Old Mamas and Sister Surrogates

56 yo G13 P1 T0 A11 L0 at 26 weeks gestation with severe IUGR.

[Translation: 56 year old woman who has had 13 pregnancies, one pre-term birth, no term births, 11 miscarriages and has no living children now 26 weeks pregnant with a fetus showing severe growing problems.]

I stopped short, going back to re-check the birth date. Yup. 56 years old. With a story that would break even a stone heart. Loss after loss, desperate for a child. She had had multiple failed cycles of IVF overseas. In Canada there are 'gentleman's agreements' that for the most part limit this from happening. You don't implant embryos in a women past her 44th birthday, unless its a donor egg and then not past her 50th birthday. This doesn't apply in India, South Africa, the US...

I'm not a mother, but I'd like to be someday and regardless, I have no concept of what this women has gone through and the importance of her having a child, that biologically speaking, she will never have. I can't help but think there are other options, as judgmental as it sounds. I have several single 'aunts', the kind any self-respecting missionary kid has growing up. Aunts of no blood relation, yet closer and more connected than any of my parents siblings were to me growing up in Peru. No, they didn't have biological children, but they were mothers to many children who yearned for love and acceptance.

My lady's baby was born by classical C-section a day after I met her. We couldn't communicate, even through a translator we spoke different languages, inherently clashing world views. Her baby's death in the NICU two days later, saddened me deeply, but more than that seeing his mother devoid of hope stabbed at my conscience. Who gave her the false hope that this would work? Who was it that took her money so freely and put her and a child in such desperate straights?

A few days later I experience a very different birth. The birth mother was from south India, this was her fourth pregnancy. I met her along with nine of her closest family members as she was labouring in the delivery suite. Flipping through the chart I saw form signed stating that this would be an open adoption. Confused, I read further...this sweet young Indian woman was giving birth to a child for her sister-in-law. I asked who wanted to catch the baby and cut the cord when it came out, directing my question to the sister-in-law.

"I can do that?" Her eyes wide with joy, brimming with tears, slightly incredulous. And I must say, I got a bit gooey-eyed myself as I lifted that squirming, slimy, pink, hairy baby into her arms. There was no question that she was that child's mother.

The two experiences clashed together in my head, perhaps it was just their temporal association and the similar cultures the two families were from. Such great joy following deep deep sadness. A sadness I can't help but think medical technology made much worse.