Mother of surrogate twins tells of upset at playschool
THE mother of surrogate twins had to turn back from her children’s first day of playschool after forgetting application forms signed by her husband, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
Cathy Wheatley and her husband, Keith, had their two-year-old twins, Ted and Elsie, through a surrogate in Ukraine. However, due to an absence of legislation in Ireland regarding surrogacy, Ms Wheatley is not legally seen as the mother of her biological children.
She was among those appearing yesterday in front of the Committee on International Surrogacy, which heard that children are ‘being denied protection from both parents’ due to their mothers having no legal parental rights over them. Ms Wheatley voiced concerns that her children will be stigmatised because of the way they were conceived.
She told the committee, which has been charged with developing fresh proposals to fix the gap around surrogacy in Irish law: ‘When I got to the door of the playschool, in front of all the people there, I had to tell them: “I don’t have the forms, I forgot them.”
‘They said: “No problem, just fill them in here now.” And in front of all my peers, I had to say: “I can’t do that.”
‘It made me think, as they’re taking their first steps into the world, how many other times is this going to be the case?’
Ms Wheatley added that the issue has not gone unnoticed by her young children. She said: ‘Ted and Elsie are my world; like anyone’s children, you would do absolutely anything for them.
‘The realisation then at the playschool door was then compounded by the fact the teacher said to Elsie: “Your mother is going to go and get the forms.” And Elsie said: ‘She’s not my mother.” I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. In those moments, everything went through my head… Is she aware of the conversations that we would subsequently be having? And it felt like a lifetime, but in two seconds she said: “She’s my mammy.” And that’s what it boils down to for me.’
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Ms Wheatley and her husband have taken in the twin’s surrogate mother, Ivana Holub, and her three children. They are all currently living in the family’s two-bed cottage in Co. Wicklow.
‘Due to the crisis in Ukraine, I felt like I needed to do something to protect her, just like she had protected my children,’ Ms Wheatley said. ‘The reality of it is, even though I’m not invisible to my children, in the eyes of the law, I am invisible.’