Celebrity surrogacy - find this a bit heartbreaking

[Nowyouwillfeel]

Irish ‘celebrity’ couple with a new baby via surrogacy. The surrogate was one of the couples sister. They have put up pictures and stories all delighted and excited but I just see raw emotion on the mothers face in the second picture and in their stories the baby is clearly rooting for her mothers breast. I have a two month old who always does this and honestly it’s breaking my heart seeing the baby search like that while the dad doesn’t even notice and that she isn’t with her mother. They took the baby home before the mother was discharged and she is nowhere to be seen.

seems so unfair on both baby and the mother who doesn’t have any children of her own.

instagram.com/bprdowling?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I don't have particular answers for those questions. I do think adults need to find suitable co-parents before becoming parents,

Given that two people are always needed to create a child, the question is, why do adults think they have a right to bring a child into the world intentionally depriving it of a relationship with one of those parents?

I don't think most of the objections on this thread are about alternative family setups. I've read all 22 pages and, from what I have seen, the concerns are overwhelmingly about breaking the mother-baby bond unless absolutely necessary e.g. due to a medical emergency or court order.

I'd agree with this as a possible explanation if the pp had shared any actual evidence.

The surrogacy conversation should not be derailed by homophobia.

@miserablecat re the uncollected Ukrainian babies, most commissioning parents threw money at the situation to get the surrogate and her unborn child out of Ukraine when Russia invaded. They either went to U.K. or if they were too pregnant to travel far then to Poland, Romania and possibly Moldova. Where they paid for the mother to be accommodated until she gave birth. But as these countries don’t recognise surrogacy, then the legal side is a lot more difficult - the commissioning parents aren’t automatically named as the parents on the birth certificate as they would be in Ukraine.

Is there any social services intervention or interest in the babies born overseas to surrogates, where the commissioning parents are British? Or do they just go back to U.K. and resume their lives?

I read this thread yesterday and then I got this facebook ad (WTF? I'm pretty sure I told Mumsnet not to save cookies that would link to other marketing) It links to www.themodernfamilyshow.com - sponsored by My Surrogacy Journey who perhaps are a UK Womb Agent? Interesting to see which companies sponsor the talks - mostly about surrogacy rather than adoption - who stand to financially benefit from gay couples using women as babymakers. 😡

Please direct us to the links or provide a reference ,lst to support this statement because there are many, many emotionally/physically harmed children with heterosexual parents. Only one recent headline in uk about children abused and murdered by same sex couple.

Not all parents are wonderful people who only want the best for their child.

Sometimes having no contact with one or both parents is better than them having contact.

If you are going to ban surrogacy
Would you ban one night stands where a woman goes out to get pregnant but doesn’t want the man involved.
I know a few women who have done this and a couple of straight guys who would do this if they could.

I also think people who haven’t lived without having both parents and family members as a presence in their lives, place too much emphasis on children wanting to know where they came from. I know some do have a need to know, possibly because of other factors going on in their lives. But a lot are like me who have absolutely no interest.

I had so little interest in the subject it was my mother who had to tell me as waiting for me to ask wasn’t going to happen.
I think my mother would have dearly loved for me to go find my father but in my eyes if he really had an interest in me he wouldn’t have left in the first place and trying to make someone interested in you when they clearly aren’t is just going to lead to disappointment

Would you ban one night stands where a woman goes out to get pregnant but doesn’t want the man involved.

Of course not. The issue with surrogacy is that it requires another woman's body to achieve the aim of having a child.

I'm not sure why that distinction is so difficult to grasp

Can you imagine a world where women could pick up other women in bars and knock them up, then make a claim on the baby 9 months later? 🤣

women would have to actually become men first (and we all know that humans aren’t clownfish),

Like many others I also hate the double standards

I have seen the same figures who support the lines that homosexuality is ‘same gender’ not sex, that biological sex doesn’t exist, that trans women are women etc etc then turn round and say that opposing surrogacy is ‘homophobic’ and denies gay male couples the chance to have children. Well since homosexuality is NOTHING to do with biological sex why would homosexual male couples be at a disadvantage? They may well be just as capable as most straight couples to have a child without help?

and we all know that humans aren’t clownfish

Or indeed avocados

Clownfish? Did you mention clownfish? This seems timely then!

It's not difficult.

Objections to surrogacy.

1. Using a woman's body like a commodity to be bought and sold.
2. Treating a baby as a commodity to be bought and sold.
3. Severing the mother-baby connection soon after birth when there is no benefit to the child to do so and creating the baby while planning to do this.

There's some more layers there, especially in NotBadConsiderings excellent posts about "what happens when it all goes wrong" but that seems to be the basics. Do any of the arguments FOR surrogacy really address these objections?

Nothing homophobic about any of it.

I think what really bugs me is creating a situation that in inherently traumatic to a tiny baby (and her mother) and celebrating it like it is an ideal.

All other situations where this trauma happens to a newborn are born of absolute necessity and in some cases tragedy. Not celebrated.

The thing about adoption is that it is a last resort. And there is a reason that its a last resort, the welfare of the infant.

A couple of their latest tiktoks.

One starting with ‘And just like that, we have a baby girl....’ yeah ‘just like that’, Ffs.

And the other with Brian feeding the baby with ‘and then a hero comes along’ by Mariah Carey playing saying ‘hero daddy giving her a bottle’. So he’s a hero now. Wtaf? The entitlement. 🤮

And the comments telling them how great they are. At least some do ask how his sister is doing.

Mum feeds baby = mothering yawn. (But don't get your boobs out in public though, love, eh?)
Dad feeds baby = hero.

Same old innit?

If you are going to ban surrogacy Would you ban one night stands where a woman goes out to get pregnant but doesn’t want the man involved.

How is this comparable?

And just like that, women's progress is erased and women are relegated into being the service humans the patriarchy always taught us they were.

@Ohnohedident not necessarily. Adoption can be planned in advance between the birth mother and adoptive parents, not because of any trauma but because the birth mother has decided not to keep the baby. In this case, the adoptive parents take the baby home after the birth. It's not always a case of people having their children taken off them out of necessity.

Agree. Their social media is WAY over the top and that "hero" post was bullshit.

You know what, I'm instinctively resistant to the idea of banning activities between consenting adults - the clue is in the word 'consenting'. In theory, it really shouldn't be that hard to persuade me to support surrogacy or at least oppose making it illegal. So, if you would like to knock me off my fence, here's what might help:

Firstly you could explain how we can ensure the mother gives informed consent. I think one poster has suggested some form of compulsory counselling beforehand. That sounds like a start but what about a situation like the one in this thread where it appears the mother had never given birth before? Do you believe informed consent is ever possible in such a situation and, if yes, how would you ensure it?

Secondly you could link to some science that debunks the mother-baby bond. This seriously troubles me and, as has been repeatedly pointed out, there's a world of difference between breaking the bond because there's an emergency, and doing so intentionally.

Thirdly you could have a go at tackling some of the questions in NotBadConsidering's post about what happens when things go wrong.

Here's what is not persuading me:

The homophobia accusations. Christ on a biscuit, the reason gay men cannot give birth to their own baby is not homophobia, it's biology.

The 'what about adoption / what if the baby needs ICU' posts, all answered numerous times in this thread so, if anyone repeats them, I'm going to assume you've not bothered to read the thread and therefore wonder why I should take you seriously.

The 'I know of such a case and it worked really well' arguments. I'm sure we can all think of situations where we've behaved recklessly, potentially harmfully, possibly illegally and it's worked out fine. That doesn't make the activity is a benign one, it means we got away with it. I refer you again to NotBadConsidering's post.

I am interested in the idea that the woman who carries a baby is its mother. Just wondering if a woman carries a donor egg or embryo does that mean she is the mother and the woman who donated the egg is not? Some children conceived this way do seem to think the donor woman was also their mother, but if the baby is formed from the woman who carries them maybe this isn't really so.

Both the egg donor and the pregnant woman are genetically linked to the baby.
The egg donor's link is one way- she donates 50% of the genetic make up of the baby.
The woman who carries the pregnancy exchanges cells with the baby, which is built from material repurposed from the mum's body, and switches on and off various parts of the genetic information.

Additionally there is the environmental factor- everything the woman experiences is experienced by the baby. She is the baby's familiar, comfort place, home.

”Surrogacy is ok because the plot of the film Juno seemed to work out well enough.”