What is a Surrogate Mother?

Having a baby is the biggest blessing which one couple can have. It presents a new beginning and writing a new chapter in their lives. When you and your partner are finally ready for baby, you’re starting to work on the case. But sometimes things aren’t going as easy as you thought. For some, reproduction is simple and for others, it presents a real challenge.

The last two decades the theme for Surrogacy is very popular and numerous couples who are facing problems and fertility have found the answer for their problems in Surrogacy.  We can say that Surrogacy is the last chance for those who want to become parents and at this moment it looks like the most reasonable and real solution.

So let’s take a closer look in the most important things that you should know about Surrogacy.

The first and most important thing that couples are interested in is surrogate.

We can define a surrogate mother like a female person elder than 18 years, which without any compensation or acquisition of any material gain, and for the purpose of giving birth to a donor or other person, carries the embryo by the initial procedure of biomedical Assisted Fertilization. In fact, we can say that surrogate mothers are women who are ”lending” their uterus to couples who can’t have children and in the next nine months their uterus serves like an incubator.

We must highlight that not anyone can be a surrogate. The potential mother must do some medical tests to show that she can take care of the baby during the whole pregnancy and she must have a medical prove for that. The second condition in some countries is that the potential mother has to have already one or two children and if she is married her husband is supposed to give written approval for this kind of procedure. One more key element for surrogate mother is that she is not allowed to have a criminal file and must show moral and psychological maturity as well as good physical condition. 

For every surrogate mother is forbidden consuming alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes and it is recommended that she must have a healthy diet. In everyday life, we have a lot of examples for surrogate mothers who are blood relatives with women who can’t have children. For example, sister can be a surrogate for her sister or mother can give birth to her daughter. The most important thing about surrogate mothers and their relatives is that their children aren’t different from others. There are made researches about this and it’s proved that children from surrogate families don’t show differences in behavior, temperament, general activity and adaptability to new situations and predictability of reactions in relation to children from natural families.

Once you have decided to make your dream come true with a little help, you must be asking yourself where you can find a surrogate mother. This should not present a big problem. Today there are a lot of Surrogacy Agencies you can contact. The good thing is that their number is getting bigger every day and you should only choose which one is the best for you, to see their offers, do they have any special conditions and of course the way they are working. We can say that choosing the right Surrogacy Agency is the most important step once you’re ready to go through this process. It’s because even in 21st-century Surrogacy is still illegal in some countries and in this process you need a really good and professional agency to lead you. 

With a little Internet research you can find a lot of agencies, so you can summarize the ones you liked and contact them. You must know that you can choose your surrogate on your own. As we already said, it can be some blood relative or it can be some close friend to your family who is ready to do this step. In this case, the agency you are working with also has to do the needed tests and to approve you that the person you choose is compatible to go through the whole process. If you can’t find a person on your own then you can ask the agency for help. 

Most of them have a huge database of potential surrogates, so it’s their obligation to talk with you to and the potential surrogate mother, to present the whole procedure and to make every step easier for both sides in this complicated process. The agency must do all the needed tests and requirements on the surrogate and then decide if she capable of giving birth. Their job is to make Surrogacy a good experience for the intended parents and give them a precious gift at the end. Yes, there are many Surrogacy clinics and you wonder why you need a Surrogacy Agency? You will need the agency because you will work with professionals. You can not be in the process all alone because you wouldn’t know what to expect. Instead of being busy with paperwork, legalities and medical information, your work is going to be only focusing on the new member in your family. The agency is going to manage the entire process for you.

When you are ready to start this procedure you will want to know how much this process will cost you. You must know that the price is flexible and it depends on some factors.

Every case is special and unique, but if we take the average cost of Surrogacy that would be from $90,000 to $130,000 and it depends on the individual arrangements. The price can be different from state to state. For example in Ukraine Surrogacy cost(click) would be about $55,000, in Canada and Greece $80,000 and in Asia or Africa, it will cost you $45,000.

Independent Surrogacy is less expensive because you don’t work with an agency, instead, you work directly with the future surrogate and clinic. The average cost of an independent Surrogacy will cost you from $20,000 to $30,000. Before you make a decision about independent Surrogacy you must be sure that you can perform all tasks that are required, are you ready to start the procedure without professional help and a guide to make all this process easier for you.

We mentioned several times before that the Surrogacy is a complicated and unique process. Once you’ve decided that this is a solution for you like intended parents, you would want to know more about it. We’re here to explain to you the most significant things about this process. For the beginning, you must know that there are two types of Surrogacy.

We have traditional and Gestational Surrogacy. More common is the Gestational Surrogacy so in this article, we will pay more attention to it.

The first thing you need to know is what actually Gestational Surrogacy is. In this type of surrogacy, the child isn’t biologically connected to the surrogate mother who is carrying him.

 The child is biologically connected with the intended parents or at least with one parent.

This is why the Gestational Surrogacy is most common for almost all intended parents. Gestational Surrogacy involves different medical procedure. This means that the embryo is created from the eggs and sperm from the intended parents or at least from one of them. It also can be from a donor. The reason why couples are choosing this process of Surrogacy is that the intended parents may have good eggs and sperm but from different medical reasons, the woman can’t carry the child the whole pregnancy. We can give an example where one woman can produce healthy eggs but her uterus was damaged due to some injury or it is completely removed from the woman from some reason.  And thanks to the Gestational Surrogacy it doesn’t have to mean that she can’t have a child who is carrying her genes. This whole procedure can be done only with the process of an In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and of course the surrogate - at this process known as a gestational carrier.

Like there is a difference between Traditional and Gestational Surrogacy, also there is a difference between traditional and gestational surrogate. Only the name is telling us what is a Gestational Carrier when the same process of Gestational Surrogacy is familiar to us. A Gestational Carrier is a woman who carries the child but she doesn’t have any biological connects to him. That’s the main difference from the traditional surrogate mother. The traditional surrogate is connected to the child and we can consider her as a donor of the eggs, but the gestational surrogate is only a carrier. This is the reason why we can’t say that surrogate and gestational surrogate are the same things. The gestational carrier and the intended parents must pass more medical tests than usual because this type of Surrogacy is more complicated and more demanding.

This process is more demanding because the intended parents and the potential surrogate are going to pass through the process of In Vitro Fertilization, known as IVF.

In Vitro Fertilization is a process where eggs and sperm are taken from the intended parents and professionals are fertilizing the eggs in their laboratories and then the embryo (or embryos) is placed to the uterus of the Gestational Carrier. Thanks to the IVF a woman can still be a genetic mother to her child even if she can’t have the child on her own or putting her child’s life in danger. Some women are choosing to go through this process because they have undergone several pregnancy losses. The process of IVF is more complicated because there are things that this process demands. Some of them are intending the menstrual cycle of the intended mother and the surrogate, replacement hormones and the most important it’s the creating of the embryo from the eggs and sperm from the intended parents. This process must be made by professionals in Fertility Clinics.

This process can cost from $75,000 to $150,000. This cost includes all the necessary medical exams for the parents and the surrogate, counseling costs and agencies fees. 

But there is always a cheaper solution.  

Check out Surrogacy cost(click)

Thanks to the science this process are becoming routine for couples who can’t have children.

As we already said, this is the easier choice for many couples because they are biologically connected with their child.

We can say that this is the solution and hope that everyone can have a healthy baby because at these recent years thousands of babies are born in this way.

We all conserve for better tomorrow and big families, and if you haven’t the opportunity before to make your family bigger now you have the chance. You just need to decide are you ready to go through this process when you already have the chance to make your life complete. Just look at all the celebrities who became parents using this process.

Why not use the chance that is given to you? Maybe it will be a difficult, demanding and sometimes exhausting process, but inq the end, when you meet your new baby you are going to forget everything. When life is giving you choice, make the best one! This is the hope for all women who were planning big families and faced with problems.