The "used" Surrogate

I have had the pleasure of working with many couples and singles who were in the process of using a surrogate to complete their family. However nice, fair and even tempered most were there were always the few who actually "used" a surrogate! The expectation that the intended parents had of a woman who agreed to carry a child/children for them was that as long as she was being "paid" by them, she owed them...she owed them her privileged medical information, an accounting of her where-about's, what went on in her bedroom, what she ate, drank and how much she weighed. It didn't matter that a surrogate wasn't paid anything while she (and her family) jumped through the medical testing hoops, the legal expectations or the waiting games (waiting for the egg donor, waiting for a cycle to begin or end, waiting for a vacation to be over.....) A surrogate may get a few dollars when she started her medications and/or for an embryo transfer but until she was actually carrying a child she really wasn't get "paid" anything. And yet the demands can continue for months. Isn't it time that intended parents acknowledged that someone putting their life on hold for others deserves better? Deserves to be treated with respect? Deserves to be put first in matters that directly affect her, the surrogate? I think so...

Sharon
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