Serial surrogates on '20/20' tonight: " Would You Do It? Extreme Parenthood"
kippah...@hotmail.com
Jan 02, 2009 10:00 PM http://abcnews.go.com/2020
The story:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=6543833&
Serial Surrogates Have Birthed More Babies for Others Than Themselves.
By JUJU CHANG, MARC DORIAN and SARA HOLMBERG
Dec. 31, 2008
For some women the excitement of a pregnancy is knowing they are
helping someone else become a parent.
Carole Horlock is one of those women -- a surrogate mother who has
babies for other couples. She immediately hands over the babies to
their parents after they are born.
"I see them hold the baby for the first time, and it's wonderful to
see that," Horlock said.
She has enjoyed having babies for other couples so much that she has
delivered a jaw-dropping 12 kids in 13 years, meaning the 42-year-old
has given birth nearly ever year.
"I've been told that I have got a world record for having the most
surrogate babies, but I don't know if this is true," she said. "I've
never checked up."
Horlock said that she didn't set out to become an extreme surrogate.
It just sort of happened.
"When I first started being a surrogate I expected to do it once," she
said. "I hadn't looked past that. But I enjoyed it so much. Before I
actually had given birth to the baby I wanted to do it again."
Anita Brush, another "serial surrogate," said she felt the same way.
The 42-year-old Californian has given birth to 11 children, including
three grown kids of her own.
She can rattle off all of their names at the drop of a hat: "Taisei,
Cole, Connie, Tom, Max, Brendan, Ethan and Jason." And her own kids?
"Bryant, Margaret and Rhiannon."
The former day-care worker's unlikely career as a surrogate began 12
years ago, when she was looking for a job that would allow her to
spend more time at home with her three young kids.
"I was looking in the newspaper and saw an ad to be a surrogate for
infertile couples," Brush said. "I was very intrigued. And I love
being pregnant."
After passing a rigorous screening process, which involved
psychological tests, medical exams and background checks, Brush joined
an agency and quickly became pregnant for a Japanese couple. Brush's
son made sure everyone, including his hairdresser, knew all the
details about his mom's pregnancy.
Brush remembered her son's explanation: "'Oh, it's a boy but it's not
our baby.' And she just kind of pauses as she's cutting his hair and
she said, 'It's not your baby?' And he said, 'No, it's Japanese. It's
going home to Japan after it's born.'"
Brush didn't know how she would feel about handing over her first
surrogate baby, Taisei, to his parents. But when the moment came Brush
said she felt it was "an incredible gift" to be able to hand the
newborn over to his parents because "that's the goal. That's what we
set out to do."
Surrogates like Brush receive, on average, $25,000 to $30,000 for
their services. But there are downsides, including in-vitro
fertilization, morning sickness, bed rest, Caesarean sections and
stretch marks.
Brush said she's not in it for the money. "Somebody figured it out
once, and just in a normal pregnancy like a 10-month pregnancy, it
worked out to be about $1.75 an hour."
And if a woman gets all those shots and goes to all those doctor's
appointments and she fails to get pregnant, Brush said, she doesn't
get paid.
Horlock, who lives in England, has parlayed her extreme surrogate
status into additional profit by selling her story to the tabloids.
But sometimes the headlines have turned nasty.
"You do it once or twice and you're an angel. You do it time and time
again, you're a monster," she said. "If it's a good deed the first
time, why doesn't it continue being a good deed?"
It might be because Horlock, unlike Brush, often uses her own eggs.
She invites the couple to her house for an at-home insemination --
making a baby, but not the old-fashioned way. The father produces a
sample and Horlock inseminates herself.
"It's quite invasive, you know, to have someone else's body fluids
inside you," she said. "It's not nice, but it's necessary."
Horlock said her own two children are OK that the babies she has given
away are biologically half hers.
"I think these days everybody has half-brothers and -sisters all over
the place with remarriage," she said. "And I think as long as you are
open and honest about it, they accept it and my children think of it
as rather normal now."
But it has also created tension in the family.
"Being pregnant has caused a rift with my father," Horlock said. "The
rest of my family are supportive. My father feels I'm giving away his
grandchildren."
DNA Test Prompts Refund Offer
In 2004, Horlock got word from a furious father -- a client who said
the baby she'd given him was not biologically his. A DNA test revealed
that the father was Horlock's boyfriend.
Horlock said she offered the couple a return policy.
"They were very, very angry. I said, you know, 'Whatever you want to
do, if you want me to take the baby back, I will do. If you want to
keep him and adopt him, I'll support you,' you know, I can't do
anything else," she said. "I can't turn the clock back, so I behaved
as, I think, as responsibly as I could at the time."
Horlock said the couple asked for their money back and threatened to
have her arrested for fraud. But Horlock argued that she and her
partner had protected sex. Ultimately, the couple agreed to adopt the
child.
Brush, by contrast, has no genetic link to her surrogate babies. She
is always impregnated through in-vitro fertilization using someone
else's egg.
In 2000, Brush was implanted with three embryos in hopes that one
would take for a gay couple in Ireland. She was surprised with
triplets.
But having triplets didn't mean that she got triple the pay. Brush
said surrogates get a small stipend for each additional baby.
Because money wasn't her motivation, Brush thinks that she was
addicted to being pregnant.
"I loved that people are excited and they'll pat your belly and
they'll ask you questions about the pregnancy," she said. "And to feel
the baby move and to actually have a life growing inside you."
But not everyone understands.
Brush's daughter Meg Fielder remembered that teachers and friends
would comment on her mom's ongoing state of pregnancy.
There were even comments on the Internet, Fielder said, with posters
saying things like "what do those poor kids and her husband have to
put up with?"
Even so, Fielder said, "it was an amazing experience, and it's done
nothing but enhance our lives."
Brush has developed strong loving relationships with most of her
surrogate families.
Every year she is invited to now-8-year-old Cole's birthday party.
"I thought it was going to be just a business relationship and a
business transaction, you know? I need a baby, you're going to have it
for me, and that's it," said Cole's mother, Sarah Case.
Case said she came to realize that Brush wasn't running a business
with her surrogacy.
"I knew the first time I talked with her that this was going to be a
lifelong friend," Case said. "I knew it."
But a career-ending hysterectomy in 2007 put an end to Brush's time as
a surrogate mother.
Horlock, on the other hand, is still at it. She gave birth to triplets
in April and says she wants to be a surrogate again.
"I've never done anything important with my career. Some people are
scientists, they are working toward a cure for cancer or they made the
first airplane," she said. "But you know, at the end of my life, I can
look back and say, you know, I made a difference … to these people.
And it gives me a great sense of pride that I've done something good
with my life."