05 November 2023 , 16:00
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After suffering three miscarriages and being diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, a woman found herself wondering if she would ever be able to have a child.
When she hit her 40s, she and her husband decided to try one last time to have their own baby so paid a surrogate "lots of money" to help them out. However shortly after the baby was born, the pair realised something wasn't quite right with the little boy and the woman's partner found himself no longer wanting the baby.
The unnamed man shared their very difficult situation in a post on Reddit, asking if he was in the wrong for feeling the way he does. The post, which has since been deleted, explained how excited they'd been about having a baby, but when the little one was born, they discovered there had been a huge mix-up.
It turned out the surrogacy company and sperm bank had used the wrong sperm and the man was not actually the baby's father. He said: "So my wife and I have always wanted our own child. She is unable to carry a pregnancy due to her PCOS and has suffered three miscarriages in the past.
"We paid lots of money to a surrogate in order to have our own child together. The surrogate was a nice lady who took care of her body and we got along very well. My wife and I were so excited the day she gave birth but once I saw the baby I knew that there was something wrong. The baby had Asian features, black hair and brown eyes when we are both white, blonde folks with blue eyes.
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"We immediately brought up the issue with the doctors and asked for a DNA test. I am not the father." He continued: "We are both really devastated over this and contacted the surrogacy and sperm bank and they did an investigation and told us that there was an 'extremely rare' mix-up and offered us financial compensation.
"We don't care about race, we are just upset that the baby wasn't both of us. Am I the a**hole for wanting to take legal action against the agency and not keep the baby?" More than 4,000 people commented on the post while it was still live, with many being furious that he would even consider giving the baby up.
One person said: "Wow this is stunningly sad." Another wrote: "As a man, I would feel hurt. I would feel partially emasculated. But if this is something I wanted, and my wife wanted, I wouldn't waste the chance given to us simply because of the organisation's f*** up." A third added: "You brought this child into the world, you now have the responsibility to take care of it."
However some were a little more sympathetic. "You seem to completely ignore the fact that they were trying for their own baby," said a different user. "If they wanted just a baby, they could have adopted a boy or girl which might be cheaper than a surrogate mother."