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Words from a Surrogate Mother – Part 4: Clara*

My name is Clara* and I am from Argentina. I have two daughters who are studying at a university in Argentina. Since 2023, I have been fighting to regain my place in my son’s life, with the help of my solicitor. This is my story.

In 2022, a very close friend of mine, whom I will call ‘G’, whom I met in 2007 when I was studying English, called me. He works in Europe and lives with his partner. They are both very wealthy.

At the time, I had recently separated, lost a child a few years earlier, and was not feeling well. During our conversation, G asked me to become the mother of his child. He said that the three of us would form a family. I was happy to help them become parents, and to become a mother again myself. I accepted this wonderful project. He mentioned the possibility of marrying me to make it easier for them to obtain papers in France. We would be a family of three in Europe. I would live on one floor of their large house and they would live on the other; we would raise the child together.

I know it may sound strange, but it felt strange to me at first too. I won’t lie — I didn’t want to upset him. I thought to myself, ‘Well, the world is changing so much that I’m going to become a mother this way.’ They brought me to France on a tourist visa. As I was in the early stages of menopause, they arranged for in vitro fertilisation in Spain using my friend’s partner’s sperm and donor eggs. The doctor suggested a donor with dark skin, like mine. However, ‘G’ insisted on a donor with fair skin and blue eyes. I refused.

It was a high-risk pregnancy: I was 41 years old at the time and had been diagnosed with high blood pressure and hypothyroidism. During the pregnancy, I had to go to hospital four times.

From the outset of my pregnancy, I found it extremely challenging to coexist with them. They argued a lot and started behaving very coldly towards me, as if it were a job. Gradually, the idea of a happy family life together disappeared. They decided that I should live in the neighbouring town and that I would only see the baby at weekends after he was born. G took my passport, but fortunately returned it to me four months later. I no longer recognised him; he had become a completely different person.

However, I thought I had to carry on since, after all, they were the parents and I was the mother, and we were going to start a family. I told myself that I had to put up with things, which unfortunately only got worse.

The delivery was difficult and a caesarean section had to be performed. When the child was born, G presented himself to the hospital staff as my partner. They prevented me from holding my son, saying that I was tired. They told the nursing staff that I couldn’t breastfeed him because I was going back to work. That wasn’t true. They forced me to express milk. I agreed because I thought that if the baby became too dependent on me, it would cause him distress later on. There was also the €300 they sent every month for my daughters. I had no job and no connections. I didn’t speak French yet either. I had no money. They paid all my expenses, but my visa had expired, so I couldn’t go out without being very discreet. I couldn’t ask for help, and I had to keep my word.

When I dared to protest, the tension between us increased. They made me write a curriculum vitae and told me that they could no longer support me. I had not yet recovered from my caesarean section, so I asked them for a little more time as I was still finding it very difficult to walk. However, without consulting me, they organised my departure to Spain, where I knew nobody except a vague Facebook contact in Murcia. It took five car changes via BlaBlaCar and a bus journey to get there — a distance of 1,500 km. ‘G’ accompanied me to the bus in Barcelona to Murcia, then flew back immediately.

The person I stayed with helped me and put me in touch with a solicitor. By leaving my son like that, I risked being accused of child abandonment. I called ‘G’, begging him to let me return to France. I naively told him that I risked being prosecuted for child abandonment. I then learned that they had immediately filed a complaint against me for child abandonment.

While in Spain, I was put in touch with solicitors Ambroselli and Montesinos. They organised my repatriation to France and have supported me in all my efforts, including with paperwork, work and legal action to regain custody of my son.

Thanks to their efforts, I can now see my son for two hours every fortnight under social services supervision. However, for me, this is only a first step: I hope to be reunited with my son, who is now two years old, one day.

This speech was read by Clara* at FiLiA in Brighton on 11th October 2025. Clara* has used a pseudonym due to ongoing legal action.

Words from a Surrogate Mother – Part 3: Julie*

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By 2019, I had been dreaming of having a child for a long time. This desire was deep and long-standing, but I lacked the financial means to raise a child alone. It was essential to me that the future child should know their origins and never be cut off from me. As an LGBTI+ activist who cares deeply about the cause of the oppressed, I also wanted this project to align with my political beliefs. Ethical, altruistic or humanitarian surrogacy, as it is presented and ‘sold’ today, seemed to me to be the perfect solution: it would fulfil my desire for motherhood, allow a male couple to become parents, and right an injustice. At the time, I believed that the ban on surrogacy (and assisted reproductive technology) in France was unjust.

In my search for ‘intended parents’ — in other words, commissioning parents — I was contacted by people from all countries and of all sexual orientations. I systematically refused all offers of remuneration, including those from abroad and from heterosexual couples. I would never have accepted the child having any mother other than me. We envisaged ‘traditional’ and ‘artisanal’ surrogacy without the involvement of clinics, agencies or excessive costs, apart from the initial medical tests. We agreed on homemade artificial insemination, and I insisted on registering the child with the civil authorities. I refused to give birth anonymously, as I did not want my baby to have a start in life marked by abandonment. The agreement was clear: they would raise the child in their home, and I would remain close to them. The child was always to know me and consider me a member of his family. It was an underground surrogacy arrangement which, at the time, I considered to be a ‘solidarity project’ operating on the fringes of the law. There was no written contract, only a verbal agreement, a ‘contract of trust’.

The pregnancy was much more difficult than I had imagined. I went through it all alone, with no support from the couple, my family or my friends. During the last month, they began to put pressure on me by imposing their concerns and medical choices. On the day of the birth, I realised that, in their eyes, I had never had any human dignity or maternal role. I was nothing more than a body responsible for ‘delivering’ the baby. They wanted to watch the birth from the front, despite the fact that I had no intimate relationship with any of them. The biological father preferred a caesarean section to the use of a vacuum extractor. Fortunately, the obstetrician did not listen to him. He insisted that the baby be placed in the nursery for the first night and that my stay in the maternity ward be shortened, despite my repeated objections. In the delivery room, a paediatric nurse, unaware of our surrogacy plans, said, “Don’t try to separate the mother and child.” She understood better than I did what was at stake. My stay was so difficult that the staff thought I was a battered woman. They sent me a psychologist and promised me postnatal care, but ultimately, nothing was done.

I had given my word, and when I left the maternity ward, I entrusted my baby to them. I couldn’t afford to raise him, and I believed that they would keep their promise just as I had kept mine. I never asked for any money; in fact, I gave them the social security benefits I received so that the child would have everything he needed.

Very quickly, however, the initial promises evaporated. They organised a birth party without telling or inviting me. To their relatives, they maintained the pretence that they had conceived the baby alone. The regular visits they had promised me during the first year became rare and sporadic. News and photos were slow in coming. Then, in 2022, I discovered that they were planning to move to the other side of France. Whenever the local social services intervened, they moved again. The stability that I had hoped the child would have – and which had motivated my choice of them – was not forthcoming. They also hid information about the child’s health from me. I learned from a doctor that my son had been diagnosed with autism six months earlier and that they had portrayed me as absent and unstable.

Finally, they settled in the Gard region, where social services stopped investigating. Three months later, the biological father died of aggressive cancer at the age of 37. Legally, I remained the sole holder of parental authority and was entitled to regain custody of my son, as the second commissioning couple had no biological or legal connection to him. I had resisted the pressure they had put on me to give up my rights or agree to adoption.

Naively, and in the interests of the child, I suggested to the stepfather that we arrange shared custody. However, he told me that he wanted to return to the Paris region, so I moved back there and rented a one-bedroom flat for my son. Meanwhile, he was initiating several legal proceedings against me, including temporary and long-term placement, total and exclusive transfer of my parental rights and custody, and even child maintenance. The judges granted all his requests.

The second commissioning person, who is legally nothing to my son, refused to return the family record book to me, with the approval of the magistrates. The public prosecutor in Nîmes described me as nothing more than a ‘procreator’. Social services were extremely accommodating, refusing to treat me as a parent for a year and explaining that they were there to ‘support the gentleman in his parenting’. The Departmental Child Welfare Services (ASE) even asked the Children’s Judge to remove my visiting and accommodation rights, which were already extremely limited, and this was ordered. Whenever this man prevented a meeting, phone call or video call between me and my son, social services covered for him.

To top it all off, the stepfather remarried another man, becoming my son’s ‘second stepfather’. This man obtained parental rights. Now, social services and magistrates are asking me to recognise this second stepfather as my child’s ‘father’. Both my son’s genetic father and my own family have been removed from his life.

Although the judge ordered visitation rights, I was unable to see my child from 31 July 2023 to 11 May 2024 – almost ten months in total. I received no updates and was reprimanded when I dared to ask for any. Social services cited being overloaded or the fact that I no longer had parental rights. Even the juvenile court judge acknowledged off the record that this should not have happened.

A complaint for incitement to child abandonment was filed against them in the Alpes de Haute Provence. All parties recognised the surrogacy, including social services and the surviving stepfather. In court, he openly admitted to this illegal surrogacy, knowing that he would not be punished, but rather that it would allow him to obtain exclusive rights and full custody of the child. The penalty in France is derisory: a €7,500 fine. If the sponsors knew this, none of them would pay for surrogacy abroad. Women’s bodies are being sold in France. Despite the evidence and confessions, the public prosecutor in Digne-les-Bains dismissed the child abandonment complaint. No judge wanted to investigate or simply apply the law. I appealed to the Attorney General in Aix-en-Provence, but he dismissed the case too.

I have now been fighting social services and judges for two years, and I am due to appear in court again on 9 October. I am fighting to be recognised as a mother and for my son to recognise me and be reunited with his maternal family. After eight months with no visiting rights, followed by supervised and semi-supervised visits where we had to ‘meet’ like strangers under the watchful eye of social services, I finally regained my visiting and accommodation rights. However, I still haven’t regained my parental rights or any prospect of custody. Social services keep telling me that their role is to ensure that the child has his father, as if the father were the child in need of protection.

For each visit and hearing, I travel 1,500 km. It requires a huge time, energy and financial commitment. Currently, I have custody of my son for half of the school holidays at my home and one and a half days per month during the school year, but I have to spend these periods in the Gard region. Needless to say, the stepfather has never moved to be closer, which makes shared custody impossible.

I had hoped this story would be one of friendship, solidarity and justice. Instead, it has become a tragedy; the biggest mistake and source of shame in my life. The state has stolen my son, as well as my dignity as a woman and a mother. Even today, I am not recognised as a parent. At school, at the doctor’s, with insurance companies or solicitors, I am nobody. I am fighting so that one day my son will truly be part of his maternal family, and so that he can forgive me — perhaps even love me. I am fighting so that no other woman will be treated as I was, and so that no other child will be torn away from their mother and maternal family. No one should have to go through what I am going through.

This speech was read by Julie* at FiLiA in Brighton on 11th October 2025. Julie* has used a pseudonym due to ongoing legal action.

Words from a Surrogate Mother – Part 2: Christian

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Thank you for having me here to speak and share my story. I was first matched with a couple who were referred to as ‘VIP’ Intended Parents by a surrogacy agency I had approached.

My children are my world and I cannot imagine a life without them. I had love in my heart and truly wanted to help. I believed I was going to help them complete their family but I was lied to and betrayed in the worst way possible.

I was told that they already had a child, but as they lived in a country where there was a one child policy it was not possible for them to achieve their dream of having a bigger family. As it took time for them to settle in America the commissioning mother grew older and was then unable to become pregnant. Even this was a lie as she was pregnant by the time I conceived. I was told of their plans to have another surrogate mother so we could be ‘sister surrogates’. Like one big happy family on a fun ‘journey’ together but I had no idea how deceived I would be.

I signed a contract with a well known agency, agreeing to have an egg donor surrogacy pregnancy. I was not informed about the risks nor was it explained to me that the child was in fact not ‘intended’ for this couple but for a wealthy businessman in England, where I later travelled to for the court case.

Agencies are supposed to carry out background checks. If background checks were done at all they failed to keep me and the future child safe. It was not him I was having a baby for. I still feel violated as a woman being made to carry a child for an unknown male through deception. The ‘intended parents’ were frauds, bad actors…employed by this stranger who invaded my body. He was a father with several children, divorced from his wife after his affair and he lived in another country where there was no one child policy. I would never have agreed to this had I known the truth.

I was motivated to help others but I was also hoping to earn money to help pay legal fees as my husband was in a custody battle for his children. The ‘compensation’ from the surrogacy was going to go towards the legal bills. It felt like a mutually beneficial agreement where I was helping them complete their family and they would help me keep mine together.

It was much later that I discovered that I have something called Toxic Empathy which is where I will help others to my own detriment. When it came to the money, I gave it all away. I could not keep a dollar of it. It was dirty and having it in my pocket, in my bank account, sickened me.

Physically, I experienced sub chronic haemorrhaging due to the shots and had to receive weekly blood transfusions for two months before giving birth.

I was induced at the end because of preeclampsia. The baby and I were in distress, so they performed an emergency C-section. I believe it took a toll on both of us. Preeclampsia is a frequent complication with IVF surrogacy pregnancies and leads to an immediate C-section to save the mother.

I was vulnerable and no one stood up for me and in the end I wasn’t able to fight any more than I did. I didn’t give my consent to the adoption – it became an adoption as conditions for it to be a parental order in surrogacy were breached – but still my parental rights were removed. I wrote to the judge begging to have the child with us, to be raised in my family. I was reprimanded by my UK lawyer for this, like a naughty girl who won’t behave.

The court case was complicated, I had legal teams in the USA and the UK but neither of them represented my wishes or fought for my parental rights. I was not treated as a human being and it was deeply inconvenient for them and the court system that I had a mind of my own and wanted to keep the baby.

My UK lawyers even tried to persuade me to give up my parental rights and upon my return to the USA my lawyers suggested I do it all over again! I was shocked that they could even say this out loud but I suspect they were trying to secure a new contract with an NDA clause to prevent me from speaking. But here I am today. Speaking to you all.

I was told I had to enter mediation and I met the genetic father. He showered my family with extravagant gifts, designer scarves, a brand new iphone for my husband and ipads for my children. He had reconciled with his ex- wife and she was pregnant.

In the court I was treated like a suspect for a crime. I don’t believe that my representatives or the court system operated in my best interests or in the best interest of the child at all. I don’t even know if the child knows he was born through surrogacy.

He was referred to as a ‘project’ by the genetic father, like it was all a social experiment to see if it could be done, if the deception would be successful, if he could get away with it. I had to leave the UK earlier than planned as I had to get away.

A mother bonds with the baby in utero and surrogacy teaches each of us to deny that natural bond. Surrogacy disrespects women with the dehumanising language and the monetisation of their bodies. Even in the contract stage, before the ink was dry, I was asked by the fraudulent ‘intended’ parents if I would do this again like a baby making robot. I was not seen as a human being.

Surrogacy is ugly, the surrogate mothers have good intentions and people take advantage. I did my research and joined a well established agency that pride themselves as a “ gold standard agency who deliver a premium service”.

The service is pregnancy, the child is the product. But the child I gave birth to is 6 years old now and he is a person, not a project.

Children born through surrogacy arrangements are innocent of all this. They do not ask for it and they have no voice to ask to stay with their mothers. I do not have contact with the child and as he doesn’t have my DNA, as a secret inside of him, even a DNA test wouldn’t reveal his true origins. He can find his genetic mother, if he is lucky, but he cannot find me, his birth mother.

I don’t even know if he has been told he was born by surrogacy. The ex-wife of the genetic father may pretend that she is his mother.

Science has no place in the family and I deeply regret agreeing to use my body in this way. I was once a strong supporter of surrogacy, as an empowering act women do to support and help others. I am now empowered by this movement, to ban surrogacy everywhere.

This speech was read by Christian at FiLiA in Brighton on 11th October 2025.

Words from a Surrogate Mother – Part 1: Marie Anne

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My name is Marie-Anne Isabelle and the surrogacy experience that I endured here in this country nearly killed me. My mission now is to ensure that nobody goes through what I did. I have made it my cause to expose this barbaric practice for what it is and to enact change. I am not looking for glory or sympathy I just want change.

People hear about how wonderful surrogacy is, how it’s a beautiful gift and a positive experience. Then, you hear about the “terrible” surrogate who dares to ask for her child back. It’s an all-too-common depiction in our modern fairy tale world.

I believed that fairy tale when I agreed to help a family member by carrying her child. At the time, I was happy to help because I loved her and did not want or need to be paid. However, I made it clear that the child would be conceived using her egg and that I must be allowed to see and have contact with the child I would give birth to. That was the condition I would only do this under, if I could have regular contact with the child, as I could not live without seeing a child I would give birth to.

I agreed to become a surrogate mother for my cousin. She was more like a sister to me. She had been a significant presence in my life. We were a vital part of each other’s lives. I knew about her cancer. In 2009 she told me that she had created embryos and that she was researching surrogacy.

One day, she came to my house with her sister, who is also my cousin and asked if I could help her. I told her that I would only help if she let me see the child. She looked me in the eye and said, “Absolutely. There’s trust.” We’re family, you know? Not for a minute did I think I’d actually need to get a lawyer and write a contract.

I think when she asked me, she knew I had no choice but to say yes. I think she exploited our relationship. As further information came out afterwards, it appeared that they couldn’t go ahead with a surrogacy abroad as it was deemed too expensive, so they were looking for a cheaper alternative. They kind of saw me as “Oh, she’ll do it for free.” A free and cheap option.

I was told there is trust. “You will be the child’s godmother.” Those words would later come back to haunt me. I don’t believe she knows what trust means. She made all sorts of promises to brainwash and coerce me into helping her.

It was a gestational surrogacy. They used IVF with their own biological material. I remember lots of injections and visits to the clinic for very obtrusive physical examinations. It was a very procedural process, and it was quite challenging, both emotionally and physically, to go through. I’d had two normal, non-assisted pregnancies of my own and this pregnancy was nothing like those. This overmedication was purely to help these two people.

The experience was bad enough. Having somebody else try to dictate what medical procedures you should endure, how you should give birth, and what you should eat was awful. The list goes on. This affected me from the beginning of my pregnancy, yet there is still no specialized support for women going through surrogate pregnancies here in the UK.

In 2014, at the time of delivery, I made it clear that the commissioning father wouldn’t be present; it would just be her, me, and my partner. Everything went smoothly, and I felt in control. The hospital saw me as the mother. So, my wishes were taken into account; in how I wanted to do things. However, they wanted me to have an elective C-section. I refused, and my midwife backed me up by stating that C sections were not good practice. If someone doesn’t need one, they shouldn’t have one. They tried to force me and put pressure on me, saying, “Oh, it’d be better for you.”

I remember there being some confusion at the hospital. Even though the hospital had been told that it was a surrogacy, social services became involved. I thought, “This is awful. I’m trying to have a baby, and now I’ve got suspicious social services interviewing me.

The father came in after the birth because he wanted to have skin to skin contact. They had the baby. They were happy. They didn’t need me anymore so they told me to go home. However, the hospital staff did not agree. They wanted to see me walk out with the baby, carrying it according to their policy. I remember having to carry the car seat with the baby in it through the hospital in full view of the medical staff. Then, we had to do this strange exchange where I handed over the child in the hospital car park because, legally, the hospital was no longer responsible for the child once it was outside.

After the birth, I was presented with all sorts of legal documents that I was forced to sign. The timing was awful, too, right when I was trying to recover from the birth. Imagine training your body and mind for nine months to believe that you are not the mother of the child you are giving birth to. Every surrogate woman has to do that. Then, after doing that, you are presented with a document stating that you are the mother, and you are forced to sign it. I was also threatened with financial and legal consequences if I didn’t sign it. This is the dark side of surrogacy in the UK that nobody hears about because most women are given gag orders to prevent them from talking about it.

No payment was made. I was only compensated for time off work. I remember them buying me maternity clothes and reimbursing me for transportation to the clinic. They wanted to pay for food, but I politely declined. I didn’t want to feel controlled by having someone tell me what to eat. I remember my dear cousin saying, “We’d like to pay for a kitchen for you,” and I said, “No, this is me helping you I am not doing this to get anything back in return. For me to receive gifts would feel like I was being paid for a service.” I said no.

The court case started in 2014 and lasted two years. I didn’t start the court case. It was initiated by the commissioning parents because they wanted a parental order. A parental order legally transfers parental responsibility from the surrogate to the intended parents and ends the surrogate’s rights.

I had no idea about any of this. I didn’t even know there was going to be a court case. I just thought I would hand the child over and be done with it. None of this was made clear to me beforehand. Nobody told me. I gave birth, and suddenly, all of this legal process was forced upon me. I refused to sign because they reneged on their promise of allowing me contact and everything went downhill from there.

They attempted to obtain my consent against my will at the court, exploiting my mental health, which was irreparably damaged as a result of my experience. They tried to prove that I was incapable of giving consent. However, through grit and determination—including psychiatric assessments proving I was capable of giving consent—I was permitted to remain involved in the court case and my consent was needed much to their dismay. Still, they continually tried to shut me out. Children’s Services even tried to use the case of a deceased surrogate mother. They said, “We can just use that case where someone died and pretend that’s happened here.” It was just appalling. It was made clear to me that the only way I had the best chance of having any contact was to agree to the parental order so in the end, I signed it to try and have contact with the child I gave birth to as I was promised. I have never seen the child to this day.

She was born in 2014. I haven’t seen her since I gave birth to her.

I was promised on multiple occasions during the court case that I would see her, but each time, the appointment was cancelled the day before. They were playing games with me. I believe the promises were only for the benefit of the court.

They hinted that they used me as a cheap commercial surrogate and if it hadn’t been for their legal costs they would have been granted their wish. They constantly tried to remove any trace of me from their child’s life, which is another reason why they needed my silence. I believe their behaviour stems from their resentment of me as the child’s birth mother, and that is me being generous.

I have been diagnosed with complex PTSD and underwent EMDR to alleviate some of the trauma resulting from the surrogacy. I have a deep fear of hospitals, children, and babies, which does not work well with my career in education. The damage done to me will never be repaired. Constant panic attacks and a fear and distrust of people serve as constant reminders. There are many days that I still wish I wasn’t here just to be rid of this painful world that did this to me.

The impact was not only on me, but also on my children. They took on the role of parents because I wasn’t able to take care of them. This happened ten years ago, and for the first five years, my children didn’t have a mother. They were taken away from me and sent to live with their father, which was traumatic for everyone. Then, the judge, when presented with evidence, came to the conclusion that this was not helpful to anyone and returned them to my care. Over the last five years, we have come together as a family and rebuilt our relationships, but for the first five years, we were a broken family.

In trying to help another family, they broke mine.

When did a women’s right to have a child mean that it would take away another woman’s right to have contact with a child she gave birth to? We talk about women’s rights as if they are universal but surrogacy actually means you are choosing which woman deserves more rights. That is inequality.

If leaders and law makers care so much about women’s rights why are they continuing to erode the rights of surrogate mothers?

Change needs to happen fast. Surrogacy in any form is wrong, not safe and harmful. It needs to be banned before any more women die as they already have. Listen to our voices and do not let us be silenced any more.

This speech was read by Marie Anne at FiLiA in Brighton on 11th October 2025.