I'm all for doin' it yourself in many cases, but I'm gonna have to go with a resounding vote against DIY when it comes to surrogacy and of course I have a story to back up my stance. Leanne Stanford of North Tyneside in England felt so bad when her 50-year-old mother, Judith Roberts, miscarried a baby at 21 weeks. The baby was convceived by Julia and her husband, Mark Roberts, with the help of IVF and when Leanne, who was already a single mother of one, saw how devastated the couple was, she offered to be their surrogate.That's when everything went all DIY and wrong.
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Leanne took her stepfather's sperm and put it in her lady bits using a syringe normally used to give babies medicine. Well, she got pregnant on the first try. Everyone was elated.
Then as the pregnancy progressed, Leanne found herself becoming attached to the child she was carrying. After seeing a 4D scan that Judith and Mark paid for, Leanne no longer felt like she could hand the baby that had been conceived with her egg and her stepfather's sperm over. She went to a lawyer and since she had never signed anything legally binding, was advised that she could keep the baby. And she did.
The baby, Mollie, was born a healthy 8 pounds, 11 ounces in November of 2012. As disappointed as Judith and Mark were that Leanne decided to keep Mollie, they tried to make the best of the situation, but things got so ugly emotionally that Leanne and baby Mollie no longer see Judith and Mark.
Now that Mollie is 18 months old, Leanne is seeking child support from Mark, but doesn't want him to have anything to do with the baby.
This is a HUGE mess. All of these people made a BIG mistake by trying to do this all on their own. I can sympathize with pretty much everyone in this situation to some extent, I guess. I do however think that it is totally unfair of Leanne to demand child support from Mark, if she doesn't want him to be a part of Mollie's life. That would be like expecting a sperm donor to be financially responsible for a child conceived from his donation.
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