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=

So the baby IS being removed from its mother then.

If a woman has her own baby using an egg donation, is she not the baby’s mother?

Your argument is around biological attachment between a baby and the woman that carries it

Yes, of course, because that is what is being broken.

Legally, the woman who carries and gives birth the baby in all circumstances is the baby’s mother.

@ToGanymedeAndTitan plenty of parents aren’t the biological parent to their children. This doesn’t make surrogacy ok. Why are you bringing a gay woman having a baby into this? It’s got nothing to do with surrogacy.

@ThirtyThreeTrees - I think your situation is very sad. And infertility is difficult to come to terms with.
But what exactly would give you the right to a made to order baby?

If a lesbian couple has a baby and one of them carries the baby and they keep the baby it’s not surrogacy is it? It’s a couple having a baby. One woman is the mother and the other is a parent able to be put as so on birth certificates in most countries. So yes, I am completely fine with that. It has nothing to do with “who’s in the picture” and everything to do with deliberate separation of a baby from its mother.

@NotBadConsidering yes, if a woman carries a baby created from another egg and she is the intended parent then she is the mother. Parenthood is not linear. There are many ways to get there. Stop making it as black and white as "woman carries baby therefore she is the mother". There are so many ways for people to become parents and if all involved parties agree and the baby is safe and loved, what is the issue?

It’s got nothing to do with surrogacy

It does though. As in how else can a gay male couple be parents without it?
Why is a male couple seen as entitlement if they want a family, but a woman couple not so much as one of them can be a mum but the other going by this argument and logic can't ever be?!

Stop making it as black and white as "woman carries baby therefore she is the mother"

This is the LAW.

what is the issue?

As has been pointed out, who is considering the baby’s best interests? A judge?

They can adopt. Or accept they can’t be biological parents if it means exploiting a woman’s body and traumatically removing a baby from its mother.

@ThirtyThreeTrees That is a very difficult situation for you, but what I would say is that every pregnancy carries a risk to the mother's life and health. If you cannot or do not want to put your own body at that risk then you should not ask another woman to do it.

If you cannot or do not want to carry a child yourself then you have the same options available to you as an all male couple, in terms of adoption, fostering.

I believe I covered the legalities in my last post. Aoife will sign over guardianship to Brian and Arthur making them the legal parents. Is your argument around law now rather than biological attachment? I can't keep up 😂 This has been fun but I'm off to sleep. Thanks for the debate.

I think the point the pps are trying to make is it shouldn’t be about parenthood. It should be about the baby. But that aside as I do agree it’s not ideal for babe by any stretch. But it’s also likely going to be ok in the grand scheme. Or I would hope so anyway.

My concern is more for the surrogate. I don’t actually think someone who’s never been a mother before can consent properly to being a surrogate. You just can’t. That’s completely impossible.

What a load of vicious witches on this thread.

I was a surrogate for my sister as she couldn't carry . I promise that child is now a happy, healthy little girl who suffered absolutely no ills from being "ripped from my breast" or whatever bullshit you're all spouting. I have never heard such viciousness or cruelty towards surrogates before, what godforsaken hole did you all crawl out of?

Yes women being forced into surrogacy in developing countries is abhorrent, but a woman willingly offering to be a surrogate for a family member? Where do you all get off telling her she's done something evil? What actually is the matter with you all?

In law, the woman who gives birth is the baby’s mother until she signs that away.

In reality of biology, the woman will always be the baby’s mother.

I’m shocked you think a serious debate about a complicated matter such as this is something you are crying with laughter about. Don’t trivialise a situation that has been deemed so serious that many countries have banned it.

So where does that leave gay couples having a family then?
They can't.
Because "entitled males."

No, two men can’t make a baby together. Only women can get pregnant.

Being gay doesn’t entitle you to commission a woman’s body so you can have a baby. Not getting everything you want, especially if your wants are biologically impossible (men getting pregnant) is not the same as discrimination

@LemonSwan completely agree on your point about agreeing to be a surrogate. The complexities of that decision are incomprehensible, especially for a woman that hasn't had children and it is definitely open to manipulation as others have said. But in this case, we'll never know what's gone on behind closed doors.

Who explains the various legalities to the baby? Your view seems to be ‘I’m only the mother if I say I am’ which is odd to say the least. Your baby will get to stay with you as you say you are the mother. Aoife’s baby doesn’t get to stay with her as she says she isn’t the mother. Both babies want their mother only one gets their mother - how is that fair on the baby?

So yes, I am completely fine with that. It has nothing to do with “who’s in the picture” and everything to do with deliberate separation of a baby from its mother.

Ok, fair enough, you don't speak for all women though.
Some want to /see being a surrogate as a good thing as giving a couple a baby when they can't naturally have one is something someone might want to do.

@NotBadConsidering I'm laughing at you and your ridiculous and ever-changing argument, not the situation

Your very first post said that Aoife was not the baby’s mother. Then you said she is. It’s you that can’t keep up with your own posts.

Yes @VeridicalVagabond.

Welcome. Thanks for sharing your perspective. Absolutely an amazing thing to do for a loved one and indeed great to hear your niece is doing well!

And the baby’s best interests? Who looks after that? Should a judge be involved like in other cases or removal of newborns from their mothers?

@Nowyouwillfeel give it a rest! Who explains the legalities to babies who are adopted? Do you feel the same about that? In reality, the parents are who we say they are. We see it in so many scenarios - surrogacy, adoption, step parents, foster parents....
Parenthood is about loving and caring for a child. Carrying the baby is, of course, important, but it doesn't make you a parent.

Point to a post that has attacked the woman who gave birth.

"There are thousands of children born into abusive and horrific situations. Surely, parent who want a child and will love and care omfir that child is the most important thing."

It's one important thing among other important things. Most children have loving, caring parents and do not suffer the adverse experience of being separated from their birth mother.

Yes, some children are born into terrible circumstances, but their adverse experiences are rarely planned for or chosen by their mother. I have read accounts of the experiences of some adult surrogate babies indicating that the trauma of parental separation was amplified by the pain and confusion they felt on realising that their mother willingly gave them away or sold them.

This is a very unique situation. Most of us can understand that some mothers are not able to care for their babies, and this is heartbreaking for everyone involved. However, few of us can understand or tolerate the idea of handing our babies over as part of a transactional arrangement to meet the needs of adults. Still less of us would find that knowledge easy to come to terms with if it were us who'd been 'transacted'.

Gay or infertile couples can adopt and have a wonderful family that way.

I'm not sure how I feel about sperm donation. It doesn't adversely affect the health of the donor, in the same way that egg donation does. And in a lesbian couple, or a single woman, where the mother carries, births and raises her own child, there isn't a woman's body being used and damaged for the sake of someone else, or a newborn removed from its primary attachment figure.

But I've read stories from adults conceived by sperm donation who were very unhappy about it and had a lot of different identity issues. It can also cause difficulties for men who donated sperm unthinkingly in their youth and now through DNA testing can be confronted with an adult child looking for a relationship.

I believe rates of sperm donation have gone down in the uk since the children have the right to find their identity, as well as 23 and me etc which can reveal that. The number of women willing to be a surrogate is also incredibly small.