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=

@missbipolar seriously rtft, people have repeatedly pointed out the difference. 🙄

I can only conclude that we must be talking at cross purposes. I wasn't asking about the specifics of any one case, I was asking, whether as a general principle, when there is no compelling, medical or life saving reason for surrogacy, 'Do you think it's worth the risk?'

I asked because you've already said several times that you accept there's a risk and that no-one really knows the answers:
'Of course I don't know. None of us do.'
'The fact is, we'll never know what these people chose to do.'

You have asked us to listen to the arguments and I've looked very hard in this thread for answers to my questions (stated several times if you want to check my posts). I can't find any.

I have also listened to you losing your temper when pressed for answers, while at the same time telling posters to 'chill out' and 'calm down'.

And I've listened to you say this - I have to admit, this one startled me:
'don't keep saying the same shit about protecting people, etc. that's not for us to decide.'
You see that same shit is important to me. I'd like to support surrogacy but first I need better answers than 'We'll never know.'

I think we're done but thank you for your trouble.

An excellent summing up @picklemewalnuts

On the flip side parents to be actually harassed a surrogate so much over money that she aborted their fetus.

Do you have a link for that case please @DaughterofDawn
I'd be interested to know more.

My understanding is that Canada, like the UK only allows payment of expenses, but like the U.K. the interpretation can be somewhat imaginative although I think the policing of expenses in Canada is stricter than in the UK. There is some loophole that if money comes from abroad that's ok 🤔 so international surrogacy is popular there as surrogate mothers get good healthcare etc meaning it is a good destination for foreign commissioning parents whilst the SMs get paid.

I'll look out one or two articles I have see that explains it.

Here's a short article discussing tax credits for fertility treatment in Canada, and whether surrogacy expenses are or should be eligible.

My eyes always slightly glaze over at the details of things like tax credits, as always there are complexities.

Hopefully the link works, it's a newsletter I subscribe to and some content is paid for only and some can be shared.

https://www.heyreprotech.com/p/tax-credits-for-surrogacy-and-donors-7d1?r=3qvki&s=r&utmcampaign=post&utmm_medium=email

More about the regulation of expenses here. And this law has teeth, unlike the law in the UK where judges rarely pay much attention to the "expenses" paid to surrogate mothers as they would never impose any penalty so why bother?

"First and foremost, the law has criminal penalties — you can be sent to jail for 10 years or be fined $500,000 — yet without regulations it is legitimately hard to know how to stay on the right side."

https://www.heyreprotech.com/p/long-awaited-reimbursement-regulations?s=r&utmcampaign=post&utmm_medium=web

Why does it do that striking through thing? Nothing to do with me and it was normal text in the article I copied. 🤷‍♀️

This.

Also though it's all fine and dandy to agree as a woman to provide your body like this, whilst I don't agree at all I can see how some women will feel it's ok for them personally. Again, for me it's still not right and never will be.

But what people aren't getting is even this aside the child has no say in this gross pass the parcel game. They are made to order to be taken from the person who had grown and kept them safe for 9 months.

It's just grim

This is a long read - Anatomy of a surrogacy which was linked in the newsletter below. I've only had a quick skim as I have to get going and out of the house, but it all looks horrendous, starting with lack of lawyers/advice/informed consent, having four embryos transferred....leading to fetal reduction and twins when the SM had expressed concerns about carrying more than one baby.

hazlitt.net/longreads/anatomy-surrogacy

Christ on a cracker!

NO LAWS just optional counselling?

holy crap balls. That’s appalling.

There's another concern: “expenses”.

So if just expenses are allowed, who’s scrutinising that? How are we sure a woman isn’t receiving extra money as payment? How are we sure a woman’s expenses are adequately compensated? What if there’s a dispute over whether something should be paid or the cost of something? Who settles that dispute? Can the birth mother withhold the baby until satisfied all expenses have been covered🤨? What if the birth mother has incontinence issues as a result later, can any expenses be claimed ongoing?

I'm honestly not sure counselling would really fix everything anyway. Better to avoid the risk of breaking people in the first place.

Noone actually needs a baby. I appreciate that people really, really want them. But it might be better for counselling services to focus on people coming to terms with that than trying to patch up the fall out of a messy surrogacy arrangement. If we were to consider it from a best use if resources all around angle.

@Floisme yes, we are talking at cross purposes. I accept that there is a potential risk that the baby or birth mother could have issues in the future. "Potential" being the operative word. But there's also a risk that babies and mothers could have issues in a multitude of scenarios - e.g. a baby born to a mother that can't care for it, a baby that is adopted, a mother that gives her baby up for adoption and regrets it down the line. The scenarios that could wrong are endless, and surrogacy is one of them. Whether I think it's worth the risk is irrelevant. I've always said I'm on the fence about surrogacy. With this particular situation, in my opinion, it seems like the baby will be fine, in which case, it was worth the risk but we don't know what the outcome will be. The bottom line is that with any surrogacy, it could end badly or it could end with a happy family, happy child and a birth mother that is content with her decision. But every situation is different.

I think we are done here too.

www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/obsonline/how-mother-child-separation-causes-neurobiological-vulnerability-into-adulthood.html

mariedolfi.com/adoption-resource/relinquishment-trauma-the-forgotten-trauma/

It's only relatively recently that we are starting to recognise the 'primal wound' in the baby that separation from the mother at birth can cause.

So even though children fostered/ adopted at birth may be immediately placed into loving, nurturing families, there can still be trauma due to the break in the mother/baby dyad, which may require lifelong therapeutic parenting.

"Relinquishment trauma is one type of separation trauma. When trauma occurs it can change an individual’s brain chemistry and functioning."
Emotional dysregulation –Children are easily upset and reactive. They stay fearful, angry, sad, or withdrawn due to difficulty recovering from emotionally provoking situations.
Problems with sleeping, eating, elimination, overactivity to sound and touch
Hypervigilant, extreme risk-taking
Problems with goal-directed behaviors
Low self-worth, feeling defective, helplessness
Reactivity with physical or verbal aggression
Poor capacity for self-protection, drawn towards relationships with individuals who repeat the pattern of poor attachment
Difficulty in school, few peer relationships, and turbulent family relationships can arise due specifically due to the trauma response to being relinquished

The adoption system, for all its faults, is focused on the needs of the baby/child first and there is a recognition that this child may well need ongoing additional support, accommodations and may have vulnerabilities throughout life. Adoptive parents access training to develop the therapeutic parenting skills they need.

Surrogacy, in contrast, is all about the 'needs' of the adults and, of necessity, pays zero attention to relinquishment trauma.

Here's Brian Dowling on his sister:
He added: “She's single, she's 32, so you know, so experiencing that whole thing [pregnancy and birth] would be an amazing feeling. But then not having the responsibility.

www.ok.co.uk/lifestyle/mum-and-baby/brian-dowling-praises-sister-surrogate-27115347

He then thanked his sister Aoife for being the couple's surrogate and wrote: "Now, where do we even start with you @effidydowling you are a SAINT to us & we will FOREVER be GRATEFUL to you for the REST OF OUR LIVES. Baby Blake can’t wait for her Aunty Aoife to spoil her" [bolds mine]

It's all just so...flippant. Woman as incubator and supplier of pretty things.

How would a child later be able to express any ambivalence or trauma in this scenario? What therapeutic parenting strategies are actually necessary for children born through surrogacy?

And for those who buy the 'Aoife made her own decision and was the driving force behind the surrogacy' which Dowling frequently refers to - suppose Arthur and Brian decide they would like sibling(s) for baby Blake?

What pressure would Aoife be under then?

The fact that bad things can happen in any pregnancy and birth scenario is not a reason to be cavalier about surrogacy. If anything, it is even more reason to be stringent about it, since it is a particularly contrived and complex way of having a child, more so than standard fertility treatment.

Yes, that means getting "bogged down" in all those pesky morality and legality issues. Dang.

The only reason you can judge this particular case as a success - and even you admit it is too early to say - is because you are aware of how badly it could have gone wrong and still might.

If your view is so irrelevant, why are you sharing it so much?

This is an incredibly powerful post, @ANewCreation. I find it hard to see why it is OK to risk a baby suffering these long term harms, because adults want a baby.

experiencing that whole thing [pregnancy and birth] would be an amazing feeling. But then not having the responsibility.

Currently lying in bed with debilitating HG, knowing the only silver lining is the baby I will hopefully have at the end. That’s so, so the wrong way round, it proves he is utterly clueless about what pregnancy and birth involves.

‘And I tell you I just stood there and I remember just thinking oh my God, we have a baby, like, we're pregnant’

🙄

Brian explained: “As much as we’re getting amazing feedback and amazing comments, there are people out there that can't abide the fact that two men who chose to be gay are forcing this.

"You know, 'raping a womb', 'renting a womb', 'forcing this woman into a situation'” and we've had that from stuff like, 'well I hope she doesn't get cancer from the hormones', 'hope she won't die during childbirth', 'you shouldn't be allowed to have a baby', 'you're disgusting', what we're doing to this child, what we're bringing this child into.

"On the day when that we chose to be gay, like, how odd is that, we give up the right to be parents… But you know, that is based on pure homophobia, that's all that is.”

----
Oh fuck off, Brian. I'd have exactly the same contempt for a straight couple using a surrogate as I do for you and your husband.

And one of my pet hates is men saying "we're pregnant."

Yep. He's right. Two men being unable to make a baby together. Total bigotry.

I do find this "I have a right to be a parent" thing ridiculous. If you could really enforce that kind of right, my priority would be the children, as in "every child has a right to a loving, present parent." And yet everyone would see the issue with that, even though it's a nice idea. There are so many children in care, and a lot of them are very traumatised and have huge emotional difficulties. We can't force adults to adopt or foster them. We also can't force women to provide children for those who want them. Bryan's sister might have been willing to do this, but that does not mean Bryan and his husband ever had the right to be parents. The way he's framing it, what was done as a huge favour has now become an entitlement.

Also Brian - you don't choose your sexuality, it's an orientation.

I'm equal opportunities in my opposition to surrogacy - I don't care who the 'commissioning parents' are. It's wrong.

And how awful for people to point out that giving birth is the riskiest thing most women will ever do. What monsters should?

He also said about the conception "we're on hormones, it's crazy. "

No Brian, Aoife was on hormones. How dare you?

I think the sister seems a bit wrapped up in Brian's life and celebrity, unhealthily so, and the poor woman had no idea what she was letting herself in for. No-one can if you haven't done it before.

The whole "she's 32 and single" stuff comes across a bit "of course she ought to be our surrogate, she's getting on a bit and hasn't got a man and it's probably her only chance for anything like the motherhood experience".

I'm certainly not saying I agree, just that it comes over that way from telling us all her age and relationship status as justification for using her to grow a baby.

What are they famous for?

The Irish newspapers are infuriating.

brian gives meaning to the life of his poor sad spinster sister Aoife

Brian brings the baby for a walk, he’s amazing

Brian is 45 & Aoife 32 so Aoife must have been very young when Brian was in BB? A bit of hero worship? I sincerely hope Aoife doesn’t get to my age 53 & think why the Fuck did I do that?