Why must I be made to feel ashamed of my own baby? Mother of Britain's 1,000th surrogate child reveals her struggle after infant was handed over to her in a hospital car park 

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Amy Croft with little Theo - Britain’s 1,000th surrogacy baby

The official ‘handover’ of the baby had to be off the premises, in the hospital car park to be exact, rather than within the walls of the building.

This gave what should have been a joyful moment of a celebration a ‘seedy’ air, says Amy Croft, who still has that exhausted-yet-elated air of a new mother.

‘It made it feel like it was something to be ashamed of,’ she says. 

‘All through the birth, the hospital staff had been falling over themselves to be sensitive to our situation, but when it came to leaving, they said that in law we had to do everything off-premises. In fact, they reiterated it a few times, so we were in no doubt. That just feels . . . wrong.’

Welcome to the still-murky world of surrogacy. A world where attitudes may have changed in the 30-plus years it has been officially recognised — to the point where it sometimes seems that every Tom, Dick and Elton is doing it — but the law still struggles to keep up and the NHS is still clearly uncomfortable with its inevitable role in the booming, yet still deeply controversial, industry.

Little Theo Croft, the bundle being handed over by the pay and display machine like dodgy stolen goods a few weeks ago, has the honour of being Britain’s 1,000th surrogacy baby born through COTS (Childlessness Overcome Through Surrogacy), an organisation set up by the UK’s first surrogate, Kim Cotton.

His parents were lucky. Despite the ignominious handover, their road to parenthood via a surrogate was relatively problem-free.

The same cannot be said for the 999 babies before him.

Few will forget the haunting images of Kim in January 1985, after she had carried a baby for a European couple in a deal arranged by an American agency.

From left: Amy Dickin, Kim Cotton and baby Theo and surrogate Gemma Sanderson

She faced public opprobrium and went on to admit she had been left feeling ‘heartbroken’ and ‘cheated’ by the experience.

But despite her feelings of loss at the time, Kim never regretted what she did — and has since devoted her life to campaigning for a ‘better’ system of surrogacy than the flawed one of which she was a part. And her fight, it seems, is gaining ground.

COTS, which Kim founded in 1988, has teamed up with Surrogacy UK to call for a change in the law to make the process easier and more transparent.

Surrogacy is legal in England and Wales as long as mothers are not paid more than ‘fair’ expenses. Yet supporters argue the legislation, brought into effect after the Warnock Report of 1984, was drafted in a very different world.

Indeed, the Law Commission has launched a consultation on whether to undertake a project on surrogacy law reform — a hugely significant step.

Britain's first surrogate mother Kim Cotton (left) with twins Alice and Oliver that she had for Linda Nelson (right)

The Crofts, who live in the Midlands, consider themselves among the lucky ones. Amy, 32, was born without a womb.

‘I felt like a freak,’ she says. ‘When I met my husband and we started talking about a family, I assumed we would have to go down the adoption route.’

But tests revealed that Amy’s fallopian tubes were still functioning. ‘I discovered that I was fertile. I had eggs. That opened up the possibility of a surrogate. I’d read all about celebrities having surrogates but not people like me. It was a daunting thing to investigate.’

Amy was referred to COTS by her fertility clinic — which underlines how much more mainstream and accepted the organisation has become.

Via COTS, Amy was introduced to Gemma Sanderson, a 26-year-old mother of two who lives in Leigh, Lancashire.

Their agreement (no-one in the surrogate world talks of ‘deals’, as it gives the air of a transaction) was facilitated (not ‘brokered’, everyone is at pains to point out) by the organisation.

‘It was a bit like online dating,’ says Amy. ‘We had to write a little profile about ourselves.’

Gemma’s youngest son was two when she decided she liked the idea of being pregnant again — but this time for another woman.

‘I’d watched a programme on surrogacy when I was about 16 and I’d never forgotten it,’ says Gemma, an assistant manager of a sandwich shop chain who’s married to Rob, a teacher.

‘I always thought: “What an amazing thing to do for someone”, and that feeling didn’t go away after I had my kids. If anything, it got stronger.’

Didn’t her husband mind? ‘He thought it was a bit odd at first, but he knows when my mind is set on something.’

Gemma was sent personal statements from prospective parents — they made ‘heartbreaking reading’, she says.

Amy and her husband stood out ‘because theirs was quite humorous. They were obviously desperate to be parents, you could see that, but they just seemed like a lovely couple, too’.

Surrogate Gemma Sanderson, Amy Dickin and Theo, and Kim Cotton

Amy’s fertility treatment — extracting her eggs and fertilising them with her husband’s sperm — was successful and the pair soon had nine frozen embryos ready to go.

The implantation procedure at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital also worked first time.

Throughout the pregnancy, the two women became extremely close, speaking most days. Amy went to all the scans.

Neither Amy nor Gemma are comfortable talking about the money exchanged, but Kim Cotton says £15,000 is a ‘reasonable’ sum for a surrogate to be paid in expenses.

There were sceptics, of course. Amy says her fertility consultant was brutally honest — ‘to the point of scaring me witless’ — about how the surrogacy system can go wrong.

‘He scared the hell out of us with stories he’d heard about the host mothers wanting to keep the baby,’ says Amy. ‘But in a way that was only right. It is a confusing business, and the potential to be led up the garden path is there. We were mindful of it.’

Gemma, however, says she felt no bond with the baby. ‘I felt protective towards him, but I always knew this wasn’t my baby,’ she says. ‘I was just the vehicle.’

The birth, a natural one in September, was highly emotional.

‘I think everyone cried,’ says Amy. ‘I was certainly sobbing. We’d discussed it all before and as soon as he appeared, he was placed in my arms. It just seemed surreal, like the best dream ever.’

When he was just nine days old, Theo was guest of honour at a special party to mark his arrival. Guests included hundreds of COTS parents — both biological and surrogate — and surrogate children of all ages.

It was emotional day — and one of immense pride for Kim, who hails baby Theo and his family as ‘the most positive example of surrogacy you can get, an absolute model for how it should be’.

But even the most textbook surrogate birth is much more complicated than most realise.

In the weeks since Theo’s birth, everyone concerned has been plunged into a legal and ethical nightmare.

A major shock, for instance, came when filling in Theo’s birth certificate. All involved knew the law requires the birth mother to be named there. Only after a document called a parental order has been applied for and granted (a process that can take nine months) can Amy be legally regarded as the mother.

But at the point of registration, the law demands that Gemma’s husband Rob — who had nothing to do with the conception and did not want to be named — must be recorded on the birth certificate as the father.

‘It didn’t make sense,’ says Amy. ‘If Gemma had a child biologically with another man other than Rob, she would have been free to record that other man’s name as the father of the child.

‘But because this was a surrogacy case, her husband was the only one who could be named. It seems mad.’

As do so many things that are unique to surrogacy babies. Both Amy and Gemma talk of the ‘ridiculous’ situation they are in at the moment where, as the ‘legal’ mother, Gemma must sign any consent forms if Theo needs hospital care.

‘He is Amy’s child,’ says Gemma. ‘Biologically, he is Amy’s child. Morally, he is Amy’s. Yet in law he is mine. How is that right?’

Opponents are keen to keep tight controls on surrogacy laws, to prevent the commodification of human life and the exploitation of vulnerable women.

But one thing is not in doubt: despite the deeply held reservations many still have over this controversial practice — dubbed ‘wombs for hire’ — the UK surrogacy scene has never been more buoyant.

The explosion in the number of same-sex couples wanting to have a family has led to increased demand for surrogate services.

At the same time, poorer countries such as India and Thailand — once meccas for British couples wanting a surrogate — have tightened their laws, putting further pressure on the UK system and leading to an ‘unprecedented shortage’ of volunteers.

All this means that the subject is being raised at more influential levels than around the coffee table in Amy’s home.

Former Labour MP Julie Hilling has spoken about the issue in Parliament, while fertility lawyer Louisa Ghevaert, who advises couples who find themselves in legal limbo, says change is long overdue.

‘We are talking about laws that were brought in 30 years ago and based very much on the IVF side of fertility treatment.

‘We all have heard of people who fall foul of the system when they go abroad for treatment, then have problems getting that baby back into the country.

‘But there are also problems here. I recently dealt with a couple who split up after their surrogate baby was born, before they had been able to apply for a parental order. As the law stands, a single mother cannot apply for an order — which left my client in a terrible situation.’

In this case, other legal procedures were put in place, but the ‘legal limbo’ can go on for years.

Interestingly, it’s not only those within the fertility industry who are supporting updates in the law. Baroness Warnock herself — who was vehemently anti-surrogacy when she wrote the report in 1984 — revealed earlier this year that she has changed her mind on the issue.

‘I do feel ashamed of the stance I took about surrogacy,’ she said in a meeting with fertility industry professionals, claiming that many of the ethical concerns that led her to recommend legal measures that discouraged surrogacy were no longer valid.

‘We now feel far less threatened by “unorthodox” forms of family than we did 30 years ago,’ she concluded.

The horror stories that Baroness Warnock was doubtless so worried about are still happening, though.

Why must I be made to feel ashamed of my own baby?: Amy holding baby Theo next to Gemma in hospital

Earlier this year, Benita Cutter, 49, appeared in court to describe how she and her husband Mark had been roundly fleeced by the surrogate who was supposed to make their dreams come true.

When they first started chatting to Samantha Brown online, she claimed to be a policewoman who wanted to ‘change someone’s life through surrogacy’.

The Cutters agreed to pay expenses of around £8,000 and in July 2013, they made the journey to Scotland with a container of Mark’s sperm.

Eight weeks later, Samantha said she was pregnant. Yet she wasn’t. They only discovered they were victims of an elaborate scam when they were told baby ‘Tommie’ had been stillborn. They were even sent a macabre photo of his ‘body’.

In January, Samantha pleaded guilty to fraud at Inverness Sheriff Court and was sentenced to two years in prison.

Then there’s the case of ‘serial surrogate’ Jacqui Shields. The 49-year-old McDonald’s worker from Cheshire had six surrogate children and admits she’s a ‘surrogacy addict’. But her story became more questionable when she helped her own daughter, Becky, to become a surrogate, too.

‘Becky was just 20, with no boyfriend and no job,’ says Jacqui. ‘I thought she was way too young, but she wouldn’t be talked out of it so I helped put her in touch with a gay couple.’ It was disastrous. In December 2009, Becky handed over the baby but was left, said her mother, ‘emotionally devastated’.

No one can yet know whether horror stories such as these can ever be avoided — even with changes to the law. But campaigners are adamant that it is only by operating inside the main charities and support groups that progress will be made.

‘For every horror story, there are countless others that have a happy ending,’ says Kim Cotton.

‘The dream is that we get it right 100 per cent of the time.’