Wouldn’t do this again as an IP
Hi. I know this will be controversial but wanted to get my thoughts down. Surrogacy is beautiful if done with HONESTY and professionalism.
I’m an IP who has face multiple losses of many different kinds. Years and years of infertility. The last loss devastated me and I looked into surrogacy.
A small agency made it happen faster than I could imagine. Before I knew it I was signing a contract with a GC who was healthy, a second time GC, and a Mom herself. The agency told me she’s perfect and she’s doing it mostly for altruistic reasons, despite the very high compensation. It was important to me this was not just a financial arrangement. I wanted this woman’s kids and family to be able to benefit from this. And in the future I plan on donating anonymously to her family again when I have the means. I’m
As soon as the contract was signed I was sidelined. The agency owner would just side with the GC as she did multiple things like not do the 10 week screening or see an ob gyn until pretty late in the pregnancy, go on multiple vacations including in late pregnancy, not contact us at all (for months sometimes—we would not contact her because she
didn’t want to be bothered and we wanted to keep her didn’t want to be bothered and we wanted to keep her happy. And after the birth she didn’t want to hand over the baby/had a lot of issues with not wanting to give up baby.
It also turned out that she did for money and even the 100k compensation we gave her (that’s all to her) wasn’t enough and she was always telling us she needed money. Her first journey paid her even more and we aren’t sure what happened with that.
In any case witnessing the birth was traumatizing for me because I realized I would never want to put another woman in danger like that. It hit me something could happen to her and her children could be motherless and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if that happened.
We are seeing, in IP communities, more and more discussion of how IPs are sidelined and treated like ATMs while agencies and GCs oftenhj work together. I am not sure why agencies don’t take a more balanced approach and listen to IPs too. The contracts are useless and the whole industry needs an upheaval.