Some more background on my sister's surrogacy experience....
After she had her third child, she had her tubes tied because she and her husband decided that their family was complete. I'm not sure what brought the idea of being a surrogate to her mind, but back when she started mentioning it to her husband, they were in big financial trouble. At first, I think it was an idea to make a large amount of money in one fell swoop. At first, her husband was not very supportive, but she talked him into it. She went through an agency at first, but didn't like the way that turned out. All the couples they would match her up with required the surrogate to be willing to terminate for multiples and fetuses with mental or physical defects. Even though my sister was not serving the Lord at that time, she knew that she would not be willing to terminate under any circumstance and gave up on the idea of being a surrogate. She took her name off of that particular agency list, but always felt in her heart that she wanted to carry a baby for a couple that could not have children of their own.

Somewhere along the way, she rededicated her life to God and her husband got saved. They are now raising their children in church and have a strong zeal for learning about Christ. My sister was still visiting surrogacy message boards and reading a lot about the subject even after she had given up on the idea. She felt that it was her purpose in life to GIVE life. She had 3 relatively easy pregnancies and births and felt that God gave her a body that happens to be a hospitable environment for little growing lives for a reason. She met a lady on one of the message boards that shares in her beliefs about "termination" and they started e-mailing eachother. Turns out that this lady and her husband have 4 children from other surrogate pregnancies and they had 4 embryos left over from those transfers. Because they recognize those embryos as being LIVES, they felt wrong about just keeping them frozen in a bank, never giving them a chance to survive. Even though by today's standards, they already have a large family, they felt that it was incomplete and they should try to find another surrogate.

My sister and her husband have developed a relationship with this family and feel very strongly about helping them. You can imagine that after having 4 children through 3 surrogate pregnancies, these people have spent A LOT of money. They don't have much money to compensate my sister, so my sister offered to do it for practically nothing. They are, of course, paying for all medical expenses, travelling, maternity clothes, and childcare that my sister needs throughout the pregnancy. They will also compensate her for any time she has to take off work as a result of the pregnancy. It was all written up in a contract.

My family is less than supportive of this endeavor for obvious reasons. They care about my sister and don't want to see anyone take advantage of her. I honestly don't think that the family she is helping has set out to take advantage of her kind and generous heart, but it is still very easy to remain sceptical. I support her decision and understand why she has chosen to do this, but I admit that I wish she were being compensated more monetarily.

I know this is a totally different situation, but one time I offered to babysit the toddler of an acquaintance because she was down-and-out, with no job and no husband. Her son's father was not in the picture and she was having trouble job hunting being a single mom with little help from her family. Our agreement was that I would watch him for free while she searched for a job and then when she got hired someplace and could afford to pay me, she would. Long story short, she spent a couple months "looking" for a job and leaving me with her child 2 days a week or so. I'm not sure if she was being too picky or what, but it got to the point where I just felt I was being taken advantage of. I ended up telling her that I needed to get a paying job and couldn't go on waiting for her to find the perfect job. My point is, when you offer to do something as demanding as caring for another person's child for free, when it gets difficult...the kiddo is acting up, you get stuck in traffic on your way to HER apartment, momma comes home later than she said she would, etc.....it's really easy to get bitter and start hating what you're doing. Even if you started out doing it with the idea that you don't mind not getting paid, the difficult days are going to wear thin on you really fast because there's little or no reward for your hard work.

I hope that my sister does not end up feeling this way when things get tough and she is waddling around with twins or triplets or (gulp) quadruplets??? in her belly, trying to take care of her own family. Even if it ends up being a singleton, I imagine that there will be days when it would've helped to be able to envision that $25,000-$40,000 (that's how much she would've gotten if she would've gone through the agency) coming her way after the baby is delivered. I know she doesn't care about the lack of payment right now, but I hope it doesn't make her bitter later.

Labels: family, surrogacy