Small Debate- Surrogate keeps baby then courts tell the father to pay maintanace

[TwilightAgain]

They knew the risks before handing that amount of money over and technically the surrogate is within her rights to keep the kid, which they also knew there was a risk of.

Its an awful situation for them, but they knew the possible outcome.

 

[babyblog]

Ii found this story upsetting. Obviously the woma had her heart broken by the fact that the other woman kept the child, but at the end of the day, it was her child who she decided to keep.Perhaps it was the first time she had offered to be a surrogate, and when she was pregnant she realised she just could not giver her child away?

I don't understand why the other couple have given up all rights to see the baby, i woudl have thought the father at least would want some contact.

It just highlights the difficulties in doing something which is not legally controlled.

 

[Every Rose]

This really is a sad story. I had read about the couple before and commented in a thread here but I hadn't realised that the woman had called a show to put forward her side.

It really does highlight all that can go wrong with a surrogate arrangement and a need to look at the legal issues that can arise.

We will probably never know the true story but from the little I have read I have started to feel more sympathy for the surrogate, who is actually the biological mother, than for the couple.

I just don't like the way they keep insisting she is a single mum on benefits, living in poverty, neglectful of her children and that they are a married couple earning a good wage and so the child would automatically be better off with them. What do they call poverty? What's wrong with being a single mum, especially when she appears to have a big family support system by their own admisson? Is what they call neglect actually just something she does differently to how they would do it?

I'm sure the biological mother has spent a lot of time in the company of social workers in the run up to the court case and if they had any doubts about any of her children the court would have heard of them. If they were living in poverty and neglected then the court would be taking that seriously.

They seem quite judgemental and sneery about someone who just a few months ago they thought was good enough to give them a child.

If anything, all three adults involved should have thought more carefully and made sure they knew each other a lot better before they rushed into this and brought a baby into a terrible situation.

I don't think they did pay her the whole £10,000 but I can see how some expenses might add up for her. In surrogate arrangements they can pay for expenses relating to or incurred from the pregnancy so that would be travel between her home and theirs (they lived a long way apart I believe), maternity clothes, perhaps healthy food and vitamins, time off work if she was working, childcare while she went to appointments etc, lots of different things and it could all add up easily to whatever it was they did pay her.

 

[Dopeyjopey]

I completely agree with everything Marley said. At the end of the day, the father is still the father, and he would have been paying for that child if everything had gone to plan. They also would have instigated the pregnancy in the first place. There is always a risk with surrogacy, and one that anyone should be aware of if they are considering that route.

I don't like to see people saying she must just have been after the money though. In my opinion, it takes a special, caring person to agree to be a surrogate mother and from the sounds of it she just had the welfare of the child as her main priority.