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cdcole_27
Reviews
Baby Mama (2008)
from a surrogate's point of view
I was a gestational surrogate for my friends who could not carry on their own. I gave birth to their boy/girl twins in September of 2006.
I was let down by this movie in a lot of ways. It was truly a great comedy, but it didn't show the light hearted side of surrogacy I was hoping for.
I went into the theater wearing a proud surrogate tee shirt, and came out with my sweater zipped over it.
Surrogacy is something that is extremely controversial, and we needed a movie that showed the good side of it. It's so easy to imagine what can go wrong in a situation like that, but the truth is, it's NOTHING like that. It's a very beautiful, amazing thing, and I know that first hand.
They portrayed the surrogate as white trash. But I have a group of surrogates I've become very close to, and they are the most insightful, smart, caring women I've ever met. I've yet to meet a white trash surrogate. I've also yet to meet an intended mother who would enlist the help of someone who smokes, lives in a bad neighborhood, who's in an abusive relationship, etc... It simply doesn't happen like that.
For those of you questioning why she wouldn't just adopt...
The simple answer is what she said in the movie. It can take 5 years to place a child with a single woman, and she felt her biological clock was ticking. It had nothing to do with money. Yes, surrogacy is more expensive than adopting. ($100,000 is completely unrealistic, by the way...) Surrogacy is not a way of avoiding adoption. It's simply another option.
The more complicated answer is why would you care? Most people are blessed being able to have children. And nobody ever asks them why they didn't adopt. It's a very personal choice. And anyone who calls it stupid or pointless is simply uneducated and unsympathetic in matters of infertility.