For all intended parents looking into fertility treatment using surrogacy
1. Choose a country that has the best legislation for a surrogacy journey, where your rights as parents are well-protected.
2. Choose an agency that is stricter in legal requirements, it means you will be more legally protected during your surrogacy program.
3. When you start choosing an agency for surrogacy assistance, make sure to have a video meeting to make your own impression on the specialists.
4. Choose an agency where you don't feel like a number.
5. Find out more about the doctor that will do the fertilization procedure.
6. Find out more about the maternity house and the pregnancy support period.
7. Find out if your agency supports communication between you and the surrogate mother and if you take part in surrogate mother approval.
8. Make a plan, give yourself time to investigate the reviews and talk with real parents with successful experience.
9. Check the social media of the agency, they have to be active and contain pictures of the results, activities, surrogacy programs process, current news and reviews of parents. If the social media of an agency contain only pictures from the internet and general information on fertility, there were no updates for a long time, please be careful as this is not a good sign.
10.Do not use open forums on the internet to get actual information on surrogacy and reviews on clinics and agencies as information in such open forums is not quite reliable and it will only confuse you.
11.The good sources of information on the surrogacy process and reviews on the clinics and agencies are surrogacy communities with a good reputation, like Growing Families, conferences, webinars, seminars, and closed groups for surrogacy support on Facebook where you can be sure that most of the reviews are reliable and information can be really helpful.
12.Don’t spend too much time browsing the internet for surrogacy information, as there is so much to take in that you might get exhausted. Learn the basics to understand what to expect and trust the professionals.
13.In order to save your energy for your actual surrogacy journey, obtain information only from reliable sources and directly from the surrogacy providers with high reputation.
14.Compare the prices of agencies very carefully, especially with package propositions. Some surrogacy agencies put a low price on the package to make it attractive, but do not include many services. Additional costs will make the total price for the surrogacy journey a lot higher.
15.To avoid hidden costs in your surrogacy journey, make sure you understand what is included and what additional costs you might face.
16.Surrogacy packages with a guarantee will put your finances in a safe place.
17.A guarantee program is a very good option to get a certain result with no additional costs involved.
18.Make sure you understand what kind of guarantee the agency provides. Is it a guarantee of pregnancy, guarantee of a certain gestation term or a livebirth guarantee?
19.A surrogacy program contains many stages and a professional surrogacy provider can lead you through them stress-free. It is very important to put full trust in your agency as soon as you decide to go with one. Trusting is hard, but it helps the agency team to operate your program better and effectively and not to lose time and energy on fighting the distrust, which accumulates stress on both ends.
20.Prepare your finances so that you have additional funds for any unforeseen circumstances that might arise during the surrogacy program.
21.Make sure you are signing with an agency that is officially registered on the territory of the country that you are doing your surrogacy process.
22.Make sure you are sending your funds to a business account and to the bank that is situated and registered in the same country where your agency is registered and where your surrogacy process is conducted.
23.To avoid fraud, do not send your money before you sign the contract, know the owner of the agency and check the reputation of the agency.
24.Read the surrogacy contracts carefully, form your questions to the agency if some points are not clear to you. A good agency is quite flexible in adjusting the contract at some points.
25.It is very important that a surrogacy agency has a lawyer that can communicate with you in English.
26.Starting a surrogacy journey, remember that you are an active party of the process and a decision-maker, providing your biomaterial, and having a major responsibility of the process together with all its participants. Remember that you are intended parents and not just buyers of services.
27.Surrogacy journey normally is a nice and comfortable process with a good agency. If you don’t feel comfortable at the beginning, keep searching.
28.The final stage of the process at the birth of the child always puts parents under a lot of stress, be prepared for this period psychologically, try to control your emotions, and keep going.
29.Prepare yourself for baby care after the birth in advance, take special courses, read books or search the internet on this topic, educate yourself on baby care. This is a major issue for all the parents after surrogacy birth.
30.Make sure your agency knows the legal process regarding citizenship and Embassy assistance and has the fastest exit time after the birth of the child.
