Top 3 unexpected things or things you wish you would have known about surrogacy!
Learn the answer to this week's user-submitted question about surrogacy in this week's installment of Ask a Surrogacy Expert! Have a question about surrogacy that you'd like answered? Submit it at https://www.brightfuturesfamilies.com/ask
Surrogacy Process Timeline and Complexity
The surrogacy journey takes significantly longer than just pregnancy, often spanning 18 months to 2 years due to multiple pre-pregnancy steps.
The process includes legal contracts, medical screening, psychological evaluations, and an application to confirm eligibility before embryo transfer.
The extended timeline reflects the depth and thoroughness needed to ensure all medical and legal safeguards are in place.
The agency’s role is critical in managing these complex steps, helping surrogates navigate unknown requirements efficiently and reducing delays.
This extended process impacts scheduling and resource planning for all parties involved, setting realistic expectations upfront.
Importance of Agency Support
Using an agency, specifically Bright Futures Families, greatly eases the surrogacy process by providing expert guidance through all phases.
Even experienced surrogates benefit from agency support because the process has many unseen complexities.
The agency serves as a key resource for clarifying detailed medical, legal, and psychological steps, reducing uncertainty and errors.
This support improves the surrogate’s experience, increasing likelihood of successful completion and satisfaction.
Agency involvement represents a strategic advantage compared to independent surrogacy, impacting overall success rates.
Personal and Relationship Impact of Surrogacy
Surrogacy profoundly changes personal relationships and social perceptions for surrogates, extending beyond medical aspects.
Surrogates often build lasting friendships with intended parents, fostering meaningful connections beyond the pregnancy.
Family members and social circles grow more understanding and accepting of surrogacy as they learn more, normalizing alternative family-building methods.
Children of surrogates also help educate their peers, broadening awareness and reducing stigma.
These shifts contribute to a more supportive environment for surrogates, enhancing emotional well-being and community engagement.
Career and Medical Care Shifts Post-Surrogacy
Surrogacy can lead to significant career and healthcare changes for surrogates, reflecting lasting life impacts.
One surrogate transitioned into working for a surrogacy agency, indicating career opportunities arising from personal experience.
Changes in medical care providers post-surrogacy reflect the importance of trusted relationships developed during the process.
The surrogate’s decision to switch OBs after a subsequent pregnancy underscores personalized care needs post-surrogacy.
These shifts highlight how surrogacy influences long-term professional and health-related decisions, shaping future planning.
Have more questions about surrogacy and the process?
Transcript: Janelle Ibarra with Bright Futures Families Surrogacy. Here are the top three things I wish I had known before I became a surrogate, before I continue. Our agency, our surrogacy agency, Bright Futures Families, answers these questions a couple times per week. And so you should go follow our social media pages so that you can get the most up to date information every week.
So number one top thing that I wish I had known is the length of the process. So obviously you have the nine months of the pregnancy, but that's not it. It's not even like one month leading up to it. You have legal contracts, you have medical screening, a medical workup. You have to go through the application process and paperwork and check to see if you as the GC gestational carrier are eligible. There's a psychological screening.
There's a whole lot of things that have to happen before that embryo transfer can take place. Typically it's well over a year, 18 months, two years, something like that. It's not just a quick process. Second thing is I wish I had a thorough understanding of each of those processes, like how long I'd be on medication, exactly what legal looked like. And you know, you can research and you can ask the agency and they are so helpful, but until you're actually doing it yourself, you don't fully understand the depth of everything. And that's why it is so nice to have an agency helping you through it. Because you don't know what you don't know. And even if you have been through it before, going through it without the help of an agency is not the same.
The third thing that I didn't expect is how much surrogacy would change my life. So even like you go to the doctor and they ask you about your medical history, how many pregnancies, live births you have, all of that is in my medical records. And so then I explain and then the whole conversation from there on out turns into surrogacy, which is fine. I love it. Even, even my dentist office, they know all about surrogacy now. My relationship with that, I've grown since the surrogate journey, surrogacy journey with the intended parents and the family, they're wonderful. And it's like such a, it's a friendship that I didn't know that I would ever have. And that's really cool. The other thing is how much my own family and their understanding has changed in perspective on surrogacy.
Not that it was negative before, but the unknown is seen as kind of like weird. But if you talk about it and you normalize different ways of having a family. That's a wonderful way to educate. And even my kids, friends like. Like when my kids are explaining it to them, they're like, oh, no. I mean, it's not her baby. She's just carrying it, which is cool. The other thing is, for me personally, it changed my life because I now work for a surrogacy agency. So that's really amazing. And I think the other piece of that, as far as how much it's changed my life is I actually switched my OB from the doctor that I used during the surrogate pregnancy because I did have a subsequent pregnancy, which is not recommended. It just. That was my path.
And so I switched to him because I love him so much and my sisters use him now. He's just amazing. So different relationships, but those are the top three unexpected things I wish that I had known prior to becoming a surrogate. Please let us know. Most of our team has been a surrogate before or they've dealt with infertility and they would love to talk with you about the process or their personal experiences or how we as an agency can help you.