Surrogacy 101
This post originally appeared on my blog, John Muir Trail Adventure. After my first surrogate had a miscarriage, I hit rock bottom, so much grief and pain. While having a severe panic attack and finding myself in a ball on the floor trying to breath and crying I thought to myself...I gotta get out of here...NOW. At that moment, I made the decision to do the 211 mile hike through the High Sierras known as the John Muir Trail. The trail literally got me through the worst time in my life and I decided to blog about it, but the blog became something more. It became a guide to getting through infertility.
Okay Class…have a seat.
So, since I’ve come forward with my infertility struggles and my partner and I’s choice to use a surrogate, I have had several people come to me with questions about the process…so I’m here to hopefully answer those questions at a group level.
First…no I didn’t find her off craigslist. Heh…no one really asked me that, but the first thought and question that I get is…aren’t you afraid she will get attached to the baby and want to keep it. Hey…this is not a strange question…I thought the same thing before I really got into this journey. Here’s how it works.
Call an agency…find one you trust…do your homework on this! My partner and I were going to Pacific Fertility Center in SF and they recommended Creative Conceptions surrogacy agency. After researching them and talking to them I felt they were amazing and professional, but they also had empathy and love for this process. The woman who runs the show over there was a surrogate herself and so she gets it.
Next you create a profile…it’s a bit like online dating. You write up your story and add some pics…answer a ton of questions about yourself…your relationship with your partner…what you are looking for in a surrogate…i.e. how much contact do you want with them, what will it look like after the baby is born, do you want her to pump breast milk, if there is a complication with the pregnancy will you want her to abort. Trust me…a good agency will cover all the bases. They are tough questions to answer, but they do it so they can match you with a woman that feels and believes the same way you do.
Next, they find someone they think matches what you want and send you their profile…you look over it and have a week to decide if you like her and want to move on to the next step.
The next step is…hey, I like this lady a lot and would love for you to send her my profile. So they do and she then has a week to look over your profile and decide if she likes you. The whole process is a two way street. This woman is not my servant…we aren’t Handmaid’s Tale up in here.
So…say she likes us and we like her now we do a Facetime call and talk for awhile. If then we both feel like it’s a good thing we move on to meeting one on one with the agency.
Okay…this part is big. Next, we all meet up at a restaurant and have dinner…this meal lasts about three hours because we are looking at all the documents and asking a ton of questions of each other. This is literally the woman that will be carrying my child so I want to know everything about her…diet, exercise…all that jazz.
Oh…I forgot…let me put your mind at ease. In order to be a surrogate they must have their own families complete! They must not want any children what so ever. These amazing angel ladies go through extensive psychological and physical and emotional and all the sha bang bang in order to do this. They not only get all this vetting done by the agency, but then my own fertility clinic does their own round of testing on them. For real. These ladies are amazing and will always get my love and respect. They are not doing this for the money…which, they do get paid quite a bit…not enough in my opinion, but they are getting the money. So, after the dinner we have a week to say yes to each other and then we are off to races.
Legal contracts!!!! Now the lawyers start their journey with us and it is extensive. Oh my goodness. The agency gives you a list of lawyers they trust and you interview them as well and see which one fits your needs. We found this amazing woman who knew everything about this field of law and made us feel totally taken care of…so many documents…so much to sign. The surrogate also gets a lawyer and her lawyer talks to ours and then papers are signed. They cover food, pumping, travel…everything.
Then she goes to my clinic and they begin their rounds of testing to approve her. She goes to the therapist there and also my doctor to get her head and her lady bits checked out. After she is approved…
The meds start. Now we need to sync up with her cycle and get her womb ready for the baby. So she starts taking all these shots to stop her own ovulation from happening and get her uterine lining thick and juicy for an embryo to bury it’s little cuteness in and begin to grow. You need to understand as well that this whole process takes about six months to get to an embryo transfer.
The transfer! So…another point to notice is that the surrogate is not genetically connected to this baby at all. Remember…this isn’t Handmaid’s Tale! We supply the egg and the sperm and the clinic creates a beautiful embryo for us. If you want to get technical they ensure a 5 day blastocyst for us. This means they create an embryo that is 5 days old and already hatching. You want me to get even more technical…eh…not in the mood…go to google and look up what a blastocyst is.
So…we transfer the embryo into the uterus through a catheter…a long tube that goes into our surrogate and finds the perfect spot to implant the embryo. Then we wait.
Now we wait 9 days to do a pregnancy test. Just keep yourself busy and try as best you can not to think about it. Sure. Right.
I should also mention the whole time this is happening she is still doing butt injections to keep the uterine lining thick. I’ve done these injections…they are no joke. Inch and half needle people.
After 9 days if she’s not pregnant you will probably wait a few months to get her body back to it’s starting point and also make sure you have viable embryos to transfer. Making the embryos is another blog post…and a whole other process. Wow.
So!!!! Say she is pregnant…then you take another test two days after the first one to make sure her pregnancy hormones are rising normally. If they are you then have a 7 week ultrasound and then a 9 week one to ensure the lovely little bean is growing and developing as it should. Also, she keeps doing those damn butt injections until the 9 week marker. After 9 weeks we graduate from the fertility clinic to her own OBGYN.
Then the baby plan begins…and the lawyers are called again to go over what will happen after the birth and to also make sure that the hospital knows what’s happening and doesn’t draw up a birth certificate with the surrogate’s name. Very important.
Then the baby! Which I haven’t gotten to yet, but I’ll keep you posted!
Whew! Did you get all that? Huh class…how are we feeling? There will be a test later.
Something you should know…it’s fine to ask questions to me…I can’t speak for everyone going through this, but I am fine with it. Just absolutely no suggestions…don’t even think it. Unless you’ve been there I do not want to hear…why didn’t you…or did you ever think too…
This process is hard and amazing at the same time. Having someone else carry your baby is frustrating and difficult to deal with some times. The women who do this understand that. My surrogate is doing what I can’t and for that I am forever grateful. All she wants in this process is a chance to help someone else create a family. Can you imagine? Can you imagine putting your body through this to help someone else? Any time I think I can’t do something or it’s too damn hard, I think of this woman and tell myself to shut up and just do it.
