Nicole Kidman has new baby

In a surprise to the world, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban revealed that they have welcomed the arrival of their new daughter, Faith Margaret through a surrogate in the US. While surrogacy is a fairly standard procedure among couples in the US and abroad, Kidman and Urban have sparked controversy by referring to their surrogate by the technical term, 'gestational carrier'.

"It all sounds like terms from a lawyer-drafted contract -- ghastly," one person tweeted.

That Kidman and Urban most likely paid the surrogate is also the source of debate. While the couple say that they went to the US for the surrogacy because they can fly under the radar more easily as a celebrity couple, it is well known that surrogacy for payment over basic costs is illegal in Australia.

I would guess that Nicole Kidman using the technical term because it helps her to distance herself and her new baby from the birth mother: She clearly wants to be known as the 'mother', whereas the surrogate is just the womb.

Seeing double

Introducing new additions to the Parker/Broderick family, Marion Loretta Elwell and Tabitha Hodge, born in Ohio last Monday.

Photo credit: Robin Layton/AP

SJP opens up about her twins and the surrogate

SJP has opened up about her the imminent birth of her twins by a surrogate living in Ohio with Access Hollywood. Although Parker is clearly excited in the interview, she also notes that she has been distressed that her surrogate has been harassed by the media and her life threatened. Here are some of the highlights:

Why they chose a surrogate: “Well, you know, we’ve been trying to expand our family for a number of years and we actually have explored a variety of ways of doing so,” she said. “This was one of the things we discussed with seriousness that had real possibilities for us.”

On having trouble conceiving: “Yeah, I mean, I couldn’t pretend otherwise,” she said. “It would be a complicated. It would be odd to have made this choice if I was able to, you know, have successful pregnancies since my son’s birth.”

Her reaction to the news: “I mean, giggles!” she said of her reaction when first learning the news. “We didn’t expect it. I think after a certain amount of time, you tend to hold your hopes at bay a bit so as not to be disappointed. One really would have been thrilling and we would’ve felt incredibly lucky. And two was a comedy.”

On the surrogate: “I am incredibly outraged by the sort of extraordinary and unprecedented invasion of her privacy,” Parker said. “The most unsavory things have been done,” she continued. “She’s had her phone hacked, her personal computer information hacked, she’s had threats against her and true harassment… She’s had friends threatened and family threatened and she’s had family of friends threatened.”

On the health of the surrogate: “She is [healthy] today, but she’s had a bad week in the very recent past… You understand what stress, worry and fear and being scared can do,” Parker said. “She’s quite far along in this pregnancy and she’s carrying two children…. There’s simply no excuse for doing this to somebody. It’s not acceptable.”

“I’m beyond comfortable with who she is,” Parker said. “We haven’t been reckless, we haven’t been cavalier. She hasn’t been reckless…. Every single allegation that I know has been suggested about her is absolutely slander, and libel.

“Obviously there are those that don’t care about her, or her health, or safety, or my children’s health and safety, and that they should go to term and not go into an early labor and, god forbid, suffer all the things that can happen — that is a real possibly,” she added.

Have to hand it to SJP. It's not easy to talk about infertility at the best of times, let alone as a celebrity. For all of the people that have questioned her choice 1) to have more children at the age of 44 and 2) to have them through a surrogate, I think it's hard to deny how brave she has been to talk about these issues openly. Never once has she pretended that being a mother and a full-time professional was easy nor has she played much of a part in the whole gushing motherhood/yummy mummy thing like many others in Hollywood.

SJP surrogate identified

It was only a matter of time before the identity of Sarah Jessica Parker's surrogate was revealed, and in only the most credible of sources, Star magazine. The surrogate is allegedly Michelle Ross, a 28 year divorced mother of one from Ohio. The media, however, is making a big deal of that fact that the surrogate's MySpace page claims that she is a bisexual rocker with tattoos. After losing a first pregnancy of her own in high school, the surrogate claims she found her 'dark side'. Of course, the ex-husband of this woman has also been interviewed in which claims she is happy to have the babies of other people but doesn't look after her own son. I find it interesting that anyone even cares whether any of this information is true. If indeed this woman is SJP's surrogate, it's not as though any of the surrogate's genetic information is going to influence the development of the babies. Just because Ross claims to have had pink hair a love for spiked heels, does that necessarily discount her from being a good surrogate? Would it have been better for everyone if she wore cardigans and pearls?

SJP is having twins!

Whoa.

Apparently, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick have just announced that they are expecting twin girls through a surrogate this summer. This is crazy!

How interesting! No details have been released surrounded the circumstances of the surrogacy arrangement however, considering SJP is 44 and currently working on the SATC sequel and has 3 other films in pre-production, my guess is that she decided she didn't have the time to be pregnant. I think this is truly a defining moment in the problematics surrounding work/life balance for women in the new millennium. I doubt that SJP thought that she was 'too old' to get pregnant because why then, would she consider having twins at the age of 44. Considering her body is such a defining feature of her work and she clearly works constantly, it again, makes me a little sad if she thought she didn't have enough time to have another baby (or babies) because of her career. Surely, she has enough industry power to stop and start her career whenever she chooses?! Forget IVF. Is surrogacy the answer to the women's movement?

Thoughts?

Surrogacy rising among military wives

It's no secret that American military wives/mothers often struggle financially and emotionally when their partners are away on deployment. The LA Times reveals that many of these young women are turning to surrogacy as a way to make some money and support their growing families while their husbands are away. In California, where surrogacy is legal, many women are being attracted to the pay off of between $20-25,000 that can be earned for a successful pregnancy.

In the eyes of surrogacy agents, military wives are the perfect candidates for surrogacy, one agent Stephanie Caballero noting, 'Military wives, they don't cry, they don't complain at the drop of a hat. They're organized. They're efficient. They handle everything when their husbands are gone. A few shots during the first few months is not going to bother them, and they don't need to be told to be polite and professional and show up on time." These women are also attractive to surrogacy companies because military wives can access additional insurance for prenatal care worth up to $10,000.

I find this so problematic. While these women are clearly making do the best they can and are choosing to be surrogates, at the same time, the physical and emotional cost of being a surrogate is extraordinarily high and no amount of money can ever really cover the cost of carrying a baby to term and then handing it over to someone else. We should really be blaming the American government for not paying soldiers enough money rather than having women resort to carrying babies for a cost in order to make ends meet at home.

Source: Carrying someone else's dream

Rent-a-womb?

Interesting. In an Australian first, surrogate mothers in NSW will be paid $10,000 for carrying another woman's child in a proposed change to existing laws. Although it is argued the commercial surrogacy will still remain illegal in Australia, the money is supposed to help surrogates cover lost wages while they are pregnant as well as medical costs.

The Opposition's spokeswoman on women, Pru Goward, says the planned changes are a good idea.

"The Opposition supports compensating women for the medical costs in the last couple of months and also the loss of earnings in the last couple of months because most pregnant women don't work in the last couple of months," she said.

"What the Opposition would not encourage is the commercial surrogacy, the hiring out of a woman's uterus."

John Morrissey from the Australian Family Association says "Commercial surrogacy amounts to rent-a-womb, obviously. But our concerns are with surrogacy in itself, that it commodifies a child," he said.

I tend to disagree. I think that just because women are helping other women to become mothers does not mean that pregnancy cannot also be a business transaction. I hate that as a result of this long-standing perception of women's bodies as 'natural' and being closer to nature, therefore, anything related to motherhood is automatically pure and uncommodified. If you think about it, everything about pregnancy today is totally commodified. From designer prams, boutique maternity clothing and expensive prenatal care, affluent women spend an enormous amount of money on pregnancy and their bodies during this 9 month period. No one seems to have a problem with this. It seems ridiculous to worry about the commodification of a child through surrogacy when foetuses are commodified through entertainment ultrasounds and through the purchase of baby clothing well before the baby is born. Pregnancy is commodified through IVF when couples pay to have their eggs fertilised and no one seems to have a problem with that!

I think this is a dangerous argument because it is just like saying that women who stay at home to be mothers don't 'work' because they are not being paid to stay at home. The only reason that SAHM are not paid to be mothers and to do housework is because it is too often assumed that women should selflessly do caring work; to ask for or to be offered compensation for nurturing/domestic tasks is antithetical to everything our culture believes to be associated with motherhood. This is the same situation with surrogacy. If a surrogate is being paid, it leaves an icky taste in many a mouth because it suggests that women can sell their wombs, in effect, taking the romance out of pregnancy and motherhood.

Any thoughts?

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/18/2468523.htm