"AITA for enforcing our surrogacy contract?"
Ok so for context my husband is James 39, I’m F29 and my sister is Tilly 30. When my husband and I found out I wouldn’t be able to carry a baby my sister offered to be our surrogate so we could still have a biological child. She did this totally unprompted and on her own.
She had divorced her husband over a year ago and was settling into single life. We offered to cover all medical expenses and expenses for anything that could improve her life/pregnancy quality as it’s not legal to pay for a surrogate in my country.
She was more than happy to do that and as time went on she said she didn’t like pregnancy, it freaked her out and she couldn’t wait to just give the baby to us and go on holiday.
So three days ago she gave birth to our daughter. She’s perfect and such a beautiful baby and we were getting ready to take her home when Tilly denied it. She said I couldn’t have my baby.
I was really confused and asked what was wrong, what did she mean? She said she’d changed her mind and didn’t want to give us our baby.
I reminded her she wasn’t biologically a parent to my daughter and reminded her that she hated pregnancy and wanted to go on holiday. She said no, wouldn’t let me hold my baby and made the nurse take me out.
Since then I’ve been crying and really upset. Our parents are trying to get her to see sense and none of it made any sense to me until James sat me down and showed me texts he had been getting from her for the past few weeks.
They started out innocent but then she said how horny the pregnancy was making her. He sent back a laughing emoji but she carried on and prepositioned him. Asking him if he was attracted to the woman carrying his baby, saying surely it made him feel some way.
She sent some risky photos of her in lingerie and he told her to stop, she wasn’t his wife, he wouldn’t mention anything as none of us needed more stress but this wasn’t appropriate. She blamed her hormones for what she did to my husband.
Since then I’ve been looking over the contract we had drawn up and there is a clause that allows me to gain custody by showing Tilly’s written agreement and understanding of our contract to a judge.
I’ve text Tilly telling her she has a day to give me my baby or I will take her to court to enforce the contract and get custody of my child. Our cousins have text me saying I’m an AH for pressuring a woman to give her baby up. But it’s my baby not hers!!!!
If I’m honest it feels like emotional manipulation. She’s had no feelings or attachment to the baby literally the whole pregnancy. She’s said she only did it so she could get the private healthcare, the holiday she’s going on was paid by us.
Anything she wanted during pregnancy; food, clothes, Dyson hair dryer we got her. We sent her on wellness weekends. She admitted she wanted some pampering after the divorce and knew we would give that to the woman housing our baby.
OP also offers this update:
I have a heart condition and it was the last few weeks of pregnancy. I was constantly stressing something would go wrong so he wanted to reduce the stress for me and Tilly. Also, my sister has a son. I’ll add an edit but it’s feels really manipulative to me. She basically begged to let her do it for us.
OP then provides this small update:
My sister is not crazy. If I thought my sister was mentally unwell I’d be the first one to help but it really feels like manipulation as she didn’t get what she wanted. I’m upset to not have her with us for her first few days but at least she is safe.
Before we give you OP's final and most recent update, let's take a look at some of the top responses to her post:
jokester316 writes:
You are not wrong. I hope your sister didn't have an ulterior motive to get pregnant with your husband's child in hopes of taking him from you. That's disrespectful.
The child is biologically you and your husband's. Take her to court. Call for a welfare check on the child. I'm sure your sister had nothing prepared to bring home a newborn. Then again, if she did. She's had this planned.
I would also postpone the holiday at the bare minimum. After you have your child, fulfill the contract.
alliecat8 writes:
Definitely go get your baby. This is not her child, she only agreed to be a surrogate and is only biologically an aunt.
I get that she could be emotional and attached but the propositioning your husband makes me think she is trying to keep the baby to be close to her. Or maybe delusions of being a family with him, her and the baby.
This is so messed up, go after your child with all of the law. And the sooner the better. You are not wrong on this.
hepburn6 writes:
I can't imagine what you are going through OP, your sister is so wrong to do this. Could it possibly be about money? If you and your husband have been so generous through the pregnancy maybe she thinks she can milk you guys for more (just a thought).
And now, OP's final update:
Just thought I’d give a little update as lots of people were using the update bot. We have Tilly 24hrs before we started the legal proceedings to give us our baby. I’ve been into work today to keep my mind busy as I was so nervous and I work in a hospital so it’s kept my mind busy whereas James is able to work from home.
It’s been so hard the past few days not having our daughter with us, we’d imagined being able to spend the first few days of her life together as a family, getting in all the newborn skin to skin contact but instead we’ve just been looking at her empty nursery.
When I got home from work James told me that the maternity facility had been in contact to say my sister and our baby had been discharged.
One didn’t want to worry me when I was at work and had been trying to find them but it had only happened about an hour before I got home. Then two hours later someone knocks on our door and it’s Tilly holding our baby.
She gives her too me and just shrugs and says sorry but that it wasn’t her fault she was attracted to the man whose baby she was carrying but that she’d forgotten how much newborns cry and need to be fed and said she wasn’t the mother. She left quickly after that after giving us the final legal form with her signature on.
Safe to safe we’ve just been soaking in having our baby with us finally. We been able to put her in the clothes we’d gotten her, we put her down in her crib and fed her a bottle. And most importantly we’ve had so many cuddles.
We haven’t really put her down and I feel a bit scared to. Like she can be taken away again. She’s beautiful and she’s perfect and her name is Alexandria Renee.