The Surrogate motherhood, also known as "rent belly", is one that is performed when a woman is gestating inside the baby of another person or another couple. In Spain and other European countries it is not allowed to do so, since the one who gives birth to a baby is legally considered a mother.
In other countries, such as the United States, it is legal and that is why from there we get images like this that are sure to be the most common there, but that here generates, I think, a lot of internal debate. Look at it for a few seconds, or a few minutes, and we keep talking.
The story behind the photo
Tamara, the mother who holds her new baby, has not had it easy on her way to motherhood. In 2003, pregnant with her first baby, she was diagnosed with preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome. The doctors decided to cause him to give birth at 25 weeks gestation. Thus was born his first daughter, a premature girl who weighed just over 500 grams.
Tamara then received the message that another pregnancy could end up, with a 60% chance, in the same way. For two years he spent with his daughter most of the time at home, with various medical problems and difficulties in feeding her and getting her to grow and gain weight. It was from the second birthday of the girl when he decided to meet other mothers with children to interact with other children. That's how he met Logan, a mother who also had a 2-year-old son. They started a friendship that gradually grew stronger, closer.
As Tamara's daughter was in better health, she and Brent, her husband, began to think about having another baby. The problem is that the risk of everything ending up being the same did not let them decide. A year after beginning his friendship, and after hearing Tamara talk about the desire to be a mother again, Logan made him an offer that would change their lives forever. You He offered his belly, his womb, to gestate his son for her.
After several moments of debate, weighing pros and cons, they decided to make it happen and on the second attempt, with Tamara's ovules and Brent's sperm, Logan became pregnant. Tamara related that he was happy, waiting for a new baby, but sometimes he felt the pain of not being able to be the one who gestated him.
After a birth in which they were all present, the baby you see in the image was born, given birth by Logan and breastfed by Tamara, his biological mother.
Biological mother?
As we have explained it seems clear that the biological mother is Tamara, because the ovule is his. However, we cannot ignore two things: fetal microchimerism and the fact that the baby has grown fed by Logan's body.
We talked about fetal microchimerism a while ago. It is a term that, in short, comes to say that when a woman is pregnant with a baby, some cells of the woman come to pass the baby Y some of the baby's cells pass to the woman. That is, the main genetic load of the baby comes from the ovule and sperm, however there is part of DNA exchange also during pregnancy, by the exchange of cells commented.
How a baby grows inside a body I think there is not much to say, the blood, the placenta that the woman creates is what feeds that baby. It is their nutrients that make it grow and it is their immune cells, their defenses, that become part of their body to be born with a minimum of protection.
Come on the term "biological mother" acquires a clear tinge of relativity and although we all consider Tamara the real mother, many might consider that the real mother is Logan.
But who does the child stay with?
In the end, anyway, it does not matter how one or another "mother" is considered, because the child stays with Tamara, of course. That is the initial agreement and the final result. Both agree and now, as they comment, Logan has a very special relationship with the baby and all this has made that the bonds of friendship have been strengthened to unsuspected limits.
So, what worries me most is not Tamara, her partner or the baby, but Logan. Love, as we all know, is not exclusive to giving birth. We parents know very well. We are not pregnant, we do not give birth, but we love our children madly. So the baby will be fine and will be as loved as if he was born from Tamara's womb. Just look at the photo to see that he immediately picked it up in his arms, immediately breastfed him and kept looking at him, as any mother would have done after giving birth.
But, as I say, the one that worries me about the equation is Logan, the surrogate mother, the one who breeds the baby. Not only are the baby's cells the ones that pass to the mother, her own body changes a lot, so much that it generates hormones such as oxytocin, responsible for linking the mother with the baby, and rational (or irrational) feelings of possession and protection for the simple fact of having felt, for nine months, that life growing inside. Come on, speaking fast, I think for a woman It must be hard, very hard, deliver to a baby you just gave birth and then at night, that night, to see you sleeping "empty" without the baby that lived inside by your side.
Why I would never do it
I imagine that by the way I explain it you will have already realized that I would never do something like that. First, and by logic, because in Spain it cannot be done. Second, because I think of that woman that would make my baby pregnant, I think that she could have that feeling, I think that there are wonderful pregnancies, but there are very hard pregnancies, and very hard births, that end up having a good time or whose discomfort is almost forgotten when you see yourself with your baby in your arms, and that woman would have to go through all this to, as I say, go empty. He is very generous of him, tremendously generous. An act of love like no other, but I would not be able to accept something like that. Too.
I have three children I love madly. They are my children, the fruit of my wife's ovules and my sperm, but I would like them the same if they were adopted because in reality the thing does not change much: neither I have gestated them nor have I given birth. Yes, I have seen them born and yes, I have had them from the first minute of life, but that does not only make them love them. So if I had not been able to have children I would have adopted them and so no one would have had to live a pregnancy, contractions and childbirth and then not be able to take care of that baby.
But beware, this is just my opinion and I don't want to say that I am judging what Tamara and Logan have done: both agreed and deep down it's an act of love.
