#Microblog Monday 256: The Regret Test
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Carolyn Hax’s commenters rounded out her recent answer with additional advice. A woman asks whether she needs to invite her surrogate to her baby shower. Hax answers that she doesn’t BUT asks her to check her reasoning.
But it’s a commenter that provides the idea of sitting with the decision and wondering how you’ll feel the day after, “when it’s too late to change anything.” I would have additionally asked how you’ll feel looking at pictures from the event in the future. Will you be okay explaining your reasoning to your child if they see the pictures and ask why the surrogate wasn’t there?
What do you think of the situation? Personally, I would have opted for the surrogate to attend just so I didn’t have any regrets because this one wouldn’t pass the regret test for me.
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6 comments
My initial reaction would be: Definitely invite her. Assuming everyone at the baby shower already knows this baby is going to be / was born via surrogate, she is already openly part of this baby’s story. But it depends. I have a friend who has been a surrogate several times. I don’t know that she would have any interest in being in on the baby showers. She feels she’s just providing a service to give a woman / couple their baby. Another surrogate might find it too emotionally difficult.
I think that whether or not to invite the surrogate is the secondary question. The primary question is: “How can I resolve my feelings of being less-than so that they don’t end up impacting my child and my relationship with my child?”
Because unresolved, they will.
I love Carolyn Hax’s column and read it regularly, so I read the column you mention. I, personally, would probably invite the surrogate, but I can understand the letter writer’s reasons for not wanting to. . . and I do agree that having the surrogate attend may shift some/most of the attention to her, rather than the intended mother.
I agree with her advice. And I would hope that the mom-to-be’s family will make the shower all about her and the baby, while still being welcoming to the surrogate. I feel the the letter writer was picturing the surrogate sitting next to her while she opened gifts, etc, and that doesn’t seem necessary. There’s a middle ground between not inviting her and making the party FOR her. This wouldn’t pass the regret test for me, either.
I get where this woman is coming from, though, in that feeling that she’s not getting anything the typical way. After struggling to conceive, she just wants what everyone else has had, a regular old shower. I briefly felt that way when I ended up on bed rest and was going to miss my shower, after all the struggle to conceive. It just didn’t seem fair. My mil wanted to proceed as planned and have my husband attend, with me their via Skype. I was really hurt and said no, thank you. If I’m not there, I’m not there. I don’t want to watch my party be thrown for someone else. So I get the sadness of the letter writer, too.
I think the column addresses a secondary question, what to do about the shower.
The primary question, I believe, is this: “How can I resolve my feelings of being less-than so that they don’t end up impacting my child and my relationship with my child.”
Ooof, that’s a tough one. I mean, the surrogate is carrying the baby and making the baby possible, but I can see the fears that everyone would shower her with the attention and leave the letter writer feeling out of place at her own shower. But, I think inviting is the right thing to do, and hopefully it is understood that this baby is a team effort and the shower is really for the baby, sort of, right? I guess it would depend on the relationship between the surrogate and the parents, too, and location and feasibility. So complicated. But again, the baby is a team effort in this situation. I do love the idea of passing things through a regret test, though!