Where do you get the "unwilling" surrogate? The mother has said that she will carry the baby willingly.

It was awfully nice of her to carry the baby to term, especially considering her age. One, pregnancies in women over 35 years of age are considered "high risk" to the fetus and the mother; two, she doesn't have that much time left to have her own kid, and she's given up about 11 months of her life to it (counting the time after the delivery when they're not able to implant another embryo).

I read a story similar to this on Jezebel a few months ago. Except the woman that was implanted with the wrong embryos had the pregnancy terminated, and IIRC, it turned out that the embryo(s) implanted in her were the other woman's last "set".

I really feel for couples in these situations, but I don't understand the need to have to have your own children. There are thousands of kids out there that could be adopted, and it would probably cost much less to go through the adoption process than any IVF-type procedure. Plus you wouldn't have to undergo any medical procedures.

@SabreDC: She didn't originally consent to be a surrogate.

Question is, will she be re-imbursed for any doctor visits she had while carrying the wrong child? The food costs, clothing costs, etc?

If she has to give up the "wrong embryo" this seems like a little bit more than a mere !@#$ up. The emotional attachment, physical and mental stress...

I'd hold that fetus hostage for some money, and I'm not joking (not completely). The doctor fucked up, I think an abortion would be too extreme for this case, and on top of that caring for a baby requires a complete lifestyle change and costs money. Having some squatter live inside you for 10 months would be awful.

That woman is in many cases going to be respsonible for that childs growth. She probably doesn't, but who knows if she smokes, does crack, or is a circus performer? I wouldn't want my unborn child in some unknown environment like that.

@SabreDC: Right. Or go through a highly publicized abortion. Then possibly a court case from the "real" parents because of it.

@squinko: I guess it has something to do with having your own genetic material. I bet its prettymuch hardwired to want to have someone who has your genes. After all, almost everyone thinks that their genetic material is THE FUCKING BEST.

@madog: Yep. As I wrote above, you have food, maternity clothing, doctors visits plus you have actual mental and physical stress (not to mention the actual pain of labor). I used to have searing gall stone attacks on a daily basis that sent me to the ER. According to my doctor (who was a woman), the pain of a near fatal gall stone attack can be on par with the pain of child birth. So can understand this is not a pain that anybody would EVER willingly want to deal with.

This woman truly deserves compensation for all of the above... and her time.

@Diet-Orange-Soda: It wouldn't be highly publicized if they didn't go to the media about it in the first place...

@madog: ...caring for an *unborn* baby, of course.

And this all relates to, "the emotional attachment, physical and mental stress", that is a huge part as well. Don't think it needs to be stated because that's obvious to most pregnancies, but since Preyfar did I thought I'd repeat it.

So, if she is essentially a surrogate, who covers the medical costs and does she get paid for being a surrogate?

@squinko: I'm pro-adoption, as an adoptee, but it really is a different process with its own difficulties. Not everybody who's prepared to parent is going to be good at parenting under those circumstances.

@Preyfar: Most def - I think I remember reading that the clinic will cover all costs etc., and surely they'll be a settlement, so "unpaid" is a stretch - "unwilling" definitely!

@SabreDC: Unwilling does seem a bit harsh since she did agree to carry to term, but the article goes on to say "the Savages, guided by their religious beliefs, refused to let the unused embryos at the clinic languish," which leads me to believe that termination wasn't a choice for them, so she was left without a choice other than to carry the embyo to term.

@madog: As it was pointed out, she would be ordered by the court to give up the child, so she couldn't exactly demand money in exchange. Though I think she'd be entirely within her rights to sue the doctors for repayment of medical bills incurred while pregnant.

@SabreDC: In the article it says "unwitting"; perhaps Laura read it as "unwilling" and included the phrase?
@squinko: She didn't originally, but by agreeing to carry the child I think it implies willingness.

"Now you're an unwilling, unpaid surrogate for another family."

No I'm not. Anything that comes out of my uterus is legally MINE unless I signed a contract to the contrary in advance, quoth 1,000 years of common law and recent state amendments to same allowing surrogacy contracts.

But seriously, that's awful.

@squinko: Explain that to my wife. For the last five years she's been going on about how she needs to get pregnant. (She does think it'll fix a lot of her ailments though. Her mother's body was completely out of whack until the first child. Then everything just started working right.)

@MostlyHarmless: What really gets to me isn't having your own kid when others need to be adopted, it's adopting a kid from half a world away because it's cheaper or faster or you think they look "cuter," while thousands of kids in the U.S. get passed over every year.

@Al Swearengen: I'm going to guess the fertility clinic does, as a part of a settlement not to get their asses enormously sued.

@madog: You're kidding right?! This woman was also prepared to be pregnant with her own child and knows how the other couple feels about the struggle to have children, because they're in the same boat... she could have taken the easy way out and terminated the pregnancy that wasn't hers, then resumed her smoking, doing crack, and circus tricks (really, are you nuts?!) - but she's following this through and giving a priceless gift to another family.

@squinko: The way I hear it adoption is expensive and can take years. (There's a reason people adopt from other countries.)

Also some insurance actually covers the IVF.

How does one estimate rent on a womb? The lease is fairly short, but the square footage is atrocious. Utilities are covered, but it's difficult to communicate clearly with the landlord. And what if the neighborhood sucks?

We actually don't know that it happens very rarely. Fertility clinics are notoriously underregulated. Though they have to conform to standard medical practices, they have a lot of discretion (varies by state) in how many embryos they can implant, which patients they can accept, and most aspects of implantation procedures.

The 'systems' Dr. Adamson is talking are actually whatever policies the clinics & doctors feel like following. I bet there are many more cases of this undetected.

With five embryos left over from IVF -- and despite the risks to Carolyn's health -- the Savages, guided by their religious beliefs, refused to let the unused embryos at the clinic languish.
So she fully intended to carry all 5 of those embryos to term if possible? Understanding, of course, that not all embryos would implant, but this "we can't let this mass of cells sit in a lab because of God" thing is new to me. It seems like kind of an arbitrary reason to have another child and put her body through another dangerous situation. Her life is not my life though.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): "Anything that comes out of my uterus is legally MINE..."

While I agree with your sentiment, that's not necessarily true everywhere. There are states that have laws that say the genetic parents are the legal parents, so that surrogates can't change their minds and decide to keep the baby at the last minute. And from the article:

"'We knew based on legal precedent that custody would be lost, and we agree with that precedent,' said Carolyn, alluding to a similar case of errant IVF in 1999 in New York in which custody was awarded to the genetic parents."

@MostlyHarmless: I personally have always wanted to adopt. I have never felt that my DNA was so awesome that is needed to be passed on to future generations.

My aunt was trying to get me to not adopt and have a baby of my own because with adoption "you never know what you are getting". She even went so far as to say that the kid I adopted could be a sociopath. I don't think it ever occurred to her that I could birth a child that could be a sociopath too. It's not like you can do a test for that en utero.

@squinko: I also have some reservations in that line ... and with the relative lack of screening we do of individuals/families seeking fertility treatments.

I can certainly think of some situations where fertility treatments are appropriate. Unfortunately, social outcomes are too-frequently negative even when the medical outcomes are perfect -- the stress of the treatments pushes couples to divorce at a too-high rate, and a too-large number of couples seeking fertility treatments are trying to use a baby as a bandaid on a broken marriage (which then typically breaks down either during the treatments, during the pregnancy, or shortly after junior arrives). There have been legal cases where everyone involved (surrogate, both contracting parents) refused to take custody of the resulting child after the contracting parents divorced during the pregnancy. That kind of thing makes me sad.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): If you read the article there was a court decision that made someone else give up their baby.

@dukegreene: A lot of the kids in foster care aren't even available for adoption in the US. That's why it's easier to adopt abroad. I've never heard a couple that adopted abroad say they did it because the kids were cuter. Where'd you get that?

@MostlyHarmless: It's really a very layered, complicated issue and it's pretty insulting to narrow it down to such simplistic terms. There is a myriad of reasons why people choose IVF. Adoption is really not as easy as people would like you to believe. There are plenty of homeless children, but waiting lists are ridiculously long, there are miles of red tape to go through and there is so much shady bullshit that happens behind the scenes. My aunt and uncle have had children taken back from them TWICE both times more than a year after completing the adoption. It's the same reason a lot of people choose to adopt from other countries.

@dukegreene: There's nothing wrong with wanting a shorter, cheaper adoption process. And I've never heard of anyone who did an international adoption because they thought the child was "cuter".

@TinkishDelight: Whoa! When did I say it was bad? I was actually saying that genetic factors are a big thing when it comes to having kids.

The last part was a joke ofcourse.

@Rectilinear Propagation: IVF isn't some magical baby-making process. It is also expensive and can years, and there's the added bonus of having to get your genetic material harvested, the implantation process, hormone treatments, etc. Also read Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!)'s post.

And adopting in other countries isn't necessarily easier than adopting from home. Like dukegreene said, a lot of people adopt from overseas just to say they have a Guatemalan/Korean/Russian/whatever baby and look how cute it is, etc.

@floraposte: Hear, hear! Youre absolutely right that it comes with its own set of challenges and benefits.

(note: I'm an adoptee, too...when kids used to give me a hard time about it, I'd answer, "Hey, my parents CHOSE me; yours got stuck with you." That usually shut 'em up.)

@squinko: Yes, but in my state, they could suck my metaphorical balls. If I sign a surrogacy contract, the genetic parents are the legal parents, but if I don't, that little bundle of joy is mine and I may even be able to block genetic tests to prove parenthood.

Most of the pre-1950 precedents, incidentally, come from coping with adultery (who's the legal parent in an era before genetic tests?), so the law moves in very strange and odd directions on parenthood questions now that we DO have genetic tests ... but hundreds of years of precedent that ignores genetic tests (as they were impossible) and a couple hundred years of legal adoption.

@dukegreene: I'd like a womb with a view.

/Couldn'tHelpIt

@Diet-Orange-Soda: Without knowing anything about the ailments you mentioned, what you describe reminds me of how women in extremely industrialized areas, with severe lead or heavy metal pollution, would become much healthier after a pregnancy, since the developing fetus pulled a lot of the metals out of the women's blood & bones. Usually this resulted in a stillborn child, since the pollution was so extreme. Very sad, and unlikely to be occurring today in developed countries.

However, lead, mercury, or other metal poisonings can happen at low levels and have symptoms that might be overlooked or diagnosed as something else. Fatigue, irritability, headache, stomach pains, anemia, and poor coordination might indicate lead poisoning. There are also more serious symptoms (kidney problems) but at that point a doctor may have started looking at heavy metals.

Maybe it's worth looking into how specifically your mother in law started feeling better & what your wife is hoping for, and asking a doctor if these could be explained by heavy metals, other kind of poisoning, or exposure to environmental hazards.

@squinko: Bullshit. I know many couples who have adopted children from overseas; NONE of them have ever referred to their child as Korean or Russian. It is their child, it is American now.

And if you have an issue with parents pointing out how cute their child is, then I guess you just have an issue with parents.

@dukegreene: I have mixed feelings on that, though--it's not like U.S. kids are entitled to priority somehow, after all, and the kids here get passed over often because they're not infants or there are health problems involved; the wait for kids who don't fall into that category can be quite lengthy. Then you get the adoptive parents who really aren't comfortable with the comparatively open adoption (in other words, permitting birth family contact, etc.) that's now common in the U.S.

Overall, if you're ready to give a kid a home, I don't think there's much moral ground in waiting longer to "buy American" on this, but there are still plenty of questions worth asking about adoption both domestically and internationally.

@Kimaroo - 20% More Kitty Added!: <3 GWAR

@Rectilinear Propagation:

It's a little bit the other way around. Adoption from other countries is expensive, but very quick and may have no checks on your fitness as a parent. You can also get burned, but that's to be expected when you treat children as a business transaction.

Adoption from your home country is nearly free, but slow and requires checks as to your fitness as a parent.

I know this because my parents came to this country with barely any money and managed to adopt me within two or three years. I expect they started the process once they landed, although it's a topic we don't discuss much.

Due to a legal requirement at the time, my mom was adopted by her genetic mother. Unfortunately at the time it was a social faux-pas and she was teased mercilessly for it. I never faced that, myself, though, so I'm surprised (saddened?) by the people here finding others suggesting they don't adopt.

@h3llc4t has a slow work day: In some moral systems, the embryos count as people, basically. Hence the phenomenon of the "snowflake children," kids born from embryos that were adopted and then implanted into the adoptive mother. See [en.wikipedia.org]

@oneandone: Probably it's something much more benign; the hormonal changes are massive, and for many women, for the better.

I think I was about 17 when I asked my doctor what I could do to reduce the menstrual cramping that was so bad it made me throw up and sent me to bed for three days, and she said, "Get pregnant."

And indeed, as for many other women with problem menstrual cycles, pregnancy seems to have straightened that out.

Headache, fatigue, anemia, irritability, and stomach upset are all characteristic of menstrual cycles as well.

@SabreDC:
She did not willfully choose to be a surrogate. I'm not sure if unwilling is the best choice of words there, but the intended meaning is obvious.

@squinko: A lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too. Americans are taking longer and longer to get married and have children because both men and women want fun or want a career first. Women's fertility drops pretty sharply of a cliff in the mid thirties. Women are also fed this lie that they can put off conception and work on a career too and that fertility treatments will be there when they think they're ready to have children. As opposed to taking advantage of their body's peak fertility time.

I'm not saying that 18 year olds should be having children to get it while it's good, but women should think long and hard about getting pregnant so late in their reproductive lives to have a "fulfilling" career or whatever. That's great, but you have to make a choice. The older the parents the harder it is to conceive, the riskier the pregnancy is and the higher the chances of birth defects and problems for the baby.

Men can reproduce until they drop dead because they basically produce sperm until they die. Women have a much shorter prime time for getting pregnant. Also, if you fail to conceive, there are chances that nature is saying your genes are not a good combo or that you're really really not meant to due to whatever complication there is. It sucks, it's painful, it's devastating. But it's also probably true.

People are pretty selfish and they want what they want, when they want it and how it has to be. I realize it's good to have a stable financial background for a baby, but either parent should be willing to sacrifice career advances for the sake of their children. If you can't choose the good of the child over what you want out of life, perhaps you are not meant (or fit) to be a parent.

Isn't this an episode of "Law and Order: SVU"?

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): While I agree with you in my heart, in this case they were TOLD that the baby they were carrying was not theirs. I would imagine that this would be enough to enable the genetic parents to ask the court to require genetic testing if the woman carrying the baby tried to do as you suggest.