A child of a surrogate mother, now a fighter against the industry
by Lennart Nijenhuis, Mercator:
Olivia Maurel always knew something was “off” about her birth. The secretive behaviour of her mother made it clear to her: the woman who raised her did not give birth to her. “There were no pictures of my pregnant mother, and I am five days old in the first pictures of me.”
The 31-year-old was born through surrogacy in the American state of Kentucky. In her home in Cannes, southern France, the now mother-of-three opens up about her search for her identity, the daily consequences of surrogacy and her fight against the legalisation of the practice in France. “We neglect the effect surrogacy has on children.”
Growing up as an only child in a well-off family, Maurel says she got everything she could ever ask for. “I had a very good education, and my parents dressed me in the best clothes.” However, emotionally speaking, Maurel claims to have lacked a lot. “It was difficult for me to grow up in a family where emotions and feelings were little talked about.”
Maurel faces the consequences of that every day. “My husband sometimes says that I hardly ever hug him. Well, no one ever taught me to hug.”
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