First Step in Surrogacy: Understand the Process
As an intended parent, the decision to embark on a surrogacy journey is a deeply personal and life-changing decision. It can be a decision that encompasses a lot of emotions on each end of the spectrum. There can be excitement and hope for meeting your future child, but there may also be grieving about landing on this route.
Once you start to consider building your family through surrogacy, you may also feel overwhelmed about where to even begin the process. All of these feelings are incredibly normal and valid.
There are so many big emotions involved in the surrogacy process, we want to be there for you and build community support for you on your journey.
Our agency is dedicated to offering personalized support to both intended parents and surrogates, and whether you decide to add us to your support team, we believe in sharing resources that will help anyone feel more informed throughout their surrogacy journey.
At the end of the day, we truly hope that all the big feelings you may be feeling at this moment transform at the end into something wonderful: the sheer joy of holding your newborn baby in your arms.
This blog post will help you as you work towards that goal by offering a comprehensive guide that will walk you through the essential steps of starting your surrogacy journey.
Before embarking on a surrogacy journey, it’s important to understand what it entails. You might want to learn the difference between an independent and agency-supported journey and decide which feels right for you. We always advise an agency-supported journey, especially for those new to the process. There is just so much that goes into a surrogacy journey; it can be an additional full-time job for the intended parents and the surrogate to ensure everything is properly managed during a surrogacy journey.
In addition, understanding the financial investment that surrogacy requires is also an important part of the beginning of your journey. A surrogacy journey is a lot like a puzzle. It requires so many pieces for everything to work together. These pieces include your clinic, agency, surrogate, lawyer, mental health professionals, etc.—and each plays an essential part in your surrogacy team. Understanding why each piece is needed helps intended parents plan for the funding of their journey. (If you need helpful tips, read our blog, “How to Fund Your Surrogacy Journey.”)
Support groups like those at RESOLVE.org are also a great place to learn more about the process. If you reach out to surrogacy agencies to learn more about them and their unique process, remember you should never feel pressure to commit to anything over a phone call—and you should never have to put down any money, especially before you fully understand what they can do to help you.
If you’re not sure where to start, our team is always willing to answer any questions intended parents have in a no-pressure environment.
Second Step in Surrogacy: Create Your Embryos
Depending on your circumstances, you may have already created embryos. If this is the case for you, you can jump down to the next step. But if you are a parent who is just starting the process without embryos, maybe as a same-sex parent, single parent, or a couple who will need to pursue surrogacy due to trauma or a medical diagnosis, it is a great idea to have embryo creation as one of the first steps of embarking on your journey.
In order to find the best doctor and clinic for you to create your embryos, you have a number of options:
- Consult with your Surrogacy Is IP Coordinator for recommendations and introductions to the IVF clinics with the highest success rates and best track record for collaboration with gestational surrogates.
- Research the IVF clinics in your area.
- Ask for reviews and experiences from other intended parents.
- Compare success rates from multiple clinics.
- Ask what kind of resources they can connect you to, if you need donor assistance (egg donor, sperm donor, or embryo donor).
- If you have specific medical needs, make sure they can accommodate you.
- Remember that not all reproductive endocrinologists have experience with TPR (Third Party Reproduction) and that there is a lot of nuance in care for gestational surrogacy arrangements.
The best clinic for your specific needs may require some traveling, and that’s okay. You want to work with a doctor and clinic you not only feel comfortable with, but also has a proven track record of success in helping intended parents in similar situations to yours..
After you have chosen a doctor and clinic, they will work with you to start the embryo creation process. This could mean undergoing the IVF process yourself and/or reviewing donor databases to find the ideal gamete donor for your preferences. After your embryos have been created, you will freeze and store them at the clinic until you have solidified a surrogate match.
Third Step in Surrogacy: Find Your Ideal Agency
Once you’re ready to commit to the process, the next step is to review and find the agency that checks all of your boxes.
Finding an agency you can trust is one of your most important decisions. The agency you choose will be your guiding light through hard times and good times, for the better part of 18 months to two years.
A reliable agency will guide you through the entire journey, from matching you with a qualified surrogate to coordinating with your medical, legal, psychological, and financial teams to make sure no steps are missed in this complex journey.
Your agency is the professional opinion you trust to get you and your surrogate through every step of the process so that you don’t have to worry or stress about what comes next.
When shopping for agencies, we always recommend that you ask them the following must-ask questions:
- What kind of screening do surrogates undergo before being accepted by the agency?
- Do you have a waitlist, and if so, how long is it?
- How long does finding a match with your agency take, and how many surrogates are ready to match today?
- Do I need to pay any upfront fees to see surrogate profiles?
- Are there any rematch fees if a match falls through?
- Do you use an in-house escrow company or a third-party escrow company?
- Do surrogates and intended parents use the same attorney for legal contracts?
- How many cases do your Case Managers/Journey Coordinators handle at a time?
- How long is the average journey length for intended parents at your agency from start to finish?
- What type of support and services do you provide throughout the journey for both surrogates and intended parents?
It’s easy for a lot of agencies to talk a big talk, so in addition to these questions, we always recommend that you check out their reviews or ask if there are any intended parents or surrogates you could talk to about their experience.
Perusing through their website and social media accounts is also a great way to get an idea of their culture, their founders, and see how they support and educate their surrogates and intended parents.
You want to find an agency that won’t treat you as just another “number.” You’ll want to find an agency that is supportive, responsive, knowledgeable, and with whom you feel comfortable reaching out whenever you need it.
The agency you choose will also impact the type of surrogates you will meet, so make sure the agency is doing its part to thoroughly screen, educate, and offer support to their surrogates as well.
Fourth Step in Surrogacy: Matching with a Qualified Surrogate
Once you’ve landed on a surrogacy agency, you’re ready for the next step…meeting the person who is going to help you bring your child into the world.
This stage can oddly feel like dating. Your agency will send you a surrogate profile to review so you can decide whether or not you’d like to meet her. The profile usually gives an overview of her family, interests, and hopes for a journey.
When reviewing her journey hopes, and expectations, you’ll want to make sure they align with your preferences regarding termination, communication style, and relationship expectations, like whether or not you wish to stay in touch once the journey is over.
Your agency should have done preliminary screening on your surrogate to ensure she was a great candidate for a surrogacy journey. Still, as an extra measure, some agencies, like Surrogacy Is, will also send a potential surrogate’s records to your fertility clinic before even setting up a match call. This helps save potential heartbreak later if your clinic sees something that would prevent them from working with her.
If all sides agree to meet, a match call is scheduled, usually over a virtual video program like Zoom or Google Meet. Someone from your agency should also be on the call to help facilitate conversation. After the call, both sides will get time to share with the agency if they want to move forward or not.
If, after the call, it doesn’t feel like a good fit, do not hesitate to say so. Just make sure to share why so the agency can use that when looking for another surrogate. Your agency should never try to force a match. The match is what makes a happy, successful journey. Many intended parents and surrogates know moments after the call if they want to move forward or not, but it’s okay to have follow-up questions or ask for more clarification if anything in the call gave you pause, or raised more questions you hadn’t thought of before.
Fifth Step in Surrogacy: Your Surrogate’s In-Person Medical Screening
After you have been officially matched with your surrogate, the next step is for her to travel to your fertility clinic for an in-person medically screening. This screening will feel a lot like an annual women’s well exam for your surrogate. Your surrogate will undergo some blood tests and baseline ultrasounds to assess her hormone levels and to provide a baseline to help the fertility doctors determine her IVF medication for transfer.
They will also look for abnormalities like cysts, fibroids, or polyps that may prevent moving forward. They will also run a drug test, just for peace of mind.
Intended parents will need to establish their escrow account (see more about this in step seven) around this time to cover the medical screening. This includes covering the travel arrangements for your surrogate and her support person, as well as daily food allowances while traveling. If your surrogate requires childcare while she is away, you may need to cover those expenses as well.
Intended parents don’t usually accompany their surrogate to her in-person medical screening appointment. Although some intended parents will arrange a lunch or a special meeting with their surrogate if they are local to their fertility clinic and they have a desire to meet her in person. This is not required or expected, and is totally up to you and how you’re feeling at this stage in the process.
Sixth Step in Surrogacy: Legal Preparations
Once you are matched with your amazing surrogate, the most crucial part of the process is to ensure everything is legal.
Your agency should be able to provide a list of referrals for ART (Assisted Reproductive Technology) attorneys who meet your specific legal needs. Everything from your marital status, to embryo creation, to your location, or your gestational surrogate’s state of residence can impact your legal needs.
Following the guidance of your agency, you and your surrogate should both be able to find the right legal experts to guide you through the contract and parentage processes. Surrogates and intended parents must have separate legal counsel during the contract stage, and our agency also requires any selected attorney to have at least five years of experience in fertility law.
Having separate legal counsel for both parties should be a non-negotiable requirement with any agency to avoid any biases or conflicts of interest, perceived or otherwise.
Your legal team will help you draft a contract that includes your surrogate’s compensation and benefits, parental rights, and the plans for all the what-if scenarios so that everything is legally binding.
They will also help you understand and handle all the paperwork once it comes time to establish parentage, so you are lawfully documented as the rightful parents of your child. Every state has different procedures for establishing parentage, whether it’s pre-birth or post-birth, so it’s critical to have an attorney licensed and well-versed in the laws of the state where your surrogate will deliver to help in this process.
We aren’t going to lie; the legal stage can feel long, tedious, and anxiety-inducing, but it is possibly the most critical piece in your surrogacy journey. It’s also a process you don’t want to rush or try to breeze through.
Keep in mind it takes time to make sure everything is handled correctly. The legal process can take anywhere between three weeks to several months, depending on the timeliness of turnaround during drafting and negotiations, and everyone’s availability
Seventh Step in Surrogacy: Fully Funding Your Escrow
After all parties have signed and agreed to a legal contract, your clinic will be notified and will get ready to issue a cycle calendar and order meds for your surrogate! Prior to starting medications, your agency will ask you to fully fund your escrow account to cover all anticipated costs for the journey ahead.
Escrow is set up to help remove stress from your plate as well as to protect the financial commitments you are making to your surrogate. It also helps intended parents manage all the financial aspects of the journey so that they don’t have to have awkward money talks with their surrogate.
An escrow allows you to put the money aside for your journey and not have to worry about unexpected costs coming up as you go.
At Surrogacy Is, we work with reputable third-party escrow companies that are bonded, insured, and securely held in attorney-managed accounts.
Eighth Step in Surrogacy: Transferring Your Embryo
Once you reach this step, everything starts to feel real-real. This is when your surrogate starts her cycle calendar to prepare her body for transfer, where your sweet embryo will hopefully find a comforting home within her uterus to grow for the next 9ish months.
Transfer procedures are done at your IVF clinic. Your surrogate will come into town for the appointment, and depending on your schedule and proximity, some intended parents use this opportunity to meet their surrogate face-to-face and accompany her on the exciting day, although this isn’t required and isn’t always possible for everyone.
After the procedure, you and your surrogate may want to grab some McDonald’s fries (an old surrogacy superstition for extra luck to get the embryo to stick) and then get some much-earned rest. It usually takes 2 weeks after transfer to know if implantation was successful.
During this time (often referred to as the dreaded two-week wait), some intended parents will ask their surrogate to take home pregnancy tests and share the results. It’s important to remember that the results of these tests aren’t always accurate. If you feel like your emotions won’t be able to take the uncertainty of these tests, it’s okay to ask your surrogate to wait until the blood test, which will be taken 9-14 days after transfer.
When the blood/BETA tests come back positive, congratulations, you are officially expecting a baby!
The Next Step in Surrogacy? Watching Your Baby Grow!
After you receive a positive pregnancy test, this might feel like the marker to the official start of your surrogacy journey, when in reality, you’ve already done so much and worked so hard to get to this point. Your dedication and resilience to this process are a testament to how loved and wanted your baby is.
At this point, you get to bond with your surrogate and share in the experience of watching your baby grow. Before you know it, you’ll be holding your little one in your arms, and it will have felt like ages ago that you were reading this blog and prepping to start your own surrogacy journey!
Start Your Journey with Surrogacy Is
As you begin the process of your surrogacy journey, our agency wants to wish you the best of luck!
If you’re interested in learning more about working with us, we would be honored to help you on your path to parenthood. Our agency was founded on the belief that for the best surrogacy experiences to happen, both surrogates and intended parents should be supported throughout the whole process.
We understand that our intended parents have to go through so much to become parents, and we want to make getting there just a little bit easier. That’s why we have a 90-day match guarantee, so parents aren’t sitting on years-long waitlists.
We also don’t require any money upfront to start your journey; our agency fee is paid in two installments, the first installment due only when you’ve officially been matched with a surrogate, and the second when she has passed her in-person medical clearance.
We do this to reduce your financial risk because we never want a parent to pay for anything until their journey has been secured to move forward with a qualified surrogate.
On top of that, we also include mental health sessions for all intended parents with experienced mental health professionals well-versed in third-party family building who can help you navigate all the emotions and situations that come with surrogacy.
We also make sure your surrogate is well taken care of and well-educated about what to expect, because we believe this results in a happier experience for everyone.
If you want to learn more about our agency support or how to start finding your ideal surrogate, we would love to connect! To do so, please fill out our interest form here.
