Posted on 04/28/2024 1:22:55 AM PDT by Morgana
When Gloria Ruiz decided to become a gestational surrogate, she thought she was doing families struggling with infertility a favor. Now that she’s carried other people’s children twice, Ruiz doubts sacrificing her well-being for people who want to become parents by renting another woman’s body is as generous and kind as her fertility agency told her.
Ruiz, a stay-at-home military wife and mom of a child with special needs, initially saw renting her womb as beneficial to her family. They could have some extra cash but not lose their matriarch to a time-consuming desk job somewhere in a California high-rise.
Those benefits didn’t feel like a complete lie the first time she was paid to carry someone else’s child, Ruiz says, but that changed. Seven months after she delivered her first surrogate baby in March 2021, Ruiz’s agency onboarded her to be a gestational carrier for another couple.
“I kind of finally just gave in to the pressure,” Ruiz told The Federalist. “I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, but it needs to be just as perfect as the first one.’”
Unfortunately, it was anything but. Emotionally and Physically Scarred
The married couple Ruiz’s agency matched her with lived about an hour up the road from her home, says Ruiz. They planned to use in vitro fertilization to join a purchased egg and the husband’s sperm or sperm purchased from an anonymous man. Ruiz’s surrogacy contract provided to The Federalist confirms this plan. Because the man was a citizen of Spain, where all forms of surrogacy are banned, they needed to rent a woman’s body in a country where surrogacy is legal, like the United States.
Ruiz said the couple agreed to her conditions, which included limited travel for appointments so she could care for her son. Shortly after signing contracts, however, Ruiz said, “things started going south.” The health insurance policy the people renting her body bought for Ruiz’s surrogacy-related medical expenses required her to travel about an hour away for some doctor’s appointments and check-ups, as several emails and medical documents Ruiz showed to The Federalist attest.
“That was when the doubt started setting in,” Ruiz said. “At that point, I didn’t really have a choice but to move forward because they had already paid for a policy and medical clearance. If I backed out, I was held liable for thousands of dollars, money which I didn’t have.”
Ruiz was caught off guard again when, she says, the intended mother told her at an IVF appointment that her husband was disappointed they only had boy embryos to implant.
“I remember calling the caseworker and I kept telling her, ‘This doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right.’ And she kept saying ‘Oh, no, it’s fine. Once they see the baby, they’re going to fall in love with it and it won’t matter,” Ruiz said.
Ruiz first met the father at the embryo transfer appointment, where she says he shared “uncomfortable and gross” details about his sperm extraction. At lunch the same day, Ruiz says she sat quietly by while the couple loudly argued about the sex of their baby.
“The minute I got home, I called the caseworker and told her what he said to me. And she goes, ‘Oh, he’s just being silly,’” Ruiz said. “And I was just like, ‘No, this is inappropriate. Why are you making excuses?’”
After her embryo transfer in July 2022, hospital documents show Ruiz was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe type of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy that leads to extreme dehydration and weight loss. She became sick to the point of needing an IV, while her paid care for needs like these was an hour away.
Ruiz’s worst fears came true when she went to one of her distance appointments with the woman renting her body, only to get a call from her son’s school saying he was having a panic attack and needed his mom. Ruiz had to wait until the appointment was over to make the near-hour trek back to pick up her son. An email from the woman paying to use Ruiz’s body substantiates this incident.
Health records she shared with The Federalist show Ruiz went to the emergency room multiple times for pregnancy-related complications. She eventually went into preterm labor and rushed to the hospital she knew the secondary insurance would cover. Communications provided to The Federalist show she repeatedly asked to deliver the baby at a hospital closer to her home that she wasn’t sure would be covered by the surrogacy insurance.
A call with a surrogacy lawyer empowered Ruiz to go to a hospital nearby: “She goes, ‘You know what, this is your life on the line now. Sign yourself out and go to a hospital that’s actually willing to help you.’ And so I did,” Ruiz said.
When Ruiz arrived, the obstetrician told her she needed to deliver. During labor, the baby’s heart rate began to drop, Ruiz says. Pushing at nine centimeters dilation to potentially save his life by delivering him faster, Ruiz said, “was one of the most painful things I had ever done.”
She says the hospital sent the baby to the nursery alone to wait for his parents while she received iron infusions for excessive bleeding. She had also taken the infusions for months leading up to the birth, hospital documents Ruiz showed The Federalist indicate. When she asked to see the baby to say goodbye, the intended parents denied her a visit, according to messages between Ruiz and agency staff.
Postpartum recovery for Ruiz was also difficult. She says she bled for 19 weeks, discovered her teeth were eroded, and had back pain. She says she was also diagnosed with secondary infertility, the inability to become pregnant or give birth after previously doing so, and tension with her husband increased.
She tried to take the couple who rented her body to small claims court to recover medical costs the couple’s insurance did not cover, but was deterred after they hired a personal injury attorney, shows an email with the attorney Ruiz sent The Federalist.
“I was admitted to a mental health facility for two months just from all the trauma and the stress of constantly having to fight them for money that part of the contract said was supposed to be mine regardless,” Ruiz said. Health care records she sent The Federalist confirm her two-month treatment.
When The Federalist asked the International Surrogacy Center (ISC) about Ruiz’s claims, Founder and Executive Chairman Maria Valencia refused to give a detailed response based on the agency’s confidentiality policy.
“We have a contract with all surrogates and intended parents who go through our program that prohibits disclosure as to whether they are (or were) our clients and also prohibits discussing confidential matters with the media,” she wrote in an email to The Federalist.
Instead, Valencia shared ISC’s generic policy on pregnancy complications.
“If there is a surrogate or intended parent who is going through complications, medical issues, or any kind of challenging time, we are in continuous contact with them several times a week (through texts, emails, phone calls, and video calls) to assist and support them in any way we can and connect them with resources,” Valencia continued.
Valencia also said financial arrangements between surrogates and intended parents are determined at the beginning of the surrogacy process.
“Surrogacy agreements stipulate that all medical bills related to the surrogacy journey will be reimbursed to the surrogate or paid directly by the intended parent within the agreed-upon timeframe through an escrow account that is established and fully funded before the journey begins,” Valencia concluded. With Surrogacy, Everybody Loses
Ruiz said she’s in a better place now, but warns other women who may be enticed by fertility industry advertising and media coverage that downplays these kinds of risks. Surrogacy often manifests negative physical, mental, and emotional effects on gestational carriers, the babies they carry, and the intended parents.
“From the beginning, there’s going be trauma in those babies’ lives. I think that they are ripped apart from everything they’ve ever known from the beginning,” Ruiz said. “I do think that they have a rough road ahead of them because they are now going to be raised by strangers.”
Ruiz said she thinks children carried by surrogates also feel pressure to be “the perfect child” because their parents spent so much money on their conception and birth. She also said her experience has made her examine the motivations of people who use assisted reproductive technology (ART) and surrogacy to purchase children: “Adoption is very much a real thing. Adoption is a less expensive thing. So is it really that you want a child or that you want to design your child?”
When asked if she would ever do surrogacy again, Ruiz responded, “God, no.”
“And I would never, ever, ever encourage any other woman to do it,” she added. “The first time it worked out and then the second time, I obviously ended up spending most of that money on just trying to stay alive.”
Ruiz said she’s shocked that, despite publicly available information and stories like hers about the risks of surrogacy, California continues to be “a free-for-all all” for trade in human bodies and body parts.
“I think I have a hard time knowing that, in this day and age, the government is turning a blind eye to what’s really going on, which is trafficking under the guise of giving the gift of life to ‘deserving couple,’” Ruiz said.
Spain is right to ban surrogacy. We should ban surrogacy here in the U.S.
I doubt voters would agree. It’s a tough situation. A loving couple who desperately wants a baby but can’t. This story is one. But they need to report on successful new families that resulted from this selfless act. Of course the media won’t do that. Vile media as always.
But, you will do it again.
Surrogate Pregnant with Baby No. 11: 'I’m Probably the Unicorn’
I know a girl who was a surrogate more than once, everything worked out fine for all involved.
I think it is weird personally and would not do it.
Boo hoo for her. What did she expect, not to be treated as an oven?
The act is vile, probably more vile than the media.
A more selfless act would be adoption. This woman wasn’t even carrying the baby of the actual couple. Pregnancy is always a health risk for the woman. There is no reason to sell your body (it’s not just the womb that’s involved) and, possibly, your life, when there are children without parents or families available.
Unless you’re the Harkles pulling off the biggest scam in royal history since the warming pan baby.
Note to the Harkles: And if you two were students of history, you’d’ve thought better of it.
“Renting”...
A bad word to use when it comes to surrogacy. Who would want to rent her body for the use of another who wants a baby but can’t do it herself?
Renting...
Yet, my daughter who wanted a baby didn’t think of it as renting. The surrogate mother didn’t see it as renting. They both agreed to do it, and the result is now a beautiful and healthy 4 1/2 year old who loves his parents and is loved by everybody around him, and we can’t get enough of him.
The surrogate got paid handsomely and was able to take care of her own children and move on with her life, and never complained about having to ‘rent’ her womb. She never thought it was evil or hurtful to do it, and was as healthy after the birth as she was before. She still is 4+ years later.
My daughter was not able to carry her own son in her womb because of cancer problems a few years before. Surrogacy gave her the chance to have her son, otherwise, the frozen embryo would have been ‘destroyed’ and her son would have never seen the light of day. We are all the better for it, and the ‘rented’ mother is still doing very well.
Renting never entered into the discussions for the surrogacy, but, now the act is being demonized.
Abortion is now accepted as a form of contraception, and surrogacy is now evil, but only because it’s being described as ‘renting another’s womb.
This world is upside-down, inside-out.
Many years ago in the leftist NATION Katha Pollit argued against the slavery of renting wombs.
I am 100% for adoption instead of surrogacy. The sperm and the egg may be owned by the prospective parents but the womb is not and was never theirs, but it was the child’s, which makes the natural connection to the woman who bore the child. Besides there are millions of kids in need of adoption.
A loving couple who desperately wants a baby but can’t.
If that were true, there are plenty of child candidates for adoption.
Dear longtime friends did IVF misery for years until an open adoption presented them with my now adult godson, who except for the genetic testing is Their Son.
They all received blessings.
Women are not broodmares or cows.
None of this should be covered by insurance. This should all be out of pocket like lasic eye surgery and breast implants. The couple should be forced to pay all costs incurred by the surrogate.
People can make their own selves pregnant, or adopt. It is pretty simple.
It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.
adoption is the only way to go..
I should know i was adopted
My father was too. But things are much different now. Adoption is expensive and risky. There is no children’s homes anymore. My grandparents went to a place run by nuns with hundreds of children to chose from. It was a much easier process.
when i was adopted back in 1955, my parents picked me up at the hospital at 5 days old and paid around $300 or so to hire a lawyer to proceed with the adoption. so ya it was simple then.. now you got social worker visits ect cost thousands
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