Whoa. I don't know why I never really considered the possibility of this kind of thing happening before, but I was fairly shocked when I heard about what happened to Canadian surrogate mom Cathleen Hachey. The 20-year-old woman was 27 weeks into her pregnancy -- with twins -- when she got some very unexpected news from the British couple who'd signed a contract promising to adopt the babies.
The couple was in the process of splitting up, unfortunately.
And oh, by the way ...
Cathleen could keep the babies. Now that they weren't going to be together, the couple didn't really want to be parents anymore.
Oh. My. God.
And it gets worse! Wait until you hear the way the intended parents broke the bad news!
Okay, are you ready??
BY TEXT MESSAGE.
That's right, the British couple who signed the aforementioned contract giving them legal custody of Hachey's babies once they were born, and who agreed to pay the surrogate $200 per month to cover pregnancy expenses, backed out via text message.
Talk about bad manners.
Thank god Hachey was able to find a couple in Nova Scotia who were beyond thrilled to adopt the babies (especially because the young surrogate already has two children, aged 1 and 2, of her own at home). And she's not bitter about the experience -- in fact, she's planning on starting another surrogate pregnancy in January. (I know, I know.)
This time Hachey will have her own lawyer, she says, a protective benefit she didn't have with the twins. Apparently, even though there are plenty of laws surrounding surrogacy, they're difficult to enforce, especially in the case of a "traditional surrogacy" like this one, when the baby(s) is conceived using the prospective father's sperm and the surrogate mother's egg instead of the prospective mother's egg. This method is easier and cheaper (think turkey baster in the bathroom), but in the end, those twins were Hachey's biological children.
I guess it's a happy ending for everybody?
Are you surprised that Cathleen Hachey wants to be a surrogate mom again?
Image via Jeremy Miles/Flickr
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Comments 125
jennifer ives o'meara- that is actually considered traditional surrogacy, when the surrogate essentially donated her egg to join with the husband's sperm. It wasn't like the surrogate had sex with the husband or anything. It is just a cheaper way to conceive the kids, and it works in cases where the mother-to-be doesn't have viable eggs. Why would you assume they are idiots? You seem rather uninformed about the process.
She wasn't a surrogate she was their mother. I am glad she was able to give the children to someone who would love and deserve them. I think being a surrogate is great but you should always have legal protection. I am surprised at how young she was. I didn't know surrogates could be that young.
Wooow.
Well, I think its good people like this are around bc a lot of good people can not have kids. God Bless them but those people were just wrong KARMA its a beitchh..
I could never use my own egg if I ever were to be a surrogate. Its just like giving a child up for adoption. If she was only 27 weeks pregnant and the parents decided to back out, then either problems begain very recently and got very bad very quickly, or they were having problems and should have never considered this right now. If I were the surrogate mom (or rather, the biological mom), I would be keeping MY babies and getting child support.
I was a gestational surrogate (IF's sperm, donor eggs). I know the process is hard to understand, but unless you know what you are talking about, it's best to not assume. I couldn't do a traditional surrogacy either, but biology does not make them her babies, any more than it makes an egg donor a mother. Those children were conceived for someone else. Clearly, she was in the right frame of mind, too. As a surrogate, I can tell you that if my intended parents had backed out, I would've found a different home for them as well. You just can't go from thinking of yourself as the surrogate to thinking of yourself as the mom. It's an unbreakable mindset. Trust me. We get into that mindset for our own emotional well being.