NCT and surrogacy - two men tell us about the birth they wanted

[OhHolyJesus]

The National Childbirth Trust, the place that is often your first introduction to a group where you make friends with other mothers-to-be, the place that tells you about bonding with your baby in the womb, here tells us how two men used a woman's body and how it was for them.

It's thankfully brief, and their 'special friend' gets a mention as their 'surrogate' but sadly not as the 'surrogate mother'.

www.nct.org.uk/labour-birth/dads-and-partners/your-experiences-having-baby-through-surrogacy

Fortunately I had NHS antenatal classes, where it was about the woman, not both parents. I shall be warnings others off the NCT.

It should be heavily weighted to the mother though.
Like pregnancy, childbirth and the post partum period is.

NCT supports mums and dads in the 1000 days. All mums and dads. The antenatal classes encourage both to attend or single mums or 2 mums or 2 dad's. The Postnatal classes accept only mums and their babies. Most practitioners do a fantastic job supporting parents and one of the reasons is because the want to support other women.

The chances of a couple having a surrogate on an individual course are very very slim. I suppose if a woman said she didn't want to attend because there was a couple using a surrogate on a course she would get a refund. I am pretty sure that's never happened....so far.

Let's not pretend any other antenatal class provider turns away parents using surrogates.

@Stripesnomore

Fortunately I had NHS antenatal classes, where it was about the woman, not both parents. I shall be warnings others off the NCT.

The NHS classes usually cover birth only, maybe breastfeeding if you are lucky, so would be less lucky.

Other antenatal class providers are available...dont know any that turn away parents using surrogates if they also cover looking after the baby.

Should say less relevant not lucky.

All of this seems topsyturvy.

Why would antenatal be welcoming parents rather than mothers and the birth supporter? Loads of women at my NHS antenatal classes had a mother or friend or daughter as the supporter.

Postnatal classes with the NHS on the other hand were about the person caring for the child, so that was a mixture of mums with babies, dads with babies and grandparents with babies.

Either way, the notion of men turning up to antenatal classes without the pregnant woman is full on hand maid’s tale.

Maybe we should be glad the NCT exists to funnel these people off into.

Either way, the notion of men turning up to antenatal classes without the pregnant woman is full on hand maid’s tale.

There's also the irony of two men being the center of parenting while the two women who have done the bulk of the emotional and physical labor have been pushed to the shadows: 1. the surrogate mother 2. the egg donor mother. Bits and parts of women used to serve men. Very Handmaid's Tale.

a couple using a surrogate

parents using surrogates

Repeated use of the words "using a surrogate" sum up why I am opposed to surrogacy. Lots of reasons actually but "using" pretty much covers it, along with erasure of the word "mother".

I dont oppose surrogacy. But I find the idea of two men at an NCT meeting talking about their birth plan just bizarre. I am sure most people would be thinking WTF.

I think it's sad to purposely create a situation denying a child a mother. Having a mother is one of life's most incredible relationships. Not always perfect, not without trials and difficulties, but a relationship like no other.

Of course children can be born and not have a mother.
It happens by accident, like a mother dying, or from terrible neglect, and the child is removed, and that is always heartbreaking for the child.
But somehow society thinks it is ethically acceptable to indulge people's desire to have a baby without a mother involved (apart from gestating and birthing it).

And this couple in the article are very cross that people innocently question where the child's mother is...the ego, the selfishness.

I feel similar to American adoption stories where babies are adopted from poor people, because God gave them a baby, instead of funding and helping the birth mother to be able to keep her baby.

Are these two men not entitled to be parents?

Fucking hell

Our wokescolder won’t return to justify such ridiculous nonsense though, they never do

And as for the idea that it’s homophobic to understand that two men by themselves cannot have a baby. Well I do wonder about some people’s critical faculties

Are these two men not entitled to be parents?

No they are not, because no one is.

To the earlier point if the surrogate mother not needing to go to NCT classes as she will already have her own children. That's likely, however legal proposals will mean this isn't a requirement and there is an increase in private surrogacy arrangements since the birth of Facebook. (Mostly young Nigerian childless women as far as I can tell, and the laws in Kenya are being revisited for good reason I assume).

With these two men I hope their "special friend" already has children and they paid for her expenses as is legal, and no more as that would be paying for a service. Gifts and holidays are permitted but then it's a grey area as to whether it is transactional and that would be human trafficking...

I also hope that if there was another woman involved, the woman who provided the egg for the pregnancy (assuming it was a different woman so her own children are not related to Lucille) then I hope she is ok and didn't suffer from OHSS or any subsequent health issues.

Perhaps if the NCT are widening their scope to include support for surrogacy they should include the women who donate their eggs. Many of those women are childless and don't need support through childbirth classes but could receive therapy to come to terms with what they have given away. Perhaps NCT could advocate for long-term peer-reviewed research into OHSS and the after effects and maybe even see if IVF has constructions to reproductive cancers or early menopause?

If the NCT do what Stonewall did and widen their remit of services so to stay relevant and receive funding then we can expect more of this.

'Fertility Equality' is the next human rights movement.

Finding some of these comments very harsh. The article was written to show their perspective rather than the surrogate mother. So yes it will seem centred on them. They’re getting involved in the birth of their child - what is actually wrong with that? They’re going to be parents - are they not entitled to the information any other parent has and to make friends?

It's deliberately erasing the reality of what is happening, which is that, just as in prostitution, a woman's body has been commodified for use by men. In pregnancy and birth, only one person matters, and that is the mother. She is the one whose body is changed by pregnancy, who goes through the pain of childbirth, who risks physical injury and psychological distress. But we have to pretend that none of this matters and that the two men are the real parents - to the extend that they are able to attend antenatal classes that can have almost no possible relevance for them. It's a form of gaslighting, in exactly the same way as being forced to pretend that male sexual abusers are really women is a form of gaslighting.

I’m uncomfortable with the use of ‘our birth plan’ because birth plans are supposed to be about what women are comfortable with happening to their body during a vulnerable time, their preferences and what they are willing to consent to or not, usually to ensure the experience isn’t traumatic to them or they have procedures done to their bodies that carry risks they are not happy with.

I’m hoping it’s just clumsy wording and they mean birth plan in the sense of who will be there if it’s a theatre birth, whether they are going to be the woman’s birth partners or wait nearby, the time after the birth.

I would really really hope they respect that, for the duration of labour and birth at least, it is solely the woman going through that process and the priority is her comfort.

Have the NCT considered that pregnancy is a time when women can have quite heightened emotions, that surrogacy is a contraversial and those who don't agree with it can have really strong feelings about a baby being taken from its mother as soon as it's born. A situation that in fact most humans instinctively feel is wrong when it happens on a nature program. And being confronted with this while hormones are all over the place could be pretty distressing.

I'm guessing women are supposed to a. Not be political b. Not have opinions about surrogacy c. Suppress any feelings about it and d. Be kind!

I wonder if they even considered that? By the tone of the article I'm thinking not.

It's shit tbh.

www.nct.org.uk/courses-workshops/nct-antenatal-course?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyLbszKX_7AIVAuDtCh0RFgmHEAAYAiAAEgIzDfD_BwE

3/4 of the course is not relevant.

I just think it's utterly tone deaf for them to go. And mind boggling the NCT are bang up for this and more of it.

As others say, maybe they are anticipating change to law so that people can buy babies more easily in the UK.

That would make sense but they probably need to change not only the course name but also their own name.

Regarding skin to skin contact, all part of their birth plan of course, who will hold the baby first.
I went to a midwifery open day with DD earlier this year (before Covid obv).
We went to some sample lectures.
One was about the advantages of skin to skin and we were shown a film used for childbirth education in India. The baby, placed on the mother's abdomen crawled up to find the breast and attach to the nipple. The tutor talked about bonding, the advantages of early breast feeding, how the hormones and the kicking of the baby help stimulate uterine contraction and reduce bleeding.
I couldn't resist it. I asked what was the point of men stripping off for skin to skin.

NONE. She confirmed it. Just men getting in on the act as usual.

Poor baby and poor mother, deprived of an essential physiological process.

I wonder how they cover the fourth stage of labour during classes which include men who are paying to deprive baby and mother of this. Must be so non inclusive and potentially triggering.

@FannyCann

Regarding skin to skin contact, all part of their birth plan of course, who will hold the baby first. I went to a midwifery open day with DD earlier this year (before Covid obv). We went to some sample lectures. One was about the advantages of skin to skin and we were shown a film used for childbirth education in India. The baby, placed on the mother's abdomen crawled up to find the breast and attach to the nipple. The tutor talked about bonding, the advantages of early breast feeding, how the hormones and the kicking of the baby help stimulate uterine contraction and reduce bleeding. I couldn't resist it. I asked what was the point of men stripping off for skin to skin.

NONE. She confirmed it. Just men getting in on the act as usual.

Skin to skin should always be with the mother who has given birth in an ideal world but if it not possible then dad doing it has some advantages over no one doing it. Will still help with heat regulation, calming, regulation of breathing. Nothing like the advantages of the mother who has given birth doing it though.

@NiceGerbil

Have the NCT considered that pregnancy is a time when women can have quite heightened emotions, that surrogacy is a contraversial and those who don't agree with it can have really strong feelings about a baby being taken from its mother as soon as it's born. A situation that in fact most humans instinctively feel is wrong when it happens on a nature program. And being confronted with this while hormones are all over the place could be pretty distressing.

I'm guessing women are supposed to a. Not be political b. Not have opinions about surrogacy c. Suppress any feelings about it and d. Be kind!

I wonder if they even considered that? By the tone of the article I'm thinking not.

It's shit tbh.

I think it would be great if women challenged the NCT on this. As I have read a lot on here, it's the challenge that makes people step back and question the direction they are heading in.

@MothsAreSadButterflies

I think it's sad to purposely create a situation denying a child a mother. Having a mother is one of life's most incredible relationships. Not always perfect, not without trials and difficulties, but a relationship like no other.

Of course children can be born and not have a mother.
It happens by accident, like a mother dying, or from terrible neglect, and the child is removed, and that is always heartbreaking for the child.
But somehow society thinks it is ethically acceptable to indulge people's desire to have a baby without a mother involved (apart from gestating and birthing it).

And this couple in the article are very cross that people innocently question where the child's mother is...the ego, the selfishness.

I feel similar to American adoption stories where babies are adopted from poor people, because God gave them a baby, instead of funding and helping the birth mother to be able to keep her baby.

Yes!

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They’re getting involved in the birth of their child - what is actually wrong with that?

I mean, quite a lot based on this account? They had a "birth plan" - but was the wellbeing and best interest of the woman they were, in their own words, "using", considered in their "birth plan"?

That would be the person who actually went through the birth, and took on the associated pain and suffering, and the physical and emotional (and indeed financial) risks and damage. Where the hell do they get off making a plan for how another person should undergo physical torture?