hell no!! tell her to get back in the kitchen.

Anonymous wrote:I thought surrogates were paid around $100,000. Then if you pump, many times you still get paid for the milk ( we knew a couple that did this).

Yes, the money sounds great but every pregnancy has risks, and being a SAHM pregnant is hard. Also, having kids they may not get why you gave your baby away and why their friends mommy had a baby and they got a brother. I don't think it's worth $25,000- once you take out taxes it's not that much money for what a pregnancy entails. Plus, how would medical coverage work? If you have complications later, who pays for it?

Too much to risk IMO if it's purely monetary.

A surrogate should certainly be paid and is worth $100,000 but they don't make nearly that much. The process of using a surrogate costs that much (fertility clinic fees, medicine, lawyers, agencies, travel, health insurance) so perhaps that is where you got the number from. In terms of complications, the contracts are generally written so the intended parents pay for complications for a certain amount of time (but at most I think it's 6 months), so there is certainly a health risk afterwards.

"allow" ? This is a horrible reflection on you, poster! Try this question, "how would you feel...?"

I thought surrogates were paid around $100,000. Then if you pump, many times you still get paid for the milk ( we knew a couple that did this).

Yes, the money sounds great but every pregnancy has risks, and being a SAHM pregnant is hard. Also, having kids they may not get why you gave your baby away and why their friends mommy had a baby and they got a brother. I don't think it's worth $25,000- once you take out taxes it's not that much money for what a pregnancy entails. Plus, how would medical coverage work? If you have complications later, who pays for it?

Too much to risk IMO if it's purely monetary.

Anonymous wrote:OP here: I'm actually a woman...(married) asking about a family situation (not my own). So I use the word "allow" being a woman myself, however I see this as a family decision. I would say that as a family, you decide about quitting a job with no new one in sight, you decide public v. private, you decide to have an abortion or not, you decide to send a child for non mandatory medical care (think therapy, ritalyn, etc.) It is her body but the choice impacts many so I think it is a FAMILY choice. What if she is bedridden? Extreme nausea for months at a time? Post delivery complications? Surrogacy falls through (special needs child)? Adoptive parents die suddenly while she is pregnant? Doctor recommends abortion to save the mother's life?

The question wasn't about the word "allow" - in our family I consider choices that affect the FAMILY unit as being ones that need to be made as a family unit. So putting aside this seemingly offensive one word...would you support it?

Thank you for the clarification. If my wife wanted to do this for money, I would not be supportive unless it would be enough money to change our lives and we were in serious need of that change. I thought most surrogates get paid around $25,000 -- absolutely not worth it, IMO. Now, if she wanted to do it as a favor for a friend who could not carry a pregnancy, I would be more open to it. But from a financial perspective, I just don't think it's worth the risk and worry that something could go wrong and my wife would be hurt.

Back to the thread, how old are the children, OP?

Thank you, 00:09. It seems more accurate to say,
"I want a paycheck job." "Someone else can have my childcare / home care job, and I'll give them a paycheck". It may work, but only if you earn enough to support that other person AND have something left over at the end of the day. Most of the time is a wash.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this whole surrogacy = prostitution argument rests on the idea that everyone considers prostitution to be evil. That's a particular moral view I don't share.

But setting all that aside -- unless this is something that the OP is really considering, is this really a "money and finances" issue? It seems like just an idle question unless someone is really considering this.

I have friends of ours considering it - for the money only. She is a stay at home mom and the husband wants her to get a job. She wants to stay home with the kids. This was what she came up with - exclusively for the money aspect. They'd pay bills off in one swoop but would probably not have any extra afterwards. (He wants her to get a job at least until the credit card debt is done...so her idea completely satisfies his underlying reason that she be employed).

Why doesn't the husband know that raising the children and caring for the home IS a job? Or is she sitting on the sofa with a silver tray of chocolate-covered strawberries watching QVC?

If this board is any indication people define the words 'work' and 'job' very differently. For some people these two words can only be used to mean a salaried job or work that is rewarded with money. For these people, SAHP can never been seen as work or a job because it doesn't involve the receipt of money. For other people the words can also be used to refer to effort - for example moving that furniture was quite a job or wow redoing the whole garden was a lot of work. Even though no money changed hands, the output of effort required for the outcome to happen counts as work or a job. For those people they also include the effort to do the hands-on raising of kids as a job and as work due to the effort involved in achieving the outcome.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this whole surrogacy = prostitution argument rests on the idea that everyone considers prostitution to be evil. That's a particular moral view I don't share.

But setting all that aside -- unless this is something that the OP is really considering, is this really a "money and finances" issue? It seems like just an idle question unless someone is really considering this.

I have friends of ours considering it - for the money only. She is a stay at home mom and the husband wants her to get a job. She wants to stay home with the kids. This was what she came up with - exclusively for the money aspect. They'd pay bills off in one swoop but would probably not have any extra afterwards. (He wants her to get a job at least until the credit card debt is done...so her idea completely satisfies his underlying reason that she be employed).

Why doesn't the husband know that raising the children and caring for the home IS a job? Or is she sitting on the sofa with a silver tray of chocolate-covered strawberries watching QVC?

The tough thing about surrogacy is that there is emotions that come with it. Some of it is hormonal, true, but some of it can be more complicated.

For example, what if something happens to the surrogate mom (complications, bed rest while dealing with her own children, doctor appointments) or to the baby (developmental problems)? Who is paying for it? And will there be "blame"? And the post partum recovery? And the ease at which the baby will be handed over?
The strain on a friendship? Will the friend be forever indebted to you? Will you hold it over their head that you bore their child and they should forever bow down to you? Will you always feel a connection to the baby? And how will you deal with that?
Lots of questions.
Not sure if money is really worth it. And it sounds like you really are doing it for money.

It's UterUS not UterYou

^^^(Not the OP) I love it when DCUM digs up people who know what they're talking about. This entire post is so much more useful than "surrogacy is prostitution!" or "it's my body and I can do what I want!" Thanks for an eye-opening assessment, PP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this whole surrogacy = prostitution argument rests on the idea that everyone considers prostitution to be evil. That's a particular moral view I don't share.

But setting all that aside -- unless this is something that the OP is really considering, is this really a "money and finances" issue? It seems like just an idle question unless someone is really considering this.

I have friends of ours considering it - for the money only. She is a stay at home mom and the husband wants her to get a job. She wants to stay home with the kids. This was what she came up with - exclusively for the money aspect. They'd pay bills off in one swoop but would probably not have any extra afterwards. (He wants her to get a job at least until the credit card debt is done...so her idea completely satisfies his underlying reason that she be employed).

In this case, I would stay far away from surrogacy. It is not easy money. Using IVF there is a high risk of early pregnancy bleeding which often means more appointments, is emotionally difficult and can also entail bed rest. There are also miscarriages and cycles that don't work, which are also emotionally draining and exhausting. It could easily take a few years before she would even see the full comp for carrying a baby to term. As a general example, an aggressive and lucky timetable puts the whole process at about 18-19 months (2 months screening with an agency, 2 months matching with a couple, 2-3 months medical screening and legal contract, 2 months lead to cycle, 1 month of injectable meds prior to transfer and then 9 months of actually being pregnant). A first time surrogate may make $24,000. That is $1,297 a month over say 18.5 months. If she takes a job at $22/ hour and works 15 hours a week she's ahead money wise with a PT job and has not put her life and health at risk. and that us presuming the transfer is successful the first time, which is not the norm.

A surrogate pregnancy is nothing like a pregnancy she would carry for herself. If she is still interested I would recommend reading SMO (surrogate moms online) to get a better picture of all that surrogacy entails.

Now.... If she has a desire to help a family have a baby and the money would be a nice bonus, that's a different story. Every compensated surrogate is using the money for something, it's just only a part of the picture. If its the while picture it's unlikely to be a positive experience and/or successful.