Transatlantic Surrogacy

In hindsight, the matching process was the single most important factor in our successful surrogacy experience, and we were very fortunate. Our agency matched us with the perfect surrogate, someone with whom we have developed an excellent relationship and who has exceeded our expectations in every respect.

One of the benefits of pursuing international surrogate through an agency is that you have the ability to be prescriptive about your requirements. If you have views about the sort of person you want your surrogate to be, or the sort of lifestyle you want them to lead, you can share these with your agency and they can (should) take them into account.

We were a little surprised by the nature of some of the questions we were asked in the surrogacy process: did we care about the surrogate's race, religion, colour, sexuality? Did we have views on the diet she should maintain during pregnancy (foods she must or must not have)?  Did we have views on the cleaning chemicals she could/could not use during pregnancy? For us the answer to all of the above was no.

Other questions gave us more pause for thought: how frequently did we expect to be in contact with our surrogate during pregnancy and after birth? How would we like to stay in touch? What kind of relationship would we want the surrogate to have with us and with our baby in the long-term? What would we tell our baby about the manner of her conception? All of these are difficult questions and require thought. There are no correct answers, but they are important for the purposes of establishing the kind of  commonality of view that makes for a harmonious relationship. In particular, it is important that there is no mismatch in expectations as to the relationship going forward. If you really do view this as an arm's length arrangement that ends at birth, it is better and fairer to be clear that is the case and to be matched with someone who is looking for the same. On the other hand, if you are looking for a life-long friend, you should acknowledge this to reduce the risk of being matched with someone who wants no further part in your child's life after birth.

Then there are the most difficult question of all: in what circumstances, if any, would you terminate the pregnancy? You won't have a choice if the surrogate is in danger of death or serious harm, but in other circumstances it will be your decision. One desperately hopes never to be in that situation, but it is important that the surrogate understands and accepts your perspective; otherwise the consequences could be serious.

Our agency guided us to expect a three-to-six month wait to be matched. In the end they proposed our first match, Jennifer*, in a little over two months.

Jennifer was a mother of three, married, in part time employment in the medical sector. Her husband worked in the military. She was fit, healthy and had a mainly organic diet. They lived in North Carolina. Our agency had offered us up to three matches, so we could have passed. But reading her profile and seeing her photographs we knew immediately we had found the one.

We were give 48 hours to confirm our interest, after which our agency arranged for us to meet over Skype, with a senior agency representative facilitating. That facilitation was invaluable; it would be very difficult to know where to start in such a meeting without someone experienced in these matters providing guidance.

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* name changed