IPs in Brisbane – Our Ideal Surrogacy Journey

Posted on June 30, 2014 by borysSNORC

Posted to the surrogacy Forum this morning:

Hi all,

One of the wonderful surrogates in the FB Group suggested I write out our ‘ideal surrogacy’ journey, as this can be a way for potential gestational surrogates to connect with someone who needs exactly what they feel they have to give! 🙂

Okay, so obviously thinking in ‘ideals’ and perfect scenarios, means that everything is open to negotiation! Because if IVF and infertility teaches us anything, it is that life is rarely fair, and never deals out the ideal! So take this with a grain of salt because we totally know that nothing ever works out the way you want it to. 😛

Ideally, we would enter into a gestational surrogacy arrangement in Australia, and be able to use our own FS in Brisbane whom we know and trust; with a wonderfully generous woman who is willing to help us. Sometimes it seems like it might be ‘easier’ to go the overseas route, but we are not sure about knowingly entering into something that is clearly illegal in our state (Qld) 🙁 … we are keen to do things legally if at all possible.

Ideally, our gestational surrogate would be willing to spent some time getting to know us over the next several months… we would want to maintain a connection with the birth mother (how close that connection ends up being, would need to develop organically), in order that any child might have the opportunity to meet and know the woman who enabled them to come into this world. For example, if we met a wonderful surrogate soon, ideally, we would look at doing a transfer in Dec 2014/Jan 2105…?

Ideally, our surrogate angel will have had a child/children of her own, or through some other means, fully understands the gravity and importance of what it means to go through a pregnancy and give a gift of this magnitude to someone else, and is mentally prepared for handing over a child to the intended parents in waiting in the wings. I think this must be very difficult.

Ideally, our surrogate miracle worker would understand the limitations of the legal framework that surrounds surrogacy in Australia, and would abide by any agreements (as we would). It would be our worst nightmare to enter into a surrogacy agreement only to have that surrogate change her mind and decide to keep our child. 🙁 I think that one scares us all.

Ideally, we would want to be very involved during the pregnancy and offer as much support as we can. At the same time though, I would not want to smother our surrogate angel, so would ideally love to meet someone who is able to help us find a happy balance – someone fond of (and capable of) open, straightforward communications; someone who is able to tell us exactly what they need, and is also capable of telling us to back off if we are too attentive! 🙂

Ideally, our surrogate wonderbug would live close by so that we could offer assistance, and so that the baby could be born in a hospital local to us. Mind you, this seems unlikely somehow. So, if we found an amazing surrogate who lived far away, I’d love to be able to help them figure out their preferred birth plan at their local hospital etc.

And last but by no means least, ideally our surrogacy journey would lead us to forming a long lasting friendship with our surrogate and her partner (if she has one). I often think of my friendships as being as important as my family members and I can’t imagine going through something like this with someone and not coming out the other side with a special bond.

So that’s us thinking out loud in ‘ideals’, last night, and it probably makes not a bad jumping off point. We are not sure if it is of any use to anyone? But we are an open book … so feel free to ask us anything! 🙂

Thanks for reading.

baby_cradled_in_dad_s_hands___bic_ballpoint_pen_by_vianaarts-d4qjng6

Healthy body needed.

Posted on June 23, 2014 by borysSNORC

Wanted: One gestational surrogate – aka an angel or a miracle worker.

Preferably has had children of their own and has a comprehensive understanding of what surrogacy entails.
Must be fairly fit and healthy and preferably had little to no trouble with their own pregnancies/childbirths.
Most suitable surrogates are usually between 25-37 years of age (depending on health and personal experiences).
Must be a non-smoker, and prepared to give up alcohol and take pre-natal vitamins for the duration.
Must be either single, or have the full support of their husband/partner.
Beneficial to have a basic understanding of the Queensland Surrogacy Act 2010 and/or ability to rapidly acquire knowledge of said act.
Patience, a desire to help others, and a good sense of humour essential!
Oh, and must be prepared to go through with this enormous undertaking, entirely out of the goodness of their heart… because any sort of compensation (tangible or perceived) is completely illegal. 🙁

As is advertising for a surrogate or surrogacy service, in any form whatsoever. In fact, what I just wrote above is probably considered ‘technically’ illegal, or it would be if I wasn’t just thinking out loud, and it was published somewhere more serious than on my inane blog.

Mr K and I are currently looking for a surrogate to help us have another child, using one of the ten little embryos we have sitting in the freezer – the same ones that have been burning a hole in my heart every time I think about them for the last seven years. The problem is that searching for someone, when you are legally constrained from advertising for them, is quite difficult and fraught with pitfalls. According to the fertility specialists, you just ‘jump on those surrogacy forums and web pages, there are hundreds of women around who want to surrogate for people like you’… and when you dive into the forums, it’s true. There are women all around the country who are prepared to be altruistic surrogates for infertile couples… but how do you find someone you can trust? How do you build that sort of rapport and confidence in someone that you’ve just met?!? It’s a bit of an impossible ask.

But even bigger than the issue of finding a suitable and willing surrogate who actually has our best interests (and the best interests of any potential children) at heart, is that the legal framework surrounding surrogacy in Australia is inherently flawed. It neither protects the intended parents (IPs) nor does it protect the surrogate birth mothers. The central tenement that the law revolves around an idealogical concept that the state will never force a woman to give up a child she has carried and nurtured… that is, if the surrogate mother changes her mind she is under no legal obligation to give the child to the intended parents, even if she has indicated it was her intent to do so, even if she has signed legal contracts to that effect, and even if she has no actual biological link to the child. As a potential intended parent, that scares the absolute hell out of us. That you could entrust someone with your precious little embryo, and they could grow and nurture that embryo into a beautiful little child that I never could, and then if they change their mind at any point and keep the child, and use, as the intended parents; have no legal rights over our own genetic child. 🙁

The other side of the coin – the legislation doesn’t protect the surrogate mothers very well either. This is a far less likely scenario and is a bit of a wild, pie in the sky, ‘what if’ – but In the unlikely situation that a child is born with a undetected congenital defect or suffers an extremely rare trauma during birth or any one of the number of unusual complications that can occur during pregnancy and childbirth, the intended parents can at any time refuse to accept responsibility of the child, leaving the surrogate mother, literally holding the baby – because according to the legislation, the child is legally hers until a parentage order and a re-issued birth certificate are sorted at one month of age.. So fucked up on so many levels. I could never turn my back on my child but it turns out that some people can. I’ve even heard of situations where childless couples have gone for surrogacy and then refused to accept their own genetic twins back, because apparently they only wanted one little miracle not two! Yes, that is an extreme example, but there are some unconscionable nutters out there.

Which brings me back to the original topic. If you are hoping to enter into an altruistic surrogacy arrangement with someone you have literally just met through one of these Families Through Surrogacy forums, how on earth do you ensure that all parties involved have the same goals, the same expectations and the same intentions? How can you be sure they are going to follow through on the contracts that you’re both required to complete, when the legal framework in place is insufficient to enforce them? It’s all good and well that clinics make all people involved go through counselling, but ultimately a handful of counselling sessions seem insufficient to ensure that an endeavour of this immensity doesn’t go south. One counsellor I spoke with said that the best surrogacy arrangements stem from long established friends, or family members, acting as surrogates – because the people involved already have a perhaps longstanding desire to help the infertile couple. But how do you approach someone to do something like this for you? It’s just so huge, I think… quite literally the biggest thing you could ever do for another human being. :/

And I thought IVF was an emotional minefield.

Surrogacy, the scary introduction.

Posted on June 5, 2014 by borysSNORC

I’ve recently joined a surrogacy forum that explores the various options of altruistic surrogacy in Australia, as well as commercial surrogacy overseas, in countries like Thailand and India (most common), Georgia and the US and Canada. One of the things they do is encourage new members to share their own stories with the group, so people will know what brings them to joining the forum… and also gives some background for surrogates who use these forums to find IPs (intended parents) for whom they want to act as gestational surrogates. Not an easy thing to sit down and write as I have such a long and drawn out history with infertility… but with ten little embryos burning a hole in the freezer, it is option we want to explore. So here goes:

“It’s hard to find a starting point when writing about our journey to have a family. So I’ll try to attack it chronologically…

When I was 19, I was in a car accident – a taxi driver didn’t see me and t-boned right into my car. I suffered a bad whiplash to my cervical spine, but was lucky to not be more seriously injured. Four months later I was driving on a country road and was in a head on collision with someone who was driving on the wrong side of the road as I came over a hill. I suffered a really horrific whiplash (lipstick ended up on my chest) and my neck/back was never the same after that. The doctors, the pain, the drugs, the physio –yuk. Three years after that I was driving with a friend in Tasmania, and he lost control of the car and rolled us into a ditch. I came to, hanging upside down in the car in a panic with a massive boulder right in front of my head, and it was off to hospital in an ambulance yet again. These horrid accidents left me with a chronic back problem and daily pain. Over time, I got used to it, it was still bad but mostly manageable. In the middle of this, I had my first miscarriage when I was 20, but at the time I just thought it was not meant to be… so young, so naive.

Convinced I had been through the ‘bad things happen in threes’ thing, life was looking up. I met a wonderful man named Mr K, who three weeks after we met declared he was going to marry me! I didn’t believe him then – we were so young – but now I can’t believe my good fortune – he is the most wonderful, supportive, caring person I have ever known. We got married in 1999 and at the end of that year I found myself at the OB/GYN with a positive pregnancy test in my hand, thinking we were getting ready for the next chapter of our lives. Instead, I found out I had miscarried again, and was diagnosed with severe PCOS and also endometriosis. We started off down the IVF path, slowly at first – four IUI cycles, then a laparoscopy, then a proper IVF cycle. I was 28 and Keith was only 24. Our first couple of transfers, were unsuccessful, and then… what I have now come to think of as a miracle – a positive and a beautiful son for us. Angus was born in 2001 and he has quite simply, become my raison d’etre. My chronic back pain did not handle pregnancy well at all, and by the beginning of the second trimester, I was in so much pain I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t move well and was unable (and unwilling!) to take much medication, lest it harm my precious little cargo. When my son was born by c-section, my back pain settled back to it’s normal ‘dull roar’ almost overnight, and my OB was shocked when I described the c-section pain as a ‘mild abdominal discomfort’, compared to the pain and pressure bub had been placing on my spine.

When Angus was about 18 months old, we returned to the IVF clinic with our 8 embryos in the freezer, convinced that we knew what we were doing. Out of those 8 embryos I was confident we would have another child, (or even twins!), to complete our little family. I have never been so wrong about anything in my entire life – not before, or since. Those 8 embryos were implanted over the next four months with no success. Over the following five years, we had 8 or 9 more egg collections, and nearly 60 embryos transferred back to my traitorous body. We tried different hormone support protocols, all the ICSI, all the hatching and all the embryo glue etc. We tried everything. Each pick up we would get at least 14-15 good eggs, and had a 95% fertilization rate, and got told we had young, good looking embryos that always developed well to blastocyst., but they never ‘took’. My Fertility Specialist kept saying that, because I was young, it would work eventually… though I began to think it was the ‘eventually’ bit that would kill me. I did finally have a (+)ve in May of 2006, but that resulted a the most traumatic and soul destroying experience – after so much effort to get pregnant, the foetus failed to develop and I had a D&C on the saddest day ever. I still remember rattling off my name, DOB and FS’s name to everyone who came near me that day, as I lay in my outpatient bed, in a zombie-like state of emotional numbness. Our baby girl had a chromosomal abnormality – a trisomy 23 – she would never have survived.

I have never put so much time or energy or resources or research or money, into anything only to discover that it didn’t matter what we did – it was all out of our control. Each cycle felt like gambling. Turn up, do what you’re told, hand over your money and cross your fingers. And I never was the gambling type…

Our FS was less upbeat as time went by, one day telling me that I was his one patient that kept him awake at night – a distinction I really didn’t want. There was no medical reason that these embryos weren’t taking. I would sit in the post-transfer recovery room and look at all the other women and watch the other husbands bringing in teddy bears for their wives… My husband of course was across town at work, long since having given up coming with me, as he couldn’t get the time off work and we had become quite complacent about all the appointments. Over time I became uncharacteristically cynical too, I didn’t want to talk to the other women, and a horrible uncharitable part of me that I never knew existed, fervently wished and hoped that statistically speaking it would be ME with the successful transfer that month, and not them. Being a frequent flyer at the IVF clinic is something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy – it changes you. We did a couple more cycles before we had to hit the “pause” button for a while. This was for a few reasons – primarily because my father had been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and we knew he only had a few months left to live, and I really wanted to spend his remaining months making sure he got to spend as much time with Angus as possible. That and I had been obsessing about IVF for so many years, that our finances were in ruin. So we put it aside, with ten little embryos still stored in the freezer. I was 34/35 by then.

My father passed away in January 2007 and I went back to work desperately attempting to get on top of the financial havoc I had allowed pile up in the wake of my relentlessly pursing IVF. The plan was to work for a year and then return to IVF and my ten little embryos. Unfortunately that never came to pass, thanks to yet another nasty car accident – this time on the way home from work. I was stopped in a line of traffic, and a lady in an RX8 on her mobile phone, rammed my car from behind at full speed, lifting my Rav4 up on two wheels and nearly rolling me into the oncoming cars, before I teetered for what felt like forever, eventually crashing down into the vehicle in front of us. And so began the rounds of orthopaedic surgeons and neurosurgeons and physiotherapists of my youth, all over again. This time, a neurosurgeon finally diagnosed a chronic neuropathic pain condition, and a plethora of medication was prescribed to attempt to manage it. But there ended my plans to go back to IVF too.

In 2008, I had a natural conception – miracle of miracles! But that too, ended in miscarriage. So, here we are six years later, I still have incredibly high levels of daily pain, and am still on way too much medication to contemplate, and we still have those ten little embryos in frozen storage. Ten little embryos that represent so much hope, and yet, so much loss and pain too. Mr K now works for the public service and I have been studying for the last few years to stop me from losing my mind, as I am physically unable to work since the last accident. I am now part way through my PhD – I am researching medieval political philosophy (Yeah I know… it’s not everyone’s cup of tea).

Through it all, we have never given up on our dream to have more children. Lord knows, I have tried to give up. I have many times wished that this desire to have more children would just go away, and take with it the unwanted bitterness and jealousy of watching so many friends and family have their children so easily. But after so many years, I know it won’t. It never goes away. At the moment, Mr K is going through the process of donating sperm, because, well… we would do anything humanly possibly to help others to have the families they want, because we of all people know exactly what it feels like when you can’t.

Oh dear… half a dozen tissues later. Sorry this has turned into a huge wall of text, and I totally forgive anyone who gave up on reading it. I have joined this forum because surrogacy may well be the last chance we have, to attempt to fill the enormous hole in our lives, that we have been carrying around now, for about a decade. I have seen some of the posts from the extraordinary women who offer to surrogate for couples like us, and want to say – the generosity of spirit demonstrated here is nothing short of miraculous. As overwhelmed as I am, to be contemplating embarking on a surrogacy journey, it is extraordinary to think there are amazing people out there who genuinely want to help. From the stories you have shared, and through your incredibly selfless deeds, all you truly generous and beautiful women on this forum and on the Facebook group, have fast become an inspiration to me. I am somewhat awestruck by the sincerity and generosity that I have seen in these pages.

Anyway, thanks for reading my saga.”

Plane thoughts.

Posted on November 10, 2013 by borysSNORC

In October 2012, Mr K and I went to see our old IVF specialist. For anyone who has ever read much of this blog, you probably know already that the ten microscopic frozen embryos that I have in storage represent a huge weight hanging over my head. So we went to see Glenn to discuss the idea of using them via a surrogate, in what would be a last ditch attempt to try and have another child. Glenn seemed happy to see us as per usual, remembered every detail of every other patient I had sent to him, enquired after my family – my mother, my father, both of my sisters and even two friends I had sent him, and told us that our embryos statistically have an 80% chance of ‘taking’ if put back in a normally fertile and healthy woman… as compared the <30%ish chance they always had when being put back in me. It all sounded very positive and doable even (though the cost was going to be prohibitive with a rough figure of approximately $30,000 being bandied about). But then again… Glenn always was very optimistic for us, largely due to my youth, which in fertility terms at the time I was seeking treatments was on my side. He told us that from when we decided to go ahead, it would take about three months in legals and counselling before an implantation to a surrogate could take place. And I remember thinking… ‘That soon, huh?’

Anyway, we talked about it for a while and eventually Mr K decided we would ask his sister if she would act as a surrogate for us. Such a huge… HUGE… thing to ask anyone, and while we have had offers from two other women in our lives, who said they would help us out in this way if they could – it was his sister whom we felt we could most trust with the most precious possession we have in this life… our potential unborn child. It’s a very delicate subject all round and so highly charged with emotions. Mr K’s sister has two absolutely delightful children of her own, so understands the enormous impact of what we would be asking her, as well as fully comprehending the import that accompanies agreeing to enter into such an arrangement. So, Mr K said he would talk to her and see what she said, and eventually in July 2014 (with me hovering in the wings for months waiting for him to find an ‘opportune moment’, trying so desperately every day not to push for things to move more quickly… patience has never been one of my strong suits and I was worried he would change his mind), he spoke with her about it. He decided it would be best to ask her ‘brother to sister’, and I could talk with her later if she wanted any more information about artificial reproductive technologies or the emotional side of complicated fertility or indeed, what this would mean to us.

July he broached the subject with her. A week or so later, I visited and thanked her for considering the situation and told her that I felt she was the person we most trusted to help us with this endeavour. I could not describe how this undertaking felt for me, nor could I adequately put into words my thoughts about how absolutely impossible it would be for us to thank her should she choose to go through with this, and give us the gift of another little person to add to our small family… and then we backed off and gave her space to think. July came and went. And then August… I mentioned to her once in passing that if she needed more detailed information, that I could make an appointment with the IVF specialist for her and he could offer her independent advice on what being a surrogate entails. August behind us, September flew past, all the time… every single day… I fretted. I worried about what would happen if she said ‘no’. I worried about what would happen if she said ‘yes’.

I was scared shitless by the enormity of what we were considering entering into – giving our precious embryos into someone else’s safekeeping in a legal environment that gives all rights to any child born to the birth mother, and not the biological parents. I worried away at it every single day, to the point where I have found it difficult to think cohesively on other things. October came and went and I could feel myself starting to get sick to the stomach every time I thought about it. Convinced that this wasn’t important to her. Convinced that we aren’t important to her. Convinced that our happiness doesn’t matter to others at all. Worried that she had forgotten all about it, or that she felt we shouldn’t have more children or, even worse, when my imagination ran away with me, felt that we didn’t deserve more children.

Then November rolls around and on a weekend while I am out of town, Mr K’s sister tells us that she can’t help us. She doesn’t want to be a surrogate for us and immediately I felt like the very air around me was being sucked out of my lungs. I could not breathe. I was at an event surrounded by friends and strangers… some of them very dear and very close friends, but whom I didn’t feel I could confide in about something so personal or so explosively emotional, without completely breaking down in front of 140 people. There was no where to go, no where to hide, no where to let my pain out. I didn’t have (and still don’t) any details as to why she has decided she can’t undertake this for us or doesn’t want to. In part, I am not sure it really matters what the reasons are behind it – the outcome is the same regardless, but I’d like to know all the same. I am thankful that she even considered doing this for us and by all accounts she seems to have considered it long and hard… but I can’t find the words to describe how unbelievably devastated I feel. Like I have been waiting for the last four years for things to come together for us to be able to consider surrogacy as an option only to find that it’s not an option after all.

I was surrounded by people and yet I’ve never felt so alone in my entire life. I am not sure how I held it together in the hours that followed – I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, I wanted to run away, I wanted to hurl myself into freezing water, I wanted to tear at my flesh with my fingernails and wail about how unfair my whole fucking life has been… I wanted to feel something, anything other than the deep and unrelenting sadness and crushing disappointment that gripped my heart and my mind. Instead, I smiled and carried on with my day… pretending to enjoy the company of my friends and hoping that no one noticed anything was amiss because I certainly didn’t want to explain this to anyone.

And now I feel like a huge bottle of angst waiting to explode. What am I to do now?

Surrogacy minefield.

Posted on November 4, 2013 by borysSNORC

I was out to lunch yesterday and saw a good looking young couple come into the restaurant, with their two beautiful children – a toddler about three and an infant about two months old. Nothing remarkable there I guess, except that the couple was gay and the children obviously became part of their family either through adoption, or via surrogacy and adoption, or through some other ‘non-traditional’ means. Seeing they don’t have a uterus between them, it’s a fairly safe assumption. Encountering them caused me mixed emotions… I was glad on the one hand that this loving couple could have a family and on the other hand, it made me feel so sad all over again because I’ve never managed to have the family that I wanted.

Surrogacy has been something that has been on my mind since oh, about 2006 when I had my last egg collection and have been agonising what to do with my ten little frozen embryos ever since. There were three major hindrances to attempting to extend our little family through surrogacy though…. 1) it was illegal in Queensland, 2) we were considered ineligible in other states due to the fact that I already had one viable live birth and was deemed by some doctors as still potentially able to have another viable live birth (and this in spite of four miscarriages and several years trying), and 3) it would have been hideously expensive even if we were eligible.

Then things sort of changed. Queensland was slowly getting in step with the rest of the world and legalized altruistic surrogacy via the Surrogacy Act in 2010, and by that time I had been involved in another car accident rendering my incapable of carrying another pregnancy, which would mean we were eligible now. However there still remained at least two fairly hefty obstacles.. 1) finding a suitable surrogate we could trust – how do you even begin to ask someone to do something so monumentally huge for you? and 2) the nearly $30,000 in medical and legal expenses we were told it would cost to go through a surrogacy procedure. 🙁 The stars were never destined to align on this one, I fear. And yet, I still have those ten little embryos in the freezer, and I would give my right hand to see even one of them grow into a little person.

Recently I saw an article on the BBC news website about commercial surrogacy in India, and it has raised the whole surrogacy thing back up again.
___________________________________________________________

Living inside the house of surrogates – Lucy Wallis BBC News

Commercial surrogacy is estimated to be worth more than $1bn a year in India. While pregnant, some surrogate mothers live in dormitories – which critics call baby factories. They give childless couples the family they have longed for, but what is it like for the women who carry someone else’s child for money?

“In India families are close. You are ready to do anything for your children,” says 28-year-old Vasanti. “To see my children get everything I ever dreamt of, that’s why I have become a surrogate.” Vasanti is pregnant, but not with her own child – she is carrying a Japanese couple’s baby. For this she will be paid $8,000 (£4,967), enough to build a new house and send her own two children, aged five and seven, to an English-speaking school – something she never thought was possible. “I’m happy from the bottom of my heart,” says Vasanti. She was implanted with their embryo in the small city of Anand in Gujarat and will spend the next nine months living in a nearby dormitory with about 100 other surrogate mothers, all patients of Dr Nayna Patel.

There are up to 10 surrogate mothers in each room. The women have their meals and vitamins delivered to them and are encouraged to rest. Vasanti, however, cannot help feeling restless. “At night I wander around because I can’t sleep. As my tummy is getting bigger and the baby is growing I am getting really bored,” says Vasanti. “Now I want to go home really soon to be with my children and my husband.” The rules of the house forbid the women from having sex during the pregnancy, and emphasise that neither the doctor nor the hospital, nor the couple whose baby it is, are responsible for any complications. If the mother is bearing twins she receives a higher fee – $10,000. If she miscarries within three months, she receives $600. The couples are charged around $28,000 for a pregnancy that leads to a successful birth.

Dr Nayna Patel (front centre) has delivered hundreds of babies in the last decade

Dr Patel, who runs the IVF clinic and the dormitory and delivers the babies, acknowledges that many people find her work offensive. “I have faced criticism. I am facing it and I will be facing it, because this, according to many, is a controversial subject,” she says. “There are a lot of allegations that this is just a business, this is just baby-selling, a baby-making factory, and all these phrases used to hurt.” Some say that the surrogates are being exploited, but Patel argues that the worlds of big business, glamour and politics are harsher. “I feel that each and every person in this society is using one or the other person,” Patel says.

In her opinion, the mothers are getting a fair deal. “These surrogates are doing the physical work, agreed, and they are being compensated for that. They know that there is no gain without pain,” she says. While they stay in the surrogate house, Patel says the women are taught new skills such as embroidery so that they can earn a living after they leave.

The women are taught new skills such as how to become beauticians

And the money they earn is huge by local standards. Vasanti’s payment, which she receives in instalments, dwarfs her husband Ashok’s monthly income of about $40 a month. Some mothers come back again after giving birth once. Three times is the maximum Patel allows. There are a number of reasons why India is “the surrogacy hub of the world”, she says. Good medical technology is available and the cost is comparatively low. But the legal situation is also favourable, Patel argues.

“The surrogate has no right over the baby or no duties towards the baby, so that makes it easier. Whereas in the Western world… the birth mother is considered as the mother and the birth certificate will have her name.” Not having the surrogate’s name on the birth certificate can make it harder for the children to find out about the surrogate mother who gave birth to them if one day they want to gain an understanding of their past.

India has one third of the world’s poorest people and critics argue that poverty is a major factor in the women’s decision to become a surrogate. “There are… many needy females in India,” says Patel. “The food, shelter, clothing and medicine, healthcare is not free for all in India. People have to fend for themselves.” Patel says she encourages the women to use their earnings wisely. Vasanti and her husband are building a new home.

“The house I live in at the moment is a rented house, this one will be much better,” says Ashok. “My parents will be pleased that their son and his wife have managed to build a house. Our status in society will go up, which will be a good thing.” But the new house comes at a price. It will not be built in the same area as their old one, because of hostility from neighbours. “If you are at home then everyone knows that we are doing surrogacy, that this is a test tube baby, and they use bad language. So then we can’t stay there safely,” says Vasanti.

Vasanti and Ashok with their daughter

As she nears her due date, Vasanti becomes more anxious about the birth. “I don’t know anything about whether my couple will come and take my baby straight away, or if it will stay with me for 10, 15 days, 20 days. I might not even get to see it,” she says. Vasanti is moved to hospital and after a protracted labour, Patel decides to give her a caesarean section.

It’s a boy – usually a cause for celebration in India, but Vasanti is concerned that the Japanese couple had originally wanted a girl. The baby is taken directly to a neonatal hospital where his parents will be able to collect him and take him to Japan. Vasanti is tearful as she remembers the moment she caught a glimpse of him. “I saw him when I had my caesarean. I saw my son, but then they took him straight away. I must have seen him for five seconds, so I saw that he was living. “The couple wanted a girl and it’s a boy. It’s good whether it’s a boy or a girl. She’s got a child at least.” As the tiny baby boy she has carried for the past nine months starts his new life, Vasanti is beginning hers. She lives in her new house with her family and her children attend an English-speaking school. “My children are growing day by day and we want a good future,” says Vasanti. “That’s why we [did] this, and not in my entire life do I want my daughter to be a surrogate mother.”

House of Surrogates will be broadcast on Tuesday 1 October at 21:00 BST on BBC Four. Or catch up later on BBC iPlayer

___________________________________________________________

I managed to find and watch the documentary, and have to admit, I was quite surprised by it. I expected to be confronted by extremely desperate self serving western couples who were completely taking advantage of the poverty of these Indian women – because I know what that particular desperation looks like, and it’s not pretty, so I could understand entirely how and why this could end up being the case. However, these women who choose to be surrogates were not exactly lacking in agency. Yes, they come from poverty stricken backgrounds and are generally not very educated, but they making a conscious decision to enter into surrogacy to improve their personal family situations, knowing what they are doing and, very importantly, why they want to do it. Most of them are doing it for the money, though some of them mention they want to help the childless couples too. The surrogates receive health monitoring, financial counselling, room and board, vocational training, and while I personally think that they could benefit by a less ‘hard love’ and more Western approach to counselling about the emotional side of giving up a child, I’m not so sure you could definitively say they are being exploited.

The surrogates have all had their own families and understand the import of what having children means in someone’s life. These women want to better their own lot in life and decide to carry a baby for a childless couple in order to gain a huge increase in quality of life for herself, her husband, her children and frequently for her extended family also.

I haven’t actually made enquiries… but it makes me want to contact Dr Patel’s clinic and find out how to transfer my embryos to India. Scary and risky prospect that that is.