Dear Honest Surrogate...

There are a few common questions I get asked when a woman applies to be a surrogate. I also get similar questions from the general public. People are curious, surrogacy is uncharted territory for a lot of people. Below are just a couple of the common questions.

Dear Honest Surrogate: I applied to be a surrogate but my husband thinks I’ll have a hard time giving the baby away after it’s born. I’m going into it knowing that is the end result but he thinks my hormones will take over and I won’t be able to do it. Is it common for surrogates to have a hard time giving the baby away? - Dreaming of Surrogacy

Dear Dreamer: I get this question a lot from women and their partners in the application process of surrogacy. It’s also a common question from pretty much everyone who asks me about surrogacy! Most surrogates don’t look at it as “giving the baby away”, they view it as giving the baby back to it’s parents. Surrogates are extreme babysitters. Giving the baby to his parents was the easiest part of the entire process for me. It was the moment I was waiting for since I first dreamed of becoming a surrogate. When it finally happened, it was better than I could have ever imagined. Most surrogates who have completed at least one journey have told me that handing the baby over to it’s parents was the easiest and best part of the process. Do some more research on surrogacy and talk to experienced surrogates, if you are still concerned that it might be hard for you to hand the baby over to it’s parents, then surrogacy might not be the right choice for you.

Dear Honest Surrogate: What kind of relationship do most surrogates have with the surrogate baby they carried? Is it like a mother, aunt, friend….? I don’t know what to expect after I give birth. - Role Unsure

Dear Unsure: The relationship between the surrogate and surrogate baby is whatever the surrogate and the intended parents decide upon. Some intended parents want the surrogate to be very involved and like a 2nd mother, although this seems to be very rare. Some surrogates, like myself, do not ever want to be considered as a “mother” figure for the child. Most of the experienced surrogates I have spoken with play more of an aunt or friend role. They send gifts to the baby on birthdays or holidays, and they exchange texts, phone calls or emails with the parents on a regular basis. Some surrogates attend the birthday parties. Some intended parents and surrogates decide there will be no contact at all after the birth. The relationship I have with the baby I carried is pretty minimal. I follow his dads on facebook so I can watch him grow. Once I stopped shipping breastmilk to him, we haven’t stayed in touch and we are all ok with that. I didn’t want to be very involved. I became a surrogate so I could help other people have a family, not to grow my own. It’s important to be clear about the relationship you would like to have with the baby or babies. If you are clear up front, you can be matched with IPs with similar views so everyone is on the same page.

~ The Honest Surrogate