- Megan Mohan
- Gender and Identity Correspondent
Celebrities tend to rent surrogacy to have children and talk about the issue publicly, and the numbers are rising. Yesterday it was Naomi Campbell, Priyanka Chopra, Elon Musk and Kim Kardashian, and Paris Hilton also joined the list.
But what does it mean to be a surrogate mother and become pregnant with a celebrity’s child?
Shanna St. Clair has rented her uterus three times and has gone through three very different experiences.
“I got a call from Katherine who started talking to me without even saying hello, but said, ‘Listen, I wanted to tell you before you hear about it from the news, that I had hired another woman to carry my baby, and the woman had just given birth,'” Shana recalls. .
Shanna was amazed by the news, as she was pregnant with Katherine’s baby in its early weeks and Katherine now has another baby.
Shana wasn’t Katherine’s only surrogate. what does that mean? Will Katherine still want the baby currently implanted in Shana’s womb, or not?
Shana pulled herself together and said, “I wish you had said that from the beginning. Should we talk after I finish my appointment tomorrow?”
Catherine agreed and hung up.
Shanna texted Katherine a few hours later: “I’m a little surprised by the news, but I’m so happy for you. Let’s talk tomorrow after your check-up.”
Katherine did not reply to her message, nor did she call her.
image copyright Getty Images
The world of surrogacy
Shanna discovered the world of surrogacy while reading a magazine article. She was sitting drinking a hot drink while her three children were playing in front of her on the family farm in rural Pennsylvania. She was immersed and busy reading.
After reading the article, I learned that there are two types of surrogate pregnancy or what is called surrogacy, and they are:
Conventional surrogacy: In this case, the eggs of the woman whose uterus is rented are used, and therefore the surrogate mother is genetically linked to the child.
Gestational uterine lease: In this case, the egg of the woman who rents her uterus to carry the fetus is not used in the in vitro fertilization process, and the child she will bear does not carry any genetic characteristic from it because the fertilized egg is not from her.
Shana discovered the difference between “commercial womb rental,” where an agreed-upon payment is made to a pregnant woman in return for carrying the fetus, and altruistic womb rental, which the woman performs as a humanitarian service to help women who cannot conceive for medical reasons.
The article praised surrogacy and even that which is done for money, because the process is considered a boon for single parents, infertile couples, and homosexuals who wish to have children of their own.
Something caught Shanna’s attention. She had just turned 30, had three easy pregnancies, and had enough of their three children. She said to herself: “I can become a surrogate for my pregnancy.”
To register shares in the surrogacy agency, Shana and her husband filled out sets of questionnaires that psychologists and doctors evaluated to issue approval or rejection of their application. They also attended dozens of meetings with lawyers, Shana says.
image copyright Getty Images
A few weeks later she got a call.
A famous couple, Jennifer and Mark, read her profile and wanted to meet her in New York.
Shana immediately comforted them and described the meeting by saying: “They were kind, and they made an effort to understand my life and get to know my children.”
The payments, sponsored by the couple, covered Shana’s travel expenses, the IVF clinic, hotels, fuel, food and any income she lost from not doing her day job as a hairdresser while pregnant.
Over the course of three years, Shanna received $50,000.
It took several tries for the pregnancy to work, and when she finally delivered the baby, Jennifer and Mark held her hand and cried tears of joy, thanking her for having their baby.
So when Jennifer called months later to ask if she could introduce Katherine to her, Shanna agreed.
Catherine was from a well-known family. She had been trying to conceive a child for years, either through her own attempts or through surrogacy.
After hearing about Jennifer’s successful experience, she wanted to talk to Shana.
“I should have been more careful,” Shana says. “There were warning signs in the first phone conversation, but I didn’t heed them.”
Katherine suggested bypassing the surrogacy agency in order to save on fees, and having her lawyer oversee the contract, Shana recalls.
“Then she said that since I had already passed the psychiatric evaluation in my experience with Jennifer, there was no need to do it again.”
Shanna agreed to make three attempts to conceive.
In the beginning there was a process called “coordination of the cycle”, whereby the woman who would donate her eggs and the woman who would rent her uterus coordinated with each other in order to synchronize the dates of their menstrual cycles using daily doses of hormones.
Shana and her husband then traveled to meet Katherine in person at the IVF clinic, where the fertilized egg would be placed in Shana’s uterus.
Katherine was waiting for them, with gorgeous looks and elegant clothes.
image copyright Elizabeth Nichols
Shana came over to hug her, but Katherine pulled back, not wanting to.
Katherine told her that she would wait for the fertilized egg transfer to take place but would leave as soon as it was over.
Her driver was waiting to take her back to the hotel.
Shanna said to herself that this couple will never be like Jennifer and Mark.
The first attempt to conceive was unsuccessful. The night before the second attempt, Katherine invites Shanna and her husband to dinner together at a fancy restaurant, and Katherine starts talking about her fortunes, her travels on private jets, the furniture she buys from luxury brands, and the extravagance and opulence she enjoys.
Shana felt uncomfortable, as they did not have any common interests to talk about, in addition to her elegant appearance and luxurious clothes that she wore. In return, Shana wore regular pants and a jacket that she bought from popular stores. They didn’t have anything in common.
And the next day, at the clinic, Katherine was holding a bottle of pills, Shana says. Katherine said that the first attempt might not have succeeded because of the nervous tension that Shana was going through, and asked her to swallow a Valium tablet, but Shana refused to take it, but Katherine insisted on giving it to Shana, saying, “What’s the problem, Shana? One pill won’t hurt you.”
Shana felt that she could not argue with her more, so she took the tablet from her and pretended that she swallowed it, but she got rid of it as soon as she had the chance.
Once again, the pregnancy didn’t work out, so there was one last attempt left for Shana to make.
This time, when they met at the clinic, Katherine and her mother were on the phone most of the time about the interior design of one of her homes, and had barely spoken to Shana. Ten days later, there was promising news.
Shan’s level of hCG, a hormone secreted by the placenta that indicates pregnancy, is elevated.
“I was thrilled about it,” Shana says, but Katherine doesn’t show any emotion at all, instead advising Shana not to get too excited because the previous surrogate miscarried out of sheer excitement. “Sorry, I didn’t know that,” Shana said.
Shana remembers Katherine’s response: “It was her fault.”
Catherine said the surrogate waited 12 hours at the airport to catch a flight to visit her ailing father.
Shanna says she was shocked by Katherine’s next comment: “I told her not to travel but she did, see what happened! The fetus died.”
After a few days, Shana’s hCG levels dropped slightly, but the doctor reassured her and told her to stay optimistic.
I called Katherine and told her, but she replied coldly, “Well, let’s see how it goes.”
image copyright Elizabeth Nichols
Surrogacy around the world
- Ukraine, Colombia, Mexico and Russia allow commercial surrogacy (paying money to the woman who rents her womb) but surrogacy for non-residents is prohibited in Cambodia, India, Mexico, Nepal and Thailand.
- In the UK, commercial surrogacy is illegal, so a third party cannot make a profit from the coordination of the parties, but it is not illegal to pay the necessary expenses of the surrogate mother. The number of births resulting from surrogacy in the UK quadrupled between 2011 and 2020.
- In the United States, the rules differ from state to state. In Pennsylvania, where Shana St. Clair lives, surrogacy agreements are permitted, whether they are charity on the part of the surrogate or those in which the surrogate is paid.
- Prominent feminists, such as Gloria Steinem and Julie Bendel, argue that surrogacy commodifies a woman’s body and makes surrogate mothers, often from poor backgrounds, vulnerable to exploitation.
Shortly after this, Katherine called Shana and shocked her by saying, “There’s another surrogate who just had a baby for me,” and she fell silent.
Shanna continued her regular check-ups, driving more than an hour to the clinic each time, not knowing whether Katherine still wanted the baby.
Then, four weeks later, she was told her hCG levels had dropped dramatically and she lost her pregnancy.
Shana tried to talk to Katherine to no avail. So I texted her to tell her the sad news. Hours later, Katherine replied, “I’ll call you soon.”
Several days passed without her calling, so Shana texted her again.
“Hi, I hope you and your baby are well. Should I send you the rest of the bills?”
Katherine’s reply to Shana, as she recalled, was, “Shana, we’re done, I was horrified by your indifference when I told you of the birth of my child. Send me your remaining bills.”
Shana and Katherine never spoke again.
“Celebrities may be more open about surrogacy now, but the phenomenon has been popular for many years,” says Aria Semuel, who runs Modernly, a surrogacy agency for the rich and powerful in California.
She and her partner had the same experience, so they understand her struggles and problems.
“When a high-profile person comes along with their managers, assistants and bodyguards, it can be a major concern for the surrogate,” she says.
Aria explains that good agencies are the ones that manage the relationship between the two parties, check that the surrogate mother is comfortable and advocate for her if necessary, in addition to conducting psychological and social examinations and assessments.
We have come across cases of surrogate mothers overstepping their bounds with biological parents, she said, by revealing the names of biological parents to reality TV programs or requesting financial aid for one of their cousins to finance the production of a movie.
Contracts should make it clear that such matters are “not up for discussion,” Arya says.
Four years into her experience with Katherine, Shanna’s ex-surrogacy agency asked her if she would like to meet another couple.
After meeting them and feeling comfortable with them, Shanna agreed to go through the experiment for the last time.
This time she gave birth to twins.
“I think I just needed something happy to get over the traumatic experience with Katherine,” says Shana.
“I’ve had two beautiful surrogacy experiences, and one terrible, like a financial transaction.”
Today Shana runs a local hairdressing salon in the city.
As she hears the whir of a hair dryer, her clients babble with her about celebrity gossip, often about fertility and family.
“Every week I talk to women who are either trying to have children, have just had a baby, have lost a pregnancy, miscarried or are infertile,” she says.
“Surrogacy is not suitable for everyone. This is a very special thing and if all parties feel happy and satisfied, then we should not judge others’ choices.”
Note: All names of biological parents have been changed
