Paris Hilton joined the list of celebrities who have spoken publicly about having children with surrogates this week. And sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it’s terrible.
Celebrity names have been changed throughout to protect the identities of those involved.
Shana’s phone lit up. was Catherine.
As Shana remembers, Catherine started talking without saying hello.
Shana sat down. Here, she was in her first few weeks of pregnancy with Catherine’s child. Catherine had another child. This was the first time she had heard that she was not Katherine’s sole agent. What does that mean? Will Katherine still want the baby Shanna had?
“I wish you’d told me,” Shanna managed to get her voice in line. “Shall we talk after we go to the doctor tomorrow?”
Catherine agreed and hung up.
A few hours later, Shana emailed Catherine.
“I was a little taken aback by the news, but I’m very happy. Enjoy your baby. We’ll talk after the checkup.”
Catherine didn’t reply. She didn’t call the next day either.
The world of surrogacy entered Shana’s life in rural Pennsylvania through an article in a women’s magazine. Sipping a hot drink while her three children played outside on her family’s farm, she was carried away by her.
The article endorsed surrogacy and argued that even if someone did it for money, it was a gift to single parents, infertile couples, and LGBT families.
It says nothing about the enormous power and wealth gap that normally separates parents from surrogate mothers and the problems this can cause.
Something clicked for Shana, who had just turned 30 after three easy pregnancies.
To join the surrogacy agency, Shana and her husband filled out a stack of questionnaires. They were evaluated by psychologists and doctors and had “dozens” of meetings with lawyers, Shanna says.
A few weeks later I got a call from her. Celebrity couple Jennifer and Marc read her profile and wanted to meet in New York.
Shana quickly bonded with them.
“They were kind people,” she says. “They made an effort to understand my life and get to know my children.”
Shana’s payments cover transportation to an in vitro fertilization clinic, hotels, fuel, food, and income lost from her day job as a beautician during pregnancy. received.
It took several tries to get pregnant. When she gave birth, Jennifer and Mark held her hand and cried as she thanked her new family.
So when Jennifer called me a few months later and asked if she could introduce me to Katherine, Shanna agreed.
Catherine comes from a famous family and has been trying to have children of her own for years, with or without a surrogate mother.
“Looking back, there were red flags from our first phone conversation,” says Shana.
Katherine suggested bypassing the surrogacy agency to save on fees and having a lawyer draw up the contract, Shana recalls.
“She then said that she had already passed a psychological evaluation on her experience with Jennifer, so she didn’t need to do it again.
Shanna agreed to three attempts.
When she and her husband traveled to the IVF clinic for the first fertilized egg to be implanted in the uterus, Katherine was glamorously dressed and waiting. I was wearing a big coat.
Shana tried to hug her, but Katherine backed off. She was no hugger.
Personally, Shana thought, “This is going to be like Jennifer and Mark.”
Catherine told Shana that she would be staying because of the transfer but had to leave immediately, Shana says.
The first attempt to conceive was unsuccessful. The second night before, Katherine invited Shana and her husband over for dinner and talked about private jets and designer furniture. They had nothing in common.
The next day, at the clinic, Catherine was clutching a vial of medicine, Shana says.
She hands Shana a Valium tablet.
“No, thank you,” Shanna replied.
But Catherine did not give up.
“She said, ‘What’s the matter, Shanna?
Shana put the pill in her mouth, but carefully threw it away when Katherine wasn’t looking.
Again, Shanna didn’t get pregnant. They went one more time.
This time, when they met at the clinic, Catherine was mostly on the phone with her mother, discussing the interior design of one of the houses. She spoke very little to Shana.
10 days later, I got the good news. Shana’s hCG (hormone produced by the placenta) levels showed a positive pregnancy.
“I was overjoyed,” says Shana.
Catherine, on the other hand, said she didn’t want to get excited because her previous surrogate had a miscarriage.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t know it happened,” Shana said.
“It was her fault,” Shana remembers Catherine replying.
Katherine said the surrogate had been waiting 12 hours at the airport for a plane to visit her sick father.
Shana says she was stunned by Katherine’s next comment.
surrogacy around the world
-
Ukraine, Colombia, Mexico and Russia allow commercial surrogacy, while Cambodia, India, Mexico, Nepal and Thailand ban non-resident surrogacy.
-
Commercial surrogacy is illegal in the UK, so third parties cannot profit from matching people, but it is not illegal to pay for surrogacy. The number of surrogacy in the UK has almost quadrupled between 2011 and 2020.
-
In the US, each state has different rules. Pennsylvania, where Shana St. Clair lives, allows both compensated and uncompensated surrogacy contracts and is considered surrogacy-friendly.
-
Prominent feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Julie Bindel have argued that surrogacy commoditizes women’s bodies and exposes surrogates, who often come from poorer backgrounds, to exploitation.
Shortly after, Katherine calls Shanna with the shocking news that another surrogate has delivered a baby. Then she went silent.
Shanna continued with her routine checkups and drove over an hour each way to the clinic, not sure if Katherine still wanted a baby.
Four weeks later, she was told her hCG levels were too low. she had a miscarriage.
Shana called Katherine, but Katherine did not answer.
A few hours later Catherine replied, “I’ll call you right away.”
A few days later she wasn’t. So Shana messaged her again.
“Hello, I hope you and baby are well. Would you like me to forward the rest of the bills to you?”
Text pinged in Catherine’s reply.
“Shana, our relationship is over,” Shanna said, recalling the conversation.
Shana and Catherine never spoke again.
A few months later, Shanna’s mother called and said Katherine was on TV.
“Shana, she’s cheating on you now,” she said.
Catherine had made disparaging comments about surrogate mothers, including women who miscarried their own fertilized eggs. After all she went through, it was too much. Shana burst into tears.
“Celebrities may be more open about surrogacy now, but it has been for years,” says Aria Simuel, who runs California-based VIP surrogacy agency Modernly. .
Both she and her business partner are agents, so understand the difficulty.
“When someone with a high name comes in with business managers, assistants and security officers, it can be very intimidating for agents,” she says.
According to Aria, a good agency will manage the relationship, make sure the surrogate is comfortable, advocate for the surrogate if necessary, and conduct background checks and psychological evaluations.
In some cases, she added, surrogates crossed the line by pitching their biological parents on a reality TV show or asking them to introduce them to a cousin who would fund a movie script. .
Aria says the contract should make it clear that this is “not under consideration.”
Four years after her experience with Katherine, Shana’s former surrogacy agent asked if she would be interested in introducing her to another couple. After meeting them and making love to them, she agreed to try one last time.
This time she gave birth to twins.
“I think I needed something good to wash away my harrowing experience with Katherine,” Shanna says.
“I’ve had two beautiful surrogates and one was a terrible deal.”
Today, Shana runs a local beauty salon in town. While making her hair dryer noise, her clients talk to her about her local and celebrity gossip, but often her conversation extends to her fertility treatments and her family.
“Every week I meet people who want a baby, who have just had a baby, who have lost a baby, who can’t have a baby, who say they never want a baby, who have tried every possible way to have a baby. I would like to talk to the people I want.
“Surrogacy is not for everyone. But when it comes to this personal thing, if all parties involved feel happy and empowered, they should judge other people’s choices.” You shouldn’t.”
All biological parents’ names have been changed
