Monica Kass Rogers
Special to the Sentinel

The glittery-pink Stardust banquet room in Chicago buzzes with baby-shower clatter. Girlfriends dish. Aunts snap photos. And first-time parents Ewa and Michael Lichodziejewski say thanks again and again.

The very pregnant woman at the front of the room isn't Ewa, though. It's Karah Janssen, the baby's gestational surrogate. And as Ewa and Michael unwrap stacks of booties, blankets and baby gear, Janssen opens boxes of soothing bath treatments and certificates for spa services and weekend getaways.

The high point? A diamond ring Ewa tearfully presents to Karah, along with the announcement that the baby's middle name will be Karah.

"This is a big moment for all of us," says Janssen, who also is Michael's sister. "A day when I get to celebrate nearing the end of my role and see them celebrate the beginning of theirs."

As more couples turn to surrogacy via in-vitro fertilization, showers for the women giving birth are gaining greater cultural acceptance. There are more than 1,000 surrogate births a year, according to the Organization of Parents Through Surrogacy (opts.com), a national support group for families who use surrogates. As a result, birth rituals are expanding to embrace and honor surrogate moms.

"Gifts, flowers, cruises, showers, special parties . . . I've seen examples of all of these," says Hilary Hanafin, a Los Angeles psychologist who has counseled surrogate mothers and intended parents for 23 years. "New rituals like these fill a psychological need. They help couples receiving the child and the surrogate who will birth the child transition into their new roles."

The majority of surrogate mothers today are gestational surrogates -- those who carry to term a baby conceived through in-vitro fertilization. The fertilized egg, which contains the genetic material of at least one of the intended parents, is then implanted in the surrogate's womb.

Gestational surrogates have largely replaced traditional surrogates, who donate their own eggs and are artificially inseminated, typically with the intended father's sperm. But infertile couples are bypassing that route as in-vitro fertilization improves and in an effort to avoid thorny legal issues such as who is the legal parent.

Most surrogates are paid $18,000 to $25,000 for their role on top of pregnancy- and birthing-related expenses. But motivation for becoming a surrogate often goes beyond the money, say surrogates and surrogate facilitators. The commitment to being a surrogate spans about two years and includes many medical appointments, hormone injections and the possibility of a high-risk pregnancy.

Relationship affects surrogate

As a result, a surrogate's emotional recovery after the pregnancy can be linked to how the intended parents treat her, Hanafin says.

"If they were distant, officious and had minimal contact, it's no surprise that that made for a more difficult recovery," she says. "If they were warm, gracious and inclusive, that had a more positive effect."

Less fear in the relationships would be good, says Carole Jackson, a 44-year-old mother of two from Murrieta, Calif. She has had two surrogate pregnancies: one at 35; the second -- twins -- at 38.

"After my husband and I had a boy and a girl of our own, we knew our family was complete," Jackson says. "But I had friends who were infertile and saw how much pain they felt. I so much enjoyed being a mother and couldn't imagine my life without children . . . it started me thinking about doing this for someone else."

The relationships that developed with the intended parents in Jackson's surrogate pregnancies differed. "With one, I felt completely honored and was able to celebrate with the family. To this day, I feel really good about it. With the other, [I was included] not at all. I felt so empty at the end, like it was something I dreamt."

Jackson and other surrogates point out they are not as interested in being in the limelight as they are in helping bring joy to an infertile couple.

"Gifts are nice, but when you're included in a family celebration, where you get to meet grandparents and extended family, that's what you remember years later," Jackson says.

Celebrations can take various forms, says Sherrie Smith, a program administrator for the Center for Surrogate Parenting Inc. The agency in Annapolis, Md., matches surrogates and intended parents.

"Just as you traditionally have separate baby showers with the people you work with and your family, a surrogate may have a party with her support group and attend a different celebration with her own family or with the intended parents' families."

Last month, Ewa Lichodziejewski and her mother-in-law invited Janssen and her girlfriends to an end-of-pregnancy party, designed to celebrate Janssen, the surrogate.

Similarly, toward the end of Lisa Wippler's third surrogate pregnancy, friends threw her a surprise "Completing the Journey" party with lots of bath and spa gifts.

The party was a "very positive emotional release," says Wippler, a 33-year-old mother of two boys in Menifee, Calif.

Having a party that puts the focus back on self-care was "a blessing," Wippler says. "Because when a surrogate comes home from the hospital, there's less of a grace period. People expect her to bounce right back."

Changes ahead

Surrogate and fertility experts say awkwardness about what's appropriate should decrease as surrogate births increase.

"In the past, there was a lot of mystery shrouding surrogacy," says Marie Davidson, staff psychologist for Fertility Centers of Illinois, a reproductive-medicine practice. "But today you don't have to go far to find someone within your social circle who's gone through IVF."

Some changes, however, will come more slowly. Timing, for example. Though baby showers traditionally happen before birth, Chicago attorney Nidhi Desai says families involved in surrogate births are more likely to want to celebrate after the fact, including surrogate moms in a bris, christening or baptism.

"You've got to remember, these couples have been through unbelievable stress," Desai says. "They're going to have a hard time celebrating until after the baby is safely born."

Monica Kass Rogers wrote this for the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.