The My Mother’s Surrogacy project is a Canadian study that looks at the experiences of children of surrogate mothers with regards to their mother’s surrogacy. While over the last few decades, several studies have documented the experiences of women who agree to carry a child for another person, as well as the experiences of people who become parents thanks to such surrogates, very few studies have examined the ways in which surrogates’ children understands their mother’s surrogacy and the act of giving the newborn to the parents. This study aimed to document these children’s representations of the various people involved in the surrogacy project, identify how they explain their mothers’ surrogacy, and explore the emotions they feel in relation to the surrogacy process. More than sixty children, teenagers and young adults were interviewed for this project. The project’s results help surrogates better support their own children as they carry a baby for someone else, and help professionals who work with surrogates.
This project was coordinated by Flavy Barrette (UQO) and co-directed by Isabel Côté (UQO) and Kévin Lavoie (U Laval).
