There are multiple steps to becoming a gestational surrogate mother. If you’ve decided to carry another couple’s baby for nine months, you want to make sure you’re ready to embark on the experience. This is an intensely personal and life-altering process for you as a surrogate mother, and the couple you’re helping to become parents. Knowing what to expect can help you prepare for the process of becoming gestational surrogacy mother.
Matching Up
It’s important that you and the intended parents match up on a variety of items. Intended parents will be looking for a surrogate who is emotionally and physically stable and healthy, plus on the same wavelength about surrogacy. You three will be spending time together moving toward a deeply personal and important goal, so it’s important that you feel comfortable with each other. During this process, there may be:
- Interview questions and answers exchanged
- Photos exchanged
- A background check of you, the surrogate
Psychological Screening
Once you have been matched up with intended parents and have been introduced to each other, you will begin a series of health screenings. One part of the screening process is a psychological evaluation. You’ll be asked questions about:
- Your motivations
- Your feelings about surrogacy
- Your support system
You will also take a personality profile inventory to assure that you are emotionally ready to become a surrogate.
Medical Tests
In addition to being emotionally healthy, you need to be physical well. You will undergo various physical exams, such as:
- Blood work to rule out HIV and sexually transmitted diseases
- Gynecological exam
- Physical exam which may include cultures being taken to rule out any other contagious diseases
Financial Compensation
In addition to having the experience of helping others in need, you will be rewarded financially. The intended parents will pay an agreed upon amount of money to you, plus they will be responsible for:
- Legal fees
- Medications
- Medical procedures
- Physicians’ fees
Embryo Transplant
To get pregnant, you will go through a medical procedure called an embryo transplant. There are multiple steps during this stage of the surrogacy process, such as:
- You and the intended mother will synchronize your menstrual cycles.
- You will be injected with medications to aid in the impregnation process.
- Blood work and ultrasounds may be performed during this stage.
- Eggs from the intended mother or egg donor will be fertilized with the intended father’s sperm (or sperm donor’s).
- Embryos will be transplanted into you.
Once you become pregnant, you will remain in communication with the surrogacy agency as well as the intended parents through the nine months. Helping another couple have their own baby is an exciting process.
