Just when I was feeling things were starting to move in the right direction!

[HeavenHotel]

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/15127834/20-babies-year-surrogates-16-nannies-100-kids/amp/

My apologies for the Sun link but I can't find any other recent stories covering this. I also can't see a thread on here about it.

• JUST over a year ago, Kristina Ozturk was a mum-of-one. But now she's raising 20 babies, all of whom are her biological kids. The 23-year-oldd_, from Batumi, Georgia, and millionaire businessman husband Galip, 57, have paid £138,000 to surrogates for babies over the past year and two months.*

It genuinely makes me feel sick. Sick to the stomach. For those who can't see anything wrong with surrogacy maybe we should point them here.

So so so upset, those poor poor babies and those mothers. What is wrong with people?? It's like something out of a nightmare.

You might like this thread in it OP

To think there is something wrong - 11 kids at 23 and wants surrogates to grow the rest http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/4164145-To-think-there-is-something-wrong-11-kids-at-23-and-wants-surrogates-to-grow-the-rest

Wtaf. How was this allowed??

It’ll take a surrogate dying for something to change and for people to realise how absolutely vile and abusive surrogacy is.

Thanks ohholy that that was from February, think they have bought 10 more babies since then.

Some of those comments make me weep too. Seeing nothing wrong with it.

They are buying babies for a baby zoo and there doesn't seem to be any international laws stopping it.

Honestly sometimes you just feel the fight go out of you. I think I'm nearly there. :(

Been on theses boards many years changing my username almost monthly, but it's like trying to scoop the water out of sinking ship with a fork.

It’s bloody horrific and exceptionally disturbing. I just don’t understand how it can be allowed.

It’ll take a surrogate dying for something to change and for people to realise how absolutely vile and abusive surrogacy is.

I don't actually think that a death of a woman would have such a profound effect on attitudes.

It's the enabling of it that really gets to me, the surrogacy agency that are happy for them to keep buying babies. It really highlights that the babies and women are commodities. Makes me weep.

I don’t understand the cost of the nannies, unless I am reading it wrong they only get £359 ($500) a month. That is insanely low.

I haven't given any deep thought to surrogacy before if I am honest, but this sounds like a dystopian nightmare.

However, do people on here object to the whole idea of surrogacy in general ? Is there an ethical surrogacy in peoples minds or is this something that you would always view as exploitative ?

However, do people on here object to the whole idea of surrogacy in general ? Is there an ethical surrogacy in peoples minds or is this something that you would always view as exploitative ?

Yeah, I find surrogacy completely objectionable in all circumstances. I think that it exploits women and it also exploits babies, treating both as commodities - women as functional things to produce a desired product, babies as a consumer item. The idea that it's OK to create a baby with the absolute intention of separating it from its mother immediately after birth is shocking to me.

@ScreamingMeMe

Wtaf. How was this allowed??

Former USSR countries don't really do women's rights.

She must be mentally ill.

@VorpalSword the cost of living in Georgia is very low, from a quick Google its above the average salary and for a live in position too. Its the only thing that is not bad about this whole situation.

I feel so sorry for those poor children. Its the way it's spun as a good news story too.

Kristina gave birth at 17, and the husband is 34 years older. They live in Georgia so the nanny cost is different to the UK…

Yes this is sick. Babies as commodities and women’s bodies as commodities. Simple as that really

Next time we have a thread supporting fucking celebrities who are out buying babies, more each month it would seem, we need to point to these people.

How many more are doing this but not in the public eye?

Wouldn't surprise me if this is just scratching the surface of Baby Supermarkets.

I just can't believe the world isn't recoiling in horror at this.

The other thread notes the husband/genetic father's background and criminal history.

The wife/genetic mother is a lot younger than him and as a single mother I'm worried that she was vulnerable and preyed upon in some way perhaps.

I'd worry for her health as multiple egg retrieval could cause her problems now or later. The eldest daughter that she had when she met her husband I imagine will suffer from their lifestyle choices.

It's absolutely wrong to buy babies but nothing and no one will stop them. They have the money and it's not against the law.

I believe the nannies live on the floor below them, they have several floors.

@PleasantBirthday

It’ll take a surrogate dying for something to change and for people to realise how absolutely vile and abusive surrogacy is.

I don't actually think that a death of a woman would have such a profound effect on attitudes.

Surrogate mothers have died though, one died in the States very recently.

Here is the crowdfunder

https://www.gofundme.com/f/surrogacy-tragedy-and-how-to

Update!

Funds from this campaign, in addition to other fundraising efforts raised by friends and family, have successfully helped cover any short term financial concerns until the family can access bank accounts and receive her insurance benefits. Thank you to the surrogacy community, who have been so generous and encouraging in supporting this endeavor!

In May 2021, an amazing three-time surrogate lost her life in childbirth due to a rare, but serious delivery complication called amniotic fluid embolism (AFE). She leaves behind her children, mom, siblings, coworkers, a large, supportive extended family, and countless friends.

In her words, she had described her experience as a gestational carrier as “one of the most important, rewarding experiences” of her life. Her shining and vibrant personality, sense of humor, and willingness to help others facing infertility become parents was a focal point in her life over the last 10 years. She will always be remembered by our community, and by the families she helped create.

For now, the family asks that all details of her identity (and theirs) remain anonymous, and ask that their privacy be respected.

We will keep the campaign open for those who still wish to contribute.

Funds from this campaign will be held by an independent, licensed and bonded 3rd party escrow manager, Surrogacy Escrow Account Management LLC. SEAM has generously waived any costs or fees associated with their service, and has also been in contact with her family

Thanks ohholy that that was from February, think they have bought 10 more babies since then.

So they are really racking up the numbers. I wonder how many surrogate mothers are 'repeat suppliers' and are the same women who have already given them children and also how many of them were multiple births.

The whole thing is abhorrent. If he is caught and his finances are held they will be screwed.

I see this is in the other Georgia (not the US one) but will throw this in anyway because it is probably not just a US problem.

The problem being that many countries do not trace what happens to adopted children after adoption. There were some major stories here a few years ago featuring children, many of them adopted overseas who had been 're-homed' via craigslist ads to abusive environments.

So what happens when you have 20 or 30 adopted kids and very little legal supervision as to what happens to them? Hopefully they all have a good home and education. However, given the background of the husband and other factors, I can't help but think that this is at least a stunt, at worst, the beginnings of a business.

Surrogacy needs to be shut down. No one should be able to buy babies.

(PS: I have had freinds who were aupairs. $500 would be on top of room and board and I suspect the money would go a long way in Georgia...either one.)

Surrogacy needs to be illegal, agree.

I find some of this so grim and horrifying it's hard to actually look. We done to those working to raise awareness.

This makes me want to weep. Those poor babies.

My SIL is currently 7 months pregnant with a baby she is carrying a a surrogate; something she is doing entirely for the money and I don't doubt she will continue to pop one out every couple of years.

HeavenHotel progress on getting people to understand that surrogacy is a human rights issue for women and children has been slow. In some countries, investigative journalist's stories of awful conditions for these mothers and babies led to its prohibition or a tightening of the rules. In other countries, like the UK, there is a top-down push to make it easier and give those who are commissioning babies more rights.

Stories like this one, about the excesses of surrogacy, will in time change more people's minds towards banning the practice but unfortunately that won't happen before more women are exploited. Or in cases such as this, before more children suffer.

In various socialist countries, around 60 to a hundred years ago, there was this persistent idea that growing up in a group home with peers was preferable to being raised in families. The fact that children denied a one-to-one relationship* as babies developed a different type of attachment as adults was seen as favourable to group adhesion and loyalty to the state.

Since then child psychology has moved on. We now know a group upbringing is not preferable to a family. We know how vital a close relationship with a primary carer is for a child's healthy development.

In this case I have serious doubts that the emotional needs of the children can be met. It is in the nature of a job that people leave. It happens even where the relationship between employer and employee is good. In a standard set-up where a single parent or two parents together who raise a child employ a nanny, there remains a close relationship between parent and child, which helps the child cope with losing a nanny, but with this story I just don't see how that is possible.

And I had a friend who worked as a nanny and another who hired one long-term. The nannies in both cases had loving relationships with their charges, they really were wonderful women. But the relationship the children had with their parents was the more important one. The closest one.

You cannot be emotionally available and present for 20 babies equally. There are simply not enough hours in the day.

So how can each baby form that vital connection with their parent(s)?

(*just wanted to clarify regarding the "one-to-one relationship" - obviously twins or triplets exist, as well as very close birth orders. But even in those cases the babies develop near-as-one-to-one relationships as possible unlike what's going on here.)

@Actuallyabitgreynow

This makes me want to weep. Those poor babies.

My SIL is currently 7 months pregnant with a baby she is carrying a a surrogate; something she is doing entirely for the money and I don't doubt she will continue to pop one out every couple of years.

This is why so called altruistic surrogacy in the U.K. doesn't exist. She can't be doing it for money if her out of pocket expenses are being covered. There would be no profit at the end.

It's not a fast buck by any means but when your value is in your fertility and your skills in your reproductive system then it's a good option for women who want some cash and to be seen as 'helping' infertile couples.

Can I ask if she is working and taking mat leave and if the couple are a same-sex are in the U.K.? If you know, she may not have said too much about it.