There is not a lot written about the experience of going through those steps and encountering those delays, but it was one of the most complicatedly painful experiences of my life. I'm not used to being helpless about things which matter to me as much as my children matter. You're in my thoughts and I am sure you will be incredible parents once the dice finally roll in your favor.
I'm on the other side of this, currently acting as a(n altruistic, independent) surrogate for a friend. It's been a long and, at times, bumpy road, but we got there -- we're currently in the second trimester. It would never have occurred to be to become a surrogate through an agency, for a stranger -- this was specifically something I offered to my friend, because I knew both how desperately she wanted to be a parent, and also what an incredible mother she would be and how lucky her child would be to grow up in that family. And it was in my power to make that happen -- how often do we have the opportunity to change lives like that?
That said, now that I've been immersed in this world and understand more about both the process and the impact, I absolutely understand much more why people do. If it weren't the fact that I'll be outside the age range for surrogacy by the time this current pregnancy is over, I'd even consider it myself. (And I don't say that lightly -- my pregnancies have been clinically perfect but subjectively utterly miserable experiences; I am not the stereotypical surrogate who has easy, enjoyable pregnancies.)
I have my own mixed feelings about the larger surrogacy industry (I'm including in that the agencies, the lawyers who draft and negotiate the legal agreements, and the IVF clinics that have been conditioned to certain expectations when it comes to working with agency surrogates), which I don't think always find the right balance between the needs/interests/priorities of the surrogates and the intended parents. But I am always saddened when people look at that and conclude that the problem is inherent to surrogacy itself, and the solution is to eliminate surrogacy. Systemically, there are small changes, like NY State's Gestational Surrogates' Bill of Rights, that I think would go a long way toward an appropriate rebalancing. And individually, thoughtful individuals who go into this with an appropriate level of consideration are -- even within the current system -- absolutely able to set up equitable, ethical, non-exploitative arrangements.
In any case, Trace, I think it's wonderful that you're doing this, I think finding an independent surrogate is a fantastic approach, and I wish you all the very best and much success. I'm not a candidate myself, but if there's any way I can be helpful (like, I dunno, talking about my positive experience as an independent surrogate with someone who might be interested but cautious?) I'd love to help.
It's fantastic to get your perspective on all of this. Thanks for weighing in—I don't have anything substantive to add here, but I think you touched on a lot worth saying, and I very much appreciate your offer of general help.
I went through this and am here if I can ever share experiences or resources. Regarding the ethics issues, two notes. First, I've found that having a kid is so life-giving and generative that it offsets a lot of concerns about leftover embryos. Second, there's something called embryo adoption where people who go through IVF can donate extra embryos to families struggling with fertility. It's a really beautiful thing — to give an embryo a chance at life while helping a couple make a family. Anyways, best of luck in your parenting journey.
I hope your family finds success and happiness. As a parent myself it's joyful to see new families forming. It's also a peverse delight knowing that you will encounter the most mind boggling situations with your child(ren) and find yourself questioning your sanity. At 3am I was just having this fun conversation with my daughter. " You're very smart and capable. I'm very proud of you. Go get your own water. I love you very much. Leave me alone."
I wanted to add something about adoption and foster care. I don't want to disuade people from helping those children but I do want people to go into the situation clear eyed. I used to teach children with emotional disturbance and I have seen foster parents and adoptive parents unprepared for the reality of potential challenges their child will have. Children may have been exposed to illegal drug use in the womb, their early life may have been abusive, they may have genetic predisposition to learning, mental, emotional disabilities. Agencies don't hide these things but you can't really prepare someone for this.
Good luck! You'll need it! One day in the darkest part of a pandemic you'll see your child move their mask to put their tongue on a shopping cart handle and be convinced your not going to make it.
We had twins 15 years ago via this same process. We found our surrogate through an agency. She is my hero, and her family has become cousins to ours. We travel interstate every year to be together. Maybe not "romantic" initially, but very much so now. Best wishes!
This is a wonderful piece and I wish you the best of luck in your journey. As a side note, I think the Cornell review on the effects of same-sex parenting is a mish-mash of studies with varying rigor.
Fortunately, I reviewed the highest quality set of studies on the effects of same-sex parenting and they provide no cause for concern 😄
Thanks! This is actually the one I was looking for and hoping to link; I couldn’t find it on a quick search but I’m glad to have it again. I’ll edit the post.
> [F]or many foster kids—probably most—the reason they end up in the system in the first place is because one of their parents was dealing with problems like drug addiction, mental illness, or getting arrested. And often, after the child is placed in care, a parent will sober up for a while, get a job, or otherwise start to pull things together. Or a relative, like a grandmother, will step in and say, “I’ll take care of the kid.”
> From the system’s point of view, this means they might have to move the child back. But if the kid stays with the same foster family for too long, they can form strong attachments. Then, if their biological parent reappears and says, “You can come live with me now,” the child might resist, saying, “I’ve been living here for a year or two, I don’t want to go.” So the system’s way of “solving” this is to move the child every few months so they never form an attachment with any of their foster families.
This is obviously horrific, as the replies to the Tweet note. I question how common it actually is: NZ policy is explicitly the opposite of this, as you'd imagine a system designed by non-evil human beings would be.
Ah Trace I don’t know ya but I just love reading you because 1) You’re a fabulous writer, and 2) I, too, am an ex-Mormon who has hung onto the best of that childhood. A gay high school best friend and his husband just brought home their first surrogate baby - so it is possible!
I wish you and your husband nothing but the best as you move towards parenthood. I’m about to send my twin boys to daycare for the first time and I can attest that, whatever form it comes in, it is a truly awesome experience. Good luck!
Great post. I wish you swift success with the process!
About a year and a half ago, my ex and I spent a day at an information session for the foster family to adoption route, which was the required first step in that process. A sinking feeling took both of us as we learned more and more about how this sort of thing is expected to go. Not just the fact that adoption is the less desired outcome, but also that there are just so many *heavy* requirements such as having to bring the child to supervised visits with their biological parents basically every week for about two years. We were told that it's highly preferable to have a car than rely on public transit because the children tend to be extremely emotional after such encounters. And various other things like that.
Not to mention the heavy bureaucratic and legal work that had to be completed at various points. We considered at least signing up for infant adoption, but the wait time for this in our city is 10 years (!) and it involves enough paperwork to get started that we put it off indefinitely. As for international adoption, it's now rare in general, and rarer for same-sex couples who are barred from most countries that still allow it. (As far as I could find info on this, which is very little, the only gay-couple-friendly countries for which there exists some sort of process in Quebec to adopt from were Colombia and... the United States.)
So yes, surrogacy is basically the only practical option for gay couples, and I wish that we made it more accessible instead of adding various bureaucratic layers to it, except insofar as the bureaucracy may reassure people who are still uncomfortable with the idea.
I think about this topic a lot, nowadays mostly with sadness, since it seems pretty unlikely that I'll ever have kids now that the process for me has reset all the way to "find a partner." Besides I don't really plan on optimizing to find someone who absolutely wants kids. So it would take a lot of things to go right for that to happen. At least I'm lucky enough to have two great nephews.
We had the same troubling experience attempting adoption. Gave up and did a surrogacy. The change from being judged and micromanaged in the pre-adoption process to being empowered to select an egg donor and a surrogate was astonishing. We got very lucky, but as usual, money = power.
I imagine you get some hate for this on Twitter etc.
I'll note that as far as I can tell of you, you're not far off a thought experiment designed to make the strongest possible case for gay male surrogacy. I hope you meet speedy success, I think your future kids would be luck to have you as a parent. Good luck!
While I applaud Tracing Woodgrains for sharing his personal experience; and I also feel for him how distressing it must be to not have a child. It is a pain I share, having found myself unmarried in my 30s.
That said, I can’t allow sentimentality to allow me to accept his statements uncritically.
I have mixed feelings about surrogacy, one one hand, wonderful for those who can have kids. However, on the other hand, it turns wombs to a consumer product and a woman into simply a capitalistic vessel. As much as he says he wants the romanticism, what shocks me most about the gay family portraits is the absence. Absence of the women who carried the baby 9 months, risking their lives, to make these babies possible.
I see these family portraits, with two dads and kids and I ask myself, where is the mom who carried these children and kept him or her alive? And after birth, the mother doesn’t keep in contact with the family, she has no place of reverence or respect. It’s like she is a worker, paid for her labour, then abandoned.
The studies he cites on the impacts of surrogacy are few, and not numerous enough to show what would happen if surrogacy was more widespread. I would caution using the limited data we have to draw widespread conclusions.
That said, since he wants to have a child, why not use an agency? Romance is nonsense in this business, he is hiring a woman to carry a child that she will then have to disconnect from after birth. Why not go to an agency that can protect the woman’s rights? With women who have done it before? And can do it again?
I don’t believe him that it is because he is romantic, I worry that it is a money thing.
I’m sorry to be the skunk in this heartfelt piece. I wish him the best of luck.
In Australia, surrogacy occurs but is only permissible as an altruistic act - surrogates cannot be paid (apart from medical bills). It is interesting to consider how it can occur as a paid act and still be ethical - I think Trace’s description of the process and choice not to use an agency show a thoughtfulness towards this, and would certainly help ensure as much as is possible that it is a beautiful and rewarding experience for all involved. This was a really interesting piece - I enjoyed it.
Thank you for conveying your discomfort in a non hostile way — it has helped me understand this perspective better. I suppose my answer, as someone going through surrogacy, is that I don’t share your aesthetic distaste for “capitalism” or for transactions? I think it’s a beautiful thing that this woman is carrying my baby, with care and with a nurturing spirit, to give it to me; and I am giving her money which she will use for her own family, and in that way I’m nurturing them. We have met with her and her husband and established a friendly acquaintance, and we will share baby updates as well, although perhaps eventually we will fall out of touch. That’s okay. Not all friendly acquaintanceships (or friendships!) last forever.
I’m not religious at all but I like the Christian social media idea of “seasons of life” that I see thrown around. The surrogate walks with the baby for a season, and then that season ends.
I don’t really see pregnancy or childbirth as something you walk through for a “season”. You go through childbirth to become a mother. This seems to me as an aestheticizing something that isn’t really that beautiful; perhaps for you, who gets a child without the pain and risk of birth; but for her, who knows?
You mention that you are giving her money which she will use for her family, I don’t find anything beautiful in what is essentially a woman selling her womb so that she can provide for her family.
Also you never have prepared for the other big thing no one discusses; What if this woman dies during or after this pregnancy. A lot of pregnancies go wrong, now more than ever with our new abortion laws. Have you thought of the fact that your desire to have a child may inadvertently lead to the death of this woman? How would you compensate that or remember her? What if she develops eclampsia and then has a stroke or has a peripartum cardiomyopathy (as a result of this pregnancy) which severely decreases her quality of life? How would you compensate for that? Does your contract include provisions for this?
See there are a lot of difficult questions here that don’t fit on Instagram posts or Christianisms (that sort of very hand washy Christian sayings that obfuscate the reality underneath).
That’s why while I am not anti surrogacy I am unabashedly not pro it. It requires carefulness to do justice to the women and the family involved. Most people do not have that level of consideration.
Yes, the contract does include provisions for all these things. IPs also buy a life insurance policy for the surrogate.
There is also extremely aggressive medical screening, so while pregnancy always carries risks, the risks for surrogates are lower than for the average woman (and ofc MUCH lower than for women who seek out surrogates, who are either infertile or high risk). Most women would not qualify to be a surrogate. You have to essentially have had ~no complications in any of your previous pregnancies and births. You also have to have ~no history of psychiatric issues or meds, be financially stable, have a stable family, a whole raft of things. There’s also psychological screening for both IPs and surrogates separately and together. Separate legal representation. Detailed matching conversations where you go over communication preferences, medical preferences, termination stance, really everything you might think of.
I have a libertarian outlook towards most transactions but I did not have it towards surrogacy. I would not have matched with any surrogate who was less than enthusiastic about it, who felt “forced” by their financial situation, or who I thought was at high (or even medium) risk of pregnancy complications. This is both for ethical reasons and also due to pure self interest (if being risk averse about the environment for my baby can be considered pure self interest).
This is the typical level of due diligence in the US. As a result, surrogacy groups are full of women upset that they can’t be surrogates bc they don’t qualify.
Because of all these guardrails surrogacy is extremely expensive here and some IPs go international, where it is harder to avoid the issues you describe.
I think it’s great that the insurance contract (we now agree this isn’t a nurturing/ seasons of life stuff, but a contract) includes risk of death. And a life insurance payment, which is nice.
But can the money compensate the emotional damage? To the family of the woman? What about her memory, does the contract cover not just the woman’s loss of income but what you would do to honor this women who died to bring your child to life?
All of this screening sounds important to the process, which makes one wonder why tracingwoodgrains doesn’t want to go through a commercial American surrogacy agency?
The guardrails are important. If surrogacy is mainstreamed, what that will result in, is relaxing of standards and the death of more women. That is why the criticisms are very important.
As far as your feeling about your surrogate, I don’t ascribe too much weight to that. I’m deeply agnostic about our ability to truly know the minds of others.
Latin words often obscure meaning where Anglo-Saxon words will do. Instead of "surrogate" we could simply say "mother". Having had a child recently, I've seen the symbiosis between an infant and his or her mother. It seems the biggest tragedy of surrogacy is that the mother (who does exist and isn't, like, dead or something) is most of the times out of the picture.
Like Trace, one of the reasons I wanted to become a father is because my own experience growing up in a loving, though imperfect, household convinced me that life was good. But the first way a child experiences that goodness, the love of God, is subconsciously through the love of the mother. When the child is born, after ascertaining it is healthy, the first thing the doctors will do is to set it skin-to-skin with the mother who has been carrying the child inside her body. It is the same heart, the same breath, the same voice the child is used to in order to ease the transition out of the womb and into the world. The mother carries cells with the child's DNA in her body for the rest of her life, a phenomenon called "microchimerism".
Conscientious gay couples take solace in scientific studies about life outcomes, and I hope they are right!, but I can't help but feel something is wrong.
The anti-capitalist angle doesn't quite hit home for me. Perhaps there is something dehumanizing about disaggregating motherhood into a basket of goods that are traded on the marketplace. But we crossed that road a long time ago (e.g., wet-nurses). There is something about the American Protestant spirit that is averse to hiring servants that also seems to recoil at this kind of thing, however.
Our surrogate did it because she loves being pregnant and wanted to help someone. As I mentioned in other comments here, her family is now our family. Sure it can go bad, but it can also be wonderful for all involved.
„Parenting should be celebrated. Making sacrifices to bring kids into the world and raise them well should be celebrated. That is no less true for complex paths requiring many people than it is for simple ones requiring only the parents.” - no, I-as-divorce-lawyer hard disagree. Children should go before parents and sometimes bringing kids into the strained arrangement is bad idea, because it will go predictably bad for the kid. The solution is to make changes in life so it will be good environment for raising kids, not to „celebrate complex paths requiring many people”. And do you really need studies to tell you that renting a womb to get child from genetic material from your sister and your same sex partner to raise the kid by two men since earliest days is like asking for troubles? You know of all biases in production of science, so think for a moment what are the chances that studies we have are biased in favour of same sex parenting.
And I’m going to say it, because idk if anyone else will: you’re in this ?????? place, because you already deliberately have chosen to set your life in opposite direction than path to raising kids. You could have A. partner with a woman to have kids, history knows plenty of homosexuals who did this, B. search for a man with kids. But now all options available to you are suboptimal in one way or another and you have to explain to people already friendly to you and to idea of same sex parenting (yes, me including; my line is surrogacy) why you think surrogacy is ethical. What can go wrong?
There is not a lot written about the experience of going through those steps and encountering those delays, but it was one of the most complicatedly painful experiences of my life. I'm not used to being helpless about things which matter to me as much as my children matter. You're in my thoughts and I am sure you will be incredible parents once the dice finally roll in your favor.
Have you considered writing about your experience, especially given that there is not a lot written on the matter?
Speaking here as a surrogate:
I'm on the other side of this, currently acting as a(n altruistic, independent) surrogate for a friend. It's been a long and, at times, bumpy road, but we got there -- we're currently in the second trimester. It would never have occurred to be to become a surrogate through an agency, for a stranger -- this was specifically something I offered to my friend, because I knew both how desperately she wanted to be a parent, and also what an incredible mother she would be and how lucky her child would be to grow up in that family. And it was in my power to make that happen -- how often do we have the opportunity to change lives like that?
That said, now that I've been immersed in this world and understand more about both the process and the impact, I absolutely understand much more why people do. If it weren't the fact that I'll be outside the age range for surrogacy by the time this current pregnancy is over, I'd even consider it myself. (And I don't say that lightly -- my pregnancies have been clinically perfect but subjectively utterly miserable experiences; I am not the stereotypical surrogate who has easy, enjoyable pregnancies.)
I have my own mixed feelings about the larger surrogacy industry (I'm including in that the agencies, the lawyers who draft and negotiate the legal agreements, and the IVF clinics that have been conditioned to certain expectations when it comes to working with agency surrogates), which I don't think always find the right balance between the needs/interests/priorities of the surrogates and the intended parents. But I am always saddened when people look at that and conclude that the problem is inherent to surrogacy itself, and the solution is to eliminate surrogacy. Systemically, there are small changes, like NY State's Gestational Surrogates' Bill of Rights, that I think would go a long way toward an appropriate rebalancing. And individually, thoughtful individuals who go into this with an appropriate level of consideration are -- even within the current system -- absolutely able to set up equitable, ethical, non-exploitative arrangements.
In any case, Trace, I think it's wonderful that you're doing this, I think finding an independent surrogate is a fantastic approach, and I wish you all the very best and much success. I'm not a candidate myself, but if there's any way I can be helpful (like, I dunno, talking about my positive experience as an independent surrogate with someone who might be interested but cautious?) I'd love to help.
It's fantastic to get your perspective on all of this. Thanks for weighing in—I don't have anything substantive to add here, but I think you touched on a lot worth saying, and I very much appreciate your offer of general help.
More children need to be brought into the world by stable, loving, two-parent families. I hope yours is among them, Trace.
I went through this and am here if I can ever share experiences or resources. Regarding the ethics issues, two notes. First, I've found that having a kid is so life-giving and generative that it offsets a lot of concerns about leftover embryos. Second, there's something called embryo adoption where people who go through IVF can donate extra embryos to families struggling with fertility. It's a really beautiful thing — to give an embryo a chance at life while helping a couple make a family. Anyways, best of luck in your parenting journey.
I hope your family finds success and happiness. As a parent myself it's joyful to see new families forming. It's also a peverse delight knowing that you will encounter the most mind boggling situations with your child(ren) and find yourself questioning your sanity. At 3am I was just having this fun conversation with my daughter. " You're very smart and capable. I'm very proud of you. Go get your own water. I love you very much. Leave me alone."
I wanted to add something about adoption and foster care. I don't want to disuade people from helping those children but I do want people to go into the situation clear eyed. I used to teach children with emotional disturbance and I have seen foster parents and adoptive parents unprepared for the reality of potential challenges their child will have. Children may have been exposed to illegal drug use in the womb, their early life may have been abusive, they may have genetic predisposition to learning, mental, emotional disabilities. Agencies don't hide these things but you can't really prepare someone for this.
Good luck! You'll need it! One day in the darkest part of a pandemic you'll see your child move their mask to put their tongue on a shopping cart handle and be convinced your not going to make it.
We had twins 15 years ago via this same process. We found our surrogate through an agency. She is my hero, and her family has become cousins to ours. We travel interstate every year to be together. Maybe not "romantic" initially, but very much so now. Best wishes!
This is a wonderful piece and I wish you the best of luck in your journey. As a side note, I think the Cornell review on the effects of same-sex parenting is a mish-mash of studies with varying rigor.
Fortunately, I reviewed the highest quality set of studies on the effects of same-sex parenting and they provide no cause for concern 😄
https://open.substack.com/pub/unboxingpolitics/p/same-sex-parenting-examining-the?r=27wzgp&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Thanks! This is actually the one I was looking for and hoping to link; I couldn’t find it on a quick search but I’m glad to have it again. I’ll edit the post.
Good luck, and bless you. It is not easy to write about personal things. Thank you for sharing.
> [F]or many foster kids—probably most—the reason they end up in the system in the first place is because one of their parents was dealing with problems like drug addiction, mental illness, or getting arrested. And often, after the child is placed in care, a parent will sober up for a while, get a job, or otherwise start to pull things together. Or a relative, like a grandmother, will step in and say, “I’ll take care of the kid.”
> From the system’s point of view, this means they might have to move the child back. But if the kid stays with the same foster family for too long, they can form strong attachments. Then, if their biological parent reappears and says, “You can come live with me now,” the child might resist, saying, “I’ve been living here for a year or two, I don’t want to go.” So the system’s way of “solving” this is to move the child every few months so they never form an attachment with any of their foster families.
I can't engage with the original tweet, https://x.com/robkhenderson/status/1955006683735814537 so replying here.
This is obviously horrific, as the replies to the Tweet note. I question how common it actually is: NZ policy is explicitly the opposite of this, as you'd imagine a system designed by non-evil human beings would be.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/default/files/CYF_Why_you_should_care.pdf
Chat Gippity 5 Deep think suggests the rest of the west is similar and this claim is false. It provides several sources that I have not checked. https://chatgpt.com/share/68aba576-26b0-800b-8bfa-f3b0bce73b2a
https://www.casey.org/placement-stability-impacts/ is its final source, and that does support my claim that Rob is badly wrong here.
Ah Trace I don’t know ya but I just love reading you because 1) You’re a fabulous writer, and 2) I, too, am an ex-Mormon who has hung onto the best of that childhood. A gay high school best friend and his husband just brought home their first surrogate baby - so it is possible!
I wish you and your husband nothing but the best as you move towards parenthood. I’m about to send my twin boys to daycare for the first time and I can attest that, whatever form it comes in, it is a truly awesome experience. Good luck!
Great post. I wish you swift success with the process!
About a year and a half ago, my ex and I spent a day at an information session for the foster family to adoption route, which was the required first step in that process. A sinking feeling took both of us as we learned more and more about how this sort of thing is expected to go. Not just the fact that adoption is the less desired outcome, but also that there are just so many *heavy* requirements such as having to bring the child to supervised visits with their biological parents basically every week for about two years. We were told that it's highly preferable to have a car than rely on public transit because the children tend to be extremely emotional after such encounters. And various other things like that.
Not to mention the heavy bureaucratic and legal work that had to be completed at various points. We considered at least signing up for infant adoption, but the wait time for this in our city is 10 years (!) and it involves enough paperwork to get started that we put it off indefinitely. As for international adoption, it's now rare in general, and rarer for same-sex couples who are barred from most countries that still allow it. (As far as I could find info on this, which is very little, the only gay-couple-friendly countries for which there exists some sort of process in Quebec to adopt from were Colombia and... the United States.)
So yes, surrogacy is basically the only practical option for gay couples, and I wish that we made it more accessible instead of adding various bureaucratic layers to it, except insofar as the bureaucracy may reassure people who are still uncomfortable with the idea.
I think about this topic a lot, nowadays mostly with sadness, since it seems pretty unlikely that I'll ever have kids now that the process for me has reset all the way to "find a partner." Besides I don't really plan on optimizing to find someone who absolutely wants kids. So it would take a lot of things to go right for that to happen. At least I'm lucky enough to have two great nephews.
We had the same troubling experience attempting adoption. Gave up and did a surrogacy. The change from being judged and micromanaged in the pre-adoption process to being empowered to select an egg donor and a surrogate was astonishing. We got very lucky, but as usual, money = power.
I imagine you get some hate for this on Twitter etc.
I'll note that as far as I can tell of you, you're not far off a thought experiment designed to make the strongest possible case for gay male surrogacy. I hope you meet speedy success, I think your future kids would be luck to have you as a parent. Good luck!
This is a beautiful story. Thanks for taking the time to share. And best of luck as you continue!
While I applaud Tracing Woodgrains for sharing his personal experience; and I also feel for him how distressing it must be to not have a child. It is a pain I share, having found myself unmarried in my 30s.
That said, I can’t allow sentimentality to allow me to accept his statements uncritically.
I have mixed feelings about surrogacy, one one hand, wonderful for those who can have kids. However, on the other hand, it turns wombs to a consumer product and a woman into simply a capitalistic vessel. As much as he says he wants the romanticism, what shocks me most about the gay family portraits is the absence. Absence of the women who carried the baby 9 months, risking their lives, to make these babies possible.
I see these family portraits, with two dads and kids and I ask myself, where is the mom who carried these children and kept him or her alive? And after birth, the mother doesn’t keep in contact with the family, she has no place of reverence or respect. It’s like she is a worker, paid for her labour, then abandoned.
The studies he cites on the impacts of surrogacy are few, and not numerous enough to show what would happen if surrogacy was more widespread. I would caution using the limited data we have to draw widespread conclusions.
That said, since he wants to have a child, why not use an agency? Romance is nonsense in this business, he is hiring a woman to carry a child that she will then have to disconnect from after birth. Why not go to an agency that can protect the woman’s rights? With women who have done it before? And can do it again?
I don’t believe him that it is because he is romantic, I worry that it is a money thing.
I’m sorry to be the skunk in this heartfelt piece. I wish him the best of luck.
In Australia, surrogacy occurs but is only permissible as an altruistic act - surrogates cannot be paid (apart from medical bills). It is interesting to consider how it can occur as a paid act and still be ethical - I think Trace’s description of the process and choice not to use an agency show a thoughtfulness towards this, and would certainly help ensure as much as is possible that it is a beautiful and rewarding experience for all involved. This was a really interesting piece - I enjoyed it.
Thank you for conveying your discomfort in a non hostile way — it has helped me understand this perspective better. I suppose my answer, as someone going through surrogacy, is that I don’t share your aesthetic distaste for “capitalism” or for transactions? I think it’s a beautiful thing that this woman is carrying my baby, with care and with a nurturing spirit, to give it to me; and I am giving her money which she will use for her own family, and in that way I’m nurturing them. We have met with her and her husband and established a friendly acquaintance, and we will share baby updates as well, although perhaps eventually we will fall out of touch. That’s okay. Not all friendly acquaintanceships (or friendships!) last forever.
I’m not religious at all but I like the Christian social media idea of “seasons of life” that I see thrown around. The surrogate walks with the baby for a season, and then that season ends.
I don’t really see pregnancy or childbirth as something you walk through for a “season”. You go through childbirth to become a mother. This seems to me as an aestheticizing something that isn’t really that beautiful; perhaps for you, who gets a child without the pain and risk of birth; but for her, who knows?
You mention that you are giving her money which she will use for her family, I don’t find anything beautiful in what is essentially a woman selling her womb so that she can provide for her family.
Also you never have prepared for the other big thing no one discusses; What if this woman dies during or after this pregnancy. A lot of pregnancies go wrong, now more than ever with our new abortion laws. Have you thought of the fact that your desire to have a child may inadvertently lead to the death of this woman? How would you compensate that or remember her? What if she develops eclampsia and then has a stroke or has a peripartum cardiomyopathy (as a result of this pregnancy) which severely decreases her quality of life? How would you compensate for that? Does your contract include provisions for this?
See there are a lot of difficult questions here that don’t fit on Instagram posts or Christianisms (that sort of very hand washy Christian sayings that obfuscate the reality underneath).
That’s why while I am not anti surrogacy I am unabashedly not pro it. It requires carefulness to do justice to the women and the family involved. Most people do not have that level of consideration.
This should not be mainstreamed.
Yes, the contract does include provisions for all these things. IPs also buy a life insurance policy for the surrogate.
There is also extremely aggressive medical screening, so while pregnancy always carries risks, the risks for surrogates are lower than for the average woman (and ofc MUCH lower than for women who seek out surrogates, who are either infertile or high risk). Most women would not qualify to be a surrogate. You have to essentially have had ~no complications in any of your previous pregnancies and births. You also have to have ~no history of psychiatric issues or meds, be financially stable, have a stable family, a whole raft of things. There’s also psychological screening for both IPs and surrogates separately and together. Separate legal representation. Detailed matching conversations where you go over communication preferences, medical preferences, termination stance, really everything you might think of.
I have a libertarian outlook towards most transactions but I did not have it towards surrogacy. I would not have matched with any surrogate who was less than enthusiastic about it, who felt “forced” by their financial situation, or who I thought was at high (or even medium) risk of pregnancy complications. This is both for ethical reasons and also due to pure self interest (if being risk averse about the environment for my baby can be considered pure self interest).
This is the typical level of due diligence in the US. As a result, surrogacy groups are full of women upset that they can’t be surrogates bc they don’t qualify.
Because of all these guardrails surrogacy is extremely expensive here and some IPs go international, where it is harder to avoid the issues you describe.
I think it’s great that the insurance contract (we now agree this isn’t a nurturing/ seasons of life stuff, but a contract) includes risk of death. And a life insurance payment, which is nice.
But can the money compensate the emotional damage? To the family of the woman? What about her memory, does the contract cover not just the woman’s loss of income but what you would do to honor this women who died to bring your child to life?
All of this screening sounds important to the process, which makes one wonder why tracingwoodgrains doesn’t want to go through a commercial American surrogacy agency?
The guardrails are important. If surrogacy is mainstreamed, what that will result in, is relaxing of standards and the death of more women. That is why the criticisms are very important.
As far as your feeling about your surrogate, I don’t ascribe too much weight to that. I’m deeply agnostic about our ability to truly know the minds of others.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
“We now agree that this isn’t a nurturing / seasons of life thing, but a contract”
It’s both!
Latin words often obscure meaning where Anglo-Saxon words will do. Instead of "surrogate" we could simply say "mother". Having had a child recently, I've seen the symbiosis between an infant and his or her mother. It seems the biggest tragedy of surrogacy is that the mother (who does exist and isn't, like, dead or something) is most of the times out of the picture.
Like Trace, one of the reasons I wanted to become a father is because my own experience growing up in a loving, though imperfect, household convinced me that life was good. But the first way a child experiences that goodness, the love of God, is subconsciously through the love of the mother. When the child is born, after ascertaining it is healthy, the first thing the doctors will do is to set it skin-to-skin with the mother who has been carrying the child inside her body. It is the same heart, the same breath, the same voice the child is used to in order to ease the transition out of the womb and into the world. The mother carries cells with the child's DNA in her body for the rest of her life, a phenomenon called "microchimerism".
Conscientious gay couples take solace in scientific studies about life outcomes, and I hope they are right!, but I can't help but feel something is wrong.
The anti-capitalist angle doesn't quite hit home for me. Perhaps there is something dehumanizing about disaggregating motherhood into a basket of goods that are traded on the marketplace. But we crossed that road a long time ago (e.g., wet-nurses). There is something about the American Protestant spirit that is averse to hiring servants that also seems to recoil at this kind of thing, however.
Our surrogate did it because she loves being pregnant and wanted to help someone. As I mentioned in other comments here, her family is now our family. Sure it can go bad, but it can also be wonderful for all involved.
I am confused. You write that you already have a woman serving as a surrogate. Why are you looking for another?
„Parenting should be celebrated. Making sacrifices to bring kids into the world and raise them well should be celebrated. That is no less true for complex paths requiring many people than it is for simple ones requiring only the parents.” - no, I-as-divorce-lawyer hard disagree. Children should go before parents and sometimes bringing kids into the strained arrangement is bad idea, because it will go predictably bad for the kid. The solution is to make changes in life so it will be good environment for raising kids, not to „celebrate complex paths requiring many people”. And do you really need studies to tell you that renting a womb to get child from genetic material from your sister and your same sex partner to raise the kid by two men since earliest days is like asking for troubles? You know of all biases in production of science, so think for a moment what are the chances that studies we have are biased in favour of same sex parenting.
And I’m going to say it, because idk if anyone else will: you’re in this ?????? place, because you already deliberately have chosen to set your life in opposite direction than path to raising kids. You could have A. partner with a woman to have kids, history knows plenty of homosexuals who did this, B. search for a man with kids. But now all options available to you are suboptimal in one way or another and you have to explain to people already friendly to you and to idea of same sex parenting (yes, me including; my line is surrogacy) why you think surrogacy is ethical. What can go wrong?