There are 3 essential people that you need to locate to help you create your child through surrogacy. First, you need a sperm donor. Second, you need an egg donor and third, you need a surrogate mother. In some cases you or your partner may be able to provide the DNA (egg and / or sperm). In other cases, you will need to locate all three of these people to help you with your journey.
Simply googling sperm donor, egg donor or surrogate will take you far in your search. Although you may gain access to sperm donor databases almost immediately, you will not find your egg donor, nor surrogate immediately. For these two, you will need to complete an intended parent application. So there may be a day or two between completing the application and gaining access to the information about the egg donors and surrogate.
As you narrow the field and determine which company you are working with, you will no doubt find people there who are guiding and directing you. These people will play a significant role in your process.
Generally speaking, you will look for your people in the order suggested above. First you’ll find your sperm donor, then your egg donor and finally your surrogate. And there are good reasons for this. Your sperm is generally on ice, so it can wait while you find the rest of your team. No need courting a surrogate, until you already have your egg donor in place. Remember once you have your egg donor, you want to find that surrogate pretty quickly thereafter, so as not to gobble up your egg donor’s time. This is after all, business for them and time is money!
In addition to these three essential people, you will also need an IVF doctor to handle the medical issues and a lawyer to handle the legal matters associated with your surrogacy arrangement.
Once you have selected your egg donor and surrogate, your doctor will screen them to be sure they are suitable for your needs. Don’t be surprised if you have to go back to the drawing board and review the databases again to select a new egg donor or surrogate.
You will need a lawyer to represent your interests in the writing of your contracts with both the egg donor and the surrogate, should there be a dispute in the future. In fact, you will also have to pay for your egg donor and your surrogate to have their own separate lawyer to represent them in the preparation and final signing of these same contracts.
All of that said, of course you will also need the doctor, or clinic, mentioned above, who will handle the clearance of the egg donor and surrogate, as well as the syncing of their cycles, the egg removal, fertilization of the egg with the sperm, observation of the embryos as they divide, and the transfer of the embryos into the surrogate.
Later on you will interface with the hospital staff where your baby is born. This location is generally up to the discretion of the surrogate herself. Of course, the hospital has something to do with the surrogate’s insurance. If she is uninsured, you can purchase insurance for her for this purpose. Then the insurance that you purchase will have some bearing on which hospital the baby is born in.
One word of caution, if your baby or babies as the case may be end up in the NICU you will have a significant bill that you can look forward to paying for. If there is anyway you can manage having the baby born in a hospital that is within network for your insurance you can significantly reduce that bill. It is worth it to consider this issue upfront.
So to sum up, the people that you will be looking for include your sperm donor, your egg donor and your surrogate, as well as your IVF doctor and your reproductive law lawyer.
So have at it! Those babies won’t make themselves! Go great guns in your search! Happy hunting!
Lisa J Lafave, PhD, MBA, ACC
The Surrogacy Coach at Surrogacy Rocks
CEO & Founder of Coaching Rocks, LLC
A Single Mom By Choice Raising Surrogacy Twin Boys
Written in My Little Brick in Univeristy Heights, Ohio
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