Olivia’s story | “We’re trading with humans, we’re selling humans, we’re buying uteruses. [Surrogacy] should be abolished worldwide.”

by Katie Breckenridge | Oct 19, 2023 | Stories

Olivia Auriol was born via traditional surrogacy in Louisville, Kentucky, and grew up between France and the United States. She recently shared her story in a Webinar with Abolition GPA about her experiences growing up as a child of surrogacy. While Olivia’s parents...

Michael R.’s story | “It is a no-true-win situation for a child to grow up as donor-conceived.”

by Them Before Us | Oct 17, 2023 | Stories

I was a donor-conceived (IVF) child and a twin born in 1995. My mother desperately wanted to have children but with no prospect of a traditional family. She lived in central California in the 90’s and was near a larger IVF facility. She proceeded to try multiple...

Andrew’s story | “My mom came out as gay in 2017 and ended my parents’ marriage of 33 years…I felt like my whole existence was called into question.”

by Them Before Us | Jul 5, 2023 | Stories

My mom came out as gay in 2017 and ended my parents’ marriage of 33 years. She had been cheating on my dad with her mistress she met through a church group. I’m not sure how long their relationship had been like that, but we had known the other woman for...

Claire’s story | “My parents developed the idea that they deserved to have a baby, and it didn’t matter how much it cost, how many times it took, or how many died in the process.”

by Them Before Us | Dec 23, 2021 | Stories

A miracle baby. That’s what my parents always said I was. After 12 years of marriage and much agony, I had been conceived. They had never been so happy. I had never doubted that I was wanted. But there it was… right in the baby book my grandmother had put...

Louise’s story | “Not knowing donor identity is like being lost in the middle of a great, featureless ocean.”

by Them Before Us | Jul 19, 2021 | Stories

(Originally published on Tangled Webs UK) Discovering, aged 32, that I was donor conceived was, to put it mildly, a bombshell. It made complete sense, explaining the lack of similarity to my social father, not to mention the tensions between us. It explained why I...

Susan’s story | “I was 13 years old when Dad left the second time…Is it any surprise that I deal with depression?”

by Them Before Us | Mar 12, 2021 | Stories

My adoption was in the works before I was born. My adoptive parents had been married about 9 years and had been unable to get pregnant. My adoptive mother wanted nothing more than to be a mom. My bio-mother was married, but had been intimate with another woman’s...