Strollerderby : pregnant after 40

Putting the Classism Back Into Surrogate Motherhood

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:55:00 GMT

It was with profound gratitude that I happened upon a seething Salon Broadsheet essay about a New York Times article called “Her Body, My Baby.” What a relief to know that another woman found this essay on gestational surrogacy as callously classist as I had!

One need only look at the photograph on the right to get a sense of how Alex Kuczynski’s privilege colors her concept of motherhood. Here she is standing in front of her Southhampton home (one of several) as her baby’s nurse waits obsequiously in the background. By contrast, Cathy Hilling, the substitute teacher who carried Kucynski’s biological baby to term, is shown relaxing on her porch barefoot, one hand on her swollen belly. It is as if the Times wanted to highlight exactly what Salon writer Amy Benfer (and myself) found so offensive about the article.

Benfer is appropriately deferent to “the tragedy of infertility,” and certainly does not argue that there is anything inherently wrong with the fact that some infertile women can afford to pay upwards of $30,000 for gestational surrogacy to fertile women who need the money. Her qualm is not with surrogate motherhood per se; it’s with the way Alex Kucynski treats the woman who carried and gave birth to her child.

Hilling refers to herself as a “foster mother” for Kucynski's baby (quite appropriately, since she and husband were longtime foster parents), while Kucynski refers to Hilling as “a vessel,” a person “renting” out her “organs.” She asserts, with catty sarcasm, “Surrogates would never say they were motivated to carry a child for another couple just for money; they were all motivated by altruism.”

When Kucynski comes across Cathy Hilling’s application in her search for the appropriate surrogate, she is condescendingly relieved to find that it is typed: “she must live in a house with a computer and know how to use it.” What a shock! Who would have thought that the middle classes were computer-literate?

As Salon points out, Kucynski is a style writer who has written a book on plastic surgery, being herself intimately familiar with "beauty maintenance." During her grueling rounds of IVF treatments, Kucynski found hope in photos of Nicole Kidman “wearing skinny white jeans” just two weeks after giving birth. Physical vanity is certainly no crime, but it does make a lot of sense given the arrogant vanity with which Kucynski treats the women who have done so much to help her have a child.

Photo: New York Times

IVF Babies Two to Four Times More Likely to Have Birth Defects

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:30:00 GMT

A study by researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that babies conceived through in vitro fertilization and intracytoplasmic sperm injection have a higher rate of birth defects than babies conceived naturally.

In a study of 18,500 babies, the CDC found that babies conceived through assisted reproduction were about twice as likely to develop heart defects and cleft palates and about four times more likely to develop gastrointestinal problems (esophageal atresia and anorectal atresia). The study factored in other health risks, such as smoking, and applied only to single births (since multiple births are also associated with a higher risk of birth defects).

Although the risk of birth defects is very low with any method of conception, the CDC notes that "it is still important for parents who are considering using ART [assisted reproductive technology] to think about all of the potential risks and benefits of this technology."

Anything to Conceive

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Cindy Chupack tried visualizing sperm with her husband’s face on them. She tried standing on her head. She tried electroacupuncture, which involved attaching spark plugs to the needles. She tried going on vacation with her husband and just enjoying sex for a while, you know, like they used to before they started racing her biological clock. She tried IVF, suppositories, hormone injections.

She tried an all-red meat diet, and then, when she read somewhere that red meat actually hinders pregnancy while she had a steak on the grill, she ate her stale gingerbread house in her frustration and hunger.

Like many women, Chupack, who recently wrote about her conception adventures for O Magazine, began the whole procreating process relatively late. It was not until she was 40 that she fell in love with the right man and had real longings for children—which was just fine by her, but not so fine by her body.

But, also like many women, Chupack will not give up trying. If you think that the gingerbread house incident put her over the edge, well, you’ve probably never tried to conceive.

Image: John Cuneo/O Magazine