‘After I gave birth, I wanted to help others as a surrogate mother with their wish to have children’

Mary: “After our children Lieke and Benjamin, our family felt complete, but my need to feel life in me had not yet disappeared. Couples around me were struggling with fertility issues and I could see their grief. A friend without a uterus was looking for a surrogate mother in the US and my husband Stefan’s brother is gay; he also puzzled over whether, and if so how, he wanted children.

surrogate mother

Shortly after the birth of Benjamin, it crossed my mind that I could also help others with their wish to have children. I didn’t know how yet; with my own child fresh in my arms, every thought was still influenced by hormones. But when Benjamin was two, my girlfriend and brother-in-law were not even one step further and Stefan and I were sure we didn’t want a third child of our own, I decided that I wanted to be a surrogate mother. Not for friends or family. I thought the chance that I would become too attached to the child was too great. But if there were more women like me, my girlfriend and brother-in-law would also have better opportunities, was my reasoning.

“How did we explain to the kids that mom had a baby in her tummy that wasn’t going to be their sibling?”

Stefan was initially shocked by my proposal. Wasn’t my charity a little too great? He was also afraid of what it would do to me. He knew me as a mother, could I really give up this child? Could he bear that I was pregnant with another man? And how did we explain to the kids that mom had a baby in her tummy that wasn’t going to be their sibling?

wish for children

We talked to a psychologist and above all a lot with each other, weeks, months. After more than a year, my brother-in-law pointed us to John and Paul, who wanted to have children. We made an appointment with the four of us and immediately clicked. We took six months to get to know each other better and when all noses were in the same direction, we drew up a surrogate mother contract. On the evening of the first insemination they came to bring the semen themselves. Stefan and I had discussed that I would inject it alone, it was not a romantic act on our part.

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For her fathers

Stella will be four next winter. I enjoyed the pregnancy, but I was in it with a completely different mindset than with my own children; from day one she didn’t feel like my baby. On the street, acquaintances asked: ‘Are you getting a third?’ When I told them that I was wearing for someone else, many people looked away in shock. Not all family can handle it well. My sister especially finds it hard that I can give up my child. I can’t explain that Stella is not my child, but only originated from my egg. Only the children’s school received a positive response.

“From day one, she didn’t feel like my baby.”

Of course I love Stella, but differently from Lieke and Benjamin. I didn’t think for a second about the delivery and the moment that I would give her to John and Paul. Stefan, like the men, was at the birth. I breastfed Stella for the first time and after a few hours I gave her to her fathers. Then Stefan and I went to our house, and she to theirs. I did visit every day for three months to bring milk.

Help fulfill their wish

On paper, I’m nothing like Stella. Stefan and I relinquished our parental rights after the birth so that John and Paul could adopt her. We see each other on birthdays and occasionally beyond. Stella knows she’s coming from my belly, but I’m not her mama. She just calls me Marijke, and to others her belly mama.

I don’t need one more time for another wear. Apparently I needed this last pregnancy to shut off that need. Above all, I am proud that I was able to help two special people fulfill their greatest wish, but that knife cuts both ways.”

Learn more about this subject? Then listen to the Kek Mama podcast ‘Child with a detour’ with Jorinde Benner and comedian Sjamke de Voogd on kekmama.nl.

In addition, Kek Mama’s Jorinde Benner wrote ‘We also want a child’, together with SBS6 presenter Mirella from Markus, the ultimate handbook for intended parents who cannot just have a child. € 24.99, Fontaine Publishers

This article appears in Kek Mama 14-2021.

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