Dear Intended Parents,

I am sure that you are all great people, and I am also sure that you will all make great parents when your time comes. But this letter is not a friendly letter, it is more of a ‘set the record straight’ kind of letter.

So here goes, I know that many of you will make great intended parents to work with, this is not true for all, being mean or demanding on a surrogate makes many less likely to do a second journey and some unlikely to complete the first journey. Try and remember that we as Canadian surrogates do this from an altruistic standpoint through the belief that we can help others become a family. There isn’t really much in it for us, we get the morning sickness, the stretch marks, the ungodly weeks of bleeding and unimaginable pain of delivery. We end up with leaking boobs, and desensitization down below. We get the baby blues. We get the headaches, we have to inject ourselves with mood altering hormones which drive those around us crazy. We end up with swollen feet, and over dramatic emotions. Some of us lose our ability to have children, while others end up with scars. Some of us lose the ability to care for our own children for months, or the ability to get out of bed. While you as the intended parents get to take your child home and be a family.

With that being said, treat us with kindness, we aren’t asking for money and gifts, just to be treated with respect and treated as though we haven’t just signed away our entire lives for the year. This journey for us is supposed to be a relationship not a business transaction. We have agreed to so much just by being a surrogate, we have allowed you the right to impregnate us, govern our travel abilities (when most of us would travel if we were pregnant with our own), you get a say in our diets when we have shown that we are quite capable of healthy pregnancies with our own. We’ve given you a say in our sex life, our health and our families. Taking advantage of our kindness is just plain wrong. Treating us as a machine to fulfill your dreams is not fair, and it leaves so many less women willing to become a surrogate.

So to those of you waiting for a surrogate, there is a reason that many women would not choose this path, and also why many change their mind when they start this process. From my experience, I was messaged by 27 couples. Of those 27 couples, 4 were very rude to me, and 3 were very pushy. Another two had very high and unrealistic expectations and were quite mean when I told them that I couldn’t agree to their terms. Of the 27 there was only 5 couples that were kind hearted and made me feel like a human being in their eyes. 5 of 27 is less than 20% and very scary considering once we sign on the dotted line we have a year with the couple…and really the couple gets to decide if that year is pleasant or painful.

In the past few weeks I have spoken to quite a few surrogates who are left feeling devastated and extremely hurt by their intended parents treatment of them and it breaks my heart. These are your children we are carrying or going to be carrying, and stress and sadness during pregnancy does affect both the women and baby during pregnancy as well as the health of the pregnancy. I sit back and watch as surrogates are forced to suffer or just feel less than because they aren’t given the respect that they truly deserve, as seemingly legitimate requests are denied which leaves the surrogate feeling helpless and alone in the journey.

So try and remember Surrogates and Intended Parents are partners in this journey, we are not your employee, and this for us is a gift to you not a service.