I'm making a choice that could break my family apart.

[Anonymous]

Ugh, I never experienced long-term infertility but I think some of the responses here are a little over the top - "she doesn't deserve a child"????

OP it really sounds like your heart was in the right place but this is just a bad situation now. Even if she rescinded her demands, even if she seemed to be able to handle you carrying her pregnancy, it's obviously going to be a train wreck at some point along the road.

Even though her demands are completely out of line, it seems reasonable to me that your offer might just have been the straw that broke the camel's back. It doesn't justify her reaction, but in retrospect it might have been an inappropriate offer for someone who has been through what she has been through. I'm not criticizing you, really - just that in light of her reaction, it clearly isn't

So if you can, I would try once again to be the bigger person. Apologize for initiating what is clearly a painful and emotionally destabilizing situation for her with the surrogacy offer, withdraw it in the most sensitive way possible, and try to open up a dialogue about how you can help her deal with her grief and/or find a way toward parenthood. I also think it wouldn't be a bad idea to get some professional advice from a therapist with experience in this area, possibly someone who can talk to the whole lot of you. Good luck OP.

[Anonymous]

I would not donate to your SIL and BIL. No financial help, and definitely no surrogacy.

This is not a woman who is fit to be a parent, no matter the circumstances. Sometimes the best interest of a child, means having no child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When someone shows you their true self, believe them.

In your opinion, OP, was your SIL always this narcissistic? Perhaps she hid it well? My mother is like this. Everything always has to be about her. Nothing is ever her fault and she always needs to blame someone else for everything that goes wrong in her life. Even if it's blatantly irrational and crazy. However, she does a wonderful job being charming to strangers and only goes haywire with close family members. The minute you offered to be a surrogate you sealed your doom, poor OP.

So, you definitely don't want to offer such a service to someone who will not be properly grateful for it. Say you want to think it over because the demands are irrational and disrespectful. Then allow a good long time before you finally regretfully decline. Take comfort in the fact that you are not responsible for the family break-up that will inevitably follow. Actually, I'm sure BIL will forgive you. SIL may leave the family, which perhaps wouldn't be so bad...

OP here, thank you everyone for this support, I really needed it and I am glad I made the decision to post. I am emotionally wrung out right now. I like the idea of offering to help financially, we have in the past here and there with IVF costs. There is so much good advice here, I want my DH to read it too.

As for my SIL, if this is her true self, she did indeed hide it well. Though I remembered when DH's cousin was struggling getting pregnant, it had been about 6 months of trying, she said something like "you aren't pregnant because you are fat, this is what infertility looks like" and she pulled her shirt up to show bruising from shots and her stretch marks. She said "these are from a dead baby, not big macs" and she started crying hysterically. Everyone wrote it off as hormones. Even cousin forgave her even though they have a somewhat frosty relationship. Oh and cousin does have pcos but has had two children with, I think its IUI?

OP, since you don't seem to think that this behavior is otherwise in your SIL's character, I think everyone in this scenario needs to consider that she may be having some strong emotional issues (depression, anger, etc.) around her infertility that she's never dealt with properly. Given that, I think it might be a good idea for you to find a group counselor who can help you four work through this together before you come to any kind of agreement, both to get through everyone's emotions and to help you all work out a more appropriate surrogacy agreement. I'm sure your SIL could benefit from some individual counseling as well, but that might be easier for her to swallow coming from a counselor than from you. If you decide not to go forward with it, the counselor also may be able to help you break that to your BIL and SIL in the best way possible. Good luck to you.

[Anonymous]

Do not be her surrogate. You will regret it.

[Anonymous]

OP, the most important thing here is that you are not responsible for other people's feeling and actions. You and your husband made an incredibly generous offer out of love. If, based on the reaction, you feel like you can't do it, then that is your choice.

How your BIL and his wife react at that point is their choice - you have no control over it and it is not your responsibility. If they decide they can't interact with you anymore and it drives a wedge between your DH and your BIL, that is your BIL's choice.

I

[Anonymous]

Please be clear on one thing OP. The family may well break up, but it will not be because of your choice. It will be because of their choices. Make clear that you are rejecting their terms because of what you've learned from them about how little respect they have for your family, you're not rescinding your offer on a whim. Unfortunately, by making your incredibly generous and kind offer to an unstable person in an unstable marriage, you have made yourself a target. Such a person will find a way to blame you for everything that happens from here on out, possibly including their divorce. Be strong. Know that you were nothing but a catalyst. A catalyst doesn't make areaction happen where one wasn't going to happen, it makes a reaction happen more quickly than it otherwise would.

[Anonymous]

Surrogacy for a family member? Terrible idea, even without the dynamics you describe.

[Anonymous]

OP, you sound nice and that your heart is in the right place. But you also sound pretty naive about what can happen to a couple when they struggle with infertility as much as they have (all the heart ache not to mention the financial part) Anyways, I work with people who are going through infertility. I'd like to say a couple of things that I took away from what you've said

1. What your SIL is going through is something that you can never understand. A lot of women go through their lives expecting that they will have a biological child. Coming to terms with the fact that they won't is a grieving process. Add that into the stress that she's already experiencing with the loss each month of not being pregnant (as well as any actual miscarriages)

2. While it may seem irrational to you, it is completely common for infertile women to wonder if their husbands wish they had married someone else who could have babies. I'm willing to bet some of her hostility towards you stems from this. She has probably thought "well since OP can get pregnant so easily, I bet DH wishes he was the one who married her and not his brother. Then he'd have 4 great kids right now".

3. She may be happy that you're offering to be a surrogate. But that comes with another slap in the face of "Oh look at OP, look how easy it is for her to get pregnant. Now she can carry my baby. And I can't"

4. I'm not saying you come off as insensitive, but I think you're not really realizing what it must be like for her.

5. Regarding the demands. She likely wrote them when she was upset. But its also not uncommon for the moms to try to assert a lot of control over the surrogacy because that's their tie to the baby. There may be a baby shower but she won't be the one showing, etc. So controlling the pregnancy as if she was the one carrying the baby is pretty common. d

I agree with the PP's who have mentioned a group counselor would be very beneficial in this situation. Your SIL is grieving, angry, and hurt. You're hurt as well. You need a mediator to help you work these things out instead of just deciding she's unstable and in an unstable marriage and you are going to ruin your family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I was a gestational carrier for my brothers husbands wife (my SIL)! I had 3 kids and was done (but 4 pregnancies,we had one still birth as well) and offered it after watching them struggle for over a decade. Lets put the emotions out of it for a second...it was physical HELL. I ended up carrying twins and it RUINED me. A fifth pregnancy (a multiple one at that) in my late 30s was no picnic. Comparing it to my singletons in my late 20s/early and mid 30s is impossible; it was its own beast. So if you have ANY reservations about it emotionally please decline because you may be over estimating what it can do to you physically.

interesting point here

[Anonymous]

She really needs to be speaking with a therapist. Her issues have nothing to do with you and she is projecting them onto you.

I think you and your DH had the best intentions, good hearts and came from the right place with your offer. I think you have the best intentions, good hearts and came from the right place with your decision to no longer be the surrogate.

You will not rebuild your relationship if you have this baby and you will not rebuild this relationship if you don't have this baby.

[Anonymous]

She needs serious therapy, on her own, and with the family.

For you to not even be allowed to be an aunt afterwards? What?? She wants you to give up your right to be an aunt so that she can become a mother? I understand the emotions and the feelings of failure and jealousy, but the create a divide in the family like that in order to accept your offer....no. What happens at family holidays? You can't go anymore? That defeats the offer to help grow and support the family. Cousins can't enjoy their cousins? How does the family as a whole recover from that and dance around that? It will never NOT be awkward if you go into it like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She really needs to be speaking with a therapist. Her issues have nothing to do with you and she is projecting them onto you.

I think you and your DH had the best intentions, good hearts and came from the right place with your offer. I think you have the best intentions, good hearts and came from the right place with your decision to no longer be the surrogate.

You will not rebuild your relationship if you have this baby and you will not rebuild this relationship if you don't have this baby.

Also, I would expect that you will be blamed if for some reason the surrogacy doesn't work for any reason.

[Anonymous]

OP, do not carry their child and do not feel bad about backing out. I suffered through years of infertility so I sympathize with what your SIL has been through. Honestly I think your relationship is doomed either way. She obviously cannot handle you being the surrogate so doing it would create all kinds if issues. She will be watching your every move with her child for the rest of her life and from the sounds of of it that might push her over the edge. After backing out I think you and your family should take a long break from seeing them so they can work things out on their own. If they do divorce it has nothing to do with you.

[Anonymous]

It's one thing to go to these dark places alone or with your husband, but this woman is so awful that she really shouldn't be a mother. At least not without years of therapy first. OP, I'd feel no guilt backing out now. She is irrational.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't even know what to say except:

1. She does not appear to be in a position to be a good mother
2. She does not appear to be in a marriage stable enough to bring a child into
3. She does not appear to be stable enough to handle having you as a surrogate

You need to back out,
No guilt.
This is not about you, she is obviously struggling and needs help

#3!!! You are making the right choice.