Ariel Taylor loved being pregnant, but she knew that after having her daughter, she would no longer have children.
Wanting to help others, the Ontario, Canada native decided to become a surrogate mother and have not another baby, but five.
Surrogacy is a process in which a woman carries and gives birth to a baby on behalf of another woman, often because she cannot become pregnant or carry a fetus herself. It is often the way LGBTQ couples can expand their families.
The practice is highly controversial, with some conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation calling it “exploitation” that “turns the female body into a rental commodity” and reduces women “to providers of ‘womb rental’ services.”
Taylor, 33, is used to hearing this criticism and questions about her motives. Many people, she said, fear that they will be exploited because of their uterus.
She said: “The truth is, we are just ordinary women who want to help someone else by holding their baby.”
After giving birth to her daughter in 2015, Ms Taylor gave birth to four more babies between 2017 and 2024.
She said: “I think a lot of people assume that surrogates feel sadness or disappointment after giving birth, but for many of us it’s just the opposite. I remember my surrogacy journeys very fondly.”
Ariel Taylor, 33, has been a surrogate mother five times and an egg donor six times, motivated by her desire to help others experience parenthood.
Ariel began her journey as a surrogate mother in 2015 after giving birth to her daughter and realizing she wanted to help others experience parenthood. Over eight years, she carried out five surrogate pregnancies, two of them for the same family.
A small proportion of the babies born each year arrive through surrogacy: approximately 750 to 1,000.
A woman who decides to be a surrogate for another woman undergoes in vitro fertilization. During this process, she becomes fertilized when doctors create an embryo by fertilizing the mother-to-be’s egg (or an egg from a donor) with sperm from the father (or a donor).
While Ms. Taylor did not share genetic material with the babies she gave birth to, she remained a fixture in their lives.
She said: “There is a misconception that surrogates never see the children again, but in my experience, we have become friends of the family.
“These kids know who I am and it’s wonderful to be a part of their lives in some way.”
Her journey with surrogacy began in 2016.
After giving birth to her daughter Scarlet a year earlier, she knew she didn’t want to have another child, but she also knew she liked being pregnant and could use that to help others.
In January 2016, she found a family and her embryo was implanted in her uterus. Unfortunately, she miscarried four months later.
She tried again in the fall of 2016 and gave birth to her first surrogate baby in August 2017. She gave birth to another in December 2018, one in April 2021, and the last in July 2023.
Ariel said the most rewarding part of the process is handing the babies over to their parents. Maintains relationships with families.
Ms Taylor is pictured with her daughter Scarlet (right) and a baby she was carrying.
Ariel, fertility therapist and founder of surrogacy support network Carried with Love, said: “Handing the baby over to the parents was always the most rewarding part of the process.
‘I was very lucky that pregnancy suited me well most of the time. It made me feel happier and I didn’t gain much weight or have any complications.’
She delivered as many babies as she could and underwent the maximum number of cesarean sections allowed for surrogates: four.
After her fifth birth in the summer of 2023, she had a more difficult postpartum. I was swollen, swollen and sore all over.
She said: ‘It was my body’s way of saying, “Enough is enough,” and I had to accept that it was the end of my pregnancy journey.
‘I will always cherish the experiences I had. I think I was made for surrogacy. And what a nice way to use my body for good.
In addition to being a surrogate mother five times, she also donated her eggs to six different families in hopes of having babies.
Ms Taylor is pictured with her partner Brandon (right) and a baby she gave birth to. She said Brandon is very supportive of her journey and agrees that surrogacy is a great act of service.
Pictured is a couple whom Ms. Taylor helped by acting as a surrogate mother, and their child whom she was carrying.
People tend to believe that once they give birth, surrogate mothers lose contact with the families they helped. Ms. Taylor, however, is a close family friend of all the couples she helped and is present in the children’s lives.
Women who aspire to be surrogate mothers must meet a long list of criteria: live in a state favorable to surrogacy, be between 21 and 43 years old, be in good health and have a history of healthy pregnancies and births, a BMI of around 32 or less, and a recent history free of major surgeries and pregnancy complications.
Potential substitutes must also be non-smokers, non-drinkers, and drug-free. They cannot have a history of mental health disorders and must undergo a psychological evaluation. They must also be financially stable and have no criminal record.
Surrogates in Canada do not benefit from their decision to have another woman’s baby. It is illegal to pay or offer to pay a woman to be a surrogate mother.
However, surrogates can be reimbursed for expenses related to the process, from doctor visits, medications and travel to maternity clothes, groceries and lost wages.
Ms Taylor told DailyMail.com: ‘On my first trip they refunded me $20,000 and on my last trip, they refunded me $35,000, which included all my lost wages. The others were all between those amounts.’
For each pregnancy, I kept detailed receipts for each purchase. Some of the other expenses she was reimbursed for included prenatal classes, vitamins, child care, chiropractor visits, and more holistic care like acupuncture and massages.
She said: ‘So the simple answer is that I didn’t make any money.
“In fact, on my last trip, my expenses were much higher than my spending limit and I only took two weeks off after the birth.”
Meanwhile, in the United States, surrogates can be paid $100,000 or more to carry a person’s or couple’s baby, with the intended father or parents also assuming all health care costs during the pregnancy.
One of the factors that complicates surrogacy in the United States is that it is not legal in all states. Nebraska and Louisiana currently prohibit paid surrogacy.
Paid surrogacy came to the fore in the 1980s over a controversial legal case in which a surrogate mother who was paid to carry out the pregnancy of a couple in New Jersey changed her mind after giving birth and She decided she wanted to keep the baby.
The couple who paid the woman to take the child filed a lawsuit and were eventually awarded custody. In response, New Jersey, New York and other states instituted a ban on paid surrogacy that lasted for years.
The case, popularly known as ‘baby M’, made surrogacy a nationally controversial issue, with people questioning the ethics of wealthy couples paying surrogate mothers (who are sometimes substantially poorer) for use. temporary of her uterus.