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I don’t think I can.

A woman in Brighton, England has already given away seven babies and is willing to carry and give away another. She was reported to have said that, “I don’t love the baby and I don’t want the baby for myself - the baby is conceived for my couple.”

This is actually baffling for someone like me, who has seemingly loved my unborn children even before I actually conceived them. Heck, before I found someone worthy to conceive them with even.

The Free Online Dictionary defines surrogate mothers as “a woman who agrees to bear a child for another woman, either through artificial insemination by the other woman’s husband or partner or by carrying until birth the other woman’s surgically implanted fertilized egg”. In a lot of countries, surrogacy is legal provided that only the reasonable expenses are paid for by the prospective parents. These expenses include, but may not be limited to, fertility procedures, prenatal check-ups and lab tests, food allowance, vitamins and/or other drugs required by the surrogate mother. Sometimes, this may also cover a minimal allowance for the mother in case she suffers from loss of income due to the pregnancy.

Surrogate mothers come in various forms and shapes. It can be your sister, your sister-in-law, or your mother. It can be a friend or a stranger a surrogacy agency has set you up with. It can even be outsourced now. But whoever they are, they are heaven sent to couples who are unable to conceive on their own.

Now, many say that a child becomes bonded to his host, usually his mother but in this case, his surrogate mother. Firstly, it’s her voice he hears all the time. Secondly, unborn fetuses seem to share the mother’s emotions through the hormones associated with them. Some studies also suggest that mothers who felt no attachment to their unborn child are more likely to have kids with emotional problems.

So isn’t there some disconnect somehow after the baby is given up?

And yet, there have been many adoptive parents who have lovingly cared for children they didn’t conceive, proving that being a psychological parent is the more important thing to be.

Still, I really don’t think I am made of the same mettle as these surrogate mothers. It must take great courage and a really strong self-concept to be able to nurture a child within you, and then have the grace to give it up.

Are you?

Resources:
Ask Dr. Sears

Tags: Adoption, surrogacy, Surrogate mothers, trying to conceive, TTC