US Surrogacy: 3 Answers for French Hopefuls

No, but I strongly recommend that you do. A good matching agency will act like a concierge, helping both parties throughout the process. The agency helps intended parents find trustworthy surrogates or egg donors who have been psychologically screened and who have the same views as they do about abortion, carrying triplets, and email updates after delivery of the child. The agency also helps surrogates get their medical and insurance paperwork squared away. If the intended parents worry that the surrogate is not eating right, the matching agency can delicately handle the situation. If the surrogate finds the intended parents overly pushy, the matching agency knows how to resolve such disputes. Lawyers charge considerably more to help with these types of services than matching agencies do.

• The intended parents have embryos created through their own, or donated, ova and sperm.
• The intended parents select a surrogate, usually with the help of a matching agency.
• Each party gets his or her own attorney (although the intended parents will pay the legal fee for the surrogate’s attorney) and negotiates a contract describing the agreement. The contract will address compensation, insurance coverage, bed rest, abortion, selective reduction, maternity clothing, post-delivery visitation, presence in the delivery room, and much more.
• The contract is signed and notarized, insurance for the surrogate is put in place, and the intended parents usually deposit money into a trust fund to provide for unexpected medical emergencies.
• A doctor transfers the intended parents’ embryo to the surrogate’s uterus.
• At 12 weeks of pregnancy, the lawyers request a court order instructing the hospital to list the intended parents, not the surrogate, on the birth certificate when the child is born.
• At about 24 weeks of pregnancy, the court order is granted and signed by a judge. Then the court order is sent to the hospital, and the official hospital records manager is duly notified.
• At birth, the child will be given a wrist-identification band that matches the intended parents. The intended parents will be treated the same as any other parents: they will have full access to their child, day or night. When the child is able to leave the hospital, the intended parents take the child home.
• If the intended parents live in another country, they will wait for the child’s birth certificate to be printed (about 15 days after delivery) and then get a passport for their child (about three days later if the hospital is in a large city where same-day passports are printed). Matching agencies can help with these international logistics.

• If a doctor recommends you work with an egg donor but you do not have a personal friend or relative who is willing to donate her eggs, your doctor will likely suggest you contact a matching agency.
• Once you find an egg donor you feel would be a good fit, the matching agency will help you negotiate a reasonable compensation amount. In California, compensating an egg donor for her time and effort for undergoing egg retrieval is permitted and does not hinge on how many ova are collected, if any.
• Next, you meet with a lawyer who will write up a contract for you. A different lawyer should read it over with the egg donor. Most intended parents cover the cost of both lawyers.
• Once everyone signs the contract, the doctor will have the egg donor undergo a 10-minute outpatient retrieval procedure. The doctor takes ova from the follicles on her ovaries, which have been stimulated by medication. A successful retrieval results in 5-20 ova.