Most women are pretty gosh darn excited when they find out they’re pregnant.
Most women are usually even more excited when they give birth, and finally meet their bub.
But Tara Sawyer isn’t particularly thrilled by the finding out, or the giving birth part of pregnancy – she just enjoys what comes in-between those two things.
Actually being pregnant.
The 37-year-old UK woman says she is addicted to the “thrill” of being pregnant, and plans to be pregnant as much as possible until her “womb falls out”.
Tara already has four children of her own, and has been a surrogate for three babies in the past two years – include one of which was biologically her own. She gave birth just four months ago in January, and hopes to be pregnant again by the end of the year.
She says that when she isn’t pregnant, she ‘broods’ for a pregnancy – but not for a baby.
“Surrogacy is very addictive. It’s a huge rush from the moment the test comes back positive,” she told the UK press. “It’s an amazing feeling to hand over a child to someone who desperately wants it, and I feel at my best whilst pregnant.”
“I don’t even get stretch marks – it’s like I was made to have babies,” she explains.
And despite the fact that under UK law, Tara would be entitled to ask for £15,000 (or $27,000AUD) in compensation – she refuses to accept any money from the couples she is helping.
The first surrogate baby she gave birth to was actually biologically her own, but she says that she didn’t feel maternal towards the baby – and didn’t struggle with handing the child over to the gay couple she was carrying for.
“I don’t feel like I’m giving up a baby,” she explained to The Daily Mail. “I feel like I’m giving it back. I don’t feel sad handing over a child that was never mine to keep. I babysat that child for nine months.”
She first decided to try surrogacy when her four-year-old twins, Noah and Jack, were only newborns themselves. The boys were delivered early as they suffered from twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome – and Tara felt like she missed out on her pregnancy. But along with her other children – Rebecca, 14, and Harrison, 12 – she wasn’t sure that she wanted to add any more kids to her own family.
Tara herself was adopted, and had also thought in the past about how she could help families – like her parents – who wanted children, but weren’t able to have any of their own.
“Surrogacy seemed like the perfect solution,” Tara says. “I would get my pregnancy and a couple would get their baby.” Her husband, 37-year-old Matt Sawyer, agreed that it was a good idea.
“He didn’t take a lot of convincing,” Tara explained. “He knew I was feeling broody for the pregnancy and he knew that there was a hole that I needed to fill.”
And she doesn’t have plans to stop any time soon.
“When I’m not pregnant I feel empty and only a baby can fill that void. I’m addicted to the buzz of pregnancy and if I can help childless couples at the same time it would be insane not to.”
“I won’t stop until my womb falls out.”
Have you had any experience with surrogacy? Do you think you could be a surrogate yourself? And do you think you could handle being pregnant so much of the time?!
Top Comments
I'm actually 10 weeks into my 3rd pregnancy- and this time I am a gestational surrogate for very good friends. While I am not really enjoying pregnancy - exhaustion and nausea etc, the reason I agreed to do this was knowing that while pregnancy is hard, it also ends and at the end there is a whole new person in the world. I don't sit and dwell now on my pregnancies with my children, that has faded in memory! But the absence of a very wanted child will never fade.
Congrats to her for helping other people! Surrogacy does sounds interesting...