Surrogates are the modern day superheroes who go through an emotional, complex and unique journey of surrogacy!
Surrogacy has given countless couples the opportunity to have kids to build their family. But, it’s not something just for the rich and famous people. In fact, people chose to surrogate because of reasons like health issues, fertility, age-related barriers, and concerns related to past pregnancy.
Technically, surrogacy is a process of assisted reproduction where parents work with surrogates to carry their baby until birth. A surrogate is someone who became pregnant with the baby.
Types Of Surrogacy:
Traditional Surrogacy:
It’s a process in which women, artificially inseminate father’s sperm to deliver to the parents to raise the child. Usually, a traditional surrogate is a biological mother, because it would be easy for her to fertilize father’s sperm.
Gestational Surrogacy:
Also called in vitro fertilization, the gestational surrogacy is a process that requires legal and medical expertise. In the process of IVF, the doctors will collect the eggs from the mother, fertilize them with the father’s sperm and put the embryo into the uterus of the surrogate. Since the women that carry baby doesn’t have any genetic attached to the child, she will be the birth mother. However, the genetical mother will still be the women whose eggs were fertilized.
The Process Of Gestational Surrogacy:
If you want to ensure that whether or not the gestational surrogacy is safe, here’s a rundown of each phase:
Screening:
Once you have selected the surrogate, the women go through the complete screening process. The screening includes checking women’s compatibility to give birth, psychological capacity, her inclination to infectious diseases and overall health. Moreover, with screening, parents can ask questions related to preconception, pre-birth, post-birth processes and more.
Implantation Of The Egg:
Before going for the IVF process to increase the chance of successful conception, the surrogate mother is put under observation and medication. The process will also allow multiple eggs to reproduce and develop. When the follicles become mature, the eggs are removed from her ovaries and are sent to the laboratory with the sperm to fertilize it. The eggs are kept for 3-5 days for embryos to develop and to let them transfer into the uterus of the surrogate for further implantation.
The Occurrence Of Pregnancy:
After the IVF, the surrogate mother is ready for her pregnancy journey. She will need a proper diet, doctor and other regimens that relate to the wellness and health of the baby.
Facts Related To Surrogacy:
It Is Not Legal In Many Countries:
Although the US is one of the most popular and surrogacy-friendly countries, no law proves this regulation. Every state has its own surrogacy laws; for instance, Surrogacy California considers mandating gestational surrogacy a legal process. However, New York, on the other hand, considers it illegal and has outlawed the practice.
Independent Surrogacy Can Put You In Troubles:
Working for legal counseling or independently can put you in various problems that occur before and after the baby’s birth. Depending on the terms of your legal document as well as on the state laws, your surrogacy documents might not provide complete care to the surrogate. This can even put parents into troubles. So, read everything to ensure that you get a healthy baby.
The Surrogacy Will Not Hamper Your Bonding With The Baby:
Don’t think that you will have difficulty bonding with the baby because you will be the first one holding and feeding the newborn. However, you can also connect with the child while they in utero. You can have appointments in-person with the surrogate to connect with a baby or can connect through live videos and voice recordings.
Having a kid despite having infertility is fraught with hurdles that parents generally don’t have to face. This is even truer when the parents need to ask another woman to get involved in the process.