrants discussion on this board but I don’t think Louise (or another IVF child) would have any of the same issues as a baby born to a surrogate.

Not suggesting there would be theholly - I mention for I think this is where this all started, with 'gestational carriers' at least, with fertilising an egg outside of the body.

Louise is related to her parents so she would not be an example of anything to do with emotional issues, just how she was created.

Thank you for the correction also.

But that stuff that @OhHolyJesus posted isn't about adverse effects of not being specifically with the birth mother in the weeks after birth, it seems to be about the effects of being lied to about where you came from?

This thread seemed to be discussing how it can affect a baby to get all of their care from someone who is not their birth mother and I was asking if there was specific research on this (presumably you are talking along the lines of attachment issues or something?)

My friend had her baby by donor egg. Her son is 8 now and knows (as much as he can understand) that there was someone else involved in his conception, and has always known. Obviously I don't know if this child will have some sort of crisis when older, but for now, he is a very loved, happy and appears to be well adjusted child, even though he is not blood related to his mum?

Just getting on a work call Joe will dig out the link posted by someone else in another thread a bit later.

Your friend's boy might be one who doesn't suffer, some do some don't. There's no way of predicting it as there are no studies to give an indication of the early signs.

He may find sibling through DNA tests in the future and find he has many relatives out there, this might be a good thing for him. Who knows? I also have a friend who had a daughter with an egg from someone.

I don't think it's a sign of being a good or bad parent by the way, but there's no doubt that some children are adversely affected by conception this way and by the circumstances of their births, as per my other post.

Your friend gave birth to her son so she is the legal and birth mother, and he would bond with her as a new born as most babies would. He grew in her body, he knew he before he was born.

Just getting on a work call Joe will dig out the link posted by someone else in another thread a bit later.

Thanks 👍

Thank you for this thread, it is fascinating and helping me to unlock why I feel so uncomfortable about the idea of surrogacy. I have an acquaintance who is hay and he and his husband used an American surrogate. He says they are just like any other couple despoiling with a newborn. But like a pp said, how can that be? He has no idea of the experiences mothers and newborns have. For me so much of that experience was bound up in the physical side of it, it was a very visceral, physical thing. I felt like I had become an animal. I made animal noises during labour. As well as breastfeeding my kids I used to nuzzle them like a cat would, it was involuntary, I couldn’t control it. I had some perceptual disturbances like hearing crying etc and I even hallucinated a few times. I’d also wake up in the middle of the night and think I’d lost the baby and be looking for him under the duvet. When he was in the cot next to the bed. And that was my experience of becoming a parent. I don't know how anyone becoming a parent through surrogacy can compare it.

Sorry for typos

Gay not hay

No idea about despoiling

@JoeExoticsEyebrowRing

The study was posted on this thread by PlanDeRaccordement (who I think works for COTS?!)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3908979-To-feel-sorry-for-these-babies

"“We examined a variety of main outcomes for the surrogate mothers, children and intended mothers, including obstetric outcome, relationship between surrogate mother and intended couple, surrogate's experiences after relinquishing the child, preterm birth, low birthweight, birth defects, perinatal mortality, child psychological development, parent–child relationship, and disclosure to the child.

The search returned 1795 articles of which 55 met the inclusion criteria

At the age of 10 years there were no major psychological differences between children born after surrogacy and children born after other types of assisted reproductive technology (ART) or after natural conception. “

This is the Study:

Surrogacy: outcomes for surrogate mothers, children and the resulting families—a systematic review
Viveca Söderström-Anttila, Ulla-Britt Wennerholm, Anne Loft, Anja Pinborg, Kristiina Aittomäki, Liv Bente Romundstad, Christina Bergh
Human Reproduction Update, Volume 22, Issue 2, March/April 2016, Pages 260–276, doi.org/10.1093/humupd/dmv046

BreastedBoobily pointed out:

there were only five studies which reported on the health outcomes for surrogate mothers. Given the prevalence of surrogacy this isn't exactly a wealth of evidence.

even in the evidence they accept in the study, a fair amount of it is classed as 'low quality' and some of it is 'very low quality', so I don't think it's correct to say that the comments regarding the lack of quality is related to the studies that were excluded. The disclaimer is completely relevant to the results.

the evidence related to the psychological impact on the surrogate mothers is 'sparse' and comprises 'non-representative samples, lack of control groups, and ambiguous comparisons with test norms'. Add to that the lack of considerations for cross border surrogacy where financial motives are likely to be more prevalent than purely altruistic surrogacy (which can change outcomes) and it's evident there isn't a clear picture at all.

the strength of the paper is noted as being the 'comprehensive appraisal of the literature' but the weakness is the 'lack of high quality studies'. You can review the available studies as much and as accurately as you want but the accuracy of the paper is only going to be as accurate as its source material, which is recognised as being weak.

The thread is interesting and worth a read but it's long and I posted a few media articles on the Ukraine story here and how it's also happening in Georgia.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3910223-Babies-stranded-in-Ukraine?pg=8

I stopped reading this awful column a long time ago. Selfish, whiny and boring, to say nothing of the many ethical issues around surrogacy. I hope very much that now she has finally obtained a baby, the column will be replaced with something more interesting.

I just don't understand how adoption can be going in one direction (increased recognition that there's inevitably going to be trauma for the child, contact allowed later on if the child wants it, a general sense that this is not a problem free option) and surrogacy in entirely the opposite direction (wonderful for those who commissioned the child, no discussion at all about what the impact on the child might be, birth mother either disappeared or framed as delighted with the whole thing). How can anyone believe both types of framing at once?

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.

This.

The child is a 'thing'. Mindless, emotionless, a blank slate, the prize, the purchased item, only requiring competent care that can be provided by any adult, doesn't matter which. Because if you start down the line of the child is a person, being removed instantly without consent or necessity from the one person they are bonded to in order that the commissioning parents get their joy and delight of parenting experience, or acknowledge that babies are born with attachments programmed in and that rupturing that attachment has a price, it starts to look very grim very fast.

I dislike these columns too. Sophie’s strong bias, while perhaps understandable, was dominant. As far as I’m aware there have been no “balancing” stories on surrogacy in The Times.

Sad but unsurprising that there has been so little research, particularly on the women donating eggs or going through pregnancy and birth.

This is an extract from a blog from a US surrogacy site, “Donor Concierge” about the couple.

“Their roadblocks were everything from unsucessful donor egg cycles in Russia and having to find a new donor in the US, to being matched with a surrogate candidate who already had 6 children (a candidate who would never have been presented to a Donor Concierge client). These were just some of the issues Sophie and ‘Mr. B’ experienced, leaving them with a huge financial deficit, and a general distaste for the fertility industry here in the US”

Reminded me that the negative content in the columns was solely about Sophie and her H, eg costs, poor service from the private companies, failures etc. Nothing showed much consideration for others, or the ethics of what they chose to do.

My main thought when reading the latest column was that I hope that Rebecca makes a fast and full recovery from the pregnancy and birth and has no lasting problems.

Those were in my initial thoughts too Dozer

I thought of the baby being taken away from the only home she has known and of a Rebecca who I hope heals well and easy and goes back to her family with her expectations being fulfilled.

I also thought of how their relationship might continue as Sophie and husband go into newborn fog and whether Rebecca would ever hear from them again.

I also wondered how much she was paid...

Wasn’t there a survey about UK surrogate women and costs, think that even here where the law has thus far sought to avoid commercial egg sale and surrogacy the average “costs” were something like £18k. Will check that.

Article on Uni of Kent survey of 177 couples in 2018

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/01/couples-paying-60000-surrogates-despite-uk-system-reasonable/amp/

That's the one Dozer the Telegraph reported "reasonable expenses" of up to £60k.

It seems that judges don't mind commissioning parents (and lets face it they are paying and commissioning a service so I call them as such) breaking the law as long as the baby goes to a good home and having money helps to solidify that idea.

My pregnancy didn't cost £600 let alone £60k. The Law Commission break down areas or categories of what is a "reasonable expense" but anyone can play fast and loose with that.

What's the point in even having laws if they'll sign off £60K?
That would be a massive inducement for a lot of people.
I can't find it now as I'm on my phone but within the consultation research they quote they mention that whilst some people carefully enumerated every expense to present to the judge others just gave the total figure labelled "expenses".
Just like our politicians used to do.
Shocking arrogance at knowing the law doesn't apply to them and not even making an effort to enter into the spirit of it.

To give an opposite view, I have never been a surrogate and before I had my own children I could never have imagined it. However, my closest friend of 20 years went through a heartbreaking journey of miscarriages, ivf etc and I did offer that if she couldn’t have her own child then I would carry one for her because I just knew the total love I had for my children, and wanted her to have that too.

I also knew we would always be close, I would be “part of the story”, I knew she would be an amazing mum.

It didn’t come to this as she successfully carried her own twin girls but I would have done this for her, in the knowledge that that baby would have been so loved by her family.

Sure, there are some women willing to donate eggs and/or gestate and give birth to a baby for a friend or family member.

Personally I would never do either, for anyone, due to the health risks, and associated risks for me and my family, and (with egg donation or “traditional” surrogacy) the potential future feelings of the DC.

Here is an old BBC Podcast from 2014, which shows how much surrogacy has changed as law reform is now in full swing.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b04dqrt1

One surrogate mother Amanda, didn't want her own kids at all, used her egg and chose a gay couple, based on looks and education with height being key as they are "more successful"! She chose two men as wouldn't have a problem with another woman. Having had two kids for that couple, then third for different couple was child was downs so foetus was aborted.

Another surrogate mother, Sarah ended up working at COTS. She speaks about the lack of background checks for members applying to be members/commissioning parents and regulation in general and an Indian couple who talk about the money and payment (they were so broke through the process they live in his father's attic with two kids), the wife refers to the surrogate mother as a "womb carrier".

An interesting objective piece from the BBC which I'm not sure we would see now...worth 27 mins of listening.

Don’t think legal changes are “in full swing”? There’s been some consultation, but has govt announced any intent to change the current regulations?