I want to be pregnant but I don’t want to keep the baby

‘My yearning to be a surrogate isn’t something I can control’

For more than 10 years – since I was 21 years old - I’ve dreamed of carrying a baby and giving birth. But I don’t want to keep the child, and I have no urge to be a mum.

This is why I’ve decided to become a surrogate, external – because I want to go through the experience of being pregnant, without actually keeping the baby at the end of it. For me, it’s the knowledge that a human child would be developing inside me, and I’d be nurturing them so that they could grow. I want to see how my body changes, to see my skin stretch and feel a baby moving inside me.

I first started thinking about becoming a surrogate when I was in my very early 20s. I watched a film about surrogacy, and it planted the idea in my head. Afterwards, I started looking into it online and realised it was what I wanted to do.

Until recently I was in a long-term relationship. My ex and I were on the same page, in that neither of us wanted to have kids. But he wasn’t sure how he felt about surrogacy. He didn’t really understand why I would put myself through a pregnancy, with all of the health risks that entails, for a child that wouldn’t be mine.

You may wonder why I don’t want a child of my own. Well, I feel that having a child is a huge responsibility and I just don’t feel ready – mentally, or career-wise – for a commitment on that scale. I don’t know if I ever will be ready. I have two jobs - my day-job working for an events company, and a creative side project. Both of these take me all over the world and mean I work long hours - raising a small child would be tough to balance with that workload.

Being pregnant would of course also be a struggle, but with surrogacy I know it’d have a deadline. I would get maternity leave, and then I could return to work, whereas, if I had my own child, that’s a lifetime commitment.

I know all about the negative parts of pregnancy, physically speaking: the back ache, tiredness, cravings, the sickness, all that stuff. And I know childbirth itself isn’t exactly a walk in the park. But the pain and discomfort are all part and parcel of the experience. Even though I don’t exactly relish the idea of throwing up in the mornings, for example, I know it’s just what some people have to go through. So in that sense, I’m looking forward to all that stuff too.

And yes, I worry that I would end up forming an attachment to a baby I carried inside me for nine months. Their mother’s voice is one of the first sounds they ever hear, external when they’re in the womb, so the bonding process starts even before birth. Which is partly why I would want the surrogacy to be gestational only – that is, we’d use a donor embryo implanted from the mother, external, rather than my egg. My hope is that, even if I did get attached, it would be easier to give the baby up, external at the end if I know that they’re not biologically mine.

I’m in my early 30s now, so I’m at that sort of age where a lot of people are deciding to have children. But I only have one very close friend who has gone through a pregnancy. Seeing her journey – the highs and the lows - just made me realise that this is definitely something I want to go through. Another of my close friends is gay and in a committed relationship. He’s not quite ready to have kids, but I’ve told him that, when he is, if he wants a surrogate, I’ll be there for him.

I’m not alone in wanting to do this. Surrogacy is on the rise in England and Wales. Courts in the UK now make about 300 parental orders every year,, external which allow a child to be handed from a surrogate to the intended parents. Just 10 years ago, in 2008, courts made fewer than 50 of these orders a year.

I’m not being totally altruistic. It would be a two-way thing. But, needless to say, I wouldn’t do it for money - that's illegal in the UK, external anyway. That said, if I did become a surrogate I would have some financial protection as parents are allowed to pay a surrogate’s expenses (which could account for loss of earnings during pregnancy, travel and maternity clothing), but, for me, it’s not about the money.

For me, the true ‘payment’ is that I’d be able to experience carrying a child and giving birth. I haven’t posted on social media or other sites I know surrogates use because I’m hoping to do it for a person or couple I already know. But I have looked up different surrogacy sites and read up on what the process entails.

My yearning to carry a child is not something that I can control. I just ache for it – it’s a physical thing for me. I don’t know if it’s one of those feelings that you can ever appoint to anything, it’s just something that you have inside you.

Until a few months ago I was on medication for depression. Although I know there's no hard evidence, external that the medication I was taking was unsafe for women who are expecting, I personally felt I wanted to wait until I was feeling better and no longer taking them before making the decision about whether to be a surrogate.

Now that I’m feeling better, surrogacy is a real option for me. I would obviously discuss my mental health issues with the parents. I haven’t spoken to my doctor about my plans yet, but I would keep in touch with them throughout the pregnancy to make sure I was feeling on top of everything.

Of course, not everyone I’ve spoken to about it has been as open minded as my close friends. Some friends ask me things like, “Why would you want to ruin your body when it’s not even your baby?” Even my mum doesn’t understand why I’m doing it, and worries that I would be making a mistake.

But, at the end of the day, it’s my decision. I know exactly what I want from pregnancy. I want a bigger belly, I want the baby growing inside of me, I want the journey. I just don’t want the child afterwards. Is that really so wrong?

As told to Ashitha Nagesh