Gay Couples, Egg Donors, Surrogates And Emotional Bonds

The Washington Post has reviewed a CNN documentary that takes a close look at gay parents by following the case of a gay couple who got a baby with the help of an egg donor and a surrogate.

A good-natured Floridian named Holly is the egg donor, although “donor” is not quite the word because she charges the guys $8,000. But another woman has to be employed as the surrogate, to carry the baby to term, and she gets a $30,000 fee (these expenses are in addition to thousands of dollars in legal fees). Cindy, who has a back filled with tattoos, at first finds the male couple “annoying” but later on, they all seem to get along.

When the baby arrives early, and has to be delivered via emergency C-section, Cindy is told she will never be able to have another child (she and husband John — not their real names — have two). Her feelings for the baby she gave up grow stronger than she, or the two dads, anticipated, although it appears she was spared a traumatic meltdown. O’Brien might have given us more detail about that.

I think this raises some interesting points – even though this article points out the fact that the feelings of the surrogate were stronger than expected, oftentimes, even an egg donor will wonder what happened to her biological offspring.

If you make the decision to donate your eggs, it is important that you do not think of the child that will come from this as “your baby”, because it is not. You are essentially giving it away (in a good way) to somebody else and thus erase all the responsibilities and joys of motherhood for that particular baby.