Surrogates give birth quietly

“Our country has become a surrogacy supermarket. Children have become a commodity, and a woman is an incubator who has to carry this product for someone,” say Ukrainian politicians opposed to surrogacy. Do these types of opinions reflect the real state of affairs or is it a harmful stereotype?

These are mostly media bon mots, in addition to perpetuating the stereotype of a mother giving up her child to strangers. And yet from a genetic point of view it is not “her” child at all, because the material usually comes from future parents or donors. One of the heroines, Natasha, said, “I was an incubator and I’m proud of that. I know, it sounds brutal, but that’s what it was, and I’m not ashamed of it.”

Politicians like to puff themselves up and hype themselves up with words about “illegal business” in scandal after scandal – like the one with nearly a hundred children who waited weeks for their parents at the BioTexCom surrogacy clinic in the spring of 2020 because of the pandemic. In reality, however, they know the situation is much more complex. Surrogacy, also because of their decision, has been legal in Ukraine for over a decade, and women choose to become surrogates voluntarily. Condemning them is nothing more than using the subject to beat your political drum.

What are the reasons why three thousand women a year are willing to carry a pregnancy for someone else there?

Mostly because of poverty. Or as Maria, a journalist from Kiev, put it better: because they found themselves in need. And those needs differ. Polina would like to leave her squalid bedsit and buy a better apartment. Olga – because she is an independent mother and is putting aside some money towards her son’s education. Tatiana has fallen ill and desperately needs money for treatment.

In Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, surrogates refer to themselves as “surmama” for short. I like this phrase because it is a multi-level metaphor, also because surrogacy is sometimes their only chance in life to cut corners and earn several thousand dollars, while the average monthly earnings barely exceed the Polish equivalent of a thousand zlotys. They’ve said that if they could make money differently, they would. But it is what it is, there’s no room for argument and they’re carrying other people’s babies.

Why, if Ukraine is the country with the most liberal surrogacy law in Europe, does the majority of society condemn surrogate mothers, so those in fear of being judged hide their pregnancy and this decision?

Because people say, “Look, she gave up the child she carried under her heart.” It is beyond their comprehension that such a process can be ethical, give joy to both parties – the prospective parents and the surrogate mother. Surrogacy, although it is so widespread there, is still taboo. Even though the women who point fingers at others often end up in a surrogacy programmes themselves or go to donate egg cells.

The Church also contributes its share. Some time ago, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, was wringing his hands, saying that “whoever wants to buy a child in Europe today, comes to Ukraine.” It is only a 15-minute drive from the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, where he preached, to the nearest surrogacy clinic.

I thought that, at least in a “my body, my business” society, surrogacy shouldn’t evoke so many emotions. Why do opponents of surrogacy think it should be banned?

The arguments are several. According to the first, the gist of which I can largely agree with: a situation of economic coercion is not a situation of free choice. As long as the environment, circumstances or family you need to take care of forces you to do something, this is not a fair situation. For some reason, however, it is Ukrainian women like Natasha or Olga who give birth to children of foreign parents, rather than well-off Swiss women who have graduated in medicine or law. For some reason it is Ukraine, and not Lower Saxony, that is called the “surrogacy mecca”.

But there’s also the health argument. Every pregnancy, no matter how it happened, is simply a risk. Risk of a decline in health, complications during and after childbirth, mental problems. Olesya from Kiev, whose two children were given birth to by surrogates, noted that hardly anyone cares about the girls and is interested in what happens to them afterwards. And yet surrogates should still be receiving care for several months after birth.

Do you think if surrogate mothers did it for altruistic reasons rather than financial ones, the environment would have more understanding for them?

Both for them and for the parents who use their services, because social ostracism usually affects both parties. Madrid lawyer Emilio said they are still hiding the fact that they used a surrogate from their conservative family.

Altruistic surrogacy – that is, when the surrogate mother is only compensated for nine months and cared for during that time in the form of medication or doctors, and often becomes a friend of the family later on – seems like a good step towards accustoming society to surrogacy in general. It takes away the financial element, it strips the child of the “acquisition” shell which is often associated with commercial surrogacy. It also forces a solid, fact-based conversation and dispenses with stereotypes.

The Polish women I have talked to, both those who have used the services of surrogate mothers and those who have been surrogate mothers themselves, also claim that this form would be more transparent. For the former, it would mean much lower costs for the programme, perhaps they wouldn’t have to leave half their assets in Ukraine. For the latter, it would give them a guarantee of being taken care of and would remove the odium of “mothers who gave up their children”.

You write that according to the recommendations of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, a woman should meet specific criteria in order to become a surrogate mother. Such as?

These are very transparent. According to them, a surrogate should be between 21 and 45 years of age, have had at least one successful, problem-free pregnancy, no more than five deliveries and no more than three caesarean sections. Her marital status is irrelevant, but if she is married, in Ukraine her husband must also agree to her becoming a surrogate.

In practice, this varies greatly. When there is a demand for it, clinics turn a blind eye to the fact that the girl hasn’t had a baby yet or that her health is failing. For those who are the worst off, they are left with a hellish alternative: risking going abroad, where they are completely dependent on the care of so-called guardians. In this way, some girls fly to Poland or Cyprus, among other places.

Is it hard to get the husband to agree to his wife being a surrogate?

Very. Polina, a surrogate who lost her baby, said that her husband could not come to terms with it. How could it have come to this? He’s healthy, has a job, two hands and can’t support a family? The same was echoed by Natasha, whose husband is a fairly high-ranking military officer, a participant in the Ukrainian-Russian war – he could in no way come to terms with the fact that despite all their efforts they would not be able to afford their own apartment. They’d probably have been saving up for it for the rest of their lives, the two lovely daughters they have would have been grown by then.

The reactions that come from this disagreement are a full range of behaviours. Some partners are able to surround surrogates with care, others completely turn away from them, relationships break down. But they usually sign the consent form.

“It’s not my baby, the mother is someone else, I’m just a surrogate?” – you heard this many times while working on the book. Do women really not feel emotionally attached to the child they gave birth to? Are they interested in what happens to them afterwards?

“These are completely alien children!” Yaroslavna exclaimed when I asked the same thing. The interest of surrogate mothers in the future of their babies is more of a kind of voyeurism, a human curiosity about what happens to them next. Those that are on better terms with and know the parents, get pictures from them, watch the boy or girl develop. Others, often by their own decision, cut themselves off completely. “I don’t want to know, they’re not my child, I wish them well,” I heard. Stories in which surrogates don’t want to give up the babies are marginal cases. It’s more the other way around. The greatest fear of surrogate mothers is that no one will pick the children up. And if that happened, the little one would have to be placed in an orphanage.

But there’s another reason they’re not interested. Most of the women I interviewed in Ukraine joined the program with their own children in mind. Quite the paradox, right? To provide a future and as such a present for their own children, they choose to give birth to someone else’s. The first thing Maria did a few hours after giving birth? She got on a long-distance bus and travelled several hundred kilometres to see her sons.

Was it only when the aforementioned BioTexCom scandal broke out, because during the pandemic surrogate mothers were suddenly left alone with the children they were supposed to give away, that the world started looking at surrogate parenting in Ukraine?

The video from the clinic was sent around the world instantly, the day after it was published it was already on BBC, AFP and Deutsche Welle. It shows a row of cots in which children are waiting for their parents from all over the world due to closed borders. In it, the clinic made an appeal to foreign governments to allow parents to pick up their babies. But this media attention was more about hypocrisy and the pursuit of sensationalism. “Baby factory”, is how the clinic has been written about, while citizens all over the Western world regularly fly to dozens of such clinics in Ukraine to receive the services of surrogates. This great surprise was kind of like an alibi. They could have said, “Is this really happening?!” but instead the matter wasn’t taken seriously. The same is true of right-wing politicians, also in Poland, for whom this case has presented them with a weapon to go around the media and talk about “child fairs”.

I was surprised that even though surrogacy is so popular in Ukraine, there is no comprehensive law that regulates it.

Countries west of Ukraine, including Poland, pretend that there is no such thing as surrogacy. Even though, for example, several hundred children born to surrogates return to Spain every year, the government in Madrid seems not to notice them. When, at the height of the pandemic in Ukraine, a child of Polish parents was also stranded, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I know this from people very close to the matter, refused any help.

What if the baby is born sick? What if the baby is born on a plane? What if a surrogate mother brought to a hospital in Warsaw or Wrocław for delivery – because this is where surrogates from Ukraine most often give birth – refuses to give up her child? Each of these matters should be regulated. But as long as surrogacy, at least in the eyes of politicians, does not take place, then nothing happens.

I asked Dr Witczak-Bruś, a lawyer and surrogacy expert, whose rights are protected in Poland today. The parents’? The surrogate mothers’? Maybe the children’s? She answered: nobody’s. The consciences of politicians are protected and they can continue to pretend that surrogacy does not exist.

Are there times when the rights of surrogate mothers are violated? Is it true that the contracts they sign “enslave” them?

This, unfortunately, happens regularly. The Ukrainian La Strada estimates that about a hundred people a year turn to them for help, and Sveta from the Mothers’ Force organisation, which helps surrogates, spoke of similar statistics. Some clinics and parents believe that the surrogate mother is there on a full-time basis, so they can fully control her. And so, for example, it is common for contracts to stipulate that the surrogate must report her every move, report where she is, be ready to meet the parents whenever they wish. She cannot swim, use certain modes of transportation, and must report all her activities.

Not only that, if the baby is sick and the surrogate refuses to terminate the pregnancy, she must reimburse the prospective parents for all the money, including the money spent on tests, medication, care and the like. From the seventh month of pregnancy onwards – and this happens in most cases – she is forced to relocate. Surrogates are usually sent to a big city, like Kiev or Lviv, where a probation officer visits them once a week, checks that they are doing well. Should labour begin – and often women carry twin pregnancies – it is also easier to get to the hospital this way.

Some intermediaries argue that “surrogates cheat too”.

That does actually happen. Natasha told us that after moving to Kiev, three of them lived in the same quarters. She – at least that’s what she claimed – complied with the requirements: took care of herself, ate right, took the medications prescribed by the doctor. But the others? They drank, smoked, and when something had to be done, they packed their bags and went home for a day or two to take care of things. Sveta from Mothers’ Force and Serhiy Antonov, a lawyer from Kiev, although they fight with each other on a daily basis, also agreed that women sometimes neglect examinations or do not show up for appointments. And that’s why – so that there are no ambiguities and so that nobody’s rights are violated, because after all these girls should also be able to go home to their own children – every detail should be regulated by a fair contract.

Parents who are looking for surrogate mothers tell you, “We are fulfilling our life’s dream.” Who are they usually?

Usually – and I say this after having had a lot of conversations – they’re people who have been punished by fate. After many years of trying, after several IVF treatments, after undelivered pregnancies. Infertile or sterile, often after colliding with a veritable wall of adoption procedures that are very complicated throughout Europe. They don’t want to get into debt, fly to Ukraine or leave everything they have there at all. For them, surrogacy may simply be their last chance. One of the heroines, Magda never used the phrase “have a child” which moves me to this day. Instead, she and her husband Gabriel always said “have a family”. Without a child, this family, and they seem to be a fantastic, wise, harmonious couple, is still incomplete for them. Who are we to deny them that right?

You were the first journalist in the country to point out that Polish couples use surrogacy, and surrogate mothers from Ukraine give birth to their children in one of Warsaw’s hospitals. Is this why you write that people who think there is no surrogacy issue in Poland is simply wrong?

Because Polish families benefit from the services of surrogate mothers. Because Polish women – even though they remain hidden – are surrogate mothers. Because lastly – and this is becoming more and more frequent – Ukrainian surrogates fly to Poland for in vitro procedures and to give birth to children here to foreign parents. The first group is probably several hundred a year, the second – around the same amount. The number of the third is still unknown.

However, I’m not surprised that the subject is completely unclear, I myself have only been learning about it for two years and during that time I have had to rearrange my views more than once. “I’ll tell you this,” I heard from Anita Fincham from Nasz Bocian [Our Stork]. “A few years ago I couldn’t make sense of surrogacy at all, despite the fact that I had already worked in infertility organisations for several years. But our intuitions aren’t always right. It’s much easier to have opinions than actual knowledge.” And that’s why I want “Surogatki” [“Surrogates”] to somewhat fill this gap in our ignorance.

Jakub Korus – is an investigative journalist for Newsweek. In 2016, together with Wojciech Cieśla, he was nominated for the Grand Press award, and in 2020 for the Radio ZET’s Andrzej Woyciechowski Award for his report entitled “Surogatki z Miasteczka Wilanów” [“Surrogates from Wilanów Town”]

Author: Paula Szewczyk

Illustrated by: Marta Frej

The text was published in „Wysokie Obcasy” a magazine of „Gazeta Wyborcza” on 30 October 2021