Sadly, not everyone can carry a child themselves. So, if they want to become parents, they need to find other ways to do that. Some go for adoption, others for artificial insemination or surrogacy, if the country they live in allows it.
On one hand, having a surrogate means that the mother doesn’t have to deal with all the pregnancy troubles herself. On the other hand, it might bring a new set of unintended troubles into the family’s life.
Like in this story, where an infertile couple found a surrogate to carry their baby. But the day after the birth it became apparent that the surrogate wasn’t planning to let go of them so easily.
More info: Reddit
Unfortunately, not all people in the world can carry their own children, but at least there are other ways for them to become parents
Image credits: Negative Space (not the actual photo)
Today’s author is one of those people who can’t carry their own child, but luckily she and her husband were lucky enough to get a surrogate
Image credits: Helena Lopes (not the actual photo)
During the pregnancy, everything was more than fine, but troubles with the surrogate mother started coming up after the baby arrived
Image credits: u/suffcien
The surrogate became overly attached to the kid and at one point said to him “Come to mama,” which made his actual mom explode and kick the woman out
When the OP was 15 years old, she got into a car accident, which left her severely injured. As a result, she is unable to have kids. Her husband has been aware of this ever since they met. And he agreed that when the time came, they’d use a surrogate.
Basically, a surrogate is a woman who carries a baby for a couple or a person, who is unable to carry a child themselves. She gets pregnant either by artificial insemination with the father’s or a donor’s sperm or by IVF (in vitro fertilization) with a fertilized egg. With the latter, the surrogate isn’t genetically related to the child, but with the former, she is.
Since with IVF or gestational surrogacy, both intended parents have genetic ties to the baby, it makes the whole process less complex legally and thus more common.
So, when the OP and her husband finally decided to have kids, they found a surrogate, just as they had planned. For those who don’t want to ask people they know, or maybe don’t have anyone to ask, agencies come to the rescue. For the author and her husband, the agency paired them with a lovely woman named Jess.
Soon, Jess was pregnant. In the post, it wasn’t specified which surrogacy method was used, even though it’s likely that it was the gestational one. During the whole pregnancy, she was very sweet both to the author and her husband. There was no reason to raise any red flags.
But everything changed when the baby, who was named Owen, was born. Then, suddenly, there was a need to raise many red flags. For instance, the day after the baby was taken home, Jess came over. But it wasn’t a quick visit to check in; she spent hours there. During these hours, she kept trying to take the baby out of his mom’s hands. She also criticized anything that the parents did with the baby.
This visit wasn’t even a one-time thing. This kept going for two weeks. It seemed like the surrogate couldn’t stay away from the baby. And one day she crossed a line.
Image credits: freepik (not the actual photo)
During one of these visits, she picked up Owen and said to him “Come to mama.” This was too much for the baby’s real mom. She started yelling and ended up kicking the woman out of her home. After that, she received quite a few angry texts calling her an ungrateful b-word. Yet, the OP stood by her decision; the only thing she worried about was that she acted a bit too harshly.
So, for some reassurance, she went to Reddit. And internet folks did not disappoint. They assured the woman that she wasn’t too cruel; after all, the surrogate had clearly crossed a significant boundary.
Theoretically, being a surrogate is basically just a job and the woman shouldn’t get attached, as she gets through many screenings to be approved. Yet, some still get in a way attached. Likely because they carried the child for a significant amount of time, so it’s natural to become used to it. Some say it’s more like a protective attachment rather than a motherly one.
But apparently, there are some cases, like in today’s story, where it becomes motherly. As some people online suggested, maybe Jess has some struggles in dealing with the postpartum period. Typically, it lasts 6-8 weeks after birth. During it, the woman’s body slowly goes back to its pre-pregnancy state, so she might experience some physical, hormonal, or mental troubles.
We don’t know Jess well enough to speculate about her health, but it’s still clear that she has some form of attachment to the baby. No matter if she’s genetically related to the baby or not, she agreed that she wouldn’t be his mother, which makes this attachment kind of inappropriate. For this reason, many internet users suggested that the couple contact the agency they got Jess from.
Perhaps they’ll be able to provide some help both for the couple and the struggling woman. And let’s just hope it all can be solved in one way or another, preferably without the extremes of getting law enforcement involved. That would be way harsher than simply yelling at her, wouldn’t it?
Then, the mom came online to ask whether she was wrong to act that way, and people reassured her that being firm with a person who overstepped boundaries was important
Image credits: Keira Burton (not the actual photo)
