Can A Surrogate Mother Keep The Baby She Gives Birth To? How Long Does She Have To Change Her Mind?

For those brand new to the surrogacy community

, whether considering surrogate motherhood as an intended parent or surrogate mother, or perhaps just looking at the process from a curious point of view, some assumptions are just incorrect. For instance, it is commonly believed that a surrogate mother has a certain amount of time in which she may change her mind after delivering the baby.

Surrogacy is very different from adoption. With adoption, a woman is in a pressured state of mind, where she is unexpectedly pregnant and facing a life altering decision. She did not ask for the pregnancy and this decision; it happened. And such a big decisions needs to be given time and consideration.

But surrogacy is not the same. A woman is not pressured to become a surrogate mother. She enters into surrogate motherhood with joy and happiness, desiring to help another couple experience the gift of parenthood. In this case, she did ask for the pregnancy, and is ecstatic that it happened. Any conflicting decisions would have been made long in advance of ever becoming pregnant, not at the last minute, uncertain.

Surrogacy laws differ from state to state in the United States (and vary widely from country to country). There are a few states that do not recognize surrogacy, a few that have made surrogate pregnancy illegal, and many that have actual, clear laws on the books allowing such journeys.

Now, it is important to note that there are two forms of surrogacy, and each is handled a bit differently. Traditional surrogacy, where the surrogate mother is in fact the biological mother of the child she delivers via surrogate pregnancy, is sometimes handled the same as an adoption, with the prerequisite waiting period, which varies by state.

But in gestational surrogacy, where the surrogate goes through IVF in order to carry the biological child of the intended parents (the couple who takes the baby home), in many states the birth certificate obtained from the hospital never has the surrogate mother's name on it at all.

There is no waiting period and the gestational surrogate has no legal claim to the baby. That's not to say that if she wanted to contest custody it wouldn't be ugly; its just that in the end, in a state that allows surrogacy, the biological parents would be the legal parents as well.

In both cases, traditional and gestational surrogacy, there realistically is no time after the birth for a surrogate to change her mind and decide to keep the baby. All these decisions need to be thought out before exploring commercial surrogacy. Some women know they could give a baby back to his parents. Some realize they would never be cut out for the job.

by: Rayven Perkins

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