What Does Surrogacy Mean?
If you have dreamed of having a baby of your own but have been unsuccessful in becoming pregnant or carrying a baby to term, you may be looking to surrogacy as your last option for having the child you’ve been dreaming of.
If you are a woman who is able to produce viable eggs and have healthy, uncomplicated births, you may be looking to surrogacy as a way to help a family who can’t otherwise have the child they’ve longed for.
On both sides of the equation, surrogacy is a life-changing process. A surrogacy arrangement is when a woman carries a baby for another family and the baby is raised by the intended parents. As you might imagine, there are many physical and emotional aspects of surrogacy that make it a wonderfully challenging journey. Continue reading to learn more about surrogacy.
Gestational Surrogacy
There are advantages and disadvantages to a gestational surrogacy arrangement. To begin, the costs of gestational surrogacy are often greater than egg donation or traditional surrogacy. This is largely because the surrogate mother is going to undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) to become pregnant.
IVF is when the surrogate mother is implanted with a fertilized embryo of donor egg and sperm or the sperm and egg of the intended parents. Although IVF is often expensive, intended parents are often willing and prepared to pay whatever they have to in order to be the biological parents of their baby.
Traditional Surrogacy
Generally speaking, same-sex couples and women who don’t have viable eggs tend to choose the traditional surrogacy route. Traditional surrogacy involves the surrogate mother having an intrauterine insemination (IUI) procedure to become pregnant. In IUI, the surrogate mother uses her own eggs and the sperm of a donor or the intended father to conceive.
Although traditional surrogacy is often more cost-effective than gestational surrogacy, it’s important that families are aware that the surrogate mother will be the biological mother of the child. That means her parental rights will need to be terminated upon the birth of the baby, which often involves complicated legal maneuvering.
For this reason, Baby Steps Surrogacy Center, Inc. will include a pre-birth order in your surrogacy contract so neither party needs to worry about these technicalities when the baby is born.
Egg Donation
If you are interested in helping a family in need but aren’t prepared to physically carry a child to be raised by his or her intended parents, egg donation can be a great option for you. Egg donation is when you’ll donate your eggs to be used in a traditional or gestational surrogacy arrangement.
Many egg donors choose to remain anonymous to the families they are helping, although you can certainly choose to form a relationship with the family you’ll be helping if they are open to it.
Call Us to Learn More About Surrogacy
Whether you’re ready to help a family in need or you have been longing for a child of your own, surrogacy or egg donation could be the right option for you. Schedule your first appointment with Baby Steps Surrogacy Center, Inc. today. You can learn more about what surrogacy means by selecting the contact button at the top of this page or by calling our office directly at 412-281-9906.