Surrogacy

[Hen-Gen]

There was a very interesting documentary on TV the other night. It was about a young, married couple who were both transgender. Before starting they’re gender reassignment he had frozen some of his eggs. Later they wanted a child so one of his eggs was thawed, donor inseminated and then carried to term by a volunteer.
For me this raises a number of issues. I’m not concerned that a child should be brought up by two loving parents whoever they were previously. I am interested in the psychology of the birth mother. I am interested by the fact that the child’s genetic father could be chosen to be tall, brown eyed and to be from a scientific/engineering background. I was not aware that one could legally be that selective. And I’m interested to see whether the child’s new mother, having not experienced the flood of hormones that are released at birth, can ever truly bond with the child. We know that with animals have this problem if young are delivered by c-section. Finally I was fascinated to hear the doctor stress the importance of skin to skin contact with its parents to ensure its proper development. All new to me.
What say you?

 

[Marigold]

Hundreds of babies born to surrogate mothers have been stranded in lockdown, especially in Ukraine, and being given basic care only, throughout the crucial first weeks and months of their lives. See https://www.bionews.org.uk/page_149838

Personally, for me, this kind of commercial surrogacy comes under the heading of ‘just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should.’ Yes, although we were lucky enough to have our two wanted babies turn up almost as soon as we started trying for them, I also have a sister in law who got married late and was not so lucky. We’ve seen how it eats at her from inside, to the extent that she was unpopular in her workplace because she objected to colleagues having pics of their children on their desks. It was even awkward when we had to ring up to give Tony’s brother the news that another grandchild had been born in the family. She was badly upset and offended about ‘lack of consideration for my position’ when the wife of one of Tony’s other brothers, who was staying with them, was heard having a joyful conversation on the phone with her daughter, who had just given birth. This resulted in a really stupid argument between the two brothers and their wives, and the relationship between the two brothers has never recovered, still not speaking after several years because each considers his wife had been insulted in the ensuing spat! So I do know that childlessness does cause real suffering, but there are so many aspects of surrogacy that seem wrong to me, not only for the baby and its mother but for the priorities of the parents themselves. This is just my personal view about the process in principle, and I would try not to criticise anyone who was actually part of a surrogacy arrangement, and I know many people would find that opinion oldfashioned. And if course, where the arrangement has two surrogate parents of the same gender, there are extra layers of complexity for everyone concerned.

 

[bigyetiman]

We both struggle with it all as well, wouldn't deny anyone the right to have a child but sometimes especially with transgender people having a baby by a total stranger you do wonder about all the legal implications.
Or two men/women wanting a child, although for the women you have the maternal hormones kicking in no doubt. I work with a woman who's "wife "
had a baby using a friends sperm.
We did know a same sex couple who went through surrogacy "because it's our right to have a child" which made us question their motives for having a child.
I guess it is part of us being the older generation. But if I had a child who was in a that sort of relationship, I would welcome their child into the home

 

[Margaid]

I struggle with the basic concept that one has the right to have a child. I have difficulty understanding couples who wait years for, and then years undergoing IVF treatment with all its' potential disappointments. What is happening to their relationship while they are so focused on having a child?

What I am really concerned about is the effect on the child of these arrangements/relationships. Having been married for forty years to someone who was adopted as a baby, I've seen at first hand the difficulties that can arise when the parents are not the genetic parents, and also what happens when they discover the whole truth about the circumstances surrounding their birth. It just seems to me that some people are hell bent on doing what they want to do, whatever and wherever the cost finally falls. I suspect I'm just getting old and crusty.

 

[bigyetiman]

No You are not, it is the " I must have it and now" society. I worry about these children in these sort of arrangements, I do know someone that was conceived with donor sperm, and she has real problems struggling with not knowing her fathers identity. Her mother is a "I don't need a man in my life" person but she wanted a child to make her life complete.

My daughter had a baby in June, well I say baby it was 13lb . Her mother is dead and OH doesn't have the emotional attachment to it that a natural grandmother would, not being her flesh and blood, plus daughter was grown up when we met. My daughter tried for 10 years for a baby, then she left her husband, good move as he was bone idle, never worked. Met someone at work and got pregnant. Not ideal but at 35 years old this could be her last chance for a child, she said she would never have gone down the surrogacy road as she didn't think it was fair to the child

 

[MrsBiscuit]

13lb??????? I hope your daughter is well. I always thought my brother was a huge baby at 11lb. He was a chubby toddler and child, but grew up into a 6'4" beanpole! There will be a lot of unknown pressures on a child from transgender parents as its all so new, but I have to say there are already so many pressures on children as they have always been conceived in a variety of situations. Children have been illegitimate and brought up without one or both parents for a very long time. Children have always been adopted but there is no less of a bond between the parents and the child, and some babies are born so ill that they have to go straight into emergency care without parental contact, yet all being well they eventually thrive, so I don't think I have any qualms about bonding. I wonder if the child of a transgender person/couple will grow up to be more accepting of a less mainstream life style, or even more open minded in general.

 

[Hen-Gen]

Fascinating to hear all your views. I couldn’t disagree with any of them but am unsure about most of them. Certainly I’m no spring chicken and neither am I the sort of person who embraces new ideas to be fashionable.
It seems to me that large numbers of children are born into conventional homes but in many cases for dubious reasons and subject to less than ideal upbringings. So I work from the premise that the best option is two loving parents in a stable relationship. It is also important to be honest with the child right from the start about the factors behind its own creation whilst reassuring it that it is totally and unconditionally loved.
I believe that there is less stigma today about such things. I remember when I was a child to be born out of wedlock was shameful.
We now live in more enlightened times. I see it less than “we have a right to have a child” and more a case of “technology now allows us to have a child”.
Two anecdotes. Years ago I saw an ad by a lesbian couple who were looking for a gay man to be a donor father. That struck me as strange that the sexual orientation of the father was relevant. Even if there is a hereditary component in a child’s sexual orientation why would one choose to have a gay child and subject it to all the additional pressures that such a thing brings?
Anecdote two. When I was about 18 my mother confided in me that she had tried to abort me and explained how poverty and already having children drove her to it. She also reaffirmed that she loved me once I was born as much as my siblings. As far as I’m aware this had no bad effect on me other than to feel sorry about the agonising decision she had had to reach all those years ago. I was touched by her honesty.
It became increasingly obvious to me as I grew to maturity that, in fact, no child has a bog standard upbringing. We are all subject to a whole range of different variations with which we have to struggle. As the youngest child I know my siblings felt I was spoilt. I knew my parents favoured my next brother up due to his sporting achievements. They held such things in higher esteem than academic achievement.
In reality I find it pretty astonishing that most of us grow up to be relatively sane and well rounded individuals! ?

 

[Margaid]

Children have always been adopted but there is no less of a bond between the parents and the child, and some babies are born so ill that they have to go straight into emergency care without parental contact, yet all being well they eventually thrive, so I don't think I have any qualms about bonding. I wonder if the child of a transgender person/couple will grow up to be more accepting of a less mainstream life style, or even more open minded in general.

Sorry Mrs Biscuit but I can't agree with you about adopted children. Neither my soon-to-be-ex husband not his sister (also adopted but not related) had any real bonding with their adoptive parents.

Hospitals try very hard to help with bonding; my nephew, who is now 41, was born at 26 weeks and weighed 2lbs 6oz. My sister could touch him in the incubator and within a couple of days could lift him out for a few minutes cuddle. I suspect with the advances in neo-natal care since then, the level of contact has increased/improved/

 

[Margaid]

Two anecdotes. Years ago I saw an ad by a lesbian couple who were looking for a gay man to be a donor father. That struck me as strange that the sexual orientation of the father was relevant. Even if there is a hereditary component in a child’s sexual orientation why would one choose to have a gay child and subject it to all the additional pressures that such a thing brings?

In reality I find it pretty astonishing that most of us grow up to be relatively sane and well rounded individuals! ?

I have a gay friend who is the father of twins born to a lesbian couple. The twins are now about 12 years old I think. He works abroad a lot but his UK base is now in an nearby village to his children. He is involved to some extent in their upbringing and helps out in other ways like providing a "taxi service" when he is in the UK.

I quite agree with your final comment - being a natural child brought up by genetic parents doesn't guarantee a happy childhood. Children from all sorts of backgrounds are highly successful, can go off the rails or just grow up to be "relatively sane and well rounded individuals."

 

[Marigold]

There are many reasons for adopting a child. Newborn, white, fair-haired babies from a guaranteed middle-class background, like the two children growing up next door to us in the 1970s, used to be readily available. Nowadays, since contraception and abortion are easily come by, and there is not the stigma attached to having and keeping a baby born out of wedlock, there are very few newborns available, hence the growth of surrogacy arrangements I suppose. Many people do now adopt older children who have been placed in care for years because they come from an abusive background, in the knowledge that there may be problems ahead but in the determination to do their best to compensate for the child’s difficult start. I’m sure we would all applaud this as an excellent motivation for adoption, - (I’m not trivialising this if I compare it to the urge to get a pet from a rescue, or exbatt chickens) - although obviously it’s likely to come from the same need for a family that drives people to using surrogacy, IVF, a one- night stand, or the good old turkey-baster-full donated by a friend. But it’s not easy. I know of one couple who had desperately wanted a family for years and finally got two lovely boys, 6 and 8 years old, who settled in well with the new father, but the mother, faced with the reality of what she thought she had wished for, then had a breakdown and was unable to care for them. So, after six months, and when they had started to say ‘ I love you, Daddy,’ they were moved on again to yet another foster home.

However, whatever the consequences of the lack of socially ‘unwanted’ newborns nowadays, I am very pleased that few, if any, young women are now put through the dreadful experience of being taken out of school and sent to a mother and baby home for the last two months of pregnancy, giving birth with no family around her, being made to breastfeed the baby for six weeks, and then handing it over to strangers she would never meet again, before returning to her ‘normal life’ in her well-off middle class family. This happened to a 15-year-old I taught at a girls’ grammar school in the late 1960s, made pregnant by a boyfriend who claimed to be 17 but was actually 20, and she was not the only one I knew about from the school. He got off scot free. I went to the wedding of another 16-year-old student, whose parents leant on her to marry her boyfriend, hardly a choice when the alternative was adoption for the baby.
I know a few people act as surrogates within a family, from compassionate reasons, and with no payment involved apart from expenses. I’m sure this is kindly intentioned, but I wonder how well the family structure survives this arrangement, where the birth mother sees her own baby being brought up by someone else and she has to keep quiet about it. We know that the vast majority of surrogate mothers do it for the money, to help get their own family out of grinding poverty, and at enormous cost to their existing family structure. They have to get through the hormonal upheaval of parting with a newborn, which is the same for everyone who gives birth, whatever the circumstances. So deliberately paying a surrogate to have a baby seems to me to be like knowingly buying cheap clothes from a sweatshop, in both cases nearly all the profits will go to the organisers and a very small amount to the birth mother.

 

[bigyetiman]

It was a C section Mrs Biscuit, as my daughter was recovering from Covid, they had already told her that what it would be as the virus had affected her kidneys to avoid any strain.
At the end of the day, I would rather a child brought up happily by any combination of parents than neglected or beaten

 

[Icemaiden]

Can't say fairer than that, BYM...

 

[Margaid]

Sadly any combination of parents is capable of neglect or abuse.