A British surrogate mother of twins is raising one of them after the comissioning mother allegedly rejected her for being disabled.
The mother, also British, took the healthy boy but refused to accept his twin sister because of her severe muscular condition Congenital Myotonic Dystrophy, the Sun reported. The surrogate mother, referred to as “Jenny” says that the comissioning mother referred to the baby as a “dribbling cabbage.”
Jenny had given birth to the twins for a couple in a £12,000 agreement.
The surrogate mother said: “I’ll never forget what she said on the phone. I remember her saying to me, ‘She’d be a f****** dribbling cabbage! Who would want to adopt her? No one would want to adopt a disabled child’.
I was shocked. I could not believe what I was hearing.”
Two embryos were implanted into the surrogate mother’s womb and a few weeks after becoming pregnant she learned she was carrying twins.
The surrogate mother said: “I got into surrogacy because I wanted to help a mother who couldn’t have children. But I feel very angry because of what she’s done to the baby girl.”
“I’m glad she is miles away and I’ll never see her in the street.I hate the couple for what they did.”
The surrogate mother said her partner had to retrain for another career and take a pay cut so that he could spend more time at home with the disabled girl.
The case echoes that of baby Gammy, a child with Down Syndrome who is being raised by his Thai surrogate mother after being allegedly abandoned by his Australian commissioning parents, who have taken his genetically normal sister.
Jenny said: “We and Amy are living proof what happened with Gammy in Thailand can happen here in Britain.”
Jenny’s partner, named as Mark said: “How could we possibly sign over to somebody showing a disregard of the child’s health?”
The two couples subsequently attended mediation meetings with the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. It gives an independent assessment to help judges hearing child custody and care cases. Although those hearings are confidential, The Sun reported that the intended parents expressed concerns about Amy’s disability and their desire to take her on. The couples agreed Jenny and Mark would keep Amy and the boy would stay with the intended parents.
