Sparkling Lauren, a super special sparkling surrogacy and a "gayby"

[PurpleSheepleEater]

Is she an extended breastfeeder? I'm wondering how long she's going to hang around to feed and bond with the new baby. Have they even considered she will want that?

Again. Clusterfuck. The whole darn thing.

[16strong]

Is she an extended breastfeeder? I'm wondering how long she's going to hang around to feed and bond with the new baby. Have they even considered she will want that?

Again. Clusterfuck. The whole darn thing.

For some reason, I can see her expressing her milk and shipping it across the world on the Icelandic couple's dime. And then blogging about it being an example of her dedication to the "gayby."

[lilith]

Is she an extended breastfeeder? I'm wondering how long she's going to hang around to feed and bond with the new baby. Have they even considered she will want that?

Again. Clusterfuck. The whole darn thing.

She wasn't with the girls, but she hadn't gone all rainbow when nursing them. She had planned to nurse Elijah longer and practice baby led weaning.

She hasn't mentioned nursing - i would suspect she's planning to stay round to nurse for at least 6 weeks or so, by which time she'll likely be in the depths of the PND she has suffered after every birth, so who knows what will happen from there

[ViolaSebastian]

I was checking out the Centrelink site (which is very user-friendly) and learning about the Sparkling One's payments and Australian benefits in general when this caught my eye:

You should tell us if you or your dependent children are leaving Australia and:

will be away for longer than 6 weeks

are paid under the terms of a social security agreement, or

are travelling on a cruise ship and have not been back in Australia for 6 weeks since your last absence

Otherwise you do not need to tell us if you are leaving Australia. We will be advised automatically by Australia's immigration department when you leave Australia and when you return.

Big brother is watching you, Lauren.

[chaotic life]

Good. Lauren needs big brother watching her. I have absolutely no doubt that she would happily take her Centrelink payments and "forget" to tell the government she's taken the girls out of the country. Just like she uses the new economy and doesn't get rent on her house, but the rentors pay her cash "gifts" and she's not getting paid for this surrogacy, but she found these fellows on a surrogacy website where they were clearly prepared and expecting to pay for a surrogate, and somehow have agreed to keep her and her girls for at least three months out of the fall--but of course she's not getting paid by them for this baby--nope, not at all.

Honestly, I cannot imagine that a gay couple would want the surrogate mother to actually breastfeed. Now, here in the US I have heard of a few cases where surrogates pumped and provided expressed breastmilk for months for babies adopted by a gay couple. However, feeding the newborn is not only the predominant activity a newborn does, but the most significant bonding experience. They do not need, nor is it advisable, to have your surrogate doing that baby care and bonding with your child when it's born. BUT, in this case, this is biologically Lauren's child. I sincerely hope this couple has discussed how they are going to handle it if Lauren demands to breastfeed this baby. With surrogacy illegal in Iceland, it's not like they can enforce a legal contract and force her to give up the baby. Like most adoptive parents in an open adoption, they will be entirely upon the mercy of Lauren to follow through with her verbal promise to them.

[hoipolloi]

We will be advised automatically by Australia's immigration department when you leave Australia and when you return.

Big brother is watching you, Lauren.

True. It's all electronic now and the new passports (which she's getting for her kids) all have barcodes which will automatically record such information the instant they're scanned.

I'd be surprised if Iceland didn't have similar technology not to mention visa requirements if you stay beyond 3 months (http://utl.is/index.php?option=com_cont ... 57〈=en).

[chaotic life]

FWIW, because I refuse to comment on Lauren's actual blog, and because I know Helena reads here,

You are WRONG Helena. First of all, some of us DO know EXACTLY what it's like to live Lauren's life.

Here's the thing. I have dear, dear friends who were actually intimately part of our lives for years leading up to my son's death. Some of those friends were by my side when we said good-bye to my son. They were there this month, traveling across the US to be beside us for the two year anniversary of when we said good-bye. Yet, my friends who have been here and watched this unfold with a front row view would NEVER presume to know what it's like to lose a child. In fact, they are the first to point out that they can love me, they can support me, but they know they cannot feel my pain or fathom what it is like to walk this path.

I DO know what Lauren and her daughters are going through. I know because I have done what you and her sparkly friends have NOT experienced. I have lost a child. Not only that, I have placed a newborn in the arms of adoptive parents. It is precisely because I DO know what it's like that I judge Lauren. I judge her because it is IMPOSSIBLE for children to not be changed by both of these events, and because even a cursory attempt to learn about how children grieve will reveal that children do not grieve like adults. They LOOK FINE, except they are not, and when it bubbles to the surface it completely crashes their world almost instantly. If you aren't getting them professional support, you are teaching them that they aren't allowed to grieve in their own way, and that is what Lauren is doing to her girls. SHE IS NOT ENOUGH TO HOLD THEIR GRIEF. Only arrogance would lead anyone to believe she is.

And as for children perceiving a surrogacy how you tell them to, bullshit. BULLSHIT. My children still have times that they need to process my firstborn's adoption, and they have full access to that sibling, and we're less than a day's travel from that child. I once had a five year old sob and ask me if I was going to give her away like I did my firstborn. I thought I had explained adoption in positive terms and in handling things well, and simply put she did NOT perceive it at all how I thought she would, nor how I had presented it.

My children lost a lizard this spring. A lizard, and one they had only had for six months. That one event sent every single one of them back into therapy for several months because something that minor ripped the band-aid off their grief that they all got knocked down by the waves again. Losing a brother, no matter HOW adults frame it, will do far more reopening the grief for those girls than a lizard could ever do. And the idea that Laney doesn't get it and won't be impacted, nope, not at all. My youngest was 3 when his brother died, sometimes he struggles more than all of the others combined because he doesn't have his own memories and has to rely upon the rest of us to carry those memories for him now.

So yes, I judge. I judge precisely because I am part of the same club, the club that no one wants to join but once you join you can never go back from. I judge because I understand intimately how damaging this is going to be for those girls, from having walked this journey myself with siblings who still ache for their brother.

[Idolatry]

BUT, in this case, this is biologically Lauren's child. I sincerely hope this couple has discussed how they are going to handle it if Lauren demands to breastfeed this baby. With surrogacy illegal in Iceland, it's not like they can enforce a legal contract and force her to give up the baby. Like most adoptive parents in an open adoption, they will be entirely upon the mercy of Lauren to follow through with her verbal promise to them.

Not really. Assuming Iceland allows nine month pregnant Australian tourists, the kid is in Iceland, which is most of it. Then they'll have a mother who has to leave, and a biological father likely more equipped to care for a child. Plus, there's the blog.

If this were a plain old custody battle, this sounds simple. But then there's that small issue of laws. :nenner:

Shit. This case is the perfect example both of why surrogacy should stay illegal, and why it should be legal and actually regulated.

[lilith]

Not really. Assuming Iceland allows nine month pregnant Australian tourists, the kid is in Iceland, which is most of it. Then they'll have a mother who has to leave, and a biological father likely more equipped to care for a child. Plus, there's the blog.

I don't think any of that will matter, especially as surrogacy is illegal in Iceland. When Lauren gives birth they are going to have to register the babys birth to the Icelandic authorities, and they are going to have to register Lauren as the mother.

If the plan is for a legal adoption to take place, then that will take time, and precisely because of the internet presence the fact that the arrangement was actually an illegal surrogacy could come to light and may complicate and prolong the adoption process.

If the plan is for Lauren to just hand over the baby and wander back to Australia - and I suspect it is - if she changes her mind about handing the baby over or decides that she wants to breast feed it's unlikely that the fathers could do anything about it, at least in the short term. I don't see the Icelandic authorities taking a newborn from the woman who just gave birth to it and handing it over to the bio father and his partner while the whole tangle is untied. They may, however, prevent Lauren from leaving the country with the child while everything is sorted out legally, which could be disastrous for her and the girls if things go sour with the prospective fathers and they are stuck in a foreign country with no support network, very limited funds, and a new baby.

[So Many Lies]

Hellena Post - hi. I think you're pretty funny and "authentic" but Lauren will chew you up and spit you out eventually. Just a friendly warning to you.

[thoughtful]

My children lost a lizard this spring. A lizard, and one they had only had for six months. That one event sent every single one of them back into therapy for several months because something that minor ripped the band-aid off their grief that they all got knocked down by the waves again. Losing a brother, no matter HOW adults frame it, will do far more reopening the grief for those girls than a lizard could ever do.

Made me think of the dead fish scene in Courtship of Eddie's Father.

I know, it's me posting yet another movie reference, and after Chaotic Life has posted about a very painful part of real life, no less -- hope that doesn't offend anyone. Despite being a sweet and sometimes silly movie, it occasionally does a good job of showing the unpredictable way that children feel and express grief.

In fact, this scene is actually so wrenching that I want to warn that it may be triggering. Every time I see it, I shake and get teary, and hope that nobody did anything awful to Ron Howard to get this performance out of him.

[bBvideo 560,340:3565pqi7]

[/bBvideo]

[chaotic life]

Honestly, Hellena's comment illustrates EXACTLY what so many of us "frangers" have said was the underlying issue with how Lauren does and does not handle her daughters grieving. Hellena claims that Lauren has successfully ensured that losing their infant brother and their father in the same tradegy is seen by the girls as NOT a negative, life-changing event for them.

Except, it was and will always be a negative, life-changing event. Lauren has succeeded in NOTHING except denying those girls their right to grieve properly. That she can pretty that selfishness up to friends does NOT make it okay or better.

Sometime early in Lauren's greiving, she posted about meeting someone who had lost a sibling as a child, and how deeply impacted them and how determined she was that her daughters NOT be impacted in that manner. Lauren doesn't get to CHOOSE how this impacts her daughters. She has no problem seeing Elijah's death as negative in her own life. I guarantee you for all of her fake sparkles, Lauren measures time in before Elijah was killed and after Elijah was killed. I haven't met a single parent who lost their child that doesn't forever measure time in that manner afterward. She is allowed to have Elijah's death to be life-altering *and* negative for her.

It is the girls who are denied the right to grieve. It is the girls who are expected to not be impacted by their brother's murder at their father's hands, and to continue carrying on with all of the sparkles. What Lauren and Hellena and all of her supporters don't get is that losing a sibling as a child IS a negative, life-altering event. That is a fact and unavoidable. It is how you grieve and put your life back together again that makes the difference, not whether the event is negative.

Children must learn to integrate this negative, life-changing event into the fabric of their lives, and not be stuck in the grief itself. The only way that occurs is to allow them to grieve. Lauren has convinced herself and Hellena and many others that her girls don't grieve, but the reality is that they don't grieve because they are not allowed to grieve and cannot integrate the loss into who they are. It is completely unavoidable for this to be negative and life-changing, and when you shut down the grief process, you shut down a child's ability to move forward into a healthy future. That's what Lauren has done to those girls, and that is why so many here have so many issues with Lauren, because of the emotional damage this denied grief does to those girls.

[Mama Mia]

Not to mention, how in the actual fuck can it be seen as a positive to not see your little brother being murdered by your father, leading to his removal from your life, as a negative. What kind of messed up world view and moral compass and sense of attachment.....and well EVERYTHING is she trying to instill in her children?

Yes, sure, of course, try to explain it all in the least hurtful way possible. Explain about mental illness in the dad ( assuming that was the issue). But the reality is they lost their brother and their father and that sucks, and trying to hide that it sucks is ridiculous, and if you actually, somehow, do convince a little kid that it doesn't suck- what the hell kind of person is that little kid going to turn out to be????

[Miggy]

I have put together a collection of newspaper articles and screen caps from her blogs and submitted it to DOCS, requesting they look into the girls welfare in relation to the surrogacy and planned trip to Iceland. (Handed in to my local DOCS. Emailed to Lauren's closest.)

Just wondering now whether I should follow the suggestion a couple if pages back and send it to the media. I wouldn't want to send Lauren into hiding but the media might have more resources at their disposal to chase her down. What do people think? (Everything I gave to DOCS was publicly available so I wouldn't be telling a journalist anything they can't easily find themselves.)

[Mama Mia]

I have put together a collection of newspaper articles and screen caps from her blogs and submitted it to DOCS, requesting they look into the girls welfare in relation to the surrogacy and planned trip to Iceland. (Handed in to my local DOCS. Emailed to Lauren's closest.)

Just wondering now whether I should follow the suggestion a couple if pages back and send it to the media. I wouldn't want to send Lauren into hiding but the media might have more resources at their disposal to chase her down. What do people think? (Everything I gave to DOCS was publicly available so I wouldn't be telling a journalist anything they can't easily find themselves.)

Truthfully, as fucked up as I think the surrogacy idea is, I can't see how any Child Welfare agency would find it actionable. Assuming they have found loopholes so it's not blatantly illegal, which it sounds like they have, it is really just a form of emotional endangerment, which legally isn't a thing.

[intheknow]

With respect to DOCS possibly taking the children - I believe this is too simplistic an outcome to debate. When I initially reported the family it was due to high levels of risk taking behaviour, most of which was never blogged about. The problem I faced is that taken individually each occurence is at least somewhat explainable, easy to explain away, to write off by the Department. But my concern was then and is now that taken T0GETHER the situation faced both physically and emotionally by the girls will have terrible future implications.

At the time of my initial reports it did not appear that the children were in immediate danger. However I saw a slippery slope of careless behaviours. These behaviours taken together indeed did lead to the death of a baby.

Those behaviours are still very evident for the girls. They are still being left unattended or with strangers. They are still being deliberately uneducated. They are still stunted from forming lasting relationships with anyone other than Lauren. This means they have no confidants, noone to tell if they are truly unhappy and need help. Noone to run to with a painful burr in their eye. Noone to come over and see that one child is not walking due to a tick bite and to bundle that child up and rush them to a doctor.

I say this again- the behaviours and attitudes that existed prior to Elijah's death are still evident. The mean very little to DOCS in isolation but MUST be dealt with as pattern. Look where the pattern led last time.

To clarify some points made on FJ over the last few years. David was not the primary caregiver when I was heavily involved with them. Lauren was a SAHM. He worked. She was present with the girls and spent positive time with them. However she also neglected them. David approved of this and also neglected them.

I hope that someone in the media will take on this family and consider how neglected those girls really are.

[intheknow]

I will also add this for Lauren and any of her followers. My loyalty to Lauren was initially strong enough to put my misgivings aside. As a person Lauren is quite nice. I liked her, we were friends.

However I realised I could not be loyal to our friendship because it meant being disloyal to those girls. I realised that my support of Lauren equaled tacit approval for neglectful behaviours. So I chose then and I choose now to be loyal to the girls. My priority in posting here is them. My thoughts are often with them. I tried to be their voice.

If you support Lauren I'd like you to consider the same issue. Who are you loyal to? Can you really be loyal to all of them? And if you feel conflicted please, always, choose those girls.

[August]

Intheknow, I appreciate your point of view, but Elijah wasn't killed by accident, he was intentionally murdered. If you saw the father's increasing mental illness that's one thing, but it turns out that apart from theeye thing and the paralysis tick none of the girls have yet been physically harmed. God, I hope it's something minor when it does happen, and not a car accident with unrestrained children, or a pedophile. And I hope it shocks her into taking better care of them.

(caveat, as always when discussing this, I'm not overprotective, I let my children take lots of risks, but I always carefully judge the potential outcome, and the risks they take are physical, and teach them valuable life lessons)

Not really. Assuming Iceland allows nine month pregnant Australian tourists, the kid is in Iceland, which is most of it. Then they'll have a mother who has to leave, and a biological father likely more equipped to care for a child. Plus, there's the blog.

If this were a plain old custody battle, this sounds simple. But then there's that small issue of laws. :nenner:

Shit. This case is the perfect example both of why surrogacy should stay illegal, and why it should be legal and actually regulated.

Yeah, but you can't make surrogacy contracts enforceable. You have to leave the option for the surrogate to change her mind or it brings up echoes of what the adoption industry used to be like. Ever seen that documentary on the Magdalen laundries? Modern adoption is not final before the birth, and surrogacy has to be the same way. Sucks for the IPs, but that's just the way it has to be.

[August]

I have put together a collection of newspaper articles and screen caps from her blogs and submitted it to DOCS, requesting they look into the girls welfare in relation to the surrogacy and planned trip to Iceland. (Handed in to my local DOCS. Emailed to Lauren's closest.)

Just wondering now whether I should follow the suggestion a couple if pages back and send it to the media. I wouldn't want to send Lauren into hiding but the media might have more resources at their disposal to chase her down. What do people think? (Everything I gave to DOCS was publicly available so I wouldn't be telling a journalist anything they can't easily find themselves.)

No, don't paint her into a corner.

[Idolatry]

Yeah, but you can't make surrogacy contracts enforceable. You have to leave the option for the surrogate to change her mind or it brings up echoes of what the adoption industry used to be like. Ever seen that documentary on the Magdalen laundries? Modern adoption is not final before the birth, and surrogacy has to be the same way. Sucks for the IPs, but that's just the way it has to be.

You're wrong. I live in a place where surrogacy is legal and absolutely enforceable. The difference is you can't use your own eggs, so,the surrogate is not the bio mom. That's the first screwed up part.

Also, no clinic/agency would ever let someone be a surrogate who is so unstable and has been through that kind of trauma. I get she has to provide for these kids, but surrogacy, shit. I'm pretty sure stripping would be less traumatic.

Screw these guys. The whole thing seems so exploitative to me. They're so desperate for a baby (in a place where surrogacy is illegal) that they are willing to use a woman who literally had her baby murdered as a brood mare. Her sparkling expectations about this whole thing just seem so fucked. Kids, here are your new dads!

I hope Iceland media does pick up on it. These guys are so arrogant they are willing to brag on a blog about something illegal. Who does that? IMO these guys are responsible for the mess that is about to occur.

[Artemis]

I feel that the media would screw up these babies' lives even more than they are screwed up already. Everything a journalist touches get twisted, no matter what good intentions you go into their ambit with, as they are primarily concerned with selling their story. Truth is not really important to them - what sells is. Surely it would be better to pursue official means, rather than trust the children's lives to the untender mercies of the media.

I am so horrified by Lauren's selfishness. Spin it how you choose, she is putting her own personal choices and the desires of two men unknown to her before last year, above the wellbeing and happiness of four children who have no power of personal choice, are unable to articulate fully their own desires, and who depend solely on her for their wellbeing and happiness. She chose to bring those children into the world: she has a duty to put them first now.

I have nothing against surrogacy, nothing against gay couples having children (wish my own sister had been in a position to have one) but all three of these people strike me as selfish in their own way, and the men come across as entitled and arrogant. Among many of my lovely gay male friends, I have regrettably met a few who have this 'vaginas have cooties' attitude. They're as unpleasant in their way as fundies are in theirs: being in a minority group doesn't actually preclude your being a nasty, mean-minded jerk, since jerkdom knows no limits and is no respecter of labels.

If, as Hellena says, these children are so happy, why don't they look it? The light in the eyes of a happy child is unmistakeable to anyone who's seen it. The dark sadness of uncertainty and doubt is as well.

Also, Hellena, do you think it is right that these children are mercilessly pimped out, prostituted all over the internet, to serve their mother's agenda, their every childish whim and naive folly paraded to the world? She sells them for money: no viler thing can be done to a child. Have they consented, fully and freely to their exposure? Of course not - they do not understand what such a consent means. Her actions are cruel: they are her innocent blood and she should protect them, not display them to the world like specimens in a curio cabinet.

And count me in with those who find the term 'gayby' othering and exploitative.

[Idolatry]

I feel that the media would screw up these babies' lives even more than they are screwed up already. Everything a journalist touches get twisted, no matter what good intentions you go into their ambit with, as they are primarily concerned with selling their story. Truth is not really important to them - what sells is. Surely it would be better to pursue official means, rather than trust the children's lives to the untender mercies of the media.

If you want to avoid the untender mercies of the media, maybe you shouldn't blog about your back of the van transnational surrogacy if surrogacy is illegal, just an idea.

[LilMissMetaphor]

[Brittany15]

I wonder if the plan is to have the baby in Iceland? She mentions, "They know that the baby isn’t ours and are looking forward to travelling to Europe before the birth." I know that Iceland is in Europe- but you would think if she meant Iceland she would have said Iceland. I wonder if they are planning on doing the birth/exchange in a country were surrogacy is legal?

[skankbiscuit]

I wonder if the plan is to have the baby in Iceland? She mentions, "They know that the baby isn’t ours and are looking forward to travelling to Europe before the birth." I know that Iceland is in Europe- but you would think if she meant Iceland she would have said Iceland. I wonder if they are planning on doing the birth/exchange in a country were surrogacy is legal?

Hmmm...but wouldn't the baby have to have a passport to return to Iceland? That may complicate things.