Dear fellow surrogate mothers,

The baby you have in your womb is yours. Any woman that has a baby in her womb is a mother, she is the mother of her baby. It’s a law of nature and no one can change it.

Don’t give them this baby, don’t give them your baby.

This baby is yours, you feed it with your body. This baby feels what you feel, shares your food, calcium from your bones, your hormones. This baby is afraid when you are afraid, feels your laughter inside. They are happy when you are happy.

Don’t think this baby in your body is theirs because they have spent so much money. That you are just an ‘extreme babysitter’ and you are just ‘borrowing’ this baby and will be ‘giving the baby back’ at birth. No money can ever be a ‘compensation’ for the very existence of a human being. Money shouldn’t turn a pregnancy into a service, no amount of money can ‘reimburse’ you for what you are doing. 

Don’t think this baby is theirs because you are ‘gestational’ surrogate and not genetically related to him or her. Because this baby knows only you, needs you, wants you and loves only you. Because a fœtus knows nothing of genetics and does not care if they were conceived in a lab. He or she doesn’t care about IVF, clinics, money deals and all the discussions and paperwork between the adults and agencies that commissioned them. This baby is growing inside you and wants to continue growing with you, to be raised by you.

You are doing the most wonderful thing ever, you are creating a human being and you are going to give birth to a new life. They have no right to claim rights to your baby for the mere reason they have paid. Nobody can buy a human being, unless of course this human is a slave for trade and you are also a slave through surrogacy. This is the reality many do not want to face.

The fœtus inside you is your little precious life, and for the moment it is only you. The only person in the world that this baby will know is you; your odour, your diet, the sound of your voice, the movement of your body, your touch, your affection. You are the most important person, the only person this baby wants in their life, the only one able to fulfill their needs. 

When this little life comes into the world, it will know only you. It will look for your touch, your breast, your taste, your face, your protection. Skin-to-skin contact with you will bring him or her serenity, joy and tenderness. Don’t be cruel enough to refuse this.

Don’t think you’ll receive love, gratitude and respect for what you’re doing. You’ll just receive incomprehension and contempt from institutions: no one will understand that you could have abandoned your child – whether you were a traditional or a gestational surrogate mother – because abandoning your child at birth is not forgiven. Because getting pregnant, carrying and bringing a child into the world, only to abandon it at birth – voluntarily and on purpose – is unforgivable. 

Leaving your baby, giving it away is the worst trauma you can inflict on a fragile, new and precious life. The trauma of abandonment, being handed over to strangers will cause loss, confusion, feeling of emptiness and anxiety. The separation from you will create disruption, the deepest wound anyone can ever experience.

I wish I had never given my baby to them. I pray my son can ever forgive me for having abandoned him to his pretend (not ‘intended’) parents. It is a mistake I will forever regret.