With Kim Kardashian and Kanye West expecting their third child via surrogacy, we asked three women who have carried babies for other families how it felt.
To anyone who hasn't got any direct experience with it, surrogacy can be a completely alien concept. Isn't it a massively selfless thing to do for someone who, in many cases, is effectively a stranger? What motivates some women to carry a child for another family for 9 months?
We asked three women who have done it…
Lauren is 26-years-old. She gave birth to her first surrogate baby, for a same sex couple, in December 2014 when she was just 24. Lauren has no children of her own.
"I work as a night nanny and maternity nurse, so have come into contact with a lot of families who've struggled to become parents. It just became very apparent to me that for some people it wasn't straight forward, so I thought if I could help, I would. I didn't even know if surrogacy was legal in this country or how it worked, so I decided to Google it, which was where I found out about Surrogacy UK.
I knew I wanted to be a surrogate for a same-sex couple because back then – although I don't think it's so much the case now – they didn't seem to get picked as often. I wanted to help prove that they can make fantastic parents, too.
With the couple that I ended up choosing, I looked at their profile and thought they sounded like nice people, so we spent three months getting to know each other and ended up getting on really well. [This 'Getting To Know' period is key for Surrogacy UK, who believe friendship between the surrogate and the Intended Parents (IPs) is the best basis for a surrogate baby to be born].
I did what's called a 'host surrogacy' – which means I had IVF to implant an embryo created from a donor egg and one father's sperm - so the baby wasn't biologically mine. But I would definitely consider doing a 'straight surrogacy' for the couple I'm currently getting to know, which would involve using my own egg.
"I wasn't worried about my body changing"
I'd never gone through a pregnancy before and was only 24 at the time, but I wasn't really worried. I just thought, people do it every day, so it can't be that bad. I did get awful morning sickness, but that soon passed and we were lucky to experience a normal, healthy pregnancy. I only started to feel like I wanted it to be over towards the end, but as soon as the baby was born and I saw them together as a family for the first time, I knew it had all been worth it.
Everything felt worth it; all of the money they'd put into it [although it costs IPs around £10,000 - £15,000, the surrogate cannot make any profit from the experience and must document all costs with receipts], the medication, the sickness, the midwife appointments, the ups, the downs, and obviously baby Sophie at the end of it all.
I wasn't really worried about my body changing, because I'm naturally slim anyway. I've always been to the gym, and I carried on going to the gym until I was 35 weeks pregnant. I got back to the gym 6 weeks after giving birth, and my body has changed, but I'm not unhappy with it.
Sophie is now almost three-years-old, and in the first year we probably saw each other once a month along with having regular updates and photos. Now we see each other less, every few months, but we message and I still see pictures all the time. Sophie is more than aware of who I am and she always will be - I'm her 'tummy-mummy'."
Anna is a 35-year-old mum of 3 girls, who gave birth to her first surrogate baby in 2015.
COSMOPOLITAN UK
"Around 10 years ago, I watched a couple of documentaries on TV about surrogacy. The idea stuck with me, and I remember thinking what a wonderful thing it could be to do.
Years later, after having two children, I did some research and thought carefully about becoming a surrogate. But I decided I wanted a third child of my own, and the advice was to finish your own family before you become a surrogate.
That's mainly because there's a certain logic to being a surrogate when you no longer have the instinct to nurture a newborn. I no longer had the desire for more children of my own which made it the right time for me. As well as that, any woman needs to consider what would happen if her own fertility was affected and she hadn't had a family of her own yet.
Five years later, when my youngest daughter had started school, my family and work life felt settled and I decided this was the right time to do something that meant so much to me.
Once I was screened and accepted as a surrogate, I scoured a list of couple profiles [as the current law stands, single people cannot use a surrogate to become a parent, however they can adopt] provided by Surrogacy UK [legally, surrogates are not allowed to advertise, hence the importance of not-for-profit organisations like Surrogacy UK], and within days I started talking to a couple in Manchester.
"Chatting to prospective parents felt almost like online dating"
I had a strong idea of what I wanted from my IPs; I wanted to help a couple who didn't live too far away from me, had no children, and who felt like normal, down to earth people in stable jobs with a good relationship.
Chatting to prospective IPs felt almost like online dating; it's about chemistry, and was my couple's sense of humour made me feel they were just right. The first time we met up was in a pub, and it felt so much like a blind date.
But we got to know each other over the next few months, and once we'd agreed on all the circumstances (how frequent my contact would be with the baby, etc), we went ahead. I was a host surrogate, opting not to use my own egg, because I just couldn't imagine having a child out there who was biologically mine, but wasn't calling me mummy.
I gave birth to a little boy on Christmas Eve 2015, and physically it felt very similar to giving birth to my own.
Although I'm good at controlling my attachments, the emotions filled the room, and everyone was in tears, including the staff. I remember watching as this new mother got first skin-to-skin contact with her baby. I watched her melt and sob over her lovely little boy we had tried so hard to create, a feeling she thought she'd never experience, and I've never felt love like it.
I never felt like it was giving a baby away; I never lost anything. I felt very honoured that they chose me to carry their baby and trusted me with such a responsibility. When I saw them hold each other as a family, that moment made it all worth it. It was beautiful."
Ali is 33-years-old, has no children of her own, and we spoke to her in April 2016, when she was pregnant with twins for a same sex couple.
"It wasn't like I had an enlightening dream about surrogacy or anything, it was more through watching a friend experiencing it that I decided, along with my husband, to go for it.
I've got no children of my own (although I do have step-children) as the time hasn't felt right yet, but I still wanted to experience pregnancy if it meant I could help somebody. I have no maternal instincts in me yet and almost felt like it could be a test run.
My husband has always been very supportive of the idea; we make decisions together, and I think most other surrogates would say that without the support of their partner, they wouldn't have done it.
I'm currently pregnant with twins for a same-sex couple. They're lovely guys, and they're going to make fantastic dads. We've got a really good friendship – you get along so well that sometimes you forget there's a baby involved!
"I haven't got the worry of late night feeding and nappies and crying facing me"
Being pregnant is actually lovely; I'm halfway through now, but it's nice because I haven't got the worry of late night feeding and nappies and crying facing me. I can go home after giving birth and I can rest.
And the physical changes aren't really an issue for me either. I've always been petite and never been able to carry much weight, but I have noticed changes in my breasts and my stomach, and I'm very tired.
But soon I'll be holding and cuddling the twins, and I'll be known as their Aunty Ali. I'll be able to look at them and it will make everything worthwhile. We will get to watch our friends become a family, and will be a real part of their joy.
All I want at the end of it all is a photo of both dads carrying the babies, and to think, 'wow, that's something I've created'. Their dads are going to take them home and they're going to be so loved."
