Tainty, surrogate has emotional reunion
want to help. Then we went to a Dutch lawyer, but a Dutch lawyer can’t do anything in Cambodia,” Johan explains. “We didn’t know what to do.”
First-time mother
Back in Cambodia, Bopha was also growing increasingly worried. Her requests that New Life put her in touch with the baby’s parents were repeatedly rebuffed. Aside from monthly ultrasounds at Central Hospital, she had no support during her pregnancy and no one to call in case of an emergency. What’s more, the pregnancy was making her nauseous.
“All I can eat is condensed milk with syrup,” she says, stirring the thick, pink liquid into her glass with a spoon. This is Bopha’s first pregnancy, and she doesn’t know what to expect.
Most agencies require that surrogate mothers have at least one child of their own before being recruited, but Bopha lied on her application, saying she had a 5-year-old child.
New Life did not verify whether the claims Bopha made on her application were true. The document clearly states that the agency takes no responsibility for what is written on the form, which includes questions about whether the surrogate mother smokes, uses drugs or has had a previous miscarriage.
Bopha’s reasons for becoming a surrogate mother were multi- faceted. She and her husband divorced almost 10 years ago after he cheated on her. The now 35-year-old never remarried but says she wanted to experience pregnancy. She was also seduced by the allure of financial independence. With ageing parents who can no longer support her, Bopha saw surrogacy as a path to a new life.
“Maybe I’ll use the money to become a clothing vendor,” she says.
But in order to reconcile her actions with her own beliefs, Bopha had to place the situation in her own cultural frame of reference.
“I know we’ve never lived together, but I think of [ Johan] as my husband, as if we’re having a child together,” she says. “I am happy that my son will have a good life and live abroad and get a good education … I hope one day he will visit me.”
Mom and dad
After months of uncertainty, Johan and Pieter reached out to Dutch and Cambodian media as a last resort. Days later, when Post reporters approached Bopha with a photograph of Johan outside of Central Hospital, she broke out in a smile of relief.
“I saw some [surrogate mothers] in a very desperate state after delivery because their intended parents did not show up,” she says.
And while she’ll be sad to give the baby up, she says she’s confident Johan and Pieter will be good parents.
“I know they are a gay couple, but I think foreign men know how to take care of children better than Cambodian men,” she says.
After Johan met Bopha, they set about obtaining the baby’s paperwork and having it notarised. Their initial meeting, while a happy one, was complicated by communication barriers and cultural clashes, he says. But after several days of travelling around together in tuk-tuks, Johan and Bopha managed to obtain the documents needed to give the unborn child Dutch citizenship.
Before returning to the Netherlands, Johan scheduled a return flight to Cambodia for a week before the baby’s due date. “Now I can finally breathe again,” he says with a smile. “It’s such a relief.”
But while Johan left Cambodia with an understandable sense of relief, the story has yet to be written for what sources estimate to be well over a hundred surrogates still carrying the children of foreigners in the Kingdom.
And with the industry that facilitated it scrambling for the shadows, surrogates and parents alike will continue to navigate in the dark, their lives and those of the babies in limbo.
* Names have been changed to protect their identities.