I’ve not had time to look at the story in the op yet, but that Mail on Sunday surrogacy story is pure propaganda on behalf of baby-buyers.
It starts off as a puff piece human interest story of accidental ‘twins’, a triumph of hope over adversity, a pair of miracle babies for a couple heartbroken by infertility who travelled the globe looking for help (quote ‘We’d been to them all, even an expert in the US’)
… and then near the bottom becomes a blatant powergrab, a demand for the legal right to truly own designer foetuses made to order without ever having to leave the UK
extracts (italics are direct quotes, bold is my emphasis, bits in square brackets are my commentary)
Stevie, who works in the justice system, says: 'It would be more transparent to allow commercial surrogacy because, as it stands, there are no rules about what constitutes reasonable expense. We came to feel we were cash cows’
[hmmm… this reads awfully like: change the law to suit us because we are going to buy babies anyway, even if it is illegal, and we deserve to be protected from the nasty, greedy fertile women exploiting our terrible sadness]
[…] the relationship with their surrogate broke down during her pregnancy.
They even feared she would abort their child.
'It was a real worry – later confirmed when she posted on social media that she'd conÂsidered a termination,' says Kiara.’
At another stage she threatened to keep our baby if a whole list of requests that had never been mentioned before were not met.'
[wait ‘til you hear how unreasonable her demands were! 🙄]
^^
Petty disagreements, mostly about money, escalated to the point where they were consulting lawyers and trying to get mediation.
[a volunteer barrister with a vested personal interest in babybuying and professional, independent, mediation that the surrogate mother requested and the babybuying couple refused to pay for]
^^
'In the process, she cut us off, blocked us from messaging her, refused to allow us to go to scans, which she'd previously said we could attend.
'She told midwives and hospital staff – who deal with surrogacy arrangements all the time [do they really? All the time? In England, where commercial surrogacy is illegal?] and had been wonderful about making us feel part of it – not to include us.
[Wow! This woman sounds like a fucking monster, doesn’t she? Well, read on, because this is a very one-sided representation of the situation…]
Commercial surrogacy is banned in the UK, but surrogates can be paid reasonable expenses, which Stevie and Kiara believe has 'led to commercial surrogacy under the table'.
[yes, a regretful situation that you happily exploited for your own personal gain!]
Kiara joined various online support groups after discovering that there are three big agencies authÂorised to match couples and surrogates – but a long waiting list.
The couple also signed up to a closed social-media group set up to provide support for those going through surrogacy.
[Commissioning babybuyers who look for surrogate mothers via Facebook groups aren’t very likely to find an altruistic arrangement, are they? It’s not like agreeing to do it for your sister or your gay BFF, which is also fraught and problematic, but at least in those cases it usually starts off with genuinely good intentions]
In late 2020, Kiara and Stevie were contacted by a potential surrogate. In her late 20s, Catherine (not her real name) lived in England with her partner and already had her own children.
[so Kiara and Stevie must’ve been using the ‘closed social media group’ to POST ADS for a surrogate and not just for supportive chat around surrogacy issues, which is what the description of the group above implies]
'We started messaging. We got on like a house on fire,' recalls Kiara. 'She was funny and seemed kind.'
[‘kind’ people are usually much easier to exploit than mean ones! I’m sure she seemed like the perfect mark right up until she asserted some personal boundaries that you didn’t like!]
The law prevents solicitors drawing up surrogacy contracts, yet couples are always advised to have a formal agreement.
[solicitors in ‘we can only draw up legally valid contracts’ shocker!]
The Kilgannons and their surrogate wrote their own, on advice from online surrogacy groups. They agreed to pay Catherine approximately £1,500 a month expenses.
[remember that figure for later] ^^
'We agreed to pay a flat expenses fee every month but would pay charges on top if something unexpected happened,' says Kiara.
^^
In February 2021, all three flew to the clinic where the embryos had been frozen, and Catherine underwent the transfer procedure.
^^
'We paid for everything – all clinic fees, the hotel, meals, drinks, taxis. Rightly so,' Kiara says.
^^
The day after they returned home, Catherine messaged, telling them about a chip in her windscreen that had happened in the airport car park.
Then, four days later, she claimed to have got a puncture on the way back.
^^
'Our surrogate alerted us to a chipped windscreen on her car, and we paid for a replacement tyre.‘
[so she didn’t ASK you to pay for the windscreen repair? And you DIDN’T pay for a windscreen repair? Why is this relevant to the article? Seems awfully like the underhanded debate tactic known as ‘poisoning the well’ to me]
'We felt uneasy but paid £70 for a replacement tyre, not wanting bad feeling before any pregnancy test.'
[You agreed to pay additional expenses to cover the unexpected - if a car is damaged due to an airport journey that only occurred because of a trip that benefitted YOU, that is surely ‘charges on top for the unexpected’? Why did you need to fly abroad for the embryo transfer anyway? English clinics exist and if you were genuinely covering ‘expenses’ for an altruistic arrangement it would be perfectly permissible to have that transfer done in England near the surrogate mothers home, no airport trips necessary? It’s a bit shit to fly someone abroad to have an uncomfortable medical procedure that could’ve been done close to her house with you dropping her straight home afterwards. Presumably it was cheaper for you to do IVF abroad, even with the travels costs etc and that’s why you had gone to ‘Europe’ for your own egg collection & unsuccessful IVF? And then you just took your surrogate back to the same place for your own convenience and cost saving?]
That [pregnancy] test was carried out by Catherine on FaceTime. 'When it was positive, I cried,' says Kiara. 'I went to my daddy's grave to tell him the good news.'
[emotionally manipulative music plays in the background]
Issues about money were omnipresent. In the first weeks of the pregnancy, Catherine told them her doctor had advised bed rest – and she could not work.
[well yes, that it the thing about womb-renting from a stranger, money is going to be an omnipresent issue, especially if you are masquerading under the premise that it’s just expenses, as she is going to have to tell you about all those expenses, right down to parking charges at anti natal clinic]
Kiara says: 'We were just so worried about her and the baby. I asked her to find out what the situation was with her statutory sick pay.
’Did we have to add anything to it to make up the difference? Could she get us figures, details?
[Ngl but this sounds like you are far more worried about the additional expense of a woman who can’t do her normal day job than you are about her health. You are hoping the government will fund 6 months plus of statutory sick pay so that you can have a baby-to-order at a subsidised cost. Bearing in mind that if you had gone to a country where commercial surrogacy is legal you would be expected to cover all the medical fees for the duration of pregnancy, the birth itself AND the mother’s health costs for the postpartum period, whereas by going into a dodgy, grey-area UK ‘expenses’ agreement you can get all those costs covered by the NHS. Also, if applicable, the surrogate mother’s employer will be obliged to cover maternity leave. So what the actual fuck are you complaining about here you pair of cheeky fucking fucks?]
All we wanted was to keep it official.
[bit rich from someone who is already engaged in a shit load of unofficial dodginess. If you wanted to ‘keep it official’ you should’ve waited on the list of one of those three authorised agencies you’ve already told us about!]
They were present for the 'deeply emotional' 12-week scan. 'But things started to go wrong,' says Kiara.
'We began to fall out over who paid for what. Then she said she couldn't afford to meet us as regularly as we'd originally planned.
'Then, when we were due over for the 20-week scan, she said we weren't welcome.
[I can only surmise that you have absolutely no idea how petty and entitled you sound. It seems to me, that whether her feelings were reasonable or not, the surrogate mother clearly felt that you were not fulfilling your end of the agreement and thus she decided to go low contact to avoid further conflict]
It is normal practice for the surrogate to make a will, making arrangements for the child should she die in childbirth or before the legal process is completed.
[this completely overlooks that the mother’s new will is not solely for the convenience of the baby-buyers and has to also include arrangements for her existing children, her partner/family and any property or other assets she owns, as well as the fact that any outstanding expenses for the surrogacy will become owed to her estate]
^^
They also normally have insurance. 'These should have been in place early in the process, and we asked for them at the very start. She assured us they would be sorted out. They weren't,' says Kiara.
^^
When the couple received a bill for £600 for Catherine's will, they queried the amount with the solicitors who drew it up, discovering that the sum was in fact for two wills, Catherine's and her partner's.
[Firstly, the insurance you mention is life insurance and the reason will making is ‘normal’ for surrogates is because surrogate mothers have ACTUALLY DIED in the process. All donor egg pregnancies are automatically classified as ‘high risk’ pregnancies. This woman is risking her life to grow you a baby and you are complaining about spending £70 on a new tyre, a new tyre that your designer foetus will be driven around on for 9 months… and phoning up her solicitor to complain and quibble about the cost of a new will that you will rely on to claim your purchased baby in the event of her DEATH, a death that will likely be due to her carrying YOUR LUXURY BABY!
Secondly, she is obviously trying to get life insurance and wills ‘sorted out’ but you are slowing it down with your ongoing quibbling over prices and invoices!
Thirdly, it is completely normal for a couple who share children to have ‘mirror wills’ drawn up together. If you didn’t want your surrogate mother to need a mirror will (and thus for you to be billed for the pair of mirror wills) you should’ve rented a single woman’s body, not a partnered woman’s body!]
The Kilgannons contacted an administrator on their online surrogacy support group, who agreed to speak to Catherine.
'The administrator came back saying Catherine had made six requests and if they were not met, the child would stay in her care when born,' says Kiara.
[This is a first time surrogate mother who has been impregnated with a non-related embryo without legal counsel or an agency go-between. She’s obviously starting to have some serious doubts about WTF she’s gotten herself into]
'She wanted to see six months' worth of bank statements to show we could financially support a child, letters from doctors saying we were fit to be parents, evidence of DBS [Disclosure and Barring Service] checks, for us to attend a parenting course. None of these had been mentioned before.'
[all of this would be perfectly normal safeguarding in an adoption process - it makes sense that a surrogate mother who is starting to have some serious regrets/doubts about the commissioning couple wants some reassurance re: the future safety of the baby she is growing inside her and is (presumably) now emotionally bonded with, because: pregnancy do be like that]
Catherine also wanted a home birth when they'd agreed a hosÂpital birth.
[pregnant woman in ‘asserting her own boundaries re privacy, comfort and feeling in control while in labour’ shocker! What a fucking cow! 🙄]
The go-between suggested a more formal mediation, offering the free services of a barrister, who himself had experience of the surrogacy system.
[let me guess, the free barrister is himself an experienced babybuyer? Because he clearly isn’t a surrogate mother, is he?]
'Catherine refused. She wanted mediators we would pay hundreds of pounds for,' says Stevie.
[what, independent, professional mediators who aren’t going to immediately take the side of the babybuyers? What a fucking bitch! 🙄
Also, this is that ‘unexpected additional charges’ thing you agreed to pay for right at the start]
Then, five months into Catherine's pregnancy, Kiara was stunned to discover she was pregnant. They did not tell Catherine.
[that you so happy to lie by omission is probably one of many reasons the surrogate mother has lost trust in you and wants you to be DBS checked!]
'Things had deteriorated so much, we feared she'd try to keep our child or place him in care since we had another one on the way,' says Kiara
[oh really? What on earth made you think that your unexpected pregnancy could result in your commissioned baby being taken into care? Only babies who are at risk of harm are taken into care… and either your surrogate is bonded to the baby and wants to keep it and raise it herself OR she gives so few fucks about the baby she’d surrender it to social services just to hurt you (in which case you’d be able to start legal proceedings for custody anyway) - you can’t logically believe both of these things to be true… Schrodinger’s Surrogate!]
^^
There is no evidence [!!!] for this, but Kiara admits she had long Âworried [!!!] about Catherine having the power (and right, by law) to abort the child [!!!!]
[Ok, so there is absolutely no reason to think the surrogate mother will refuse to hand over the baby, this couple are just increasingly paranoid because they know that paying a stranger to have your baby is illegal in the country where this is taking place.
And damn right you can’t prevent a woman from having an abortion if she believe that’s the best course of action for her. Nor can you force her TO HAVE an abortion if you change your mind after she’s already pregnant… because, say, you happened to then get pregnant yourself]
'We spent four weeks before his due date staying at an Airbnb in England, not knowing what on earth was going on and not having had any contact with Catherine.
[FOUR WEEKS! This baby wasn’t even overdue! Seems a bit stalkery to take four weeks off work to stay in England just in case she gives birth when she doesn’t even want to text you. It’s only an hour’s flight and she definitely doesn’t want you present at her home birth anyway]
'Then, on the due date, we had a call from her partner saying, 'Your baby is here.' ' They rushed to Catherine's house – Kiara concealing her own pregnancy bump.
'When he was placed in my arms, I was shaking so much I could barely hold him.'
^^
Yet Catherine was fine.
'You would not have known anything untoward had been going on. We don't know what it was all about, but in the midst of it all we were powerless. Until the Parental Order was granted in December, we remained powerless,' says Kiara.
[She was likely ‘fine’ because all of the problems were YOUR problems, created by your own paranoia, mistrust and pennypinching. She wasn’t doing anything ‘untoward’ at all, just trying to keep her down and get through this regretful life episode]
^^
'We love them [the two babies] equally. They are inseparable – and yet until that Parental Order was granted, we lived on eggshells in an utter nightmare. I worried about never being legally Cáhan's mother.'
[That is indeed the legal situation, a legal situation that you deliberately and knowingly entered into - luckily for you your rented womb wasn’t married or her husband would’ve been the legal father]
^^
They no longer speak to Catherine. 'But it is important we speak out,' adds Stevie.
[The absolute state of these people! A pair of woman-using, exploitative, tightfisted wankers bleating on to the press about their terrible hardships despite getting exactly what they paid for, a healthy baby delivered right on schedule]
^^
Yes, we were naive,' says Stevie, 'but we want to highlight that the system is not fit for purpose.
[you weren’t naive, you deliberately flouted the law, despite ‘working in the justice system’. Now you want the law changed to give you MORE POWER OVER WOMB-HAVERS so they can’t just ignore your nitpicking text messages and ban you from the labour suite.
Under Stevie’s fucking Eye.
Jesus fucking Christ could you be more of a using prick, Stevie?]
'It depends entirely on trust and when that trust breaks down, God help everyone.
End of article quotes, my summary:
Trust has to go both ways and your paranoia relating to the fact you were actively engaged in legally dubious baby-buying is likely the root cause of the breakdown. Your surrogate mother didn’t do anything wrong, she asked for the additional unexpected expenses you promised to pay and when you started quibbling and lying she cut contact to a minimum and asserted her personal boundaries. She also did what little she could to ensure the baby she had grown inside her wasn’t handed over to fraudsters or sex offenders.
That you think YOU were the wronged party in this would be laughable if you weren’t trying to change the law to make it easier to exploit more women and buy more babies.
ODFOD
Also, dunno what god has to do with any of it, he doesn’t get to make/enforce laws. Take some personal responsibility for the shitshow you caused.
And finally, behold the following direct quotes from the article:
They agreed to pay Catherine approximately £1,500 a month expenses.
'We agreed to pay a flat expenses fee but would pay charges on top if something unexpected happened,' says Kiara.
‘we paid our surrogate expenses of about £15,000 but we'd have paid much more from the off if the proÂcess had been fair.
Our point is that we felt held to ransom.’
So what actually happened is they paid exactly what they agreed to pay (I’m shit at maths but 1500 per calendar month works out about £350 a week and baby was born at 40 weeks, 350x 40 = £14,000, plus the £70 tyre and presumably some sort of small remunerations before the pregnancy was confirmed, but not the windscreen repair and definitely no professional mediation!) and they might’ve FELT like they were ‘held to ransom’ but clearly were not actually held to ransom.
And £15,000 expenses is nowhere near the top end of permitted amounts for surrogate mothers in the UK, as Uncle Google informs me that recent legal cases have agreed that £25,000 is acceptable (although averages are skewed by some genuinely altruistic arrangements that involve negligible amounts or even nothing at all).
And it’s much, much cheaper than full on commercial surrogacy elsewhere (eg Ukraine, which until this time last year was a popular surrogacy destination, with online ads suggesting a ‘package’ including surrogate mother’s fees, the IVF process and antenatal and post partum medical care costs £40,000 -£65,000 with legal fees and travel & accommodation costs for commissioning parents on top of that).
And as quoted above, even Stevie himself admits that ‘we'd have paid much more from the off if the proÂcess had been fair.’
Thus the thing they are ACTUALLY complaining about isn’t the dosh they nitpicked over but their bitterness about not being able to force the woman they hired into compliance every one of their demands.
And they are pissed off that the £15,000 they paid her did not give them any legal rights over her body, and that the law says the only people with automatic parental responsibility for a newborn baby are the woman who grew the baby inside her and, if she has one, her spouse (via the legal contracts of marriage or civil partnership).
Whilst I firmly believe that surrogate mothers should not have to fear an unsolicited outing in the tabloids it’s fucking infuriating that mainstream publications can publish this pro Big Fertility/ Anti woman propaganda dressed up as a puff piece without giving the surrogate mother her right to reply (which they can get away with by citing privacy concerns).
They really should have an alternative voice in there somewhere, to give a bigger picture of the absolute cluster fuck surrogacy is for all involved, not just the mildly inconvenienced baby buyers!