Surrogacy
I just had a chat with someone who went through a surrogate mother. It was also for medical reasons (another condition which increased the risk to the mother during pregnancy). The person I talked to was so helpful. She said that I could call her at any time if I have questions or if I just want to share feelings and emotions. She didn't have anyone to talk to when she went through this because she didn't know anyone who had used a surrogate mother and it would have helped her a lot.
- Prior to making the choice to go with a surrogate, this person struggled with the same feelings and emotions. "am I not turning my back on the most wonderful thing in the world?", "I won't be able to control the surrogate mother, what will happen to the child" ,"how much risk does a pregnancy really represent?"
- Her husband finally pushed her into this direction as he really did not want her to put herself at risk for a pregnancy.
- They went to a lawyer (who was infertile) and who now runs a practice to help women find surrogate mothers. This lawyer had a really bad time because nothing was set up right and decided to solve this for other women.
- Apparently, surrogate mothers are carefully screened and must meet at least these two criteria: not be in need of money so that cash isn't the sole motivation for doing this and have had children of their own and be in a relationship.
- Selecting the surrogate works like "match.com". The parents write a profile of their preferences (usually, no smoker, etc...), the surrogate writes a profile of the couple they want to help (for instance, has to be their first child, has to be a married couple, etc...). The "agency" then selects a list of surrogate that match the couple.
- The couple has access to a lot of information to select the surrogate such as "medical history, family history, personality/lifestyle, annual income, a photo and some 15 pages of information that the surrogate writes herself. Also info about how they feel about abortion (so if birth defects were noted during pregnancy, the mother and the surrogate need to have the same idea about what to do about it).
- Once they pick a profile (or several), they can meet the surrogate in person and have a conversation with this person. Usually, they ask some more questions and share concerns/worries/feelings.
- After the couple picks the surrogate, legal details are arranged through the agency and the medical aspect is handled by a fertility clinic. (usually IVF and insemination).
- After the pregnancy starts, apparently it's hard on the "biological" mother. In this case, they were meeting the surrogate only to see her pour herself a cup of coffee, or to find out that she would eat junk food. However, so long as really bad things such as alcohol, drugs and cigarettes are avoided, the rest seems to be ok in moderation. The fetus seems to be able to filter a lot of the bad stuff that comes from the mom. In this case, they chose to maintain a good relationship with the surrogate at the expense of control. They don't know how well/bad the pregnancy would have been if she had decided to carry the baby.
- Apparently surrogate couples are more careful with those babies than they are with their own because they feel an awful lot of responsibilities toward the parents.
- It took them about 2 weeks to find this surrogate mother (they picked the first one that was presented to them)
- In their case, they had twin boys, born prematurely (at 32 weeks), but now very healthy.
- The person was glad not to have been through a pregnancy in hindsight (and she doesn't even think about the surrogacy now, she really started to bond with the children after they were brought into the world) because a lot of people around her had a poor experience with it. She didn't have to worry about this and could spend a lot of time preparing for the arrival of the kids in her home.
- They (the couple) are still friends with the surrogate mother (this is rare apparently because of the tensions that arise during the pregnancy). They exchanged pictures on a regular basis. In a couple of weeks, the surrogate couple will come and visit to see the twins.
This was an extremely helpful call...Hard to tell how I feel about this...
- Prior to making the choice to go with a surrogate, this person struggled with the same feelings and emotions. "am I not turning my back on the most wonderful thing in the world?", "I won't be able to control the surrogate mother, what will happen to the child" ,"how much risk does a pregnancy really represent?"
- Her husband finally pushed her into this direction as he really did not want her to put herself at risk for a pregnancy.
- They went to a lawyer (who was infertile) and who now runs a practice to help women find surrogate mothers. This lawyer had a really bad time because nothing was set up right and decided to solve this for other women.
- Apparently, surrogate mothers are carefully screened and must meet at least these two criteria: not be in need of money so that cash isn't the sole motivation for doing this and have had children of their own and be in a relationship.
- Selecting the surrogate works like "match.com". The parents write a profile of their preferences (usually, no smoker, etc...), the surrogate writes a profile of the couple they want to help (for instance, has to be their first child, has to be a married couple, etc...). The "agency" then selects a list of surrogate that match the couple.
- The couple has access to a lot of information to select the surrogate such as "medical history, family history, personality/lifestyle, annual income, a photo and some 15 pages of information that the surrogate writes herself. Also info about how they feel about abortion (so if birth defects were noted during pregnancy, the mother and the surrogate need to have the same idea about what to do about it).
- Once they pick a profile (or several), they can meet the surrogate in person and have a conversation with this person. Usually, they ask some more questions and share concerns/worries/feelings.
- After the couple picks the surrogate, legal details are arranged through the agency and the medical aspect is handled by a fertility clinic. (usually IVF and insemination).
- After the pregnancy starts, apparently it's hard on the "biological" mother. In this case, they were meeting the surrogate only to see her pour herself a cup of coffee, or to find out that she would eat junk food. However, so long as really bad things such as alcohol, drugs and cigarettes are avoided, the rest seems to be ok in moderation. The fetus seems to be able to filter a lot of the bad stuff that comes from the mom. In this case, they chose to maintain a good relationship with the surrogate at the expense of control. They don't know how well/bad the pregnancy would have been if she had decided to carry the baby.
- Apparently surrogate couples are more careful with those babies than they are with their own because they feel an awful lot of responsibilities toward the parents.
- It took them about 2 weeks to find this surrogate mother (they picked the first one that was presented to them)
- In their case, they had twin boys, born prematurely (at 32 weeks), but now very healthy.
- The person was glad not to have been through a pregnancy in hindsight (and she doesn't even think about the surrogacy now, she really started to bond with the children after they were brought into the world) because a lot of people around her had a poor experience with it. She didn't have to worry about this and could spend a lot of time preparing for the arrival of the kids in her home.
- They (the couple) are still friends with the surrogate mother (this is rare apparently because of the tensions that arise during the pregnancy). They exchanged pictures on a regular basis. In a couple of weeks, the surrogate couple will come and visit to see the twins.
This was an extremely helpful call...Hard to tell how I feel about this...
posted by Finance Monkey at 8:03 PM
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