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Sherri Shepherd’s Surrogacy Battle and the View from the Other Side.

March 16, 2015 | By:

Sherri Shepherd.  Who hasn’t heard her name recently?  The former host of The View is in the midst of a major lawsuit with her ex-husband over her son.  She claims she doesn’t have any responsibility for the child she helped bring into this world.  REALLY??  Is she serious?  Sadly, yes.  And she’s leaving this issue — what could be a ground-breaking decision in the laws pertaining to third-party assisted reproduction — to a Judge to decide.  She couldn’t work it out privately with her Ex.  Nope, she had to go to Court.

I used to like Ms. Shepherd.  She spoke on behalf of the infertile.  She was our advocate.  She was one of the very few public — celebrity voices — speaking about the pain of infertility.  I am trying to have faith in our judicial system right now because Ms. Shepherd has destroyed my faith in the power of the infertile woman.  What she is doing, is to me, disgraceful.  Wow!  I guess I am angry.

I went to a benefit a few years ago for RESOLVE.  It was its annual Night of Hope and Ms. Shepherd was receiving an award for raising awareness about infertility.  She gave a moving speech about the pain we go through when we cannot conceive without medical help — without help from third-parties.  She moved me to tears talking about how much she wanted a baby and to be a mother and how sad she was every time her fertility treatment failed.  It was very clear during that speech that she wanted nothing more than what every other infertile woman wants, a BABY.  And now she’s trying to dump the responsibility for that baby — that longed-for, hoped-for, much-wanted baby — on someone else.  And that someone else is her egg donor or surrogate, that third party without whom she and Mr. Sally would not have conceived, and realized what she said was her dream.  Her dream of becoming a mother.

Many of us don’t realize that dream and that’s why I find her actions to be such a slap in the face.  To go from being a proud infertile woman putting one foot in front of the other and thanking her fertility specialist (I can remember his name) for helping her, to dumping responsibility that is rightly hers on the people who helped her achieve that dream.  That’s just wrong.  It is morally wrong and it is legally wrong.  I am going to stop discussing the moral component of it because I get the fact that there are people in this world for whom I hold little or no respect.  But from a legal standpoint, what she’s doing is profoundly dangerous and could potentially turn reproductive law upside down, and erase years of progress helping women just like Ms. Shepherd become mothers.

I should comment that I don’t know many details about Ms. Shepherd’s egg donation arrangement or surrogacy arrangement.  But if she’s litigating this issue in Pennsylvania then I am guessing her surrogate is a resident of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and that the laws of that Commonwealth govern the surrogacy agreement.  The thing is, there isn’t really any law in Pennsylvania when it comes to third-party assisted reproduction.  There isn’t a statute governing third-party assisted reproduction and when there isn’t a statute governing the actions of intended parents like Ms. Shepherd and Mr. Sally, the laws of third-party assisted reproduction typically look to the intent of the intended parents (Ms. Shepherd and Mr. Sally) prior to the conception of the child.  Typically those intentions are spelled out either in an egg donation agreement or gestational surrogacy agreement (or both), or in some cases through consent forms signed by an egg donor at the fertility clinic at the time she donated her eggs.  But the bottom line is that there is some written statement that the egg donor does not want to have parental rights to any child conceived from her donation, and that the intended parents want to have parental rights and all the responsibilities that come with parenthood for any child conceived from the donation of eggs by the donor.  Similarly, the intended parents (Ms. Shepherd and Mr. Sally) would — and in this case did — enter into a gestational surrogacy agreement which would clearly spell out that the intended parents (Ms. Shepherd and Mr. Sally) were going to be the parents of the child the surrogate carried, and the surrogate would not have any parental rights.  A well-written agreement would address what would happen in the event the intended parents divorce prior to the birth of the child.  Typically the intended parents are still the parents even if they divorce but maybe her agreement says something different, or is silent on the point.  But the bottom line is that in order to have conceived this child, Ms. Shepherd’s egg donor waived all parental rights and Ms. Shepherd assumed them; and Ms. Shepherd stated her unequivocal desire and intent to be a parent of the child her surrogate was carrying and her surrogate expressed no desire or intention to ever be the child’s parent.  I would be shocked if the legal documents at issue in her case don’t refer to the parties’ intent about who were going to be this child’s parents.  Ms. Shepherd claims she was defrauded into entering into the agreement.  I find that hard to believe given the years of infertility treatment she went through and the statements I heard her make that night at RESOLVE.  I think she wanted this baby.

The question is whether the Judge will uphold the terms of those documents or contracts.  And that is where I get scared.  What if the Judge decides that the agreement with the surrogate is unenforceable for some reason and that Ms. Shepherd isn’t legally responsible for this child, that she isn’t his mother?  What then?  Does any intended parent get to change their mind when they one day decide that they don’t want to be a parent anymore?  Where does that leave the law of intent as it informs decisions related to third-party assisted reproduction?  Is the intent of the parties what governs the determination of parentage or is a gestational surrogacy agreement or egg donation agreement just another contract that can be thrown out of court on technical or some other grounds?  Decades of law pertaining to third-party assisted reproduction are at risk.  All the hard work my colleagues have done to make it possible for Ms. Shepherd even to consider having a child through third-party assisted reproduction could be damaged, even worse, destroyed.  Will Pennsylvania remain a surrogate-friendly state?  I get sick thinking about it.

Ms. Shepherd has crossed over to the other side, that of becoming a parent after battling infertility.  And apparently she doesn’t like the view so much.  I get the fact that Ms. Shepherd is angry at her ex-husband.  I get the fact that she doesn’t want to be in this child’s life.  I may not agree with her moral positions but legally I am horrified at the way she is going about getting out of her obligations as a parent.  What she is doing has the potential to set the law back in ways so significant as to preclude other infertile women and men from having a child through third-party assisted reproduction.  I am at a loss to understand how someone who was such a staunch advocate for the infertility community and who so desperately wanted a baby could get to a place where she wanted to put the rights of so many others like her at risk.  I cannot fathom why someone would risk establishing a legal precedent that could jeaopardize the rights of so many just like her.

This all begs one question:  What would Ms. Shepherd have said three or four years ago about someone taking the position she is taking today?  Probably nothing nice.

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Never, Ever Give Up

October 29, 2014 | By:

Today is one of those days where I wish I could make all the hurt and pain go away for one of my clients.  For today, everything seems to be falling apart on their path to parenthood.  The thing is, I cannot count the number of clients I have had who have been in similar situations — afraid that they had run out of options or run out of money — and we found a way, they perservered for another day and then another day after that until I got the glorious news that they finally had a baby on the way (whether through egg donation, surrogacy or adoption).

With everyone of those clients I refused to give up, I refused to let them give up.  Because I have seen so, so many of those “never gonna happen to me/us” situations have a happy ending.

More to the point, I have spoken with so many of those parents who, in the end, were grateful for all the mishaps, all the donors who changed their mind or were screened-out, the changing of surrogates after two failed embryo transfers with only one embryo left . . . whatever the situation was (and there are so many I am not even going to begin to try and describe them all–you know how hard this can be), every single time when I got the call to tell me the joyous news, my client express grattitude for all the mishaps.  GRATTITUDE.  Because but for those mishaps, they wouldn’t be holding THIS baby, at this moment, and they couldn’t imagine not having THIS baby.

This happened to me too.  Had one of our adoptions not been disrupted (as in the baby went back to its birth mother after placement), I wouldn’t have the family I have today.  I loved that baby but I love THIS family more.

Whatever happens on your path, whenever you have a crappy-puts-you-over-the-edge-you-can’t-take-it-anymore-this-is-never-going-to-happen-for-me kind of day, remember that tomorrow is a new day with a new opportunity.  That there are more options and more choices, you just have to keep looking and putting one foot in front of the other.  It may suck today but one day, it might all actually make sense.  At the very least, one day you will know that but for all that came before, you wouldn’t be holding THIS baby.

So this my advice for today:

Never, Ever Give Up.  At least that’s what the sign above my desk says, and I believe it says it all.

(I like this necklace too)

never ever give up hope

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The Risk of Choosing The Mindset of Infertility

October 24, 2014 | By:

I’m back (after a blogging break) and I’m mad.  Very mad.  I am mad at doctors, mad at the media, mad at the reproductive community, mad, mad, mad!  Why am I mad you ask?

Good Question.

It took me awhile to figure it out, which makes me even . . . madder!  Okay I know that’s not a real word but you get my point . . . I think it’s been building up inside me for . . . oh about 15 years.  Because 15 years ago (give or take a few years) I was officially LABELLED as INFERTILE.  It is not a nice label.  It is not a label anyone ever wants.  And yet there it is.  A LABEL in my medical chart.

It’s like having a huge tattoo on my forehead that screams to doctors and the world:

INFERTILE:  WILL NEED HIGH-TECH EXPENSIVE MEDICAL TREATMENT TO EVER HAVE A CHANCE TO CONCEIVE AND CARRY A CHILD.

This is a label which makes your doctor look at you differently.  A label which makes YOU look at YOU differently. A label which makes you look at your partner differently, and makes your partner look at you differently.

The LABEL stuck with me for over 15 years.  And indeed, after years of IVF those labels became so convincing to everyone, and I mean everyone, that no one believed there was any hope for me.  It was like getting put into a closed box which doctors didn’t even want to try to open.

I listened to doctors, and nurses, and even friends, as they recounted the statistical UNlikelihood that I would conceive and carry a baby, as the statistics of the likelihood of what I wanted more than anything, became smaller and smaller, and smaller.  I let them convince me it was impossible.

The list of reasons they gave me was huge.  Insurmountably huge. And so I believed them when they told me I wouldn’t conceive.  I believed them when they gave me diagnosis after diagnosis.  I didn’t question their opinions or their conclusions.  I didn’t challenge my own belief in the power of my mind, the power of my body, the power of ME!

I BOUGHT IT ALL HOOK LINE AND SINKER!

And that’s why I am mad.

I let them compartmentalize me.

I let them put me in a box with a label and give up on me.

I let ME give up on ME.

Today there are countless ways to build a family.  IUI, IVF, IVF with donor egg, IVF with donor sperm, IVF with egg and sperm donor, embryo donation, gestational surrogacy (with any of the aforementioned IVF combinations), traditional surrogacy, domestic newborn adoption, foster-care adoption, international adoption; and there are more options than what I have mentioned.  It is a colorful and beautiful world filled with reproductive and family building options.  I live and breathe it every day as I help others move toward their dream of building a family.  But I couldn’t see any of it for myself.  All I could see was that tattoo staring back at me in my bathroom mirror every morning.

INFERTILE  

I read when magazines and newspapers attributed the label to countless celebrities, the media’s whispered words of shame and failure . . . [insert celebrity name here] can’t get pregnant] . . . she’s INFERTILE.  But I didn’t believe it for them.  I believed they would (or will) prove the label was wrong.  Prove the media was wrong.  I believed that others could defy that label which defined me.

INFERTILE 

God I hate that word.  I hate the feelings it brings out in me.  Feelings of failure, sadness, desperation, and now anger.  But I am not angry that I am infertile.  I am angry that I gave up on myself.  But then something happened.  Something that wasn’t supposed to happen . . . not to me, not to someone with all those LABELS.  Something extraordinary happened that caused me to challenge my doctors’ assumptions, that caused me to look at the LABEL tattooed on my forehead and ask:

IS IT REALLY TRUE?

AM I REALLY INFERTILE?

And then I realized it isn’t impossible.  Nothing is impossible.  In fact everything is POSSIBLE.  And with that realization my entire world changed.  My longheld beliefs about myself and my infertility CHANGED.  Everything I feel and believe about what I have lived through for well over 15 years, what I tell my clients, how I look at the community and industry in which I work, has shifted.  I suffered for over 15 years for no reason.  There was always hope.  I just wouldn’t let myself see it.  But I see it now.  I see HOPE everywhere, for everyone, even for ME.  No one really knows who is infertile.  Not even your doctor.  Nothing anyone tells you has to be true.  Not unless you believe it’s true.

My point is this:

Do NOT let your doctor get you down.

Do NOT let your doctor dismiss you.

Do NOT buy into the label(s).

Do NOT believe statistics.

PLEASE DO NOT BELIEVE STATISTICS.

I have finally realized that everything and anything is possible.  Because it is.

ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE!

It will happen to you in the perfect time, and in the perfect way.  But you do not have to suffer while you wait. Do not do what I did.  Do not buy into the labels.  Do not give up or give in.

Instead of choosing the mindset of infertility, choose the mindset of belief.  Choose the mindset of knowing that your time will come.  Accept, believe, and KNOW that everything and anything . . . and I mean ANYTHING . . . is POSSIBLE.

Because it IS.

And I know this because after 15 years of living with the label, and living with the tattoo on my forehead, something happened which proved everyone wrong about everything.  I now know that

I AM NOT INFERTILE

I am

POWERFUL

My body is 

POWERFUL

and so is

YOURS!

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